Is minor "home" (Im) dorian, melodic, neither?

[alez]

My hero Christian Miller literally says that the minor seventh "weakens the tonalty", 7:32 on his great video here:

My heros at Jazzadvice say tonal minor can be thought as comprising 3 minor scales (relative to home):
1) Im is dorian minor
2) V7 is harmonic minor
3) Everything else is natural minor
Linky: Everything You Don't Know About Minor Harmony - Jazzadvice
If you read section "The Tonic Minor Chord and Scale in Jazz", Im have minor sevenths in them, and what you'd normally call sixth (as in Im6) they call 13 and it's shown as an addition.

As for the major seventh, it sounds harsh to me, not idea whether it "should".

Christian, do you simply disagree with Jazzadvice here or am I misunderstanding this?

All, thoughts?

[James W]

Regarding the major 7th, it's a case of acclimating to it. I would describe it as dark rather than harsh...

[pamosmusic]

My hero Christian Miller literally says that the minor seventh "weakens the tonalty", 7:32 on his great video here:

My heros at Jazzadvice say tonal minor can be thought as comprising 3 minor scales (relative to home):
1) Im is dorian minor
2) V7 is harmonic minor
3) Everything else is natural minor
Linky: Everything You Don't Know About Minor Harmony - Jazzadvice
If you read section "The Tonic Minor Chord and Scale in Jazz", Im have minor sevenths in them, and what you'd normally call sixth (as in Im6) they call 13 and it's shown as an addition.

As for the major seventh, it sounds harsh to me, not idea whether it "should".

Christian, do you simply disagree with Jazzadvice here or am I misunderstanding this?

All, thoughts?

I’m not sure lots of people would agree with tonic minor being Dorian. It can be, but I’m not sure I’d take that as a given.

Melodic minor would be equally common. Thinking of the last couple bars of the A sections in Autumn Leaves as an example. Barry Harris uses his own thing but probably a closer relative to melodic minor than to Dorian because that leading tone is important for the harmonization. Lots of flexibility there, for sure. But yeah … not sure Dorian as default is a standard way of thinking about it.

Christian will have a better answer. Good thing you’re asking him.

[pamosmusic]

Blue Bossa or something would be an interesting case. Usually marked as a specific minor 7 chord and has the b7 in the melody. The F minor following it gives you Ab, but technically the Ab isn’t in the melody over the C minor and the Dorian vibe sound nice over that chord.

But thinking of other tonic minor tunes that’s probably not where I’m going with it. I think I would need to see explicitly that there’s a flat 7, otherwise I’m probably going to either avoid it in favor of the 6 or play a natural 7 in scalar kind of stuff.

[Christian Miller]

Its a complex question…

i would describe Im in jazz improvisation as most usually melodic minor on a true minor chord (eg Im6, Im6/9, Im(maj7) etc). This is actually what the Levine jazz theory book would say, for instance. In practice it’s not always so cut and dried.

but there’s lots of caveats. For instance soloing on a chord is kind of different to writing a melody. If in doubt, study the song.

I think jazz advice is correct if you are looking at things from a post modal perspective where tonic minor chords often have a b7… which is to say from the modal and post bop era on. wes often uses the Dorian tonality for instance.

from the perspective of swing and bop the major 7th is more common if there’s a 7th at all. It’s also how Barry teaches it (m6-dim had a nat 7)

but as I say it’s not so cut and dried.

Peter Bernstein has a bit on this iirc

The big thing is - if you are thinking of strict scales on minor chords you’re missing out. Real world minor melodies are flexible with regards to the 7 and 6. Chords are strict with regards to the notes you use, but melodies can be freer which is one reason I have a complex relationship with chord scale theory.

Study your favourite music and see what’s going on …

[Christian Miller]

Surprisingly often melodies are based around the notes 1 2 b3 4 5

anyway here’s a vid I did on the subject a while back - I think it covers all the points in my last post iirc

[Bop Head]

(Shan Verma is a close Barry Harris student.)

[Bop Head]

Blue Bossa or something would be an interesting case. Usually marked as a specific minor 7 chord and has the b7 in the melody. The F minor following it gives you Ab, but technically the Ab isn’t in the melody over the C minor and the Dorian vibe sound nice over that chord.

But thinking of other tonic minor tunes that’s probably not where I’m going with it. I think I would need to see explicitly that there’s a flat 7, otherwise I’m probably going to either avoid it in favor of the 6 or play a natural 7 in scalar kind of stuff.

If you use sixth diminished scales you play the diminished chord belonging to the next chord already before the 1 of the measure. The Bb in the melody can be seen as part of Eo leading to Fm.

EDIT: compare this to Hal Galper's concept of Forward Motion.

[Christian Miller]

If we set aside YouTube videos about music (mine included) and focus on real music instead - what does Barry actually play on blue Bossa?

And it’s quite interesting. Heavy focus on the 1-b3-5, natural 7 used as passing tone. Even the classic bebop note the nat 6 is used sparingly. Not a sniff of min-6 dim as far as I can see… (although this is a 1974 recording and according to Howard Rees he developed the 6-dim scale concept in the ‘80s iirc - this wasn’t the stuff he was teaching back in Detroit etc.)

you will find that different players vary by approach. The answer to these sorts of questions will depend on your approach and stylistic preference. (I happen to use min6-dim a lot unsurprisingly.)

[setemupjoe]

The JazzAdvice link the OP gave is an interesting column on minor harmony but it seems to skip past the Melodic Minor scale where I think many of us derive our use of the mi6 chord.

I don’t think of a mi6 chord as being a mi7 with the b7 swapped for the 6th. Rather it’s a mi6 chord with the 6th standing in for the ma7 scale tone. This implies Melodic minor, not Dorian.

Post modal music uses a lot of mi7 as the tonic. Blue Bossa was recorded in 1963, and the sound of Dorian as a tonic sound was underway by this point. I have no issue with that.

However, I’ve never warmed to mi7 chords as the minor tonic for songs like Autumn Leaves. It always seems out of place to me.

[Christian Miller]

I don't think anyone likes m7 as a tonic chord. m11 and m9 are better choices to my ears if you are going to go that way. m7 is kind of... meh.

[rpjazzguitar]

The usual minor scales (not counting phrygian) are constructed as follows:

Root, 2, b3, 4, 5, [b6 or 6], [b7 or 7].

So, the first five notes are always the same and then there's every combination of 6 and 7.

And, conveniently, they all have names which can obscure what's going on.

b6 and 7 is harmonic minor
6 and b7 is dorian minor
b6 and b7 is natural minor
6 and 7 is is melodic minor

Some teachers teach that there's one minor scale which has both 6s and both 7s (a total of 9 notes in the scale) and then you use your ears.

If you try them all over a clear tonic minor I think you're likely to conclude that melmin sounds pretty tonic-y (starting from the root, the modes are something else). Dorian less so as the target in a ii V I, perhaps, but it sounds tonic-y to me in So What (although that's a stack of 4ths, not quite the same thing.

Natural minor, I think, tends to be a little ambigous.

Harmonic minor seems more specialized. I don't think about it much so I'll leave that one to others who might care to comment.

[KirkP]

Some teachers teach that there's one minor scale which has both 6s and both 7s (a total of 9 notes in the scale) and then you use your ears.

Some time ago I heard that Joe Pass thought of minor tonality that way, at least for melody. When comping you might need to be more careful.

[Christian Miller]

Some time ago I heard that Joe Pass thought of minor tonality that way, at least for melody. When comping you might need to be more careful.

actually comping is where I think the true/modal minor distinction is most useful.

For true minor m6 is generally a good choice. 6th chords in general have an openness seventh chords lack. m6/9 too.

I actually prefer straight minor and m(add9) - sometimes it seems like adding notes to a minor just dilutes it or turns it into something else.

(true minor being tonic minor ie the b7 isn’t emphasised against the Im chord.)

[pamosmusic]

I actually prefer straight minor and m(add9) - sometimes it seems like adding notes to a minor just dilutes it or turns it into something else.

Yeah I mean part of the Major Seven Problem is that potential minor 9 interval, which is unique to chords with a major 7 in them. But part of too is that it’s just not a super major sounding chord because it has that minor triad in the upper structure. So you’d imagine the minor version would have a similar problem with that major triad in the upper structure. Barry’s thing kind of squares that circle just by thinking about it differently, but it is kind of funny the way all the color can obscure what the chord is actually there for.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah I mean part of the Major Seven Problem is that potential minor 9 interval, which is unique to chords with a major 7 in them. But part of too is that it’s just not a super major sounding chord because it has that minor triad in the upper structure. So you’d imagine the minor version would have a similar problem with that major triad in the upper structure. Barry’s thing kind of squares that circle just by thinking about it differently, but it is kind of funny the way all the color can obscure what the chord is actually there for.

The major seventh of course can sound strikingly melancholy. It gives a complexity to those Bacharach songs and so on.

I can talk about that chord in conventional harmony terms, but there are of course those players who are that m9 thing as less a feature than a bug…

x 7 9 x 8 8 comin at ya!

but yeah, like m(maj7) it is not unproblematic (bloody hell what a ghastly phrase haha) used as a tonic minor. 6th chords are ok (but I’ve been shouted at for using them in the wrong place. I’m not even kidding.)

My lack of patience with theory and scale talk… it all depends on what you are doing. Three hundred years ago major sevenths appeared purely as passing dissonances in suspension chains. Now they are frequently used as i chords in lounge jazz. If you like Lage Lund or Ben Monder the m9 lurking in the major seventh chord might be more feature than bug. I remember Kreisberg talking about it in a class one time.

It’s all relative to how you hear music. But it can’t be based on rules because not all the players follow the rules. If you hear a Cmaj7 chord with a C in the treble, great, but if play it without hearing it… well I don’t personally want to play music without some attention to detail (as demanding as that is with kids.) But Jordan helped teach me that.

We think do chords in categories - minor tonic function, major tonic function etc, but despite their similarities you get to a point and think - no, these chords do not sound alike. Ones choices deserve specificity and intention. I see that now.

And the learning comes from listening. If you are a huge fan of Wes on Smokin at the half note, listened to that record a thousand times, your conception of tonic minor WILL be Dorian. No question. It’s just the way he plays it at that point in time.

Otoh If you hear Bird and Bud, as Barry did, it will be m/m6. But it should imo be based on that connection, not what some well intentioned teacher tells you.

I find the true minor/modal minor distinction useful and I has heartened that I heard it before I heard Peter Bernstein and others discuss it, but it itself is just a useful teaching simplification.

Preaching to the choir of course

[pamosmusic]

(A truly do not give a rat’s … tail … about the m9. But the melancholy thing is real talk.

** I get the minor 9 thing. I’m a terrible arranger but I remember being able to hear it in horn pads and knowing I needed to fix it. It doesn’t rub me the same way in guitar chords though.)

[Christian Miller]

(A truly do not give a rat’s … tail … about the m9. But the melancholy thing is real talk.

** I get the minor 9 thing. I’m a terrible arranger but I remember being able to hear it in horn pads and knowing I needed to fix it. It doesn’t rub me the same way in guitar chords though.)

I would see this more as a failure of (the) theory to start with tbh. You get taught to write clunky notes and then have to be taught not to write them haha .

it’s the same problem with parallel 8ves and 5ths in trad harmony. If you have learned the good sounding contrapuntal options on an internalised level, and learn to embellish and vary them you will basically never write them. You have been told to what to DO. It’s a lot more stuff to learn case by case, but it works. (This is how Barry taught btw.)

(Brahms said parallels were a symptom of a deeper problem.)

Otoh modern harmony tells otoh gives you a page of rules which are mostly a bunch of things NOT to do. In jazz we even have AVOID NOTES!

DON’T THINK OF THE GREEN ELEPHANT.

Jazz harmony 101 creates these problems in the long term by trying to tie it into a neat system of tertian chords. I think both Barry’s and Jordan/Stefon’s approach are stronger in completely different ways.

[pamosmusic]

The major seventh of course can sound strikingly melancholy. It gives a complexity to those Bacharach songs and so on.

I can talk about that chord in conventional harmony terms, but there are of course those players who are that m9 thing as less a feature than a bug…

x 7 9 x 8 8 comin at ya!

but yeah, like m(maj7) it is not unproblematic (bloody hell what a ghastly phrase haha) used as a tonic minor. 6th chords are ok (but I’ve been shouted at for using them in the wrong place. I’m not even kidding.)

My lack of patience with theory and scale talk… it all depends on what you are doing. Three hundred years ago major sevenths appeared purely as passing dissonances in suspension chains. Now they are frequently used as i chords in lounge jazz. If you like Lage Lund or Ben Monder the m9 lurking in the major seventh chord might be more feature than bug. I remember Kreisberg talking about it in a class one time.

It’s all relative to how you hear music. But it can’t be based on rules because not all the players follow the rules. If you hear a Cmaj7 chord with a C in the treble, great, but if play it without hearing it… well I don’t personally want to play music without some attention to detail (as demanding as that is with kids.) But Jordan helped teach me that.

We think do chords in categories - minor tonic function, major tonic function etc, but despite their similarities you get to a point and think - no, these chords do not sound alike. Ones choices deserve specificity and intention. I see that now.

And the learning comes from listening. If you are a huge fan of Wes on Smokin at the half note, listened to that record a thousand times, your conception of tonic minor WILL be Dorian. No question. It’s just the way he plays it at that point in time.

Otoh If you hear Bird and Bud, as Barry did, it will be m/m6. But it should imo be based on that connection, not what some well intentioned teacher tells you.

I find the true minor/modal minor distinction useful and I has heartened that I heard it before I heard Peter Bernstein and others discuss it, but it itself is just a useful teaching simplification.

Preaching to the choir of course

One of my favorite Bernstein stories came from a good friend of mine who was in a lesson with him once. I can’t remember what he was doing but probably something along the lines of what you’re talking about … played a cool thing that just didn’t convince Maestro Pete. Anyway … according to my buddy, Pete stops him and says:

No matter what they’re listening too, what people want from music is “intentionality.”

which is like … y’know … profound.

[pamosmusic]

I think Jordan’s stuff has been very helpful for that. I don’t think I’ll ever think about music the way he does, exactly, but the specificity of his application is really helpful I think. Also the musical intentionality of those triad resolutions is a really cool tool. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but maybe making some small headway.

[pauln]

Poor tonic Im7 get'n no love. As Kirk pondered in Who Mourns for Adonais?,
"Would it have hurt us, I wonder, just to have gathered a few laurel leaves?"



For those of us that played through the rock and blues path to jazz, the m7
was the gateway chord to the sound of jazz - the despised maj7 always the
herald for an anemic sickly sounding song, but the m7 was cool instant jazz.

[Christian Miller]

I think Jordan’s stuff has been very helpful for that. I don’t think I’ll ever think about music the way he does, exactly, but the specificity of his application is really helpful I think. Also the musical intentionality of those triad resolutions is a really cool tool. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but maybe making some small headway.

Yeah that’s it

i suppose what I’m trying or say is you get taught a simplified model and told that this is the way. But the lack of intentionality in this system becomes a problem later when you sort of do things unconsciously. You then have to learn intentionality at a later point to undo all of this automatic theory stuff you do, some of which can sound minging.

And sometimes you get told to avoid perfectly good things. Like the 13th on a m7 because something something semitones. No one told Wes or Joe Henderson, I notice.

Or at least that was the experience for me. thinking about it playing swing music helped a lot with that, basically having to rethink harmony in a much more simple - or perhaps more accurately stylistically specific way. Playing that music taught me to be more detailed.

[pamosmusic]

Yeah that’s it

i suppose what I’m trying or say is you get taught a simplified model and told that this is the way. But the lack of intentionality in this system becomes a problem later when you sort of do things unconsciously. You then have to learn intentionality at a later point to undo all of this automatic theory stuff you do, some of which can sound minging.

…

Or at least that was the experience for me.

Oh yeah for sure. Probably with most people.

[alez]

I feel dizzy like my head was spinning fast.

I appreciate this so much.

I need to go through the whole thing slowly tomorrow. So many interesting points raised.

This is crazy

[emanresu]

In classical music, once you've reached the minor key through almost always harmonically treated dominant, this feel will carry on whenever wanting to spend some more time with it.
It feels almost banal to go and continue with natural minor.