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Nice little summary of the 'key centric' horizontal approach used by Lester Young, Miles and many others
Lester Young Plays “Lester Leaps In” | Adam Roberts Music
I'd like to add that bop playing is not 'following the changes' necessarily but adding foreground harmony into this generalised approach...
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06-02-2020 05:44 AM
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Can you expand on adding foreground harmony vs playing the changes?
One of the challenges in my changes playing is to be able to create more flowing lines rather than sounding too much like I'm playing the changes. I feel like I just need to shred more playing changes with as many different approaches as I can come up with until I can hear lines more abstractly over the chords.
When I check out the lines of the masters, I'm under the impression that they are doing just that. They can hear lines over a chord so many different ways and can create variations so easily that playing the harmony isn't limiting their melodic freedom. Is adding foreground harmony a different way of viewing this?Last edited by Tal_175; 06-02-2020 at 09:18 AM.
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It's a fine line innit? People who overdo it can come off sounding lame, kinda like a rock guy "skating" over the changes...
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Or his solo on Lady Be Good. For instance, he plays in the second bar, B over what would normally be a C7 chord. He doesn't seem to care, so he's obviously to interested in playing the changes per se. 'Never tell me the changes' he used to say - but he also introduces movement like the E-Eb-D line cliche and so on. Foreground motion. A vertical thinker would say Am7 D7b9 G - but that would be misinterpreting what's going on.
Originally Posted by Tal_175
So take Moose the Mooch for instance. Quite Lester-ish in its use of the blue notes... Also plays the V into I here... In the second A he arpeggiates Cm7 Cm7b5 (or Eb6 Ebm6) - A IV-IVm-I type cadence which creates a sense of movement, very similar to Lester but more arpeggio-y..
Parker would often play diatonic/blues in rhythm changes like Lester and land on the b6 to create movement and suspense. Again and again. Obviously a trick he learned and made his own. Anthropology is another example.
And once you can outline turnarounds and cadences, you can play one against the other. Play IIIm-bIIIm-II-V on I VI II V, that sort of stuff. Or just play on the V chord, whatever...
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So you might have to do a bit more changes playing here, so play the D7, G7, C7 and F7 in the bridge, and that's a little unusual for rock players, but Jimi could have done that. Originally Posted by princeplanet
It's a fine line innit? People who overdo it can come off sounding lame, kinda like a rock guy "skating" over the changes...
We don't call Gilmour a jazz guitarist for consistently nailing chord tones in his solos, do we? Paul Gilbert can play friggin changes and he doesn't sound like a jazz guitarist.
It's called being a musician, I think?
It's more that there's a lot of bad rock players who think the minor pentatonic is the solution to everything and can't use their ears.
You know if you looked at Lester's phrases from Lady be Good some of them look very similar to the kinds of things Clapton might play.
Remember Lester --> Charlie Christian --> BB King & Chuck Berry --> Clapton, Page etc --> EVH etc
The difference is articulation, ornamentation, swing, phrasing. (Maybe not even that much in Clapton case, I hear a lot of sax in his playing, but few rock players play like that really.)
People think the difference is harmony, because that is what they are conditioned to think.
If you sound like a rock player it's because of the way you play, not what you play. See Grant Green for details.
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As pp said, overdone it can sound repetitive. It may be fine over fast swing numbers like that but I doubt it would wash with many other tunes. It's a fairly outdated style anyway. Here's music and notes together:
Probably we all know we shouldn't play 'one chord at a time', and not only because it's impractical. But one can't just ignore the changes either.
With some tunes, especially modal ones like Naima or Iris, you really do have to play one chord at a time (pretty well more or less), because they're so disconnected, and yet keep a coherent flow going as well. Also some bossa tunes are tricky too.
But, with standards, it probably boils down to key centres most of the time. That would include spotting the subs (tritones, backdoors, sec doms, etc) because often it's easier to let the background do the work.
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Thanks, Christian. Originally Posted by christianm77
I like that approach.
All my favorite players kept a good bit of blues in their playing and played phrase-to-phrase rather than chord-to-chord---Charlie, Bird, Wes, Herb Ellis, the rock guys I still listen to...
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Lester Young never gets boring. Many jazz undergraduates who know all the scales do. Originally Posted by ragman1
So - why?
Another name mentioned is Bill Frisell. Does he sound outdated?
Holy shit, sometimes this forum drives me up the wall.
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But we're not talking about interesting/boring, it's a question of technique over changes. Of course Lester Young sounds better than today's jazz students, that's why he's Lester Young. Different generation apart from anything else. Originally Posted by christianm77
And what's scales got to do with it? If the u/grads are playing 'scales' they ought to know better anyway :-)
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Talking about key centres and subs, I just did this. It's the end of the B section on a familiar standard. I played over the original as near to the chords as I could, then subbed it as under.
FM7 - Cm7/F7 - BbM7 - Bbm6
Am7/Ab7 - Gm7/C7b9 - F6/Eb7 - F6
FM7 - Ebm7/Ab7 - BbM7 - Abm7/Db7
CM7/D7#9 - Gm7/F#7b5 - FM7/F#M7 - F6
(Ab7 is BbM7 backdoor), (Bbm6 = Db9 = Abm7/Db7), (Am7=CM7, chromatic from Db7), (D7 is tritone of Ab7), (F#7b5 is tritone of C7)
Point is that, were the original the second version, it would be quite hard to know what to do, the solo might be all over the place. But if it were interpreted as the first one, which is a very usual progression, it's not a problem. It's sort of reverse-engineering.
Also, no 'scales' involved. It could technically all be played with F major, and it works, but... yuk.
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I get Bbm6 = Eb7 or A7alt, but not Db9. Explain please. Originally Posted by ragman1
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Chord/scale theory has it's place, hitting chord tones with each chord change, but it's difficult to solo smoothly when doing that. For example, when encountering a diminished chord it isn't necessary play something within that diminished scale. Just keeping the melody in one's head while soloing rather than all the chord changes allows more freedom.
If it's a new song to my ears, following the chord changes is usually what I have to do until I get the melody in my head. It also depends on how complex the chord changes are of course.
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Indeed. For example, the diminished scale is a very powerful, pungent sound that might be what you want - or it might not be. Originally Posted by bobby d
OK, so reading what others have written on the subject of chord scale theory in the scholarship has helped me formulate what makes me uneasy about it.If it's a new song to my ears, following the chord changes is usually what I have to do until I get the melody in my head. It also depends on how complex the chord changes are of course.
1) Once upon a time chord scales were a resource, a tool in the bag for musicians with gigging experience, ears and vocabulary looking for new things to write and play.
2) But CST was very systematic and self contained. It became very useful as a type of music educational technology, if you like.
Its concern with things that can be easily quantified - pitch sets over chord symbols - made it useful to those looking to assess student qualitatively, those writing syllabuses, and in Jamie Aebersold's case as a product that could be packaged and sold (with the new tehchnology of the play along tape or CD._ Jazz education is big business, and big business likes stuff it can sell.
3) Thus it became a teaching method and now people look to it for rules on what to play. They no longer trust their ears. The internet has increased this - everyone looks for jazz info they are going to run into CST.
4) Seemingly all jazz educators realise this and deal with it in various ways. Even Jamie Aebersold.
5) Younger people increasingly see jazz as musical technology - scales, chords and clever rhythms. Even someone like Adam Neely kind of falls into this trap a bit.
6) All Blues for instance, sounds bad using the standard chord scale choices. Or at least it sounds wrong to use altered on D7#9 and Eb7#9 to me.
Actually a lot of the standard choices actually sound quite bad sometimes, even on modal tunes where you think they'd sound good. So you always have to use your ears.
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One of the things I do to practice thinking horizontally while playing the changes is, I pick an octave in the instrument, say from A to A. I play the tune while staying within that octave but changing the qualities of the notes to accommodate the current chord. For example the note D over EbMaj7, becomes D# over B7 and Db over Gmin7b5 etc.
Variations on this practice is to keep the range even smaller than an octave or to pick, say, 5 letters inside an octave (for example A, C, D, E, G) and play while changing qualities of these notes to accommodate the chords (chord-scales to be precise).
Of course this is still vertical thinking, But it helps with finding continuous melodic ideas while observing the changes (and practicing pivoting
).
Last edited by Tal_175; 06-02-2020 at 01:07 PM.
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I think it is very natural approach. Isnt it? Originally Posted by christianm77
Most people who would hum something over familiar tune would follow the form how the hear it: cadences, general resolutions, key changes and space... it is very natural.
Musical searches are not necessarly very natural -- I can dig and understand the idea of focusing on the moment and very particlur sound/chord...
even more I notice that eventually: I mostly focus on momentary feeling (just what's going right now) but it truly compliments the genral form (the whole picture)....
Maybe it should be like that? What can we do better more honest in music than react to the momnet? But probably experience guides us and helps to guess the bid thing in the moment correctly? To risk and survive?
I do not know
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Can't explain it, it's WRONG :-) Originally Posted by pcjazz
I was thinking of Bbm7b5. So now the question is why did Db7 work? Possibly because it ended up on a G which is b5 of Db7. Had it been more outside than that I expect I'd have spotted it. And if it had been A7alt I'd have had to change back the CM7 to Am7 because CM7 doesn't work there.
But thanks, these things happen.
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Yeah. I think so. Originally Posted by Jonah
When people start talking about tunes like Naima etc...it's more complicated obviously. But, OTOH, the melody exists as a guide, and that's a very useful base when striking out for new ground. Wayne shows us that as much as Lester, not that people are interested in this it seems - there's a lot to learn from the history of jazz.
Even when using CST - CST is like a box of paints. You won't be painter unless you have some sense of composition. The melody is - extremely useful - for this.
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But back to horizontal playing...
I think it's a nice idea. At least as a concept. It would be brilliant if everything one played over one chord simply transitioned beautifully into the next. And even more brilliant if the whole solo simply drifted 'as one' through the whole progression.
That may be possible if one is very, very familiar with the tune, the changes, and what one is playing over them.
I've seen instruction videos where 'vertical playing' is ridiculed, with the instructor deliberately playing one little phrase which 'suits that chord', then another one, and so on, making the whole solo jerky and disconnected.
But no decent player would actually do that. It's generally a combination of vertical and horizontal together - if one chooses to analyse it like that at all. What they play over a chord does suit the chord but it also transitions into the next chord because they know where they're going.
But 'suiting the chord' also sounds a bit like isolationist thinking. It ought to be 'suiting the sound of the moment'. That would be better because the harmonies may not exactly suit every chord but they're in accordance with the tune and, as such, work.
That actually may well be what Christian is talking about, I don't know. And is possibly what players like Lester Young were doing - although some of his stuff can be pretty harmonically vague if one examines it closely.
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When I scat sing, the results seem a lot more horizontal than vertical. Mostly, I try to play lines I can sing. But, to do that, I have to know the tune really well.
When I have to play unfamiliar sequences of chords, I pay more attention to vertical issues, not to create art, but to avoid clams.
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Most people would scat song horizontal lines because that’s the way people generally hear melodies. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Also, people do not play their best sight reading chord symbols of course. I think that’s ok. A pro player has enough canned vocab that they can make that sound good right away.
OTOH experience obviously exposes you to repeated situations.
I’m with Peter Bernstein when he objects to thoughtless ‘throwing notes on chords’ - you develop that skill ig you are a gigging player because it gets you out of trouble (and also it’s what is generally taught) and it’s a basic level of competence, but if that’s all you do... everything sounds the same
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”never tell me the changes” - Lester Young Originally Posted by ragman1
- Bop is about playing changes, not playing the changes.
- we play changes, not chords. Change is dynamic, chords are static.
Coleman Hawkins - ’there are no chords, only movement’
- Modern jazz theory is about playing changes that relate to the changes, or more often - chords that relate to chords. which is why everyone thinks jazz is maths.
- Dynamism within the key centre (the energy of the 4th or 7th for instance) from which functional harmony derived is sidelined in favour of static scalar relationships over isolated harmonies.
-Whats really interesting to me is those situations when ‘correctly’ playing the changes actually sounds bad.
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Just my fifty cents here. What Rpjazzguitar says and the others too... this is such a wonderful topic
If you listen to the great players, like George Benson, Hancock, Rollins, they move from point A to point B in unexpected ways. I once saw a Kenny Werner video where he used a piece of rope as a metaphor.
The first chord is Cmaj and on the 4th bar there is a Bb7, for instance. You could follow the chords, the rope is straight. Or you could go in all kinds of directions working towards that Bb7 (using turnarounds, cycle of 5ths, Coltrane changes, chromatic downward 2-5’s). The rope is all curly, but still lands on the Bb7.
much as I believe the metaphor is right and this discussion is really nailing it, I find myself in the Rpjazzguitar situation. On modal tunes I can walk out of the harmony and come back at it (bending the rope) but on standards and modern jazz tunes, I follow chords to avoid sounding bad. Rp nails it: only if you can really sing it, you will be able to play it. If anyone followed Matt Otto in the past, he stresses singing too. And that cat goes far...
I recently saw Solar on the y-tube with Hancock and Metheny, Dejohnette and Holland: these guys... I can’t hear the changes. It’s really exciting, but they just take some chords out of the bag and work away from and towards them. It’s really exciting.
There is one tune where I can do this, and want to share it.
Dolphin Dance. In the last four bars almost every musician struggles and there has been a lot of debate over which chords go where, even suggesting harmonic major harmony being used by Herbie. I invariably play Abdiminished or G13b9 for the whole four bars and it sounds great. If you play it with confidence and insert some diminished licks, great stuff. Your fellow musicians will look at you as if they suddenly saw The Light. if it don’t work, either you’re doing it wrong or I ‘ll give you your money back. Guarantee. (Works with Ab/G, Gphrygian, too, guaranteed)
If you hear Hancock, the Master, he plays all kinds of stuff: diminished, wholetone, chromatic descending stuff on those four bars.
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What makes you come to that conclusion after mentioning a swing player like Pres? Bebop tunes ended up being as much or more about the changes than the melody. That was the impetus for Miles to get past it. He saw it as a dead end. Faster tempos and more complex changes were turning it into a soulless technical exercise without much feeling, just like what happened to lots of shredding fusion music later in it's era. Originally Posted by christianm77
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Not very clever, in my opinion! Say everybody said that? Originally Posted by christianm77
Ah, exactly. But what is 'correct'? CST? Joined-up chord tones? Key centres?What's really interesting to me is those situations when ‘correctly’ playing the changes actually sounds bad.
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Lester young isn’t bop. Lester is generalised harmony. He decorated a little. Check his solos. Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
Bebop is about changes, not the changes. The basic technique of bop is generalised harmony with added movement. The movement isn’t necessarily the same or anything to do as the original chords or the comping for that matter.
in this sense it’s actually more like playing on vamps.
If you want to see the demonstration of the technique, Kind of Blue is actually not a bad place to go, because then we are not confused by context, which might lead us to make conceptual mistakes like thinking the written chords of rhythm changes are important. Obviously Cannonball plays changes. But there are no ‘the’ changes.
Miles plays it different. Also I don’t think Miles could do bop very well. If anything he was too eighth notey. Couldn’t find the freedom in it .
if course anyone who says Cannonball lacks soul ... do those people exist? Bop can be soulless - but so can modal jazz.Last edited by christianm77; 06-03-2020 at 06:18 AM.
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Raney and Abersold, great interview.
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