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Another thing I find interesting is how and when this approach became codified. Mehegan in 1959 is a good name and date to keep in mind.
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03-04-2019 02:12 PM
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I've got books by him somewhere. I think it's 3 volumes in one, piano music. Buried somewhere around :-)
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I've never taken a formal CST class, so I've never had a teacher say, "this is CST, and THAT is not".
Instead, I heard about it on forums like this one and eventually read Nettles and Graf.
After all of that, I can't define it exactly and I can't even really tell how much I use it.
What I did learn years ago was chord tones and tonal centers. Extend the chords to the 13th and you're overlapping with CST.
That gives you 7 notes. That leaves 5, one or two of which (like the other 7 and the other 3) may be avoid notes. So, I think, how much theory do I need to be able to select from 3 or 4 additional notes?
And, to the extent that I do need theory, I find it easier to superimpose chords rather than think of scales.
In terms of turning a kind of corner into being a better jazz player, what was most helpful was ear training. And, I tried that various ways. What was most effective was IRealPro in 12 keys. Solo and comp.
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CST is definitely not about teaching any particular style. Just like classic harmony is not.
Premise of discussion is false.
Learn to play, or get life.
Forget about FAQs, help files, snake oil and red herrings, presented as truth and knowledge, in this world of Jazz education market.
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There's a similar LONG thread on LiftGammaGain, a forum of mostly professional Colorists. The people that take the timeline of clips from an editor with a number of different cameras/lenses/lighting types, a very visually jarring progression ... and make it both look as if seen by one pair of eyeballs and like ... something cool.
Is what we do "grading" or " color correction" ... and more importantly, is there even a place for using the first as a basic step of a grading process?
Many experienced colorists bristle at the term "correction". And verbal battles ensue.
You see, to them a true craftsman does not separate basic corrections from fully treating the program as they work. Similar to a master jazz performer who doesn't think about CST or modal scales or quartal theory while playing.
I've trained people to be master craftsmen at b/w and color printing in a darkroom. And I always had to train them to take any negative and get to a good "neutral" tonal state first. Once they truly mastered THAT on their own, I could allow them to work an image without first producing a good neutral test.
In fact, at the very beginning I refused to explain anything as it would never make sense until you had done it for a while. After a couple weeks of rote performance under directions, as they seemed to grasp the basics of how changes in settings affected prints, *then* I'd ask how well they were still mystified by what was happening.
"A lot ... " was the typical answer as they had come to realize nothing ... nothing ... was what they had been so sure it HAD to be at the start.
Jazz is a master craftsmen thing also.
I loved the post above mentioning how even the use of altered tones as passing tones is dependent on *rhythm* ... they have to be placed right rhythmically to *sound* right.
CST is one tool for absorbing incredibly complex thoughts. But nothing in jazz is an island, it's all relative.
And rhythm is really the binding agent that holds it all together. Some players with no training in theory but with great skill in rhythm and an ear for ... interesting ... melodic/rhythmic/harmonic sounds from their fingers or lips have become legends.
For most people, assistance along the way is both useful and needed. Whether it's Harris or CST books or whatever. But it has to become a joined process eventually.
I don't think I'll live long enough to master this as I once did making b/w and color prints. But the process is comfortingly similar. Complex. Daunting. Elusive as Hades.
And listening to those who've mastered jazz is as entrancing as seeing photographs printed by a master. Or the finest colorists.
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
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What is considered CST? I read a lot of discussion on this forum about CST but I feel that everybody has his own interpretation of CST.
Some say "The Jazz Theory Book" is the bible of CST. I read this book but I found it pretty weird. It doesn't say ANYTHING about functional harmony! It never talks about how chord progressions work etc. So some people say that CST is just assigning scales to chords out of context. Which is just wrong IMO.
A better book is The Berklee Book of Jazz Harmony which is contains basically the same material (almost word for word) as Nettles & Graff however it is much easier to read. This book talks about functional harmony and how you can derive scales from chords that are actually in a progression. IMO its a great book, that really gives a clear overview of jazz harmony and the scales you need. I am in no way a pro but I really learned a lot!
However, I feel CST is more handy for analysis. You think of everything vertically while music moves horizontally and basically everything can work if you resolve it and have good rhythm.
But back to my question. What is considered CST? Looking at the notes you play over each chord relative to the chord?
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No idea. I'm shedding C Yo.
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From the OP - "The chord-scale methodology, first successfully outlined by Mehegan (1959), consists of relating certain categories of chords to certain categories of scales."
Though, that definition would also include Barry Harris's teaching.
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Would this help? I don't know. But I tend to think of CST in two ways.
One is "descriptive" where one is asking "What in the world is going on with that melody or solo, given those chords?" A model that sees certain kinds of scales generally fitting over certain kinds of chords offers a kind of foil for describing things, and maybe even for thinking how far "outside" a certain phrase is and if possible, why it still works. I think this is pretty helpful. One needs a baseline even if it's just a modest template.
The other would be "prescriptive" where one is actually being taught "over these chords you play these scales" and there the critique of "But why would you play those notes..?" is on target.
I don't find the prescriptive approach very helpful, but I do find CST useful when I'm trying to figure out whats going on in a given phrase, and then maybe also how to "port" that phrase to other contexts.
But I'm absolutely no "master" player, not even a journeyman, so this distinction might not hold up under more intense pressure.
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Yeah my beef with that, and by no means is this an implicit criticism of CST is that you don't need to know what notes work on a chord.
No one needs to know that to improvise jazz.
"On" or "over" is the WRONG language from day one. Jazz improvisers don't float. They express harmony in their lines.
What you actually need to know is
1) How to express a chord in a melodic line.
2) Then you need to learn how to embellish a chord with scalar and chromatic tones.
3) We learn how a single tonality such as major or minor can be enriched through the use of substitute or extended tonalities of related triads and extended structures.
4) Then you need to learn a repertoire of chordal movements towards a target tonality (call them II V I's if you want, but really, it's much more generalised than that.)
5) Then you get skilled at applying them to standards.
6) All the while getting good at recognising this stuff in material that you study by ear.
These relationships can in part be systematised as part of a CST concept, but that's BACKGROUND for skilled improvisers.
As I think is generally agreed, CST is unhelpful for beginner improvisors because it gets them into a mind set of thinking about safe notes. But really, we should be starting with players playing without backing tracks and outlining very simply the chords of a song (once of course they can play the melody convincingly.) That will be disappointing to many of course because it won't sound like jazz.
But there's almost no theory. It's like - here's a Cmaj7 chord, play a C triad.
It's no accident this 'what to notes play over x chord' improv concept is first encountered along with Jamie Aebersold play alongs in many cases...
Basically almost every time I teach students I find myself repeating the basic points outlined by Pat Metheny in this audio:
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Originally Posted by Lark
Really, people shouldn't have their own interpretations of what it is. It's very clear what it is.
CST stands for Chord-Scale Theory. As you say, it's basically about what can be played over what.
In its simplest form it starts with the fact that chords are built from scales. So, stacking the notes of C major in 3rds and making 4-note chords, the chords of C major are: CM7, Dm7, Em7, FM7, G7, Am7, and Bm7b5.
Therefore, because those chords have been built from the C major scale, the C major scale can be used to play over them.
That's the simplest way to explain it. But it can get a lot more complex than that. Also, the problem with it is that, in real life playing, there's no need to stick to it. A great deal of high-quality jazz doesn't.
Anyway, I suppose the Wiki page is good enough for starters:
Chord-scale system - Wikipedia
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Originally Posted by christianm77
"What scales do I play man? You mean I can't just wank away with my pentatonics like I always do? Theory sucks dude!".
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Originally Posted by christianm77
But I don't know of a single one of them who ever suggested that stopping at the understanding of tonality or scales/modes in relation to harmonic scenarios represented a complete course in jazz improvisation. Nettles and Graf referred to their book by the same name as a Harmony book, not an Improv book.
Again, the problem lies more in the uninformed persons mind about what CST "might" mean, or their personal definition of it. So there are many opinions, and hence "definitions" (to abuse a term).
One question might be "if a person didn't originate/invent CST, never studied it, and never studied jazz improvisation, arranging, or composition, why would they have a particularly strong opinion about it"? Would they do the same thing with say.... Electronic Engineering?
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Improvising Jazz by Coker was written in 1964. It lists Melodic Minor for Tonic chords only. His later updates may have expanded on that but I don't recall.
Mehegan wrote four books - which are you referring to, the first? If so, yes it has lots of etudes with lots of arpeggios and skips. Try pages 55-80 - for starters.
Another thing, it covers a lot about rhythm and it covers chromatics and approach notes to tones 1-3-5-7-9. His second book goes much more into "jazz rhythm and the improvised line".
Two things:
1. He didn't call his work "CST".
2. He did show players "what to play" to a significant extent - but - he didn't describe everything as fully as SOME educators do now. It should be noted that many contemporary "educators" still only scratch the surface of what Mehegan presented.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
I agree with you when you say that CST informs us what pool of notes CAN be played. But here is where things get off track quickly.
To be specific - CST does not, does not, does NOT "tell you what to play".
But people approach it thinking that it does, or will, and then come away disappointed and thinking that they'e been shortchanged or hoodwinked.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Originally Posted by christianm77
I get the feeling that most people view the "CST vs..." debate as being mostly "CST vs vocabulary". So... "Don't play scales straight up and down. Play jazz vocabulary (enclosures, diatonic/chromatic approaches, arppegios etc.)... Don't play straight up-down CST 8th notes, play jazz rhythms.... Don't play with CST scale-thinking, play with your ears." If that's what is really being discussed, then it's mostly a false argument. None of these statements are opposing statements, because all of these things can be done from the framework of CST basically. It's not a rhythmic organization as far as I know. It doesn't require only playing up and down. It doesn't require not using your ears the same way you would otherwise and it isn't melodically restrictive as to up-and-down or enclosures etc.
You can play any melodic device with any of these scales. You can chromatically address lydian dominant or even altered using the same embellishment guidelines used to target plain old major diatonic. "You can't explain chromatic line X using CST" isn't really the correct way of looking at it. We say things like this as a kind of way of saying that there isn't a single 8-note scale which describes it. This is true, but then we actually describe it using flats and sharps (which is a direct reference to an 8-note scale: major).
The "too many notes argument" is just silly. It's overused. We can't even describe which notes to use to build a major or minor chord without some basic knowledge of a major scale. We talk about "reducing down" to simpler, but reduce down from what reference?
Is anyone actually reducing down from the chromatic scale? It's fine to say "reduce down to the root", but the root of what? ... or 1 3 5. OK. 1 3 5 of what? The chromatic scale? It's crazy to reinvent the wheel and act as if notes grow in cabbage patches or are brought by Santa Claus. There aren't that many choices for things to play over a VII7 or III7 chord. There are some, but there are certainly choices which can be prioritized based on tradition, and that's a lot of what CST addresses. I wonder if a lot of the confusion around this topic isn't chromatics themselves.
Anyway, Aebersold is all about the traditions of this music. Read what he actually lays out and recommends in his writing. It's listen, listen, listen... transcribe... play traditional jazz vocabulary (built from these scales)... arps, enclosures, approaches and patterns of all types played by the greats. I don't feel that it's fair to imply that he's mainly a scale-list-maker. I know that's probably not what's meant, but it comes across, in balance of the one side which is stated.
Sorry to rant. (I know I quoted Christian at the top, but it's mostly not personally directed at any one person. All the best to everyone involved, really.)
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Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt
I wasn't and I didn't. I said "it's basically about what can be played over what".
The Wiki page was the only dedicated page on CST I could find, strangely. There were some others but they were superficial.
I agree it's not that well written but it's not 'drivel', that's ridiculous! Why did you say that?
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In response to Jazzstdnt (it’s getting wordy)
I don’t think Mehegan is CST either. Chord/scale relationships of a type also feature in Barry Harris and I doubt we’d call that CST.
But it shows the mode names and seventh chords as a basis for jazz harmony were established by 1959 and that’s quite interesting.
So between 59 and the the late 60s where we have Coker’s book which is recognisably a version of CST I wonder if there’s anything else.
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Dizzy Gillespie was a clever man. In the 50s he wrote a little piece he called "Con Alma" ("with soul"). The melody is simple and catchy with familiar chords. Then arrive at the solo and most people get in trouble. Because there's a change of key right in the middle of the theme. You hear where the melody is going, but somehow your fingers may not follow the changes, the song messes with your ears. Very annoying actually, because it's a sweet tune that wants you to express yourself (with soul).
options:
1, Read the changes (vista) and play patterns, or
2, Learn the song, internalize the changes, or
3, Write a solo (and write several variations on that solo)
-If I do Nr. 1 above many times, sooner or later I would arrive at 2, right?
-If I approach Nr.2 above by analyzing the changes and then apply scales and patterns (we can call that CST) , it's no different from Nr.1, is it? -Are there any ways other than CST to internalize the changes? For a trumpet player, a guitar player?
-If I do Nr. 3, I'm cheating, not improvising, am I? -Maybe, by writing a solo, it's possible to actually internalize the changes so that eventually I could improvise freely?
At the end of the day, if I want to express myself with soul, I need ear-training, no matter what I call the process. There are no avoid notes. Either I know the song or I don't.
Last edited by JCat; 03-05-2019 at 06:21 AM.
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A thought from Ed Byrne on CST
- Chord Scale Theory - submitted by EdByrne
....which was from some essays he posted about his well received work - Linear Jazz Improvisation.
FreeJazzInstitute -
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
So that's the reality of CST for many. What it says in the Berklee Bumper Fun Book of Cleverness is really neither here nor there, because I have to fix students who play largely stepwise solos that don't communicate any sense of harmony or rhythm. Like that student ion the Metheny lesson. I've heard that sound a 1000 times.... (And, dammit, it can be fixed!)
In fact Kenny's wording really strikes a chord (scale?) with me. He's nailed the problems right there.
There are even working jazz players who play this way, because they've only ever played modern non-functional shit. Seriously. When they play a standard it sounds like chord scales. If they are accomplished they do so in a way which is musical.... But it's not connected to any tradition or swing.
Perhaps Barry says it best - 'people used to harmonise melody, now they melodicise harmony.'
Chord Scale Theory applied to improvisation. Definition right there.
The thing here is ubiquity. CST has a sort of hegemony on jazz education, so that means it's the first thing many students contact, and many students never bust out of it - the best, of course do. (I don't think anyone working in NYC has this issue for instance, they all seem to have mastered bebop when still in diapers....) But I honestly think the result is to produce some very bad jazz. People who grudgingly do standards gig and can't swing or play a melody and people in the audience think 'oh that's jazz, I hate that.'
This beast exists.
So, as educators, I think we can do a lot better than that, and one aspect is the teaching resources.
I just don't know that many jazz educators don't use some kind of scale framework from which to start teaching vocabulary. I mean, it's based on the major scale or something. You can't play simple upper or lower neighbor tones without a basic knowledge of scales. You can't talk about "chromatics" without referencing a scale really.
But obviously all of that diatonic/chromatic passing tones and LNT stuff is 100s of years old. It's Bach and Mozart stuff. I learned that stuff from classical theory.
I get the feeling that most people view the "CST vs..." debate as being mostly "CST vs vocabulary". So... "Don't play scales straight up and down. Play jazz vocabulary (enclosures, diatonic/chromatic approaches, arppegios etc.)... Don't play straight up-down CST 8th notes, play jazz rhythms.... Don't play with CST scale-thinking, play with your ears." If that's what is really being discussed, then it's mostly a false argument.
None of these statements are opposing statements, because all of these things can be done from the framework of CST basically.
For instance Jordan's melodic triads thing is all ultimately related to CST relationships. But it a) sounds better b) is easier to use and c) no one has to know.
It's not a rhythmic organization as far as I know. It doesn't require only playing up and down. It doesn't require not using your ears the same way you would otherwise and it isn't melodically restrictive as to up-and-down or enclosures etc.
You can play any melodic device with any of these scales. You can chromatically address lydian dominant or even altered using the same embellishment guidelines used to target plain old major diatonic. "You can't explain chromatic line X using CST" isn't really the correct way of looking at it. We say things like this as a kind of way of saying that there isn't a single 8-note scale which describes it. This is true, but then we actually describe it using flats and sharps (which is a direct reference to an 8-note scale: major).
The "too many notes argument" is just silly. It's overused. We can't even describe which notes to use to build a major or minor chord without some basic knowledge of a major scale. We talk about "reducing down" to simpler, but reduce down from what reference?
Is anyone actually reducing down from the chromatic scale? It's fine to say "reduce down to the root", but the root of what? ... or 1 3 5. OK. 1 3 5 of what? The chromatic scale? It's crazy to reinvent the wheel and act as if notes grow in cabbage patches or are brought by Santa Claus. There aren't that many choices for things to play over a VII7 or III7 chord. There are some, but there are certainly choices which can be prioritized based on tradition, and that's a lot of what CST addresses. I wonder if a lot of the confusion around this topic isn't chromatics themselves.
Anyway, Aebersold is all about the traditions of this music. Read what he actually lays out and recommends in his writing. It's listen, listen, listen... transcribe... play traditional jazz vocabulary (built from these scales)... arps, enclosures, approaches and patterns of all types played by the greats. I don't feel that it's fair to imply that he's mainly a scale-list-maker. I know that's probably not what's meant, but it comes across, in balance of the one side which is stated.
But - like it or not, I suspect Aebersold will be remembered as the scales guy.
Why? Presentation. When someone opens a JA playalong book what do they see?
I mean generations of jazz students couldn't be bothered to read the eratta in edition 5 Real Book and learn that there was a repeat in Desifinado .... Obviously when the chart is corrected for the latest edition, it's not a problem.
Anyway I'm not wailing on poor JA here. The dude's a pioneer. But there's been water under the bridge. We've had a chance to reflect on the use of these teaching resources in our practice as educators, and I think there's a lot we can do to improve them.
(However the commercial success of JA means we will be stuck with them a while.... )
And really this is the nub of my argument. The information is all out there. It's about presentation. CST isn't 'wrong' but it is ubiquitous and likely to be a first point of contact for learners.
Then, it's highly problematic - by drawing the attention of the student to 'good sounding notes' over chords, considering the chords of the tune as the sole resource for improvisation and not addressing the relationship between rhythm and improvised line, it frames jazz education in a certain way. An unhelpful way, I would say.
This is the legacy of CST in the real world, whatever they teach in the elite music schools to kids who can already play.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
You mention you don't teach jazz.... I think if you did, you'd know exactly what he's talking about. I don't actually think that's a distortion of the theory at all. It's a massive problem of what CST is being used for, and only some of it is down to educators.
But this is what I mean by Hegemony and also, CST. Take a look at Mark Levine's The Jazz Theory Book.
It's a NICE book. Well produced, designed and written. Edditted and proofread to professional standards. Available at every music shop.
What does it teach? I would say it teaches a Chord Scale Theory interpretation of jazz harmony. (But maybe it doesn't, who knows any more lol? I'm not a CST Operant Thetan, so I'm not really qualified to say.)
It is also The Jazz Theory Book. Not 'A Jazz Theory Book' or 'A Guide to Modern Jazz Harmony' or 'Chord Scales in Modern Jazz' or anything like that. The title establishes what is actually when you think about it a rather aggressive hegemony over jazz theory. The framing is 'this is THE definitive book you need.'
The quality of the product reinforces that message because it's a much better looking book than the other stuff on the shelves.
This is definitely how I felt when I first saw it in a music shop.
I thought - 'Oh I got to get me that! Then I will know how to properly do a jazz.'
(None of this is Levine's fault, of course. I don't know if he chose the title.)
Most of the teaching guides I find actually useful are deeply flawed products, self published with spelling and grammatical errors and in need of editing for length, rewriting for clarity and improvements in presentation. Some of them aren't even stocked at music shops. In short they need the resources that have been put into Sher's products such as the Levine book.
Students starting their journey into jazz aren't going to be picking up these books.
They'll be picking up the Levine book.
So IF we agree the type of theory in Levine's book won't help a starting improvisor actually play jazz, there's a need there - for a really good book that deals with the information you need to know and a hands on way to apply it to music - but problem is that you need the resources put behind that book to compete with it.
I mean I can try and write one, but who cares? I'm a nobody...
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Now, here's the document that saved me from noodling up and down scales all day ;-)
John Etheridge - interview with Guitar Techniques Magazine
Notice that John's counter narrative does a few things that would Matt on my case on the forum... from a nerd POV it's also blatantly inaccurate in places: "Django Reinhardt never played a scale!" is demonstrably untrue.
But it was exactly what I need to read, and it got me into the stuff that I needed to be working on.
So as teaching - one of the best lessons I ever had. I must thank John one day. Actually you have to simplify to teach.
CST, presented as a theory of improvisation, is the wrong type of simplification.
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Originally Posted by lawson-stone
I mean, a lot of the time it's just naming stuff. Oh look a D7 with a #11! Why that's Lydian Dominant!
Great. Who cares?
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (Christian Scott)
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