Jazz Stuff (the thread formerly known as "Just ordered some jazz guitar books...")

Megii · February 2015

viz said:

As well as super locrian on the dominant, the acoustic and hindu scales - (4th and 5th modes) can sound great, depending on context. Also if you're doing a 6251, the hindu sounds really good over the 6.

Ooh - get you, with yer fancy hindu scale!

hobbio · February 2015

The problem with the Hindu scale is that you need four arms to play it.

viz · February 2015

Haha

actually it's normally called mixolydian b6 or aeolian dominant, which I think is the best name for it.

Jalapeno · February 2015

Nicked from elsewhere ....

Modes ? We don' need no steenking Modes ?

GuyBoden · February 2015

The problem I've found with this chord scale theory is that all the notes in the specified scale don't usually fit with the specified chord. Some notes sound a lot better than others.

Personally, I'd rather know/hear what specific notes in a scale will fit over a certain chord (depending in the musical situation), IMHO telling someone a certain scale fits a certain chord is not strictly true.

Don't get me wrong, I run lots of scales/modes when warming up and maintaining my fretboard knowledge.

Just my perspective, I'm not trying to upset anyone.

Megii · February 2015

GuyBoden said:

The problem I've found with this chord scale theory is that all the notes in the specified scale don't usually fit with the specified chord. Some notes sound a lot better than others.

Personally, I'd rather know/hear what specific notes in a scale will fit over a certain chord (depending in the musical situation), IMHO telling someone a certain scale fits a certain chord is not strictly true.

Don't get me wrong, I run lots of scales/modes when warming up and maintaining my fretboard knowledge.

Just my perspective, I'm not trying to upset anyone.

No upset from that @GuyBoden - I think really you speak the truth. Especially when the chords are changing with reasonable rapidity, I think it is more workable to be visualizing arpeggio shapes. I certainly want to be emphasizing those harmonically strong notes contained in the arps. The arpeggios are contained within the scale shapes though - and somehow I do find it helpful to know the scale shape as well, even though you could argue I'm not really using the scale in any obvious way.

hobbio · February 2015

@Megii I've only gone and found the CD for the Exploring Jazz book lol. There's a dirty great scratch on it but I've managed to import the tracks into iTunes, so when I send you the replacement book I'll include this original CD and a copy in case it won't work in your CD player.

Megii · February 2015

hobbio said:

@Megii I've only gone and found the CD for the Exploring Jazz book lol. There's a dirty great scratch on it but I've managed to import the tracks into iTunes, so when I send you the replacement book I'll include this original CD and a copy in case it won't work in your CD player.

@hobbio Always the way isn't it - things only turn up after you've given up and ordered another one. Very decent of you anyway, cheers mate - I will have to look through my jazz guitar notes and stuff, as I do have some (not published) stuff I can send you in return.

hobbio · February 2015

Just going to post this vid because I like it so much

Megii · February 2015

hobbio said:

Just going to post this vid because I like it so much

Great stuff, bloody impressive guitar skills, and it's such happy music as well.

viz · February 2015

GuyBoden said:

The problem I've found with this chord scale theory is that all the notes in the specified scale don't usually fit with the specified chord. Some notes sound a lot better than others.

Personally, I'd rather know/hear what specific notes in a scale will fit over a certain chord (depending in the musical situation), IMHO telling someone a certain scale fits a certain chord is not strictly true.

Don't get me wrong, I run lots of scales/modes when warming up and maintaining my fretboard knowledge.

Just my perspective, I'm not trying to upset anyone.

Spot on, it would be a very odd sort of art if it just comprised running up and down the scales of various chords lol. To me this theory stuff is just incredibly helpful in understanding music, that's it. It doesn't drive the music, it describes the music. When I actually play, I play tunes, the tunes in my head. I play what I want to play. But, having said that, what it does do is stretch my mind in a different way from the stretch I get from listening to lots of different music, or playing lots of songs, or writing / improvising. It's a complementary learning approach, and together with all the other facets of the art, when practised together, it gives a more holistic experience. I'm focusing on jazz theory at the moment because it was a woefully held back element in my own journey and I'm loving it, it's making so much slot into place.

(If you were referring to me, I'm not upset

)

Jalapeno · February 2015

viz said:

GuyBoden said:

The problem I've found with this chord scale theory is that all the notes in the specified scale don't usually fit with the specified chord. Some notes sound a lot better than others.

Personally, I'd rather know/hear what specific notes in a scale will fit over a certain chord (depending in the musical situation), IMHO telling someone a certain scale fits a certain chord is not strictly true.

Don't get me wrong, I run lots of scales/modes when warming up and maintaining my fretboard knowledge.

Just my perspective, I'm not trying to upset anyone.

Spot on, it would be a very odd sort of art if it just comprised running up and down the scales of various chords lol. To me this theory stuff is just incredibly helpful in understanding music, that's it. It doesn't drive the music, it describes the music. When I actually play, I play tunes, the tunes in my head. I play what I want to play. But, having said that, what it does do is stretch my mind in a different way from the stretch I get from listening to lots of different music, or playing lots of songs, or writing / improvising. It's a complementary learning approach, and together with all the other facets of the art, when practised together, it gives a more holistic experience. I'm focusing on jazz theory at the moment because it was a woefully held back element in my own journey and I'm loving it, it's making so much slot into place.

(If you were referring to me, I'm not upset )

Wisdomed the pair of you !

Megii · February 2015

Great post @viz!

Jalapeno · February 2015

hobbio said:

Just going to post this vid because I like it so much

Anyone want to play/learn this stuff North or West of London, Club Django meets in Marlow, Bucks on the first Tuesday of every month.

https://sites.google.com/site/chilternhotclub/

GuyBoden · February 2015

Paulo said:

Learn the melodies otherwise what are you improvising? Guitarists in general don't play melodies a lot yet they want to to improvise melodies using the magic of matching the scale to the chord. Usually they will end up sounding like this is what they are doing. It becomes an exercise. Learn to play well on the inside notes, this is still Jazz, then branch out when you are more confident. Listen to the greats, otherwise what is your inspiration? The les wise book is great for copping some great links from, but then you need to work those ones you like into your playing until you don't think about them anymore and they just emerge. I went back to the Les Wise book a while back and realised that a lot of those 'exotic' sounds were already part of my playing, even ones I don't remember working particularly hard on. I've had people come to me for lessons wanting to learn Jazz yet they can't name anyone who plays it! They just want to tick that box by learning a few scales and matching them to the chords, which frankly is a poor approach.

Interestingly, chord scale theory in Jazz (This scale goes with that chord method) only came about in the late 1950's by American theorists George Russell, David Baker and later advocated by Berklee Music school, so all songs composed before the late 1950's and that includes most of the Jazz Standards, have improvised solos using the song's melody, harmony and rhythm, not chord scale theory. If you transcribe a lot solos from the older Jazz standards this will soon become apparent.

So, if you're trying to improvise authentic sounding solos over the older Swing and Bebop Jazz standards by using Chord Scale relationships only, you're going to have a hard struggle, believe me I tried.

hobbio · February 2015

Jalapeno said:

hobbio said:

Just going to post this vid because I like it so much

Anyone want to play/learn this stuff North or West of London, Club Django meets in Marlow, Bucks on the first Tuesday of every month.

https://sites.google.com/site/chilternhotclub/

It's a bit far from me, but it does sound fun. Maybe I'll make a special trip once I've got a bit of reprtoire.

Megii · February 2015

GuyBoden said:
Paulo said: Learn the melodies otherwise what are you improvising? Guitarists in general don't play melodies a lot yet they want to to improvise melodies using the magic of matching the scale to the chord. Usually they will end up sounding like this is what they are doing. It becomes an exercise. Learn to play well on the inside notes, this is still Jazz, then branch out when you are more confident. Listen to the greats, otherwise what is your inspiration? The les wise book is great for copping some great links from, but then you need to work those ones you like into your playing until you don't think about them anymore and they just emerge. I went back to the Les Wise book a while back and realised that a lot of those 'exotic' sounds were already part of my playing, even ones I don't remember working particularly hard on. I've had people come to me for lessons wanting to learn Jazz yet they can't name anyone who plays it! They just want to tick that box by learning a few scales and matching them to the chords, which frankly is a poor approach. Interestingly, chord scale theory in Jazz (This scale goes with that chord method) only came about in the late 1950's by American theorists George Russell, David Baker and later advocated by Berklee Music school, so all songs composed before the late 1950's and that includes most of the Jazz Standards, were improvised by just using the song's melody, harmony and rhythm, not chord scale theory. If you transcribe a lot of older Jazz standards solos this will soon become apparent.

So, if you're trying to play the older Swing and Bebop Jazz standards by using Chord Scale relationships only, you're going to have a hard struggle.

Although - I would still maintain it has it's value, even to people (such as myself) who are playing the older jazz standards. I'd say CST is more of an approach or a "way in" if you like, than a universal truth about jazz. I can remember going on some jazz education day thing (this is a long time ago, mid 80s probably) and we were given a simple chord sequence which stayed in one key (C major or something) and told we could play any of the C major scale notes over the chords. It was just a way of getting people over that initial barrier into improvising I suppose. Anyway - various people, including me, tried it - the results not surprisingly weren't all that good, but at least we were now able to play something... The guy in charge (a top British jazz musician) demonstrated some soloing, which of course sounded like proper jazz, whereas the learners' stuff didn't. As one of the learners, I later started to try and make my playing sound like jazz - I guess I would have started incorporating chromatic notes in various ways, learning to emphasize chord tones, learning to resolve certain notes to other notes as the chords changed, learning to use rhythm effectively, started developing my own bank of melodic phrases, improving the ear and listening to lots of jazz, and etc. etc.

I my case it took a few years probably, before I really started to sound at all competent as a jazzer, but improvement did happen. In general terms, I am still often thinking in a broadly scale kind of way, even though it might not sound obvious to the listener. I have heard that a lot of the earlier jazz guitarists tended to use and embelish chord shapes as a way of improvising - I just don't work that way, and if I try to, it produces unnatural-sounding results - I've just trained my brain in a different way. But I think all these various approaches, in a way, are just approximations to the truth - they have value certainly, ways in perhaps, but they aren't the actual jazz itself. I think you were saying something re transcribing as a way to directly get to the "language of jazz" earlier? So I guess I do agree with you @GuyBoden, but that doesn't stop me often thinking in scalar kind of way, when playing All the Things You Are, or whatever old tune - and I happen to think I do alright at it. Just adding some thoughts to the discussion anyway!

GuyBoden · February 2015

GuyBoden said:

Paulo said:

Learn the melodies otherwise what are you improvising? Guitarists in general don't play melodies a lot yet they want to to improvise melodies using the magic of matching the scale to the chord. Usually they will end up sounding like this is what they are doing. It becomes an exercise. Learn to play well on the inside notes, this is still Jazz, then branch out when you are more confident. Listen to the greats, otherwise what is your inspiration? The les wise book is great for copping some great links from, but then you need to work those ones you like into your playing until you don't think about them anymore and they just emerge. I went back to the Les Wise book a while back and realised that a lot of those 'exotic' sounds were already part of my playing, even ones I don't remember working particularly hard on. I've had people come to me for lessons wanting to learn Jazz yet they can't name anyone who plays it! They just want to tick that box by learning a few scales and matching them to the chords, which frankly is a poor approach.

Interestingly, chord scale theory in Jazz (This scale goes with that chord method) only came about in the late 1950's by American theorists George Russell, David Baker and later advocated by Berklee Music school, so all songs composed before the late 1950's and that includes most of the Jazz Standards, have improvised solos using the song's melody, harmony and rhythm, not chord scale theory. If you transcribe a lot solos from the older Jazz standards this will soon become apparent.

So, if you're trying to improvise authentic sounding solos over the older Swing and Bebop Jazz standards by using Chord Scale relationships only, you're going to have a hard struggle, believe me I tried.

I'm just pointing out the fact that if you transcribe the older Swing and Bebop solos, you'll soon realise that Chord Scale theory is of little use, because that was not the approach the great Jazz Swing and Bebop improvisors used.

Chord Scale theory is great for contemporary Jazz concepts, from modal onwards.

Megii · February 2015

GuyBoden said:

GuyBoden said:

Paulo said:

Learn the melodies otherwise what are you improvising? Guitarists in general don't play melodies a lot yet they want to to improvise melodies using the magic of matching the scale to the chord. Usually they will end up sounding like this is what they are doing. It becomes an exercise. Learn to play well on the inside notes, this is still Jazz, then branch out when you are more confident. Listen to the greats, otherwise what is your inspiration? The les wise book is great for copping some great links from, but then you need to work those ones you like into your playing until you don't think about them anymore and they just emerge. I went back to the Les Wise book a while back and realised that a lot of those 'exotic' sounds were already part of my playing, even ones I don't remember working particularly hard on. I've had people come to me for lessons wanting to learn Jazz yet they can't name anyone who plays it! They just want to tick that box by learning a few scales and matching them to the chords, which frankly is a poor approach.

Interestingly, chord scale theory in Jazz (This scale goes with that chord method) only came about in the late 1950's by American theorists George Russell, David Baker and later advocated by Berklee Music school, so all songs composed before the late 1950's and that includes most of the Jazz Standards, have improvised solos using the song's melody, harmony and rhythm, not chord scale theory. If you transcribe a lot solos from the older Jazz standards this will soon become apparent.

So, if you're trying to improvise authentic sounding solos over the older Swing and Bebop Jazz standards by using Chord Scale relationships only, you're going to have a hard struggle, believe me I tried.

I'm just pointing out the fact that if you transcribe the older Swing and Bebop solos, you'll soon realise that Chord Scale theory is of little use, because that was not the approach the great Jazz Swing and Bebop improvisors used.

Chord Scale theory is great for contemporary Jazz concepts, from modal onwards.

Fair enough mate

I think we might have to politely agree to differ, at least to some extent - in that I find it has value to me personally, and I am especially interested in bop and 50s/60s jazz - that kind of stuff. Not saying that there aren't other things I find helpful either of course - one doesn't have to choose an approach and stick to it rigidly. I don't think I'd even heard the term "chord scale theory" until a few years ago, when it was probably used on some forum. I will agree that it of course has it's limitations. Do you think it's possible to define the approach (or approaches) the great Swing/Bebop improvisors did use? - genuinely interested question, not trying to appear awkward or anything!

Branshen · February 2015

I was looking through the old posts and I was wondering about the concept of jazz enclosures.

I did some quick reading on the concept and the lessons focus on enclosing root notes. Would it be safe to say that the enclosed note should usually be a chord tone. And that it wouldn't really work to enclose extension notes?

I know it's best to try it myself but I'm currently on the train and I would love to know what you guys think.

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Jazz Stuff (the thread formerly known as "Just ordered some jazz guitar books...")

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Modes ? We don' need no steenking Modes ?