Rolling Music Theory Thread

It seems to me- based on a bit of anecdotal evidence- that it is somewhat easier, more cut-and-dried for a teacher just to say “Play this scale!” and perhaps “and play it with this exact fingering!” rather to let you come up with your own ideas, especially in a one-on-one situation. If you are playing in an ensemble hopefully you can play some of what you want as long as you pay some lip service to the pedagogical scale in question.

― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, January 6, 2019 10:50 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've never really remotely tried to flesh it out, but I've had this grain of an idea in my mind for a while of a different way to teach jazz theory as an "in motion" concept rather than a static concept, with much more emphasis on how to connect chords rather than what to "play over" specific chords, and much more emphasis on the interplay between melody, harmony and rhythm (including an understanding of how landing on or passing over a certain note has a different effect at different points in the bar). Maybe this has already been done.

Okay, I guess the thing about the Aeolian is that he came up with a weird chord to go with it.

Are you saying that professional jazz educators are telling people to think of playing over e.g. mm. 5-8 of "Autumn Leaves" strictly in terms of Locrian - Mixolydian b9b13 - Aeolian or Dorian instead of e.g. also thinking about tendency tones (e.g. leading note-tonic and/or submediant-mediant resolution at the cadence)?

I don’t have first hand experience of that but I believe quite a few do, yes.

Most people would say to play Locrian natural 2 (natural 9, or sometimes confusingly called #2 or #9) for the first one though, sixth mode of the Jazz/Melodic Minor.

Actually, maybe I did have experience of this long ago.

What I have been told recently is to play the V7 bebop scale (adding passing tone of a major 7th) over the whole thing, at least the first two bars.

And resolve to a chord tone of the i chord, of course.

What I don’t remember being told to do but what I do over the i chord is to play what some call the Composite Minor, which I believe you might be familiar with it.

Another thing about out-of-box CST is that it is all seven note ( heptatonic) scales/modes, no mention is made of pentatonic scales major or minor ( maybe they figure these are already known from rock!) or hexatonic scales -blues scale, major scale without a fourth- or bebop scales- modes of major, Natural Minor or Harmonic Minor with an added passing tone.

Minor scale with both the natural and raised ^6 and ^7, I assume?xp

Yup.

Also the bebop scale I have been instructed to play over the turnaround in Autumn Leaves is the fifth mode of the Harmonic Minor of the tonic - which has a b9 and b13, as you said- some people call it a Phrygian Dominant, I think, plus the passing tone of a major seventh.

I mostly use Jim Grantham's Jazzmaster's Cookbook, which does get into those other scales early on and devotes a chapter to melodic structure, along with charts and recordings, classical principles of melody and harmony, and stuff like Matt Warnock's page. I also refer to Terfenko's textbook, which doesn't get to CST until Ch. 8.

xp Oh yeah, Grantham calls the Phrygian Dominant scale the Mixolydian b9b13 scale.

But I mean, I just think of all these scales as hacks to help your fingers find a more intricate melodic line that works over the chords on the spot. The overall tonal movement is still the main point. Passing notes are, like, passing notes.

Yes, exactly. Which is the problem with a naive approach. Really you’ve got to find a good mix of chord tones, (possible) scale tones and chromatic tones.

I like what I’ve seen of Matt Warnock’s page, don’t know those other sources, will take a look.

Sometimes, often actually, I try to think of playing some of these scales as fingering exercises rather than musical musts. For instance it is interesting to me that if you add the major seventh to a regular Mixolydian scale you get a four note chromatic run from the major sixth to the root, whereas if you add it to the scale we just mentioned there is a four note chromatic run from the (flat) seventh to the flat 9. In any case, playing such scale trains the fingers to get comfortable playing those chromatic runs within the context of a larger scale and hopefully trains the ear to hear how they fit in. Things that make you go hmmm...

Hard to get fingers to do chromatic runs when they are so used to the spaces between notes. Like walking instead of running

I'm not qualified to talk about jazz theory but I like that article. And when I was in Richard Davis' classes, I don't remember him ever talking about what to play over a certain chord (except for once talking about Monk's use of the whole tone scale and how it works over anything). His whole approach seemed like an attempt to create a non-pedagogical environment (like the one he came up in) within the university, which some people clicked with and others really didn't. It was more about fostering a certain mentality and approach to the music, and he would most likely tell a story about some musician or other for you to glean the right lesson from. Also, of course, a lot of taking students who were trying to show off or play way beyond themselves and breaking it down to the important basics (singing the melody, learning the lyrics when possible, thinking about the 'why' of the music).

I just consulted my spreadsheet and it tells me that for homework you had to call Richard Davis’s answering machine and sing scales (but did you have to chop wood for him?) . Do you remember what scales those were?

There's also where the chord falls within the progression. Like, the Emin7 at the end of the first A section going back to the Amin7 has a different feel than the one going into the bridge, and that one has a different feel than the first one *in* the bridge, and that one has a different feel than the one played for two beats at the beginning of the descending progression. I mean you technically could play the same thing "over" each of these Emin7, but your solo is going to sound a lot better if you think about where you are in the song and where that particular Emin7 is leading (and where it came from).

Definitely.

Haha James.

(they were just major scales, maybe minor too, but it was more about identifying my weak point of having never used my voice to sing pitches, and even more so doing it at 5 a.m. to show that I was serious about being in the class)

I get IA when I think about the years I spent struggling with wrongheaded approaches to teaching jazz.

You should have skipped school and just bought that book Sund4r mentioned instead.

Tbh I already knew the melodic and phrase structure principles from classical theory so I skip those chapters myself.

Can anyone recommend any books/essays/articles on the music theory of later Coltrane?

I was listening to "Don't You Want Me" by Human League while ordering coffee and it occurred to me that I didn't actually know what the tonal centre of the song was. The hook is minor-key, but the verses/chorus sound more like an alternating IV-V to major (which never appears) rather than an alternating bVI-bVII.

So I came home and listened to it and examined the lyrics and it's really interesting how the pre-chorus goes (if we're in minor): I (major!)-ii?-IV-V ... (chorus) bVI-bVII, but that "ii?" contains both raised and lowered thirds so it's this kind of spicy ii? II? chord.

The lyrics over the verses are entirely nostalgic and reminiscent toward what both singers consider a happier time in their life, but the pre-chorus is present-tense and is in a more threatening minor-key.

I had some bizarre theory that the implication of a major-key tonal centre was entirely affiliated with "past-tense reminiscence" in the lyrics, and the minor-key tonal centre was entirely affiliated with the male singer's "present-tense creepy threats". The fact that the alternating IV-V (or is it bVI-bVII) chords over the chorus never resolves to major is a nice compliment to the unanswered question ("Don't you want me, baby?") in the lyrics. The fact that the song doesn't answer the question but returns to the minor-key hook essentially answers that question-- present-tense, minor key, this relationship is over.

Is that ii a diminished chord?

My first thought is that it's all in A, minor throughout and the parallel major in that pre-chorus (but maybe not throughout the pre-chorus - if that's a diminished chord on B there, then that's suggesting it's going directly back to the minor key on that second chord in the passage).

I think it might be Bdim? I thought I was hearing an F in one voice in the keyboard harmony. There's definitely a D in the melody line there. Also, is the last chord in this section E or E5? I wasn't sure I heard a third there. I'm pretty sure the third chord is C, btw, which would be III not IV if you analyse the key as A minor (bIII if it's A major).

I see fgti's point. The melody in the verse suggests C major: it starts on C, the first line ends on E, and the second ends on G. So the F-G movement in the verses and choruses does feel like it makes sense as IV-V in C, esp since the chorus heads straight back into the verse, although you never get a resolution to I. The first pre-chorus section ("Don't, don't you want me?/You know I can't believe it...") seems like it could be a deceptive resolution to vi in that context.

Given that there's no cadence on a C chord but there are resolutions to Am (on a title hook), the song begins and ends on Am, and the main riff is an A minor pentatonic figure, Occam's razor probably favours Tim's analysis: mostly A minor with some modal mixture in the second pre-chorus?

That's the same analysis I had, it's minor key (with that surprise major in there)

Sorry I guess I should really check what key we're in before typing, my mind just never goes that way ugh

Oh, I thought you were hearing the verses and choruses as IV-V in C. Then we're all on the same page, cool.

I am hearing them that way, they imply that. I'm suggesting that the duality of the tonality (verses and choruses in C, prechoruses and hook in a) reflects the indecision and dual-voices of the lyrical narrative

And the final repeated resolution to the a-minor hook at the end not only confirms the song is in a-minor but also that this love affair did not resume

Oh, yeah, totally. That's a v good analysis imo.

"Livin' on a Prayer" does almost the exact reverse of this.

I mean, it's not exact but Em-C-D in the intro and verses feels like i-VI-bVII in E minor (when we're hearing about Tommy's and Gina's woes), only becoming recontextualized as vi-IV-V when we get G in the pre-chorus and chorus (when there's the message of hope), which is what the song ends on (after a couple of truck-driver modulations). No modal mixture, though (unlike "Wanted Dead or Alive").

my New Year's resolution is to spend less time on the IV chord

Lol

Discussion of tonality and pitch organization in a Sonic Youth deep cut here: Time takes its crazy Poll... Sonic Youth: Washing Machine

(a song that's never been a favourite for me btw, but which I'm getting more out of because of this)

Here is a theory questions I have been pondering/arguing about with respect to a different tune with a similar progression: https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/21273-theory-question-night-day-key-c-what-function-f-7b5.html

After reading the thread, looking at the chart, and listening to Sinatra's recording once, this response seems pretty good:

I like to think of it as IVmaj to IV min. The F#-7b5 is basically an Fmaj7 with an F# as the root. So whenever I see this #IV-IVmin device it's much easier to think IV maj to IV min....

If I saw something like this written out in a classical score, I would probably read the F# in the lowest voice of the harmony as a chromatic incomplete neighbour to the F in the next bar. You could read the F#m7b5 and the Fm7 as two altered IV chords - basically this is all IV with two apparent chords produced by chromatic voice-leading movement. I would also probably analyse the Ebdim7 as a voice-leading chord produced as a result of passing note movement in the two lowest voices (E-Eb-D and G-Gb-F) between iii7 and ii7. I don't really know that there would be a problem with applying this kind of analysis to this tune.

Thanks. Makes sense and I liked that analysis too. In the tune in which I first came across this sequence, Emily, the Eb7 is an A7, so I think you can safely think of that Eb7 as tritone sub for that A7.

Multiple jazz guys have said it is a tritone sub for the one. There is indeed some trick of subbing a diminished or half diminished I chord for the major I- “Stella By Starlight” is some kind of canonical example of that, I think- but I don’t care for that explanation with this sequence.

I would have definitely analysed Eb7 as a tritone sub for A7 but I believe that the chord is Ebdim7 in "Night and Day", not Eb7? At least it is on the chart I saw: F#m7b5-Fm7-Em7-Ebdim7-Dm7-G7-Cmaj7. As such, I think it is easiest to analyse it as an apparent voice-leading chord.

xp

Oh yeah, you are right.

In “Emily” the tune has modulated to D minor before this, with an A7 leading back at the end of every four bars. So it is interesting that in this case the A7 leads to an F#7b5, which can be used as a D9 no root, so you perhaps you might think there is just some minor/major trick going on.

I usually like this guys explanations: http://brunojazz.com/vt-half-diminished.htm

Guy’s

I guess there are times with songs that ostensibly have key signatures where...you're just not in any key at all. That seems to me to be the case with parts of "Incense and Peppermints." I think it certainly starts out in E minor (with a Dorian aspect), but I'm not so quick to say the chorus - E minor/Eb minor/D/A - is still in that key.

The bridge, to me, seems to start out with a V/I in G, but then goes to an F# minor chord, which strikes me as phrase modulation. Then, it happens again, but seems to resolve on A major.

It still feels like E minor/Dorian at that point to me. The chorus hinges on the chromatic descent E - D# - D - C#. I think the D# minor is subbing in for B major (the V chord).

xp