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@espiegel123 @GovernorSilver I know it sounds odd but I have no idea what I like. I can honestly say I have never knowingly listened to a complete jazz song. I probably know many because you just hear things like Girl From Ipanema and Christmas carols here and there. But apart from seeing names like Pat Methany pop up on youtube I wouldn't have a clue what artists exist and what I like. Sacrilege?
Today I will check out some of the stuff mentioned in this thread. Seems like simple jazz would be good. Feel free to suggest more as I'll put together a good playlist for the Christmas break.
If you have have never listened to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. That is a great record start to finish. It is a bit laid back.
John Coltrane's records Giant Steps and A Love Supreme are very different from each other and the Miles record. But of a period. They hold up well.
Kind of Blue - classic record.
Night Train - Oscar Peterson Trio - Another great intro record to jazz imo
A Charlie Brown Christmas - Vince Guaraldi Trio - Because it's December right now.
Charlie Christian - Genius of Electric guitar - Ok, this is really, really old school, but so much electric guitar vocabulary - rock, blues, not just jazz - came out of this one dude's playing
Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage - Another classic
"Have You Met Miss Jones" - A lot of lessons/examples in the Fareed course you bought are based on this one tune/ Search for it on Youtube and listen to more than one version. Listen to the tune at least once a day.
I think you can find most, if not all of the above on Youtube. After a while, Youtube will start recommending more jazz stuff for you automatically and you can explore those if you like.
Great, thanks for the suggestions. Much appreciated.
If you like funk (and who doesn’t?) Another way to ease yourself into jazz is via some of the jazz-funk stuff that came out in the early 70s that fused funky grooves and electric instruments with jazzy playing, especially the chording and solos. Some of it is tripe but some is awesome.
Herbie Hancock’s ‘Headhunters’ is the most famous one.
About 30 years ago Blue Note released what was probably the first official compilation album of tracks that had been sampled by hip-hop artists - ‘Blue Break Beats’. Vols 1&2 are definitely worth getting - they were my gateway drug into proper jazz.
ECM is a record label that began in Munich and is probably the main jazz label outside the USA. The music it releases is generally quite different to ‘American’ jazz and often has classical and European folk influences. Pat Metheny and Keith Jarrett probably it’s two most famous artists (although they both released lots of stuff on other labels too).
If you really do start to get into jazz you might that find learning about it’s personalities, record labels, and stylistic shifts over the years will keep you just as entertained as the music itself.
Jazz is approximately twice the age of rock (they reckon the first jazz recordings were made about 1917) and up until the birth of rock’n’roll in the 1950s was the predominant form of musical entertainment in the USA, so there is a lot of history!
That's cool to know. I didn't know it went so far back. I guess a decade by decade search on youtube could be in order.
Listen to Ella & Louis also!
Just realized how funny that is. My job is project managing weed control in natural areas so it is literally my day job to dive straight into the weeds. Ironic that I apparently do it in my down time as well.
Ella Fitzgerald? I have an album that I've listened to! Turns out I have listened to jazz and didn't even know it.
What about Nina Simone. Any albums there that are recommended. I love her voice.
I got into Nina Simone by way of "My Baby Cares For Me", which was popular in the 2000s swing dance scene. Same scene introduced me to the Oscar Peterson Night Train album.
That song is part of her debut album Little Girl Blue. People don't talk about her piano playing as much, but it's awesome here too.
Anything you like is where to start.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I think you should invest your time into finding songs you like and learning to play them -- the chord changes, the melodies, and any bits of solo that you can figure out.
You could quite legitimately get your chops by doing that without adding theory. The theory will be meaningless until you've got your brain full of the music and have some tunes that you love.
If you are theory inclined, here is what I would do for a while. Learn the tunes -- do the things I mentioned a couple of paragraphs up -- and see if any of the tunes have any videos or blog posts about them that talk about the theory or analysis.
Given your tastes, you might find Guthrie Govan as an interesting person to listen to (if you don't already) -- his playing has a lot of jazz influence in it and there are quite a few videos of him talking about music theory which you might find relatable.
@GovernorSilver @espiegel123 Thanks again. This song above is great. Sure is beautiful piano.
The reason I ask about good music to listen to is because I'm not even really sure what jazz is. I was listening to Madeline Peyroux last night and I thought it sounded like jazz but could be way off.
Man that Julian Lage sounds wonderful. I think this might be the sort of thing I like. Not necessarily the mellow aspect but the tones, guitar out front, high quality. Do we approve? Any others like this to recommend or should I go back to the crusty reproductions of the 50s?
If you like Julian Lage (he is a master). Also check out Tuck Andress (I believe he was one of Lage's inspirations) and Wes Montgomery. Wes is the bridge between Charlie Christian and everyone later. Check out D Natural Blues.
BTW, Tuck Andress has about 30 some odd Facebook video 'lessons' where he touches on things (somewhat randomly) from technical to theoretical and includes a lot of advice about how to learn. The videos are a bit rambling but there is a lot of gold there. (I took lessons from him when I was finishing college and before he had a record deal -- he was very generous and got he hooked up with a regular gig at a local club). To find them, look for "Tuck's Tips for Guitar".
@ailerom: jazz is a broad term and there is a lot of music where people will argue forever whether it is jazz or not -- and tons of music that might not be jazz but derives a lot of its vocabulary from it.
Be sure to listen to the entirety of the Little Girl Blue album, not just the one song.
Ok, is it called Little Girl Blue.
The link that I posted was supposed to be a whole playlist, not just one video.
Just search on Youtube to get the rest of the songs. You have everything you need to run a search. It should take no effort to find them.
I’m late for the party, and mostly everything has been said already, but since this is a subject I know a thing or two about, here is my take on it.
First of all, as many said, there really isn’t a standard notation. You have to take in account context, to know what a chord notation means, so let’s start with a little theory.
First a little bit about scales
For the purpose of this discussion, all scales I refer to are the diatonic scales, because those are what are used in jazz, and most of western music. So all chords relevant here, will be derived from the major and minor scales (namely the natural, harmonic and melodic minor).
The major scale, you all know, is what we get by playing all the white notes of the piano starting on C. Let’s number the notes from one to seven, so a major scale is: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Now, there are two semitone intervals in this scale, which are what defines it. Between 3 and 4, and between 7 and 1 (an octave above). These semitone intervals provide tension, and your ear always wants to see them resolve to the stable note (4 wants to lower to 3, and 7 wants to rise to 1).
In the case o C major, for simplicity, this means F wants to go down to E, and B wants to go up to C. The interval F-B is the tritone, and it is what defines the dominant chord. In the case of the major C scale, the 5th chord G7 is the dominant, the only chord that possesses the tritone interval (B being the major 3rd, and F being the flat 7th). If you resolve F-B to E-C, you will get the C major chord. So this double resolution is what makes the G7-C (V7 to I) the most important resolution in tonal music.
As you also know, the natural minor scale is what we get by playing all the white notes of the piano starting on A. If you count the semitones, you will see it has 1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 ♭7. This is all fine, but if you look at the fifth chord of the natural minor, you will see it is a minor chord. So if we take C natural minor scale, for instance, there is no G7-Cm progression, and that’s why the natural minor is not very effective to make cadences, cause it lacks the leading tone (major 7).
That’s why the harmonic minor was invented. It is the natural minor but with a major 7. So it again has the V7-i cadence, and it sounds much more interesting. The problem with the harmonic minor, is that now it has a weird interval of one and a half tones (not occurring in the other scales), from the ♭6 to the 7.
And that’s why the melodic minor was invented. It also raises the ♭6, and now you don’t have that weird interval, and it sounds, well, more melodic. (technically you only raise the ♭6 on the way up, but that’s irrelevant for this discussion).
Now regarding chord theory
First regarding scale notation, remember all must have one, and one only of A B C D E F G. You can not have two A’s, or two B’s, or whatever. That is why you sometimes see B♯, or F♭, and you wonder why not call it C and E? Well, because that scale already has a C or an E, and cannot have two.
Now what are chords? Chords are obtained by picking a scale, starting on the root, and start stacking thirds (skipping a note), till you reach all 7 possible notes a chord can have (although we usually thing of chords as having 3 or 4 notes, they can have up to seven, if we follow to the end of the scale).
So starting at 1 and skipping every other note, we will have 1 3 5 7 2 4 6. The 2/4/6 are played an octave above, and called extensions. They are referred as the 9th, 11th, and 13th because that’s their number in the sequence.
All these notes (except 1), can be modified, but only respecting some rules. Again, we cannot have two of the same. And some notes, when altered may seem like other notes, but that is not possible if they overlap another note.
For instance the diminished 7th chord, has a double flat seventh. Enharmonically, this is the same note as the 6th. But it is wrong to call it a 6th because the chord already has a 6th (or more correctly, a ♭13th, that you might also want to include-although not common).
Same with 5ths: A chord can only have one 5th. So if you are using an altered 5th (a diminished or augmented 5th), then that chord cannot possibly have a natural 5th. It cannot possess both altered fifths, either.
Same with ninths. Some chords may have a flat or sharp 9th, but not both, and not a natural 9th as well. A minor chord also cannot have a ♯9th, either. Only major chords can.
Same with elevenths, a chord can have a flat 11th, but only if it is a minor chord (cause it’s the same note). It cannot have a sharp 11th and a flat 5th, either. You get the gist.
Finally about chord notation
All the above was to give you a foundation about how to understand what is meant by a specific chord, since there is not a cast is stone notation.
Lets start with triads.
A major triad (C-E-G): usually only the note name (C), but sometimes also Δ. The delta symbol is an example of context. In a jazz standard, it will mean a Cmaj7, because jazz musicians use all notes of the scale and certainly the 7th. But on a folk or pop song, it will mean a major triad (and is redundant, but alas, people are not consistent)
A minor triad (C-E♭-G): usually spelled Cm or C mi (unnecessary verbose, IMO, but you see it).
Diminished and augmented triads: obtained by raising the 5th of a major triad, or lowering the 5th of a minor triad, and usually spelled Cdim/C- and Caug/C+. Unfortunately some people use C- for C minor, which is confusing. Again context.
For a diminished chord, the suffix dim is also used. Also you may see the symbols ° or ø, but since those are hard to type, only in more serious notation.
Triads can also have extensions. Frequently the 9th, but possibly the 11th or 13th. When using extensions, again remember you cannot have two of the same notes, so an augmented triad with a flat 13th is nonsensical. The notation for this is usually, Cadd9, for instance.
A final note about 6th chords. A 6th chord is a major or minor triad, with an additional natural 6th added. They cannot have a 13th, obviously, so the only extension you will see is the 9th (and natural 9th at that). They are usually labelled C6 for major, and Cm6 for minor, and with the 9 in parentesis if it exists: C6(9), sometimes C6/9, or written with the 9 as superscript and 6 a subscript.
That’s about it for triads.
Now on to tetrads.
Major 7th chords: Cmaj7, CΔ, CΔ7
Minor 7th chords: Cm7, C-7
Dominant 7th chords: C7 (finally some consistency)
Half diminished: Cø, Cø7, Cm7(♭5)
Diminished: Cdim, Cdim7, Cº7
Remember sometimes – and + are also used to mean flat or sharp. I don’t really like it, but is sometimes convenient, so if I see a C-7(-5) I wouldn’t be too surprised.
About notation of extensions. As I said in triads, the “add” notation is more common. For tetrads, normally the relevant extension is included in parentesis, for instance C7(♭5) or sometimes more than one like G7(♭9, ♭13). There is a lot of discrepancy, but if you see any of the numbers 9, 11, 13, it can only be an extension.
Also with a 7th chord with a 9th or 13th it usually is shortened to just the extension: C9 for C7(9), C13 for C7(13). There is no C11 because the natural 11th clashes with the major 3rd and is the so called ”avoid note”.
About sus chords (as in suspended), you do not get it from any of the 4 scales I’m discussing. It’s not really a chord, is more of a way to delay arriving at the major 3rd of the chord. What you do, is you replace the major 3rd of the chord (this only applies to major and dominant chords), with the 4th. It is bad form to leave the listener hanging, so it always resolves to the normal chord (with the third).
As you see a sus chord cannot have a natural 11th. The notation is commonly Csus7, for instance, but can also be C7/4, sometimes the 7 is superscript and the 4 is subscript.
Finally on alt chords. You sometimes see a chord labelled 7alt. This referes to a 7th dominant chord, with an altered 9th and/or 5th. Remember only one of each, so not a flat and a sharp 9th at the same time. Also impossible to have an altered and natural note, so no alt chord would possess a natural 9th or 5th (actually that’s what defines them). Alt chords are derived form the last mode of the melodic, by cheating somewhat because it is interpreted as having both altered 9ths and 5ths, when like I said that is nonsensical (but so are jazz musicians), but it makes the mode useful (while correct notation would make it useless musically).
I better stop now, I’ll just leave you with a map I made of all the modes and chords for all scales. Hope it’s useful.
Doubt anyone made it this far, but I had fun writing this, hopefully it will not confuse readers even further. And if you have any questions, or corrections, please let me know.
Cheers!
@pedro Nice write-up! One note – it’s more rare and may not make as much sense from a functional or stacking thirds perspective, but alt chords can have both flat and sharp alterations on the same tone (provided they don’t match other chord tones, like you said).
Thanks. Yeah, you are right, in jazz anything goes, specially if played as a mode rather than a chord, and that’s why normally it’s just written as alt, and it’s up to the musician to decide which or all the alterations used. But one thing we can agree is it won’t have a natural 9th or 5th.
I think "anything goes" in jazz is something people say but isn't right. In different styles and eras of jazz tgete are "rules" (by which I mean regularized ways of doing thing which if randomly violated will sound wrong to anyone versed in the style era).
I mention it because often when people come to jazz from a classical music tradition they see what looks people randomly violating the "rules" when the "violations" aren't random but are generated by a much more complex rules that have been internalized by people in the tradition but only written down by educators.
Pedro has accurately condensed western "classical" harmony into a nice summary. There are a few ways in which jazz departs from the classical harmony tradition. (Western classical music from the late nineteenth century on also departs from it in different ways)
Jazz has roots in both European diatonic traditions and non-European traditions. There are aspects of various African musical traditions. And, just as European composers stopped restricting themselves to the "rules" of diatonic harmony--so did the jazz tradition.
These departures are worth being aware. In jazz, one doesn't generally use different ascending and descending versions of melodic minor. The ascending version is generally used .
In jazz, one often finds the soloist using a different scale system than the backing harmony (true in blues-influenced rock, too) ... but not in random ways.
Jazz uses a lot of non-7 note scales including scales (like the blues scale) that will contain both the altered and non-altered version of a scale degree.
Suspended chords in jazz often don't resolve to the non-suspended form.
There are ghosts of the African roots in note-bending... particularly bending into notes that are not quite a minor or major third...which some say harkened to African traditions which didn't have the same intervals as European music and had a scale tone that was not the same as our thirds.
Jazz was and is an evolving tradition. The "rules" evolve. The harmony developed pretty radically between say 195x and 1964 or so (and didn't stop). At some points those developments were intentional in establishing norms and aesthetics in rejection of the European tradition.
It is ridiculously hard to play jazz well because anything doesn't go.
Wow, there is a lot to unpack above. Not sure I should even try to understand these posts. Some of that stuff about resolving chords and notes, I'm not even going to ask questions about that. Maybe next year.
Beautifully executed summary of jazz harmony.
I also have been sitting on some thoughts and want to contribute this.
Chords are made from intervals of notes. And understanding the power of the 12 intervals
available in a single octave can be helpful to understand the colors of Major, Minor, etc.
First consider the resonant frequencies of a string or column of air. I'll use the overtone number and an example pitch.
Overtone - Note
1 - C2
2 - C3 (octave 2:1 frequency relationship) very little color
3 - G3 (fifth 2:3 frequency relationship) just a touch of extra color (POWER 5TH).
4 - C4 (fourth 3:4 frequency relationship) adding a 4th to an octave + 5th (POWER CHORDS)
5 - E4 (Major 3rd 4:5) Nice happy color added to that root C - later we'll add 3rds everywhere
6 - G4 (Minor 3rd 5:6) if that E4 is a root we get the sadder coloring of the minor 3rd but with a C + E + G combination its a happy major triad.
7 - Bb4 (another slightly more minor 3rd 6:7) add it to the major train and we have the dominant 7th sound with the 3rd and 7th creating the tension we want to see resolve to the major train down a 5th... F major in this case.
8 - C5
9 - D5
10 - E5
Now inversions of these intervals are power full:
M 5th inverts to M 4th - keeping a similar coloring 2:3 inverts to 3:4
M 3rd inverts to minor 6th - 4:5 inverts to 3:5 (the 3rd overtone has a min 6th relationship to the 5th overtone) M3rd and m6th are that happiest intervals available in the paint box.
m 3rd inverts to Major 6th - 5:6 inverts to a 6:10
2nds invert to 7ths and conversely. tension intervals
3rds to 6ths and conversely. pleasant colors
4ths to 5ths and conversely. power textures.
TRITONEs invert to TRITONES. Unstabile intervals that scream Bebop.
That Dominant 7th # 9 shape of 3rd+7th+#9 is also mirrored as
a 7th + 3rd + 13th (i.e. 6th) due to the ambiguity of the tritone inverting
as itself. The bass notes for the Dom 7th # 9 and Dominant 7th + 13 (or 6th)
are also a tritone apart:
E + Bb + Eb over a C bass is a Dom 7th # 9
E + Bb + Eb over a F# bass is a Dominant 7th + 13 (or 6th)
So, most jazz chords are often a stack of 3rds:
1 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 9 - 11 - 13 - (15 is the double octave)
M - m = major triad
m - M = minor triad
M - M = Augmented
m - m = diminished
4 notes:
M - m - m = Dominant 7th
M - m - M = Major 7th
m - M - m = Minor 7th
m - M - M - Minor with Major 7th
5 notes (pretty standard to drop out root or 5th and let the bass player ground the tonality)
M - m - m - M = Dominant 9th
m - M - m - M = minor 9th
m - m - m (- m this one is the octave) = diminished 7th
...
there are more involving the 11th and 13th.
HOW CAN THE HUMAN MIND THINK OF THESE NOTE CHOICES TO MAKE CHORDS FAST?
Keyboard and string players learn chord shapes and don't do the M and m interval analysis.
They memorize shapes for chord types. After there's a huge amount of time learning the
keyboard and fretboard a musician can start to really dig into the most effective combinations of shape that minimize NOTE movements between chords. Composers have traditionally considered these chord progressions as "voice leading" so each singer has a part that is very singable like a melody without large interval jumps between chords.
Pianists and guitar players learn idiomatic "shape" movements that provide elegant voice leading. Watch a great jazz guitar or keyboard player and you'll often see very small movements of the fingers as the closest notes are chosen to navigate the progression.
But what's always at work are the mathematical interactions between the chosen notes creating complex frequency relationships... which most people consider colors or moods.
I'm a huge fan of:
9ths... you can even get away with ending a melody on a 9th to sound modern.
suspended 4ths or even stacked 4ths to generate an ambient world without strong tension and release patterns.
plagal cadences (the country blues sound of "Amen") rather than dominant cadences.
Robin Ford made a conscious decision to NOT play Major 7ths in his music because the color is too slick and jazzy. He prefers the darker colors of the blues. Dr. John says anyone that uses major 7ths on a blues tune should be shot.
One final point:
Major 6th chords are major triads with the Major 6th added for even more "happy color".
It's so happy it sounds like the most ebullient dixieland jazz. What the modern jazz musicians
called "moldy fig"... music so sweet it rots your teeth. There's a ton of pop music that mines the Major 6th catalog to add extra sugar.
If your serious about playing with jazz players start learning the shapes and apply them to
the famous progressions.
If you want to extend the vocabulary of jazz... use you ear to discover new colors and how to apply them with the traditional color options. In this sense a lot of what Eddie Van Halen did
on the guitar qualifies as a new genre of jazz... and Alan Holdsworth went farther in that direction than anyone I can think of.
There are some classic shape transitions in the music of @linearlineman but in general he seems to try hard to avoid these cliches but sometimes he likes those segments of traditional colors. I think he trained his minds to avoid cliched progressions and shape movements.
It’s all in the shapes. Especially if you’re lazy.... like me.
Lots of jazz knowledge here. Don’t forget Louis Armstrong. He’s the Diddy of it all.
There are some real gems of jazz info on this thread - thanks everyone!
(Especially Governor Silver, that voice-leading video is a gem, and the truefire.com site is excellent - and costing me money as they are having a sale right now...).
I’ve been teaching myself jazz over the last couple of years, having joined a jazz-ska band a couple of years ago.
To help give back to this font of useful information, I want to mention the single best site I’ve found for self-teaching jazz (for piano).
https://www.thejazzpianosite.com/jazz-piano-lessons/
The site is completely free, extremely well organized, and has video demonstrations of every concept.
(It is so good I actually sent the author money last year, which, as a cheapskate, is a very hard thing for me to do!).
Seriously, I recommend anyone trying to learn jazz on their own check out this guys site - definitely helped clarify some concepts.
The best thing is it starts simple and can get as complicated as you like. It’s also a great resource to look some term or concept up that you hear referenced but don’t know what is meant.
He also has a lot of instructional videos on YouTube called “Walk that Bass”.
Again, the parent website is:
https://www.thejazzpianosite.com/jazz-piano-lessons/
Great site... everything is free. I wander in and picked up a few gems in no time.
The description of "Monk Chords" makes me realize I've been overthinking a lot of bebop
comping. If I had ever done the work of transcribing from records. I might have got to this place the way most great players do.
Transcribing really helps mark the connection from sound to production.
Oh yes, that site is excellent! I stumbled across some articles over there while discussing theory with other guitarists, and fact-checking myself. I think this was one of the first articles I found there.
https://www.thejazzpianosite.com/jazz-piano-lessons/modern-jazz-theory/tonal-harmony-vs-modal-harmony/
The article covers this topic so clearly and succinctly, compared to what i found elsewhere on the web. It sums up why Fareed Haque chose to teach bebop improvisation and modal improvisation as separate courses, with separate methods.
I think I've found a good metric for my ear for jazz. When Pat Metheny stops sounding like a crazy person with fretboard precision I'm getting somewhere.
Pat Metheny was my favorite jazz guitarist at one time.
These days, I can dig Bill Frisell, Wes Montgomery, Wayne Krantz, Joe Diorio, Nels Cline, and others, depending on what I feel like listening to. And that's just the guitarists. I listen to horn players and pianists just as often, if not more.
Among guitarists, Charlie Christian is my gold standard for soloing with swing feel. Dude just swings so hard, and on point.