Jazz Guitar Lessons featuring topics such as playing standards, chord melody, improvisational concepts and transcriptions of both guitar and non-guitar influential jazz artists.
Great analysis, which explains Miles' playing style very clearly for me, thank you very much. One small note: there is an (insignificant) error in bar 30, can anyone find it?
There really aren't any strictly "Dorian" fingerings and every church mode can be achieved using a major scale pattern by choosing different tones to emphasize.
Very bad advice! What you are saying goes against what every great jazz player will tell you! I have taught at various great jazz schools and this is exactly the mindset they teach you to avoid when improvising over changes (especially non-diatonic): When playing over changes do NOT rely on thinking over the major scale of the key center. In other words, when you play over a II-V-I , even if they are all diatonically related, you do not play thinking over the I maj for all 3 chords. To imply the changes, your thinking & playing needs to be centered around the arpeggio and upper extensions generated by each mode which in turn requires you to focus on its root and current fingering. Otherwise you are playing by ear and not hitting the proper guide tones and extensions. Voice leading between all the changes also goes out the window!
For D Dorian use any fingerings of C major while avoiding any emphasis on a B/F interval which would imply a G7 and destroy the idea that D is the pitch axis and lead the ear to C major.
You will never sound like a jazz player with that mind set. You are destroying the whole concept of being aware of what it means to play over changes and be aware of the intervals and guide tones you are playing in relationship to each dorian related chord.
@RichieZellon I've played jazz professionally over 3 continents for most of my adult life. Including harmonic data in improvised lines is a given. If I consider a tune written as Dorian like "So What" there's not much chord motion to deal with and so a good understanding of the "hierarchy" of all the chromatic tones is most important.
@@ThomasGilmore-fi6gb So if you're thinking over the key center's major scale when playing over a given set of changes, how are you aware of the guide tones and extensions you are targeting in relation to the actual chord you are playing over? What if the changes are not all diatonic to each other? It sounds like you developed a good ear and your own understanding of getting through the changes, but I still think it is very bad advice for those who are learning to play over changes. Chet Baker didn't have any idea of the changes, but had a tremendous ear and relied on it to get brilliantly through any jazz standard. But he was among the rare exceptions. That said, I would be very curious to hear how you do it. No offense. Even though your approach might not work for the great majority, you might be a great player! Do you have any videos on RU-vid you would be willing to share?
@RichieZellon Who said anything about thinking about major scales while improvising. Did you skip my last comment? My initial point was that it's not really necessary to imagine different specific fingerings for each of the modes since they all overlap. I see all of the major scales over the entire board. The notes that choose would always be influenced by the chords (ref. my last comment).
I think 'Round Midnight is my favorite of his tunes, and one of my all time favorites as well. Although I tend to go for Kenny Burrell's version, as I am a guitar player after all lol
I absolutely love this, thank you!!! I've always been drawn to more sophisticated (and often ambiguous) harmonic tensions, and Monk was certainly important in that realm. Along those lines, Ornette Coleman's 'harmolodics' always seemed a perfectly logical extension of Monk's approach to harmonic movement. Anyway, great stuff, cheers!
I sure did learn something! I’ve never heard of a m21 chord!! I’ve played it before as a “color,” but did not know the various possible applications. I don’t think I (or, especially a typical audience) could listen to it for an evening’s worth, but, it’s a cool way to tweak the ear if used sparingly. Great lesson, Richie!👏😁
I randomly bought a more recent Monk record in downtown Seattle when I was 15. It was Criss-Cross. I remember the record store owner being surprised as this was the time of Nirvana and grunge. I admit it was foreign to me the first listens. Eventually it started clicking and got me into Jazz.
Very hip lesson! Thank you. I just wanted to observe that all of these chords can be derived from the Barry Harris scales. You could call them "borrowed chords", but usually the guitarists I see talking about them (Chris Parks - "TILF Barry Harris", and Thomas Echols - "Labyrinth of Limitations") usually talk about 4 part harmony. It's cool seeing a jazz guy who has been around a while playing fully voiced piano-like extended chords. I really recommend both of those guys' channels as well if you haven't seen them, Richie. Min7add21, Maj7b13, and Majb6 could all be derived from the Major 6th Diminished Scale. The 7#11(no 3rd) I would say is from the Dominant Flat Five Diminished Scale. Cheers!
This is really great and quite thought provoking. I recently released a harmonica-adapted collection of Monk tunes called “HarmoniMonk,” and am looking for new dimensions of Monk’s oeuvre to explore for the next volume. I am headed out to your site to purchase the study guides. I’m sure it will be inspirational.
I think part of Monk's harmonic progresssions had to do with contrary motion between parts and that's how some of those dissonances were arrived at. Therefore I don't find it useful just to consider one chord by itself. It was usually part of a progression and sounded better in that context.
I think you misunderstood me. I don't recall having said that as a general statement but instead to explain what was going on in given examples. From the moment I mention contrary motion, I have to be talking about the harmonic context between at least 2 chords, not just one chord like you mention. This is voice leading! That said, you can arrive at a dissonance with any form of voice leading..contrary, parallel,etc. I personally enjoy and find the ones using contrary motion the most interesting and especially unique in Monk's case!
I was kid entering college, listening to heavy metal, hardcore punk, & hip hop. Walked into the library one day and found a Monk bio. Remembered my dad playing Monk around the house (and a ref in a Simpsons ep). Brought that book home, downloaded some mp3s (Limewire era), and read it every day on bus rides w/ a shabby curated bunch of tracks on a cd as the soundtrack. Changed my ears and my life
Thanks ! This is very interesting, I understand the concept and its application in the first oart of the video, but honestly from 8:0 I don't catch anything (the sound is fine) and what is written doesn't help me. What are you doing there ?
I’m a long time guitarist and continue to strive to improve after five plus decades of playing I’m feeling drawn to these beautiful tones . I’ve played by ear all my life and I’m studying theory now and really enjoying and improving. Thank you for your video. I’m glad I could find you
Superb. I am one of those "classical " composers to whom ypu were alluding. What's interesting is the number of embedded "resolutions". I am a beginner on jazz guitar.
Heck yea! Monk is the master of sounds. Was very happy to see this on my feed. I've been use F*a in bass/C# for A7, which I stole from him, and now I have some more to work on :)
It's a fascinating presentation and insight into Monkist thinking, Richie but these sort of extra tensions beyond the second octave are currently a little too adult for my ear and palate. I'll keep trying though...I'm currently taking (and enjoying) a Monk ensemble class but we're limiting our arrangements to more conventional functional harmony.
I understand and it's perfectly OK for your ear to reject it. It took me years to get into them. Still maybe someday I'll run into you at Monkoholics Anonymous and we'll discuss adult chords! 😄
screw the over-theoretic approach; there are only 12 tones to choose from. Choose your chord tones out of the 12 available and forget modes. Study Schillinger and get on the right track. Modes are mental masturbation. Lydian? Sharp the 11 and get on with it. Modes are a waste of time.
G. Russell also taught to think about dominant to tonic as tonal gravity moving upward (ex. F Lydian contains the G mixolydian (G7), so G7 to C is actually F lydian expressing upward Tonal Gravity to C Lydian.) For George, there were a limited number of Scales (Lydian, Lydian Dominant, Lydian Diminished, Lydian Augmented, Symmetrical Diminished, Augmented, and Blues scale (which, if memory serves, was considered a Horizontal Tonal Gravity Scale. So, once you were conversant in the different scales you could freely and effectively access any of them over the matching chord. (ex. any of the previously mentioned scales in F could be employed as melodic source material over a G7 chord) The ultimate goal was to access the complete Lydian Chromatic Scale in one's improvisation (and composition) -- essentially having access to utilizing all 12 pitches over any scale because you would understand the tonal gravity of that pitch and/or scale.
Light or heavy gauge? The difference in not the thinner or thicker sound but the attack and decay. This can be measured with the waveform analyser on most digital recording DAW. The thick string will have a higher output giving it more attack and a relatively faster decay from the peak, the thin string, lower output, less attack and a longer relative decay. The string gauge should be chosen to best suit that guitar. With the action sorted and the pickups adjusted, 15s become playable but then 12s can be made to sound like 14s. If you want a short thud then heavies, if you want more sustain then lighter. Likewise most jazzbox want flats but some sound best with round wound. We have to experiment. The bridge saddle material can have a big affect on this. Beginners will find heavy strings a nightmare, out of the shop the action is always far to high. If you cannot sort the action yourself, and it is a skilled job, then the full set up is a moderately expensive job for the luthier.
Pickups - if you put the world's best pickups into a poor guitar, you still have a poor guitar. The pickup is a microphone, there are good and poor pickups but they won't make the wood sound any better. Been there, changed pickups, same sound. My Epi Emp-ii came with faulty pickups. The plate that the pole screws go into were drilled out, no thread and the pole screws only held there by the wax potting. The investigation destroyed the pickups. They were replaced by very similar Tonerider HB. At the same time I re-wired as I very much prefer linear volume pots for fine control, replaced with full size pots throughout, 500K linear on vols, TBX tone on bridge, conventional tone for the neck. The TBX lets the bridge PU go rockabilly, below "5" it becomes conventional. The spruce table took nearly two years to break in but now sounds great, I cannot remember when I bought it, over 10 years ago, maybe 15yo (from the s/n made 2008). The rosewood saddle had to be intonated with files and a bone nut of my own fashioning. Real bone can usually be filed more precisely than composite. The frets levelled and crowned. The action is now almost, " below the frets". The thick spruce top does let me play it with a rock band without the traditional banshee howling. Where it serves well for pumping the rhythm and a few widdly bits. As well as attempting to play jazz.
