"The Rules"

[MathOfInsects]

Last night, two of the guys in the wedding band I played in were having a conversation over our band meal. Part of it was about guitarists and the tendency (opportunity?) to play decent-sounding stuff pretty quickly if you've learned certain patterns. That segued into a discussion on the pentatonic scale in general, and how it's "all anyone's playing these days." 

 

Sidenote, I just want to say that funny enough, after years of only nodding at the major pentatonic scale as a too "predictable" soundset, I have definitely personally leaned much heavier on it in recent years. I just can't ignore how good it sounds and how much music has moments that really seem to ask for it. It's obviously not the only thing I play, but I hadn't realized until that conversation that this might be sort of a broader zeitgeist shift. 

Anyway: I think one guy meant the comment as, maybe it's keeping people from venturing beyond it, and he hoped to hear people finding what else is available for them. But then the other one said, "I mean, yeah, it sounds great, but sorry, you have to follow the same rules the rest of us had to follow." (This was verbatim, I wrote it down on my phone like a creepy sneak.)

Wrapped up in that statement are two sides of a discussion that happens here on the board a lot. One faction is the "If it sounds good, play it" camp, and the other is, "There is a correct and incorrect way to tackle that [sound/patch/run/chord/technique/solo]" camp.

I personally am rabidly against the casting of music as a competitive sport. The ultimate arbiter (for me) is sound in air. So my head went to, "What part of 'it sounds great' isn't good enough? Why should someone have to do what someone else did, to be worth listening to?"

However, there is also a pretty widespread culture in music of cutting and competing--the "can you hang" initiation--and we as humans all have moments where yeah, we are going to let you know what we could do if we decided to.

 

What are you thoughts on this? If you could make (say) a pentatonic sound great all day long, and it's what lets you play most like you, should you care what rules others "had to follow"? Or flip side, do you consider finding a singular voice or expression that sounds good "cheating" and want to see someone demonstrate more respect or reverie for "the rules"?

 

[Baldwin Funster]

My 2 rules.

1. Always break the rules.

2. Always break rule 1.

 

What sounds good to me, the pentatonic plus the Barry Harris 6th. 

And some chromatic leading tones.

So that's pretty much all 11 tones at certain times.

[GovernorSilver]

I've had lessons with teachers on piano, guitar, and viola.

 

None of them mentioned rules for soloing, funnily enough.   Options, yes. But not rules.

[KuruPrionz]

You mention guitarists early on so I will chime in on this.

After a long break, last night I sat in on guitar for a birthday celebration at a local club with an outdoor stage for summer. 

It was a fun gig, we played a variety of simple popular music. I was a sideman, no microphone. 

 

There is much that can be done with simple pentatonic scales. I played a variety of scale inversions, double and triple stops with bends on some but not all notes, zoomed around on the relevant chord shapes (for the scales, not for the song) quickly bounced from way down low to way up high and back again. There are some passing notes that can and should be used and some profoundly annoying dissonant notes that provides me with no end of amusement since I tend to pop them in here and there and quickly go back to something more "normal".

 

Tension and release, use silence in unusual ways, those are other fun tricks I like to play. I NEVER copy a solo note by note, somebody's already played that, why play it again?

[Al Quinn]

There are no rules, just notes. If it sounds good it is good.
 

The major pentatonic scale is beautiful. Chuck Leavell got a lot out of it on his Jessica solo.

[JamPro]

We've had - what? - 70 years of pop guitarists playing pentatonic scales in recorded pop music.  The pentatonic scale has become a "pop thing": if you want to play and sound like your pop heros, you play the pentatonic scale and you follow the rules.

 

No less true: anything you do repeatedly over a long period of time will become boring.  So some will explore and some will rebel, and new scales and sounds will appear.

 

I play the pentatonic scale when I want to sound that way.  But the pentatonic sound is not what makes me sound like me; for that I need other notes, other scales.

[o0Ampy0o]

The blues should always bore everyone because it has been around and repeated long enough. I don't know of a category term but in my words "melodic from the heart" anything is always appealing to me. Some people bore me to death like that cartoon of a skeleton remaining of a caller placed on hold. Doesn't matter what they play. Some people always appeal to me because they play with heart not ego. You can choose melodic mechanically using the mind and muscle memory but the heart chooses for itself. (It's a metaphor for something I cannot articulate).

 

 

[timwat]

1 hour ago, MathOfInsects said:

What are you thoughts on this? If you could make (say) a pentatonic sound great all day long, and it's what lets you play most like you, should you care what rules others "had to follow"? Or flip side, do you consider finding a singular voice or expression that sounds good "cheating" and want to see someone demonstrate more respect or reverie for "the rules"?

I'm missing something in interpreting that other guy's suggestion, probably my fault. What was he (and therefore for the sake of argument here, we) suggesting are the rules that everyone had to follow? 

 

Playing primarily penta (or, by extension, playing "inside" or "safe" or "what everyone typically plays") or....?

[analogika]

„Great“ is better than „right“, any day of the week. 
 

There are no rules. Just options. 
 

Anybody who still speaks of „rules“ in music in the 21st century has completely missed the point of the past 150 years. 

[Docbop]

I would say the only Rule for those that believe in Rule is a pentatonic only has five notes. 

 

now being most my life I played guitar and bass and like most starting in the 60's I came up playing and listening to TONS of Blues.  And it was a excellent education especially on bass.   As a guitarist coming up on Blues and Rock like Pavlov's dog you say pentatonic and all we knew was Minor Pentatonic.   Then there was a Blues scale that snuck in an extra note.  That continued even as I got into Jazz Rock/Fusion.  Life was (minor) Pent or some scale or mode.        

 

Then hanging up the Rock shoes and going full on Jazzbo there is the Jerry Bergonzi world of Pentatonic and how it can be ANY five notes.  He has a whole book of possible pentatonics and I think a instruction video too demonstration using them.   

 

Now that I'm Jurassic in age and trying to learn piano I start hearing about Pentatonic again but it not what I expect it all Major Pentatonics.   They talk Blues scale and "Secret Blues Scale" too.   So when hearing piano players talk pentatonic I have to remind myself they are talking Major Pentatonic.    See at as a guitar player Major Pentatonic was that thing Country players do, just move the Minor Pent down a minor 3rd and you got that Major Pent to play Allman Brothers tunes with.

 

So interesting world of Pentatonic especially if you take a detour through Bergonzi land, but there is a lot of be had in Pent land especially listening to Chick or McCoy, 

[miden]

Never learned any other scales than major and minor - never bothered with "modes" - I simple play what sounds good and what I like. I have never practiced a solo, ever...it's always what I am feeling on the day! Which I must admit, on some days (to others I guess) means it could be pretty boring hahaha!

[D. Gauss]

 play the melody to the song and you'll never go wrong...

[jazzpiano88]

One pentatonic solo line I sometimes play is a quote of Greg Phillinganes' quote of the Kinks melody on "You Really Got Me" on his piano solo on Donald Fagan's "Ruby Baby".

 

I tend to keep that at a minimum, however, just in case Pat Metheny could be in the room and "Wrap his guitar around my head" for his threat as a Jazz Police vigilante.

[MathOfInsects]

3 hours ago, timwat said:

I'm missing something in interpreting that other guy's suggestion, probably my fault. What was he (and therefore for the sake of argument here, we) suggesting are the rules that everyone had to follow? 

 

Playing primarily penta (or, by extension, playing "inside" or "safe" or "what everyone typically plays") or....?

They are both (very good) jazzers. One is also a college professor, and was shading his view more along the lines of wanting people to acquire additional knowledge instead of being seduced by sounding good (to themselves). The other is also a middle school band director and was explaining that, whether you can sound great doing that one thing or not, there is an educational gauntlet to pass through and doing so is a rite of passage.

[El Lobo]

6 hours ago, Jr. Deluxe said:

What sounds good to me, the pentatonic plus the Barry Harris 6th. 

And some chromatic leading tones.

So that's pretty much all 11 tones at certain times.

This. I always say I use the chromatic scale in all my playing. In truth, it's really more like 11 tones, not 12. But I might use that 12th note as a passing run up to something else. I like the 6th ... also the 2nd/9th ... chromatic movement up through passing tones ... the dominant 7 ... the major 7 ... and all the other notes. Music is fun. The notes are fun. Play all the notes.

[Tom Williams]

Don't limit it to the major pentatonic. 

 

When I last practiced with my new band (on hiatus since I fell off the balcony), they said "Let's learn Sledge Hammer in 'the original key'," Eb Minor.  Uh, okay.  Not my favorite key.

 

Then while jamming on it (my first attempt ever) they said "Wow, you really nailed the shakuhachi (sp?) solo in the middle." 

 

I explained to them that the solo played itself.  Start on an arbitrary black key.  Wipe up to an Ab, then down an octave and a half to Eb.  Instant Solo!

 

Now I wonder if that's how it was composed.

[brenner13]

[Baldwin Funster]

1 hour ago, Tom Williams said:

Don't limit it to the major pentatonic. 

 

When I last practiced with my new band (on hiatus since I fell off the balcony), they said "Let's learn Sledge Hammer in 'the original key'," Eb Minor.  Uh, okay.  Not my favorite key.

 

Then while jamming on it (my first attempt ever) they said "Wow, you really nailed the shakuhachi (sp?) solo in the middle." 

 

I explained to them that the solo played itself.  Start on an arbitrary black key.  Wipe up to an Ab, then down an octave and a half to Eb.  Instant Solo!

 

Now I wonder if that's how it was composed.

There are some things that are so easy on the keyboard that they could have been written by falling down on it. I figure they probably were.

[TommyRude]

8 hours ago, Jr. Deluxe said:

My 2 rules.

1. Always break the rules.

2. Always break rule 1.

I am very confused by this.  Following Rule #2, does that mean reverse course and follow the rules you just broke, only to turn around and break them all over again?  It seems to result in an endless loop of contradictions?  It seems like the Star Trek paradox episode where matter meets anti-matter.

[Baldwin Funster]

2 hours ago, TommyRude said:

I am very confused by this.  Following Rule #2, does that mean reverse course and follow the rules you just broke, only to turn around and break them all over again?  It seems to result in an endless loop of contradictions?  It seems like the Star Trek paradox episode where matter meets anti-matter.

Thank you for taking my foolishness seriously.

I guess the rules could be:

Always break the rules but

Never break the rules. 

 

But I prefer:

If you learn the rules, you can break them and it will sound good.

Except when I doesn't. 

[Iconoclast]

I'm also a guitar player. Some of the guitar solos that I have absolutely loved over the years are by Billy Gibbons and David Gilmour.  When it came time to learn them I was absolutely shocked by how pentatonic they are.  Scale-wise, they are not ambitious at all.

But what I learned by playing their solos is that the scale is but one small part of the solo.  Billy Gibbons almost seems to favor rhythm over scale. David Gilmour is the master of getting that bend just into the right place and then making it soak into the song, but he can also be funky an make the hook of a riff stick with you.

I think as keyboard players, including myself when playing keyboards, think too much about scale and note choices, when there are so many other factors to a solo besides the scale or mode.

So to tie it back to the OP. Yes! absolutely! If it sounds good it's never wrong.  The scale or mode alone is never what is making that phrase sound the way it is. It is also the rhythm and an any other subtleties that you can attach to it, and the context that it lays over, and where it leads to the next context.

I feel like I wrote that way better than I actually solo...but I stand behind it.

[analogika]

5 hours ago, Tom Williams said:

Don't limit it to the major pentatonic. 

 

When I last practiced with my new band (on hiatus since I fell off the balcony), they said "Let's learn Sledge Hammer in 'the original key'," Eb Minor.  Uh, okay.  Not my favorite key.

 

Then while jamming on it (my first attempt ever) they said "Wow, you really nailed the shakuhachi (sp?) solo in the middle." 

 

I explained to them that the solo played itself.  Start on an arbitrary black key.  Wipe up to an Ab, then down an octave and a half to Eb.  Instant Solo!

 

Now I wonder if that's how it was composed.

Eb minor is by far the best key signature of them all for keyboard players, for precisely this reason. 
 

The minor pentatonic scale is all the black keys. You can arbitrarily slap any of the black keys, and they will all sound good. 

[Tusker]

I use pentatonics. Especially on fast tunes. They are easy and they sound great don't they? But I try not to overuse them because they can be superficial.

 

Some expressions ("lovely day isn't it?") sound great but they are superficial.

Other expressions ("I am sorry I hurt you") can be harder to say but they go deeper into a relationship.

 

We can say the former ("lovely day") to anyone. The latter ("I am sorry") acknowledges some sort of relationship. There is more opportunity for tension. There is more opportunity for release.

 

Any pattern which works regardless of harmony has a superficial relationship to the harmony. There is nothing wrong with such patterns. But other ideas will give us an increased ability to create tension and release by exploiting harmonic relationships. It's not about rules. It's about choosing your style and the moment you want to create.

 

Pat Metheny has an opinion on this topic. Pentatonics are mentioned at 2.40. The next minute and a half is a masterclass.

 

 

 

[CowboyNQ]

I’m not at all sophisticated in my approach.  To me, if it sounds good, it is good.  In my world of music, the end 100% justifies the means.  Therefore I love pentatonic scales.

 

I think I’m biased by the fact I ONLY play live.  30+ years of playing in front of all kinds of audiences has taught me that the only listeners who are vexed by the question of “how” are other musicians.

 

I’m 100% aligned with your oft-quoted (and oft-stolen by me) aphorism that “music is not an Olympic sport”, @MathOfInsects. 

[Adan]

If there's one kind of gig where you should be able to drown in pentatonics and not feel anxiety about it, it would be a wedding.  

 

My other thought, which is purely a personal perspective, is that I deal with rules constantly in the rest of my life -- playing music is supposed to be my escape from that.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

Derek Trucks is my favorite guitar player. Anyone who is familiar with his long career will know that he is extremely schooled in jazz and Indian classical music in addition to his roots as a blues-rock-gospel slide guitarist. But I had a guitar playing friend say to me once that he found Derek Trucks' playing to be too "predictable," because he does tend to go back to a stable of licks and melodic patterns, particularly when he's playing slide.

 

The thing is, as much as I love when Trucks shreds and goes "out" -- as adventurous and capable a musician as he is -- the reason he's my *favorite* guitar player is that he can make me cry with three notes. And if you can touch me emotionally through your instrument, I truly don't care whether it was with a bebop run or a simple pentatonic melody. If Derek Trucks (or Chuck Leavell, or Pat Metheny, or any of the other players mentioned in this thread) isn't too good for that , neither am I.

 

And Lord knows, I have ripped off the Jessica solo enough to understand that just because a player bases a part or solo around a simple scale, doesn't mean that it's easy to be thoughtful and inventive with those notes. That's where the musicianship comes in, not in the complexity or chops required to execute it, but how those tools are applied to create a response, whether that's smiling, dancing, singing along, or crying.

[stoken6]

2 hours ago, Tusker said:

Pat Metheny has an opinion on this topic. Pentatonics are mentioned at 2.40. The next minute and a half is a masterclass.

Thanks for posting. Pat articulates in a few seconds what I've been struggling to express - "show me" the chord. That means recognising that a chord has changed.

 

The usual "minor pentatonic of I over all the chords" is the antithesis of that.

 

React to the chord changes, anticipate them, flow with them (pentatonics are allowed to do that by the way) - so much more interesting. Simple example (deliberately avoiding "Jazz" repertoire): Sultans of Swing, 1:37 https://youtu.be/cF3OWCYLLVQ?t=97. The lick is over A7, and picks out C# and B - neither of which are in Dm pentatonic. I've been shown a chord.

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

 

[GovernorSilver]

12 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

They are both (very good) jazzers. One is also a college professor, and was shading his view more along the lines of wanting people to acquire additional knowledge instead of being seduced by sounding good (to themselves). The other is also a middle school band director and was explaining that, whether you can sound great doing that one thing or not, there is an educational gauntlet to pass through and doing so is a rite of passage.

 

One of my teachers taught a couple of music courses I took in university - an "intro to music making" course which turned out to be quite avant-garde, leading more than half the students to drop, and a jazz improvisation course.  He tolerated my visits to his office to discuss a variety of topics but never talking above being run through a gauntlet or being put through a rite of passage.   Perhaps I didn't as the right questions to uncover that chapter of his life.  Maybe he went through multiple rites of passage.   He never did mention a "must play more than major or minor pentatonic" rule to me.  During the jazz improv class, he did impose restrictions on specific individuals to help them out of their individual boxes.  One example was a guitarist he called "Triplet King".   He said "You're the Triplet King because your solos are nothing but triplets".  So he told the Triplet King "You cannot use any triplets in your solos".    

 

One time he told me to listen to Blind Lemon Jefferson.  A kid like me who wanted to play jazz was confused by that.  Blind Lemon was just some blues guy from the olden times right?   Forget that old blues, I wanna rip through Giant Steps!  I got understood what my teacher was saying later... much, much later.

 

Just goes to show how different jazz teachers think differently.

[timwat]

I've had two primary teachers when I learned a little about jazz. Both were fantastic, and good matches for how I learn and how they taught.

 

Neither was stuck in a set of unchangeable rules, or an organized set of patterns ("only use this mode with this chord") that could not be bent or broken. Both taught (and demonstrated in their own playing) the power of how music makes one feel - and, as one put it, "our solos are where we work out all our demons" LOL

 

And yet teachers use examples, process, and repeatable methods to teach and demonstrate concepts in bite-sized chunks. These two guys were marvelous at teaching in such a way that my pea brain could slowly put concepts and principles into repeated practice. That's how teaching is done. Maybe that's what the 2nd guy in Josh's anecdote is talking about.

 

If you want to mistakenly label them "rules" - in my mind, they're guidelines, and once you get under your fingers how that guideline sounds, then you get to decide when to use it.

 

Even with regards to using negative space, a lot of us agree that, "you spend the first 10 years learning what to play, and the second 10 learning what not to play". Maybe that too has something to do about the "rules" in the original story.

 

It helps me to remember that even an artist with a pencil and paper can create something that makes me feel. And when you have more colors and techniques at your command (like having a full palette of oils or watercolors instead of just one pencil)...

 

Here's examples of writing and playing from my two past teachers:

 

 

 

[HammondDave]

4 hours ago, Tusker said:

I use pentatonics. Especially on fast tunes. They are easy and they sound great don't they? But I try not to overuse them because they can be superficial.

 

Some expressions ("lovely day isn't it?") sound great but they are superficial.

Other expressions ("I am sorry I hurt you") can be harder to say but they go deeper into a relationship.

 

We can say the former ("lovely day") to anyone. The latter ("I am sorry") acknowledges some sort of relationship. There is more opportunity for tension. There is more opportunity for release.

 

Any pattern which works regardless of harmony has a superficial relationship to the harmony. There is nothing wrong with such patterns. But other ideas will give us an increased ability to create tension and release by exploiting harmonic relationships. It's not about rules. It's about choosing your style and the moment you want to create.

 

Pat Metheny has an opinion on this topic. Pentatonics are mentioned at 2.40. The next minute and a half is a masterclass.

 

 

It really is not difficult.  Thanks Pat.