Docbop Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 What's the old saying.... Opinions are like assh0les everybody has one, I think they should add chord analysis to that too. I remember when hanging out with that old Jazz sax player and he'd talk about the greats. He said people would get mad because they'd ask a music question then the greats would just play an answer, they didn't talk theory. He said they felt there were lots of different schools of thought on music, so if they play you an answer you can view it from whatever musical POV you wanted. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfD Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 7 hours ago, elsongs said: Trivia: On Jay Leno's first night of hosting 'The Tonight Show,' on May 25, 1992, this song was the first musical number as Shanice was the first musical guest - and rightfully so, as Leno's bandleader at the time was jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis - who also played the sax solo on this recording (he played on Shanice's musical performance of course). Remember like it was yesterday. Time flies.😎 Quote PD "The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerrythek Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 On 7/28/2024 at 2:08 PM, CyberGene said: It’s a borrowed chord but I think the best term is actually “modal interchange” as they call it in jazz. Which means that you can borrow a chord not just from the parallel minor/major on the same root, but actually from any mode on the same root. In this case the Lydian. Here’s the Eb Lydian: Eb F G A Bb C D Same as G minor scale. And guess what? We have a Gm chord before that Dm chord. So, we used Eb Lydian from which we borrowed the Gm and Dm chords. A perfect example of how jazz teaching analyzes things and makes them... complicated. I don't think any composer is thinking, "what mode could I borrow a harmony from?" I happen to think the Dm7 comes easily from some simple voice-leading to get to the Fm7, but the way I often reharmonize is to just pick a root, and then try chord types/possibilities on it. I don't think "where does this occur in a mode/scale", I just try out sounds. And even poly-chords. It's faster to me to run through possibilities than make it so complicated. but I get that this type of pedagogy can be an easy way to start a student to try to think... I just think it over complicates the world with more "rules". Maybe that's just me. (And Prof D!). But there's a lot of great discussion here, I applaud you all for your harmonic chops! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberGene Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 @jerrythek I don't disagree with you. And I don't think I've often (if ever) chosen chords through theory. I often find myself playing by intuition (which may also be called “sounds good to me”) and only afterwards figuring out what I played and why it worked. But since the author was not satisfied with "because it sounds good", I tried to explain it formally. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AROIOS Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 1 hour ago, jerrythek said: ...the way I often reharmonize is to just pick a root, and then try chord types/possibilities on it... 36 minutes ago, CyberGene said: ...I often find myself playing by intuition (which may also be called “sounds good to me”) and only afterwards figuring out what I played and why it worked... Same here, and I think that's how we approach writing harmony most of the time. Theories and licks are best used as "suggestions" rather than "rules". I find them very handy in generating ideas, but would never reject a tasty progression because it doesn't conform to existing frameworks. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reezekeys Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 1 hour ago, jerrythek said: A perfect example of how jazz teaching analyzes things and makes them... complicated. Can't help thinking that "jazz teaching" exists because there are so few "jazz playing" gigs! I'm with you on all this. TBH I wouldn't have a clue how to explain the "theory" behind anything I play. It comes from years of practicing and doing gigs, stumbling on what works and doesn't, what sounds good and doesn't. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfD Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 3 hours ago, jerrythek said: but I get that this type of pedagogy can be an easy way to start a student to try to think... I just think it over complicates the world with more "rules". Maybe that's just me. (And Prof D!). 1 hour ago, Reezekeys said: I'm with you on all this. TBH I wouldn't have a clue how to explain the "theory" behind anything I play. It comes from years of practicing and doing gigs, stumbling on what works and doesn't, what sounds good and doesn't. Great to read this and be in such company.😁 For musicians with a Jazz/Funk/R&B/Gospel background, the stuff being discussed here falls underneath our fingertips just like breathing air into our lungs.😎 4 Quote PD "The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberGene Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 Theory is for explaining things, not for creating them 🙂 We all speak our native languages without knowing the grammar. Nor does linguistics study make you a good writer. It's just some people are geeks and find fascination in theory. I do, and I'm a very sh1tty jazzman 😀 Finding fascination in abstraction and theoretical stuff is why I'm a software engineer, so not a huge loss for the world that I'm not a better jazzman 🤣 They are not in a huge demand anyway 😢 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reezekeys Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 I understand what you're saying. The only wrinkle, to me, is that "music theory" tries to explain a purely subjective endeavor - what "sounds good." In college, I took a class that studied the Bach four-part chorales. We learned some of the "theory" that led to the "rules" - e.g., no parallel fifths, things like that. Then we were taught how great Bach was because broke those rules so creatively! We were assigned to write our own chorales but were marked down for breaking any of the "rules"! Anyway, according to the ads I see on Facebook, who needs to know any theory anymore? 🙂 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MathOfInsects Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 3 hours ago, CyberGene said: Theory is for explaining things, not for creating them 🙂 We all speak our native languages without knowing the grammar. Not to pour nerd all over this, but in fact we speak our native languages precisely because we do know the grammar. The internalization of that grammar is what it means to speak a native language. Otherwise you would just pour words and sounds out in random order, with random inflection, and hope that some of them stuck. What we don't always know are labels or names we've given that grammar after the fact. Music theory is similar. We do know it, even the most curmudgeonly "just play music, college boy" types out there. We are using and calling on it every millisecond that we are playing. We are not just pouring sounds out in random order, at random pitches, even those in between our Western half steps. We are fundamentally deploying the "grammar" of our local musical traditions. What we're not doing is thinking of the names of these things in advance. We are using them to speak a native language, and others can use those names to figure out what's so great about how some of us might speak, later. 3 Quote Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material. www.joshweinstein.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Docbop Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 5 hours ago, CyberGene said: Theory is for explaining things, not for creating them 🙂 We all speak our native languages without knowing the grammar. Nor does linguistics study make you a good writer. It's just some people are geeks and find fascination in theory. I do, and I'm a very sh1tty jazzman 😀 Finding fascination in abstraction and theoretical stuff is why I'm a software engineer, so not a huge loss for the world that I'm not a better jazzman 🤣 They are not in a huge demand anyway 😢 I prefer to think if music theory as just labels for commonly used sounds. We name or label things so we can talk about them later but they are still sounds. To me the problem is people who want to think of things as rules or feel it necessary to have rules. When stuck working on some music do you grab a theory book, oh hell no you listen to some recordings of similar work to get ideas. It's all sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberGene Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 43 minutes ago, Docbop said: When stuck working on some music do you grab a theory book, oh hell no you listen to some recordings of similar work to get ideas. While I may not necessarily disagree with you regarding how I personally resolve creative block (although I usually just stop for a moment and do something completely different), that’s way too individual and I can easily imagine there are styles and musicians that benefit from reading theory. I actually got my best creative boost after reading The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine and used to often consult it and find an example that I could then elaborate to inspire me further. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AROIOS Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 5 hours ago, Reezekeys said: ..."music theory" tries to explain a purely subjective endeavor - what "sounds good."... I think you meant to say "not entirely objective". There's a huge gap in between. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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