Modal Harmony vid series

[fmr]

...but "modal major harmony with the third mode of the major scale, the minor seventh blah blah" is another matter. YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT SIMPLE MAJOR, complicated as all of this through SHEER BULLSHIT. All that sentence does is say (do E Phrygian over) "Em7". The bit in parentheses is USELESS NOISE to pollute yer brain.

^I want to be clear that the YOU'RE is for whoever spouted that sentence fmr quoted, I'm not attributing those sentences to you or anything.

It's here, in all it's (sad) glory: http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/getting- ... hords.html

[jancivil]

for years they told poor Hubert du Chateau, then Mark Levin done made matters worse insistin on that susb9.

it's a f**ked chord for guitar, to boot. besides which it's ugly on the face of it

[jancivil]

Regarding these ultra extensions... I agree with fmr pretty much, that full 13ths occurring frequently can be written as polychords, and for one thing it's easier to look at.
In this thread actually I had a Maj7 9 #11 and in that context (all linear w. this exception) I liked "i over bII".

I think if there's full tertial extension very frequently we become inured to it, and I think if the music is a tune with triads, seven-note chords would tend to make a great blur. So we get to vertical constructs for the sake of their sonorousness and color which as an approach in itself can be a whole different thing than triads supporting a tune.

Aside from that, I'd say that tastefulness often means, having this wonderful vertical vocabulary and subtracting, being selective with it, instead of ultimately a wash, the blur of color.

Per Russell, examining harmony (or the vertical canvas if you find 'harmony' imprecise) thru fifths can open up a new realm.

[Harry_HH]

nevermind...

[stringtapper]

@fmr & jancivil: Regarding what madbrain said about the dominant seventh being the starting point, he's talking strictly about how jazz/pop chord labeling works. Not about how different qualities of chords function or relate to each other. It's just one way to think about how chord symbols work.

A vanilla dominant seventh chord in jazz chord nomenclature (e.g. G7) is the most basic symbol of all seventh chords because it's just the root note name and a "7." All other chord qualities will add more symbols from there (e.g. Maj, min, °, min7b5, etc.).

It seems like the two of you in particular haven't studied jazz theory and are having a bit of a shock coming from classical theory? Well madbrain isn't just coming up with this stuff on his own. These are established principles of jazz theory and chord/scale theory.

Chord/scale theory has been the dominant pedagogical model for teaching jazz for several decades now. I learned it in high school jazz band and then later in college. It didn't start with Levine. One of my teachers, Dan Haerle, wrote his book "The Jazz Language" many years before Levine's and it is certainly biased towards chord/scale theory.

But I have been seeing a general trend away from chord/scale theory among jazz educators in recent years. Even for people I had direct contact with like Haerle it was never an end-all-be-all prescription. It was really meant as more of a way into the sounds of jazz harmony by giving beginners something tangible (a scale) to hold on to while finding their bearings with improvisation.

[fmr]

Various interpretations of the "character" imparted by the different modes have been suggested. Three such interpretations, from Guido of Arezzo (995–1050), Adam of Fulda (1445–1505), and Juan de Espinosa Medrano (1632–1688), follow:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4319u3zyoq5g ... .docx?dl=0

I always take these "interpretation with a grain of salt. Modes (and tonalitites also, for that matter, although not to sucha greater extent, maybe) may remind different states of mind to different people in different circumstances. It also depends very much on the treatment given to them. For example, when I was starting music studies, my teach told us, when teaching us to recognize the diofference between Major and minor chords, that one is joyful and the other is sad. For that time, I accepted the explanation and it kind of worked, butr with time, I found that absurd. But even now, I sometimes see people classify minor mode as sad or meditative, and major mode as joyful, or affirmative. It maybe, or not.

Anyway, Espinosa classifications are hard to understand, while those of Guido d'Arezzo more or less follow what were the conventions of the modal composers of the time. Even after entering the tonality universe, we have seen that D minor and D Major (and its relative B minor) are regarded as majestic and grandiose (look for Missa Solemnis of Beethoven (D Major), the Great Mass of Bach (B minor), the famous Toccata and Fugue of Bach (D minor), Pachelbel Canon (D Major), Ninth Symphony of Beethoven (D minor, but ends in D Major), etc. The entire Art of Fugue is al so in D minor, as well as the 3rd Symphony of Mahler and the Symphony of Cesar Franck. Hans Zimmer, allegedly, is particularly fond of D minor too. Of the four Overtures from Bach, two are in D Major and one is in B minor.

Major symphonies written in D Major include: Mozart symphonies No. 31 (Paris) and No. 38 (Prague), Beethoven No. 2 Op. 36, Brahms No. 2 Op. 73, Sibelius No. 2 Op. 43, Mahler No. 9 (though it ends in the remote key of D-flat major) and Prokofiev No. 1 (Classical) Op. 25.

Anyway, although what I said above is true, I'm sure that we could find majestic works in other tonalitites too.

BTW - F (especially F Major) is also considered since the baroque as a tonality tied to Nature and sheppherd world. We could call it a bucolic tonality. But all these adjectives are just tied to one's personal taste. In this matter I very much follow Stravinsky thinking in that music in and by itself, can't transmit anything (which means that any feelings awaken in any person are already there in the first place). OTOH, Richar Strauss said that he could describe anything with music - even a tea spoon.

[fmr]

It seems like the two of you in particular haven't studied jazz theory and are having a bit of a shock coming from classical theory? Well madbrain isn't just coming up with this stuff on his own. These are established principles of jazz theory and chord/scale theory.

Chord/scale theory has been the dominant pedagogical model for teaching jazz for several decades now. I learned it in high school jazz band and then later in college. It didn't start with Levine. One of my teachers, Dan Haerle, wrote his book "The Jazz Language" many years before Levine's and it is certainly biased towards chord/scale theory.

But I have been seeing a general trend away from chord/scale theory among jazz educators in recent years. Even for people I had direct contact with like Haerle it was never an end-all-be-all prescription. It was really meant as more of a way into the sounds of jazz harmony by giving beginners something tangible (a scale) to hold on to while finding their bearings with improvisation.

Speaking for myself, yes, I never studied jazz or jazz theory, and while I had contacted these chord figures thing before, it was always a mess to me, and I was always in doubt of which chord was meant to that (when I see things like 11 or 13 in a chord figure I immediately start to think "what the hell does this mean?").

I just downloaded excerpts of the Levine book, and I will read it carefully, with such an open mind as I can (although I have to confess I will have a hard time), to try to get into that. But I am finding these explanations over complicated, and coming with convoluted ways to explain things that (in my perhaps arrogant and ignorant opinion) could be much simpler if people used really standard "classical" ways to explain them.

I may be wrong, though.

[stringtapper]

I was fortunate to have studied both concurrently and there are indeed things that make more sense in classical theory, but the inverse is also true.

The thing to keep in mind at all times is that the treatment of dissonance is very different in jazz theory than it is in classical. While dissonance treatment requires very special conditions to be met
in classical theory, in jazz unresolved dissonances are just part of the standard operating procedure.

That's why you see chords like CMaj7#11 and G13. A symbol like G13 tells us it's a dominant seventh chord with (at least) a 13th in it. I say "at least" because the assumption in reading jazz chord symbols is that any chord tone up to the most remote extension (13) is fair game. So while the Root, 3rd, 7th, and 5th are assumed, so are the 9th and 11th if the symbol has the 13th in it.

And theoretically a G13 chord is G-B-D-F-A-C-E, but you're probably not going to hear many jazz pianists play all of those chord tones in their voicing of a G13. You're more likely to hear a voicing like G-F-A-B-E for that chord (i.e. 1-7-9-3-13).

[fmr]

I was fortunate to have studied both concurrently and there are indeed things that make more sense in classical theory, but the inverse is also true.

The thing to keep in mind at all times is that the treatment of dissonance is very different in jazz theory than it is in classical. While dissonance treatment requires very special conditions to be met
in classical theory, in jazz unresolved dissonances are just part of the standard operating procedure.

Well, dissonance requiring very special conditions to be met in classical theory is only valid for the classic counterpoint, using Fux laws, or for the baroque music (Bach, etc.), not for anything beyond the classical period (Mozart and Haydn). In the romantic period (XIXth century), unresolved dissonances were common, and the concept even kind of disappeared after that (with the dissolution of tonality).

Anyway, thanks for the explanation. I'll keep that in mind while studying the Levine book.

[jancivil]

@fmr & jancivil: Regarding what madbrain said about the dominant seventh being the starting point, he's talking strictly about how jazz/pop chord labeling works. Not about how different qualities of chords function or relate to each other. It's just one way to think about how chord symbols work.

A vanilla dominant seventh chord in jazz chord nomenclature (e.g. G7) is the most basic symbol of all seventh chords because it's just the root note name and a "7." All other chord qualities will add more symbols from there (e.g. Maj, min, °, min7b5, etc.).

It seems like the two of you in particular haven't studied jazz theory and are having a bit of a shock coming from classical theory? Well madbrain isn't just coming up with this stuff on his own. These are established principles of jazz theory and chord/scale theory.

No, I did not start out to be a classical musician (and went into that (classical guitar) in order to obtain command of an instrument; I progressed quickly to the extent I wound up majoring in 'Applied Music', ie., performance.).

So I had some experience with lead sheets and, by the time I actually went to conservatory (21 yrs old) I was quite versed in jazz concepts. It seems queer that you'd think I was shocked, since I gave a not-too-shabby primer on Russell's Concept. I don't call myself a jazz musician, but I have lived next door to that world for a good portion of my musical life. Including writing some pretty hip big-band charts for shows. I'm pretty hip actually.
Sonny Simmons knew exactly what I wanted from him in thee theory because he read my mind like that. Y'all don't know me, dig.

I don't know why *dominant 7th* is needed to say 'Dm7'. I always saw '7' as default minor 7 in a lead sheet etc like everybody else on earth. I think it's horrible pedagogy, though, to tell a body some shit that ain't true. AGAIN, and you know this, for the world: Major/minor 7th (yah, that's the classical ways) ie., major triad/minor 7, is not through itself a Dominant 7th chord. Let ALONE is a minor 7 a dom. 7. The true, therefore better statement for the world: the default '7' in lead sheets, fake books and everything, is a minor 7. The quality of Dm7 is minor - <Minor/minor 7> - regardless of functional relationship.
So, whether or not this is fuddy-duddy stuff, there is no need to think of 'Dominant 7th' until it is part of a true statement.

And as to the authority of eg., Levine, I stated that earlier. It results in poor Hubert du Chateau's years of being told to think iii involves the third mode of major, and now he has susb9 to worry about. So I don't reckon it's very good pedagogy after all. And this is not exactly breaking news to me either, although I'll have ignored Levine. Seen it a hundred times on this board.

[stringtapper]

Any chord symbol with a root name (G) and a lone "7" is absolutely read to mean a dominant seventh chord, or a chord with a major 3rd, a perfect 5th, and a minor 7th. Like it or not, that's how the conventions evolved.

[stringtapper]

^ In jazz theory/chord nomenclature, that is.

[jancivil]

Caucasian, please. The 7th chord in Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud is NOT a dominant seventh chord. It's the I. The 7#9 in Foxy Lady is NOT a dominant seventh chord. It's I. Et cetera. DOMINANT 7th is V7 of something. Words have meanings, typa thing.

KVR, man.

[stringtapper]

In jazz theory we call any seventh chord with a major 3rd, a perfect 5th, and a minor 7th a "Dominant Seventh Chord." That designation makes no assumption about function at all, it just tells you how to spell the chord.

Yes, it's "wrong" compared to the definition of "dominant" in functional classical harmony, but it's simply the way it evolved and you're going to be hard pressed to find anyone playing or studying jazz who wouldn't read the label "C7" as a chord spelled C-E-G-Bb. It's just the way it is.

[fmr]

So I had some experience with lead sheets and, by the time I actually went to conservatory (21 yrs old) I was quite versed in jazz concepts. It seems queer that you'd think I was shocked, since I gave a not-too-shabby primer on Russell's Concept. I don't call myself a jazz musician, but I have lived next door to that world for a good portion of my musical life. Including writing some pretty hip big-band charts for shows. I'm pretty hip actually.

Well, I had my dose of figured bass, and we sometimes had pretty nasty chords to deal with, yet the fidures were plain simple. We have a given tonality. If we want a 7 chord, we have the bass and we write simpy 7. What notes it has - the notes that belong to tonality, of course. If we want other notes, we write # or b or b-square, depending on what alterations are needed, for the notes that are to be altered. If the 7 is inverted, we have 6 5, or 4 3 or 2. When I see a 2 I already know it's a seventh chord in the third inversion. That's it. It works for whatever notes are there. I just need a bass and a figure.

For a 9, we write 9, and for the inversions, the relevant intervals, the same way we used to do for the 7. No big deal. Why write Esus b9 if what we want is the plain F that belongs to the tonality? If it's there, is a 9, plain and simple. And what the f*ck is a "sus"? Nothing is suspended there (that's a reminiscence of the counterpoint laws, I guess), it's a 4, plain and simple. If the 9 is major or minor depends entirely on the root note and which tonality we are in. Sometimes, it seems like jazz people don't even know which tonality they are playing on, and have to be told which notes each chord has, one by one, even when those notes have no alterations at all. And all those different symbols to the same chord, it's a total mess. Why not just write 7, as Jan said? Why is it so complicated?