Approaching Melodic Soloing through Blanket Scales

[Bruce Lindfield]

Thanks Ed - too obvious for me - doh! I have had a look at the "currents" which are pretty funny and interesting!

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by Ed Fuqua
... it really all boils down to this: hearing a chord progression has got to trigger some sort of melodic response in your head and you have to be able to get it out of your head and into the air.

I don't see much use for anything that tries to replace an AURAL choice with an intellectual one.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with the theme of this thread, but this seems like a good time to mention that easier access to motivic material was the reason I got involved in the whole "blanket scale" notion in the first place. It all started for me when I made the realization that, when I wasn't consciously thinking about the note choices available for each passing chord, I found it very easy to play in a motivic way, and that as soon as I started thinking instead of "hearing", everything I played went to hell in a handbasket.

The whole idea of the large tonal areas is not to try to unleash some kind of new "Jazz Schenkerian Theory" on the world, but to simplify the issue of "note-choices" for beginner/intermediate improvisation students who have been taught to think all the time about each passing scale to the point where they have become afraid to play anything for fear of playing an "incorrect note". I use it myself as an easy way to access new tunes, and I can say that it works for me almost all of the time. Maybe I shouldn't be trying to define/refine it as an actual method, but every time I use it to teach a bunch of new people, it seems to reach them in some way and allow them to feel like playing jazz doesn't have to be so technical and scary.

To me, it comes down to this: if part of your profession involves "teaching" improvisation, then methods are useful tools for getting your point across. And the most important point that I try to get across is that improvisation is supposed to be fun, and that it can also be the vehicle through which you discover a lot of things about yourself and the world around you. It seems to me that there is an awful lot of "teaching" going on out there that starts people off by putting obstacles in their way rather than pointing to a wide open road and saying, "drive over that way for a while, and make some observations about the things you see (hear)". The best analogy I can think of is a visual one - if you were a beginning painting student, would you find it more helpful to:

a) be given a bowl full of paint and a blank canvas and then be instructed to fingerpaint the general outline of a figure you are trying to represent, and then work to refine it, or

b) be given a small tube of black paint and a small, fine brush, and then have the instructor come in and say, "okay, today we are going to learn to paint eyelashes. Tomorrow will be fingernails..next week, we'll get to nostrils, noses, and toes,...and believe me, by a couple of years from now, you'll have all the tools to do a perfect portrait!"

Ed - Maybe it's just me, but I find method "a" both more intuitive and helpful. Of course, that may have something to do with the same reason I have three cats and a Mac instead of a two dogs and a PC, but...in a lot of ways I think we're saying a lot of the same things. Or maybe I didn't understand your last couple of posts right?

[Don Higdon]

I've been watching the posts go up, but have chosen not to say anything.
I find that much of the time, my answer is "d. - all the above," and I don't want to come across as a smart-ass, or a nit-picker, etc. when I espouse a differing view.
Some of you know, and some don't, that I currently study with Michael Moore. 25% of the time is playing the instrument, 65% is jazz harmonic theory. "That only adds up to 90%", you say? Yes. We laugh our asses off for at least 10% We're close enough in age and taste to break up over the same things. The last thing I'm going to do is say about a topic "Michael says..." That's not where we are. In today's lesson, he made his case on one harmonic point, I made mine, and he agreed. On another, he asked me to send him a copy of a chart I brought in, and I know he and I are going to play the seventh differently in 2 spots in the 1st 4 bars. Most of the time, of course, he says, and I learn.

Michael plays piano while I play bass. Once, in order to let me know that my playing wasn't up to standards, he said "You sound like a bass player." His goal is that I play like Bob Brookmeyer, or Chet Baker, or Freddy Hubbard. And that's where his theory of harmony comes in.

There's too much up already for me to address all at once. When I feel I can articulate something clearly, I'll jump in. But only then.

Later....

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by Don Higdon
I've been watching the posts go up, but have chosen not to say anything.
I find that much of the time, my answer is "d. - all the above," .....

ditto all the above?
disagree with all the above?
death to all the above?
And if so, which above?
I've been hoping you'd jump in sooner or later. Sooner would be great. And any time you'd like to chime in with "Michael Moore sez...", I doubt anybody would complain. I know I wouldn't!


[Edited by Chris Fitzgerald on 02-08-2001 at 12:47 AM]

[Don Higdon]

'd.-all the above' means that as much as I believe in rules, I break every one of them at some point. It's a delicate balance, and it gets into the area of taste, which can't be dictated.
Example: Dominant 7th going into key of C is G-B-D-F. Listening to a Tito Puente arrangement, I'm wondering what the hell is going on at the end in a tightly voiced chord. I realized that their V7 chord was G-B-D-F#, resolving to a C tonic. It worked at that moment. So I experimented with occassionally, sparingly, "majoring" the 7th in a conventional blues, which is full of 7ths which are minored. This can be a disaster if done wrong, and I guess I'm saying if it sounds OK, it's not wrong, even if it's wrong, and I don't know how to tell someone when doing it will be right/wrong rather than wrong/wrong.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

When I was back in grad school studying theory/comp, my favorite description of the composition process was from Frank Zappa, and it went something like this:

How to become a composer:

1)Start a piece at some point in time.

2)If something sounds good to you, put it in your piece. If it doesn't, throw it out.

3) Keep doing this until your piece is finished. When somebody else complains that they don't like your piece, tell them to f**k off and go write another one using the above rules.


I had the original of this posted on my practice room door for several years, which led me into many very comical (and often very heated) discussions with any of the "Egghead" composition faction who happened to read it. I still swear by it to this day.

I hope the whole blanket scale thing doesn't come off like a bunch of rules - that is the last thing I want. I'm only working with the idea to come up with a way of thinking and teaching which leaves as much room for "personalized" playing as possible, a way for beginners etc. to feel like soloing can be easy rather than difficult. If you have ideas about ways to accomplish this, I'm all ears - that's what it's all about.

[David Kaczorowski]

Originally posted by Don Higdon

Example: Dominant 7th going into key of C is G-B-D-F. Listening to a Tito Puente arrangement, I'm wondering what the hell is going on at the end in a tightly voiced chord. I realized that their V7 chord was G-B-D-F#, resolving to a C tonic. It worked at that moment. So I experimented with occassionally, sparingly, "majoring" the 7th in a conventional blues, which is full of 7ths which are minored. This can be a disaster if done wrong, and I guess I'm saying if it sounds OK, it's not wrong, even if it's wrong, and I don't know how to tell someone when doing it will be right/wrong rather than wrong/wrong.

Don, if it was G-B-D-F#, I have to argue that you can't call it a V7, it's not a dominant chord. The minor seventh forming a tritone with the major third is what gives a chord it's dominant (V7) function. What he did was Gmaj7->Cmaj7. I'm sure it not only worked but sounded great. I recently started working with a Salsa band. On some of those charts, 90% of the chords can't be explained diatonically. I tried and gave up. There's a lot of stuff much stranger than major 7 chords resolving up a fourth.

When you talk about "majoring the 7th", how are you handling the tone that makes you think of it as a major seventh and not just as a chromatic leading tone or passing tone. I do that on chords with minor sevenths, I also like using a sharp 9th to lead into the major 3rd. I don't see it as rule breaking.

Let me say I've never been one to be a stickler for rules. At least 80 or 90% of what I know/do in jazz I've learned on my own using my ear, figured out for myself (and reasoned what was going on), or just talking with some cats casually. So when I write about this don't think I'm a prickly rule-monger.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Ed,

all I have with Red is a duo CD with Roger Kellaway, and one with him & Jim Hall. I'd welcome any & all additions. Thanks.

On another note, (which should also work) I've gotten several emails from various lurkers about this thread, all positive in tone but seeming afraid to post for fear of seeming in too deep waters. Please post! No question or comment that comes from anyone other than Goth Barbie can be too basic or stupid to respond to. You know who you are, so post!

[David Kaczorowski]

Ed Fuqua sez: Be free Daddio, play what you feel.

[Don Higdon]

Let's not get stuck on grammatical exactitude and miss the greater point, which was to give the simplest example of a routine convention (the 7th is minor when going from V to I, especially when penultimate to ultimate) being bypassed without sin. I realize that in majoring the 7th, the V forfeits the right to call itself dominant, but then again, I didn't. My guess was that not everybody that requested this thread experienced my example.
Where I'm going with all this will come out over time. When I discussed this 7th business with Moore, he said Bird did that alot. I've seen it in Coltrane, too. Generally, horn players are ahead of bassists on this sort of thing.
I use the background scale approach that Chris started with. The revelation with Moore is in what scale he selects. Actually, it's scales, depending on context, but that's down the road.
Later...

I just saw Chris' post. I will pass on what a wiser man said to me: "The only time a question is stupid is when you don't ask it."
I absolutely do NOT want to be mistaken for an elitist. I don't know enough.

[Edited by Don Higdon on 02-08-2001 at 03:23 PM]

[David Kaczorowski]

With this seventh thing; you're playing a lydian scale over a dominant chord?

Forgive me if I seem pedantic, I'm just trying to understand. I'm learning too.

[Don Higdon]

That's the accurate way to describe it, but it's not the way I think when I'm playing. I just find myself sensing an opportunity to play an unexpected note - Brookmeyer described his style as finding the right 'wrong' notes. As you correctly pointed out, the ideal is to hear the note before you play it, and then go get it.
Personally, I rarely think to myself "I'll run a Phrygian here". It's one of those Michael Moore issues I'll get to later: right/brain-left/brain.
Again, personally, I suspect newer players fret too much about mode knowledge. There are ways around it.
[Doesn't Dorian Mode sound like the name of a character in a British TV series?]

[bassdude]

I learn new things when I can. This is the history of jazz and pop and rock something new comes up everybody does it. Then someone figures out a theory to fit it. My approach is to listen and to learn something. I sing and play it against a chord as soon as I can. And then like a vocabulary word use it at every opportunity. Then forget the theory and the mechanics and and let it supprise you. "There are no wrong notes only wrong rhythms" I forgot whose quote this is maybe it was Bird.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Singing is the most important element of all. What's funny is, singing will get you to the same place as a lotta theory, but get you there in a better way. It's almost as if, when a person sings, they are already in the conditioned mode of hearing/responding/adjusting to begin with just in order to control their voice, so improvising melodies seems easy. My favorite players all sound like they are singing to me - and I bet that most of them really are on the inside.

The whole thing about the "right" wrong notes is a great topic.When you find one, it's always like a bright splash of color against a darker background ( or vice-versa). Kenny Werner said in a masterclass once that no note is wrong if you can resolve it, and then proceeded to demonstrate some of the most gorgeous wrong note passages I had ever heard in my life. These were not "licks", mind you, but rather ways of dealing with the overall tonality of a phrase which played both with and against it, like a cat toying with a mouse. It made a believer out of me. Brad Mehldau is another who finds the most amazing wrong notes I have ever heard.

Don - we could have used "Dorian Mode" in our recent failing effort at slueth work on the trail of the mythical Professor Moriarbie. He (she?) couldn't have been colder on the trail than we were...

[Chad Ball]

Hey! Let's get this theory thread up and running again. I nned some ideas for shaping melodies. I played a duo gig with a guitarist last night and it seemed that after about four tunes, all my solos sounded the same. It may have been a bad night, but do any of you have any light to shed on shaping melodic solos (aside from ideas already threshed out)? How do you go about tension and release, motivic development, etc.

This is a great thread, let's keep going.

chad

[Sam Sherry]

Originally posted by Chad Ball
Hey! I played a duo gig with a guitarist last night and it seemed that after about four tunes, all my solos sounded the same. Do any of you have any light to shed on shaping melodic solos (aside from ideas already threshed out)?

I hear ya. Ruts suck wind. Also, aside from ruts, there seem to be "Sam-licks" that are hard for me to avoid. And worst of all, my composing is hampered by my relatively limited harmonic vocabulary, so if I'm not careful I really do write the same song again!

That said, here are a few suggestions for rut-busting, in no particular order:

a) Work with the melody of the tune in constructing your solo.

b) Play one-third as many notes as you "plan" to.

c) Make sure your tempos and keys vary on the gig.

d) Play tricks with tunes:

* Play familiar tunes in unfamiliar keys, or modulate in the middle of a song-form

* Play show-tunes in 3/4 and play waltzes in 4/4

* Play tunes at a substantially different tempo then usual.

For example, last Wednesday we accidentally found ourselves playing The Tricky-Pig Song ("Days of Swine & Ruses") as a slow waltz, and it was real cool. On the other hand, I doubt we'll ever do that again -- more than a little bit of this kind of stuff gets "cute" and sounds contrived rather than organic.

e) Play head-games while soloing
* See how long you can go without playing a tonic'
* Play a solo "like" Miles Davis (as if anyone could)
* Play a solo "like" Michael Moore (in yer dreams, Sam)
* Play a solo "like" Michael Brecker (you get the drift)

f) Work with motifs -- for example, see what it's like if you only approach a tonic after first playing a nine then a seven.

The bottom line is, listen to what's going on around you and react to it. It's harder to get stuck in a rut if you're really open to what's happening at that moment.

Sorry to be a space-hogger.

[anonymous0726]

Chris, I'd like to see you stick to your guns here a bit a cite some examples and exercises that might help illucidate your point. I'm pretty certain that I know what you're doing as it seems that it is the same thing that I do and show students.

I would like to add that what I do right after I get students understanding how the key/major scale thing fits together and recognizing them easily, I get them practicing and using melodic chunks. For examples, 1, 2, 3, 5's -- 1 ,2 ,3's -- 3, 2, 1's -- 1, 3, 5's and things like that. I support motivic playing heavily and start students on this right away.

The way that I think of what you're doing is that you have under your fingers the entire scale that is the basis of a bunch of changes, and picture chord tones as standing out from that scale as the chords go by.

[Phil Smith]

Originally posted by David Kaczorowski [b]
Don, if it was G-B-D-F#, I have to argue that you can't call it a V7, it's not a dominant chord. The minor seventh forming a tritone with the major third is what gives a chord it's dominant (V7) function. What he did was Gmaj7->Cmaj7. I'm sure it not only worked but sounded great. I recently started working with a Salsa band. On some of those charts, 90% of the chords can't be explained diatonically. I tried and gave up. There's a lot of stuff much stranger than major 7 chords resolving up a fourth.

I'm just learning here as well...

Isn't there two aspects of a dominant 7th chord, one being the dissonance because of the tritone in question and the other because of it's place in the tonal soup i.e. the fifth?

Now back to soloing...

Chris, I find that if I know the tune i.e the melody and can have that going on in my head, I'm in a much better position to deliver something that sounds more reasonable than not. This could mean weaving in an out of the actual melody or creating a new melody based on the feel of the original one versus interpreting chord changes on the fly.

[anonymous0726]

Originally posted by Phil Smith
This could mean weaving in an out of the actual melody or creating a new melody based on the feel of the original one versus interpreting chord changes on the fly.

This is how the early, early players approached it, most without much (if any) formal training.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by Ray Parker
Chris, I'd like to see you stick to your guns here a bit a cite some examples and exercises that might help illucidate your point. I'm pretty certain that I know what you're doing as it seems that it is the same thing that I do and show students.

I'd love to do this, but I've found that examples of this kind are difficult to communicate over the net. In person, it's easy to sit down at a piano (or a bass) and talk it through with musical examples. On the net, you don't even have the option of notation - at least, I don't YET. This week I just got my new Mac G4 for my recording setup, and when I get some more bread together (hopefully, from selling a bunch of gear), I hope to get a scanner...at THAT point, it will be easy to post examples, and I hope to do so.

In the meantime, if you can think of an example of what I'm talking about that can be described verbally, I'd be happy to attempt it.

I would like to add that what I do right after I get students understanding how the key/major scale thing fits together and recognizing them easily, I get them practicing and using melodic chunks. For examples, 1, 2, 3, 5's -- 1 ,2 ,3's -- 3, 2, 1's -- 1, 3, 5's and things like that. I support motivic playing heavily and start students on this right away.

When you say, "1,2,3,5's", do you mean from the chord of the moment, or the key of the moment? Both approaches are good, but I prefer to have students play motivic shapes from the key center first, since I feel that thinking while playing is the root of most lameness in music. Thinking while practicing, on the other hand, is the root of all progress.

The way that I think of what you're doing is that you have under your fingers the entire scale that is the basis of a bunch of changes, and picture chord tones as standing out from that scale as the chords go by.

You just nailed it. For my piano students, I tell them to imagine that the "blanket scale" that they're playing within has all of it's keys lit from beneath, and that the chord tones should be colored in whatever color seems bright and unmistakeable to them. Most of them who practice this way report that soon, they begin to be able to tell the difference in sonic color between chord tones and color (scale) tones. It sounds much like what you describe.

Sorry it took me so long to find this...for some reason, the TB software no longer notifies me of new posts in this thread. Anybody have any idea why this is?