I was looking up how certain harmonies work, like Teen Town and Havona, and someone suggested the book Beyond Functional Harmony by Wayne Naus. I want to look into harmony that's a bit more unique sounding and non-diatonic than what I've studied so far, which has mostly been I IV V and II V II V II V I type stuff.
Basically I'm just looking for advice on where to go from here with understanding more complex harmony, that I'll likely put to use with a jazz quintet and/or a progressive group. I read that the progressions in those Weather Report songs are similar to classical harmonic techniques, so books related to that style would probably be cool too.
Harmony/composition are near and dear to my heart, probably more so than bass playing (gasp!) so I pretty much HAVE to respond, ha.
To the best of my knowledge, there's never really been a book written as a
method for fusion composition the same way that there can be a method or functional analysis for more traditional II-Vy kinds of tunes. There has been article after article written in music theory journals analyzing them, however, and if you yourself put in the listening time you can figure out what's going on and what can be done. The Wayne Naus book is and OK start, since it gives you some basic compositional idea to work with...but compared to other books on harmony it is extremely light on content.
The biggest misstep when you're first trying to learn how to compose in the "fusiony" or more modern sort of jazz style is to assume that there's a correct way of doing it or that there is some sort of functional rubric to follow the same way that tonal harmony does in jazz and the common practice. It's a purely aesthetic judgement, which means that the way you learn to do it is simply by listening at what other people are doing, looking at the scores, and then trying it out for yourself. A chord doesn't necessarily have any relationship to any others in a sequence besides the chord before and after it. Instead of III-7 to bIIImaj7, the ear hears "minor 7 chord descending a half step to a major 7 chord."
There are a couple of aesthetic and compositional ideas important to the style that are worth mentioning. You could easily have a whole course on this stuff (Berklee has like 10 of them), so look into each one on your own.
I. Constant structures - Consistent use of the same chord quality regarless of key or root (Cmaj Bmaj7 Ebmaj7 Emaj7 etc)
II. Cycles - Cycling constant structures or roots either in tonic systems (dividing the octave into 2, 3, 4, 6 parts by way of tritones, major thirds, minor thirds and major seconds respectively) or in other schemes (alternating major and minor thirds, etc)
III. Avoiding "progressive root motion" - The long and short of this one is avoiding root motion down a 5th.
IV. Odd harmonic rhythm - Chords don't necessarily have to fall on the beat (see intro to Havona).
V. Use of 4th Voicings - "Sus" sounds are big, and any degree of ambiguity as to the exact quality of the chord helps with the aesthetic.
VI. Use of compositional elements beyond "blowing changes" - This is a big one, you see a lot of fusion composers messing with ideas that they never intend to solo over. You didn't get this a whole lot in the hard bop and free bop eras that came before.
Hopefully that gave you at least a jump start. Again, nobody has written a "method," so you're on your own in a lot of ways. Anyway, on to the book suggestions for general composition and harmony knowledge...
First, if you aren't completely solid on your common practice "classical" theory, I would suggest getting the Kostka/Payne book Tonal Harmony. This is optional, but the really advanced texts on harmony assume this basic knowledge of classical theory, so it's a good thing to know. Plus, it'll get you out of two semesters of general music theory credits if you intend to go to school for music.
+1...
The Jazz Theory Book - Mark Levine
Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony - Dave Liebman
Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book isn't where I'd go if you're looking for the more advanced stuff. It's great as a jazz method, but not so much as a theory book (his theoretical explanations of chord scale theory are super iffy...) Besides, it doesn't really get into the heavier stuff.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I can almost guarantee you that Dave Liebman's Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony is going to be above your head, and the heads of most musicians really. Hell, I'm lost half the time, and I'm taking a 2-year class with Liebman himself right now solely on the concepts discussed in the book. It's way heavier than people realize, so tread lightly. It's not a book that you can just read straight through, you could spend (and in class, we did!) months on just a couple pages.
One book I would recommend above all others is Vincent Persichetti's 20th Century Harmony. This book really is the granddady of them all when it comes to introducing and explaining advanced concepts from the composer's viewpoint rather than the theorist's. More importantly, it gets you in the composer's mindset of having a basic idea implanted in your head and then forcing you to think of all the many thousands of possibilities that could come from that. As my teacher says, "A composer's job isn't to as May I? it's to ask "What If?" Persichetti's book really comes at it from that mindset. Entire chapters in Wayne Naus' book come from a sentence in the Persichetti. The entire course "Advanced Modal Harmony" taught at Berklee is basically just fragments of a couple chapters from 20th Century Harmony. It's a great book, if you're ready for it. Fused mirror harmony anyone?
And if you're ready to just call it quits and become a twelve tone guy, Reginald Smith Brindle's Serial Composition is the benchmark for that. Lord help you if you go down that road....
