modern jazz piano a study in harmony and improvisation pdf reader

Modern Jazz Piano A Study In Harmony And Improvisation Reader Series Of Melodic

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Whatever the implication of a gesture, the realization of that implication may or may not take place; that is, the listeners expectation may or may not be fulfilled, or the expectation may be fulfilled after a delay.

The three purposes of this article are: to present an overview of several methods for analysis of improvised jazz, including bibliographic references for further study; to introduce an analytic format which approaches a synthesis of aspects of these methods; and to apply that format to a classic solo, both to demonstrate the format and to acquaint the reader with a fine piece of music to share with students.

Problems arise immediately in deciding which chords to use as reference points.

The original chord changes (harmonic progression) There may be no authoritative set of changes.

The progression played by piano and bass They may not even agree with one another, and the soloist may not always be relating to either of them.

The changes the soloist is thinking as made evident in the solo itself Trying to recreate the soloists thought process is difficult and dangerous.

Nevertheless, even with these problems, the attempt to relate melody to the underlying harmony in this way has proved useful to improvisation students and is still important in jazz education.

For example, pointing out that a passage of music over an E -flat major seventh chord uses the E -flat lydian mode summarizes the pitch material and ties in well with the chord-scale correlation approach of many jazz improvisation courses.

Jazz writers have long pointed out that most players reuse musical ideas from solo to solo, to one extent or another.

But it was Thomas Owens who made it clear just how pervasive formulas could be in the solos of Charlie Parker.

Owenss dissertation, a labor of love which included some 250 transcriptions, catalogued the appearance of about 100 formulas which Parker reworks solo after solo.

Such evidence of formula playing in perhaps the greatest of jazz improvisers suggests that formula identification and cataloguing is a fruitful analytic pursuit.

Modern Jazz Piano A Study In Harmony And Improvisation Reader Series Of Melodic

And it also adds a new aspect to improvisation pedagogy: the student learns not only scales which fit various chords, but also a series of melodic formulas which can be plugged into appropriate spots in the chord progression.

Borrowing from analysts of Homers epic poems, jazz analysts have applied some of their techniques to improvised solos.

Some of the problems in poetic analysis have carried over into music analysis as well, however.

In both areas it has proven to be difficult to decide exactly what qualifies as a formula.

Must it be of a certain length Must it be sufficiently unique to be recognized as a formula How does one decide whether a certain musical idea is one long formula or two shorter formulas Gregory Smith, in his dissertation on Bill Evans, 4 discusses these problems and determines formulas primarily according to direction of motion (up or down) from one tone of relative stability to another.

In one solo alone he identifies 190 formulas which he then divides into categories about which generalizations can be made and conclusions drawn.

Although a complete explanation is beyond the scope of this article, Figure 1 sums up formulaic playing by John Coltrane in one solo consisting of 22 blues choruses.

In all, Coltrane plays B -flat- C-D -( E -flat)- F in eighth notes 36 times in this solo.

The figure also shows that the context of that patternthe two or three beats on either sidevaries rather little as well.

In a recent dissertation Steve Larson makes a strong case for the applicability of Schenkerian analysis to improvised jazz.

Some analysts would never look for the kind of relationships Schenkerian analysis might uncover, assuming that instantaneous composersimproviserscannot be expected to think in such long-range terms.

But Larson demonstrates that the best improvisers do indeed have this capability, and he cites a Bill Evans solo and Evanss discussion of the solo to prove it.

Milton Stewart has studied Clifford Browns style from a Schenkerian perspective, 9 and Thomas Owens has included several Schenkerian graphs of Charlie Parker solos in his previously-mentioned dissertation.

Kent Williams applies implication-realization theories of Leonard Meyer and Eugene Narmour 10 to bebop heads (composed melodies) noting that bebop improvisations differ little from bebop heads.

Simplifying Meyer and Williams greatly, various musical gestures carry the seeds for their continuation.

Scalewise motion often tends to continue in the same scalar direction to a point of stability.

Melodic leaps may be the beginnings of arpeggiated chords or they may be gaps which imply a scalewise fill of that musical space in the opposite direction.

Modern Jazz Piano A Study In Harmony And Improvisation Pdf Reader