A place to discuss Jazz Theory, and its applications in music.

What are some books that completely changed your approach to music? Books that just entirely revolutionized the way you think.

They can be theory related, musicological, transcriptions, music bios, etc., so long as it pertains to music/jazz/art.

Personally, a few spring to mind: Kenny Werner's Effortless Mastery, Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, and Victor Wooten's The Music Lesson.

I’m 14 and I’ve always loved listening to Jazz music since I was little. I loved the likes of Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and many many others. It inspired me to play Jazz Piano, however I got in with no knowledge on Jazz music theory and music theory at all. Despite this though. I’m capable of playing very abstract, dense and overall really incredible voicings by just ear and hearing what sounds right to me (these are words from almost every musician that has heard me play). I don’t know any of the chord names of any theory or any of that but I play what sounds right in my head. However an even stranger thing is I can only do that in the Key of F and no other key, I can’t play scales in any other key or even improvise in any other key. I think it’s largely due to me listening to many recordings in the key of F. Anyways my query is that I need help structuring a practice routine that can deepen my Jazz theory and music theory understanding, along with actually understanding voicings and being able to play scales of all sorts in all keys, along with learning tunes, licks vocings, arpeggios and other easential things to know. Let me know any resources like videos or books I need. Also know I cannot sight read for my life. I really do feel like learning theory will deeply help me understand what exactly im doing, and how i can expand my knowledge on all keys. There is this video (https://youtu.be/_VvKeiwddPI?si=eHIk63YKZ9dO6WXk) i found but it’s a bit to much for me to grasp, are there any books or other videos or guides i can use?

Can someone please explain why the chords in la fiesta (chick cores) work together and what key the song is in?

I've been throwing on play alongs and charts for tunes with fast changes and just trying to just keep up. I found myself arriving early to things because I was trying to think too fast, thing is I really liked the sound.

A little digging brought be the concept of forward motion or "prepping the changes". Can anyone provide a few specifics on these?

I'm trying to jazz up my solo piano Take Five rendition and I love this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txc37oPNMLA 
At the 0:55 second mark, what do you call this "transition" for a lack of a better word? How should I think about this? I'm classically trained so please forgive my ignorance.

When it comes to chromatic approach and improvising chromatic melodies inside an controlled environment, be it set harmonies or a verse melody; does the harmony start to depend more upon the tones highlighted by the harmonic-lines or conversely, upon the rhythm? An example of rhythm: in a divided eighth note melody in (8/8 time) the 1st beat is usually “felt” much stronger than the subsequent beat.

And if not, what rules do apply to chromatic approach on the controlled harmonic environment mentioned?

I'm listening to George Clinton's 1996 P-Funk reunion album T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M.

The second track, Funk Kind (Gonna Knock It Down) is not really very remarkable from a music theory point of view. It's a groove on Cm9 with a turnaround bass line walking up the C minor blues scale from F up to C (with a B natural thrown in for good measure).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65cfNWdwV0E

So I'm not that good at theory, my ears aren't that good, but there's a couple of very cool chords thrown in at 1:55 on the piano. they sounds kind of like Cdom13, kind of like Gdom13 (the bass is G then Bb), it sounds like a turnaround resolving to Cminor but I'm not smart enough to tell. But I'm sure someone here knows what's happening!

Hey all! So I’ve been playing music for around 10ish years now, mainly in the guitar/vocals punk space but I’ve always adored jazz.

Recently I decided to start playing piano again and upon learning the chords to ‘My Funny Valentine’ managed to trip up on some reharmonisation that I wouldn’t mind some help in understanding deeper (keep in mind I’m extremely new to jazz theory so take all of my terminology with a pinch of salt!)

So the opening four chords I’m using are Cmin Cmin7/B Bbsus2 (voiced as Bb in left and a Csus4 shape in right) Cdim/A and Abmaj7

But after playing around with the next chord, I tripped up on this E9/F# that I really love the sound of - I think this is a modulation into another key from C minor and if it is, does anyone have any advice on passing chords/voice leading to arrive organically at that E9/F#

Hope this makes even a drop of sense, hope everyone is having a wonderful day/night !

Say you want to use backdoor dominant by substituting it in a regular major 251. Can you use them only as a comping tool or can you use the chord tones of the new ii and V when soloing over the regular 251 changes? Or is there a better way to go around it? Thanks a mil.

Edit: For instance, in the changes |Eb-7|Ab7|DbM7|, can we use |Gb-7|B7|DbM7| to solo over it?

I always really liked this chord progression, but it sounds like something that wouldn't be super unique, my music theory knowledge just isn't enough to figure that out. Is this a very typical chord progression?

You will not sound like playing arpeggios if you make one addition – filling in the major thirds in the chords (dividing them into major seconds). Filling in the major third of the Am⁷ chord gives the minor pentatonic scale. This addition to the G⁷ chord gives the dominant pentatonic scale. Filling in the major third of the C⁶ chord gives the major pentatonic scale. Filling in the major thirds of the augmented triad yields the whole tone scale. Of course this is a simplified approach, but it works almost always. The only exception I found is dividing the major third of the dominant seventh chord into the minor and augmented seconds if you want to produce the Arabic sound.

(Prelude: mods, please remove if inappropriate, I read the rules and I think I'm ok!)

Hi, I'm a jazz musician, open source software author, and phd student in music and computer science. I am working on a (commercial-but-cheap) online site intended to turn some of my personal tools and research into something others can use - which will hopefully fund more tools, research, and community music events. I don't want to be spammy, so I won't post the link here. But I have two asks:

1. If you are serious about developing big ears and harmony chops and want to help beta test some tools, please DM me and I can send you the info. We have soft-launched and I am taking on a crop of beta testers free.
2. I would love to know what you WISH existed in apps and tools. I have a laundry list of ideas myself, but input from others is immensely valuable. In my experience the "jazz" side of most ear/harmony tools is pretty basic.

FWIW, while this is intended to become a very modestly remunerative business, I also contribute to free software through my PhD work. I am the author of Scheme for Max, an open source extension to the Max music platform that puts a Scheme Lisp interpreter in it, and will also be releasing some of the code I have used to create the site as open source libaries. In case that helps me appear to be less of a weasel.. I know we all get enough of that these days. :-)

thanks

iain duncan, University of Victoria, BC, Canada

Hello Everyone,

I'm wondering if there are any books/sites that show ideas for playing minor ii-V-i you worked with. So far I've found many of them for guitar which are just bunch of notes, passages that are too complex for me. As a trumpet player I'm inclined for melodic ideas (like e.g. here https://www.learnjazzstandards.com/blog/25-easy-ii-v-i-licks/ ).

Or maybe is there any set of recordings, any particular album that inspired you to just take the lick on minor ii-V-i and develop it through all 12 keys?

I'm back to playing after a long term layoff. When I was in my late teens and 20's, everything in Jazz seemed like such a major undertaking that I was basically burned out before I began or really got some solid momentum going. When one thinks of people like Charlie Parker, Coltrane and several others, they're basically gods and these guys really were doing things harmonically and melodically incredible.

Now as an adult, while that sort of thing does impress me, I'm less concerned with greatness and instead want to just have a hobby that I can approach and just get incrementally better all the time. At the same time there's so much to work on and learn anyway, so an idea of a ton of practice to get to an end goal faster is likely to lead anyone to burnout.

I think by now folks reading this may have picked up on me focusing on the psychology behind how this type of thinking could effect a student of music, and that's totally correct. At the same time, I'm very reflective and always want to try to understand my thoughts processes and how I can overcome my own mental barriers in all aspects of life.

Now here's my point, when it comes to Jazz or really any music, for someone that's wanting to learn to, say solo (I'm truly a beginner in terms of skill, even though I've played for years), does anyone believe it's actually quite a bit easier to sound or play good than it seems to be. I'm watching a lot of stuff by Jen's and other professional YouTubers, and now that my ear is coming back to me, when I listen to players - and unless they're doing wild Coltrane/Parker-esque 100mph note runs - it seems like good music could be distilled down to choosing non-root chord tones on the down beats maybe about 30% of the time, non always starting your phrases on the "1", briefly using passing tones, and doing just a bit of clever rhythmic ideas?

Of course, there's a bit more to it: the art and the magic itself. I'm a very practical person that learns by understanding clear concepts and being able to break things down (again, when I was younger, I don't think I knew this like I do today, nearly 20 years later), but know even if I prescribe to my observations about what I outlined in the previous paragraph, doesn't mean I'm going to be some impressive musician; and especially not overnight... But I still can't help but wonder if there's a lot of truth to the points I outlined and that maybe one really just does need to use their ear a bit more, slow things down a bit and just try to incorporate one or two new ideas into their playing, with a few new licks or patterns incorporated into their playing every week, while on top of a transcription theyre analyzing by ear and chipping away at consistently to keep their learning funnel filled.

Am I onto something or am I shortchanging things? For any teachers out there, do you feel your students needlessly complicate things?

Lastly, for what its worth, I'm a long time bassist that played jazz a bit in school but my playing was very uninspiring with a ton of root notes on the "1" and generic scale and arpeggiated movement that didn't have much thought behind it. Now as an adult, I thought learning guitar could help light a spark in this hobby that I've wanted to revisit and it has me looking at music from a more melodic and harmonic approach.

Long post so thanks for reading. Hope to get a bit of discussion going.

I'm a huge fan of Coltrane. I've listened to and enjoy many records of him such as A Love Supreme, Interstellar Space or Crescent, but there is one tune which I don't seem to come to terms with don't matter how many times I've tried listening to it. This is Impressions (Live At The Village Vanguard 1961). I don't get his approach to improvisation, very repetitive short phrases which he develops incrementally and in some cases repeats without any kind of development. Many times the solo feels very repetitive and it feel as if it didn't have any direction at all. You can see this approach being used in parts I and II of A Love Supreme too, but it flows better and appears to be more cohesive to me in those tunes, which I do enjoy listening to.

I want to ask what is it that you find in that tune that makes it enjoyable to listen to and if you could give me some kind of context in that approach to soloing. Does he approach it that way not to get lost in the form?

Hey guys, I recently went back and revisited Lover Man. I'm curious how everyone looks at these changes. In general I see it as a i-iv-v but some of these turnarounds I'm struggling to find a good way to look at. Just trying to find the best way to categorize these changes so I can easily transpose them. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

This is going to be a bit abstract but I need some help if possible. So I was pointed towards this site by a guy call mrclay

https://mrclay.org/common-chords/C-major

It's chords you can fit in keys, helpful for a beginner like me trying to get more rich harmony. Anyway, on the C major page there's the chord F#o7 (idk how to type the half diminished symbol). If you click on the chord it plays a sample progression which is

C6/G - F#o7 - Fmaj7.

When I listen to this progress I imagine a chord following the Fmaj7, but I can't find what I hear in my head. I basically hear what sounds like the same chord, but with a bite to it. Like there's a little more pain and tension, but it's mostly the same feeling.

The one note I know for sure is that top C is still played, it's something under that changes. My first thought was Fm, nope, feel like drama, but not the bite I hear. Maybe F6, nope. So I try playing it just shifting each single note up and down, trying everything I can possibly think of, cannot find it

Try holding that top note and trying the different chords of C, nothing.

I have absolutely no idea what I'm looking for, I am just throwing this post out there to the harmony experts in the hopes you can help me figure out what the damn chord I am looking for is. I know I haven't given much info to work off of but its the best I've got.