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I guess you could.
The M7 sounds a lot more tense than the 6 to me. Using both the M7 and the 6 is even more tense. But it still sounds good to me.
When you run the arpeggios for practicing, the point is to really take in the changes, and going over 1 3 5 7 is very useful.

I loved your idea of singing Sugar over Dave's voicings, it sounded really cool, are you practising for the next George Benson tour ?

Thanks Knotty. I will play around with more voicings tomorrow, maybe spread out the maj 7 and the 6, so the chord sounds less tense.

btw, I'm not annoyed at all, you can ask anything you want. I don't garantee the response, but you can ask

Something like that. Jazz has worked much better for me since I realised I need to sing everything for it to go in.

I had my first lesson with the guitar teacher the other day. He certainly knows his stuff about jazz. It's all very exciting.

the best place to find talent is in yourself:)

DF

Clearly. But the best place to find motivational quips is the JOI thread.

I have a question about Louis Armstrong. I understand he had a right to sing the blues. I understand he had a right to feel low down. But what on earth made him think he could hang around down by the river? That was just a step too far.

Edit: OK, now a serious question. I've moved on to lesson 7. Can someone please help me make sense of dominants. I don't need absolute rules that are always followed. Just some kind of sense.

I understand b9 is often the V of the minor. Apart from that I get terribly confused.

>> That was just a step too far.
Yeah, a little too far out

>>Edit: OK, now a serious question. I've moved on to lesson 7. Can someone please help me make sense of dominants. I don't need absolute rules that are always followed. Just some kind of sense.
I understand b9 is often the V of the minor. Apart from that I get terribly confused.

Do you mean in terms of voicings?

Not voicings so much as the alterations. Sharpened 9th, flattened 9th. Ditto for 13th.

I completely get that a dominant chord often has the 13th instead of the 5th. That makes perfect sense to me. What I'm looking for is some way to understand why and where the 9th and/or 13th are altered.

The other thing that confuses me - though I try not to let it - is that the b13 is sometimes called a #5. Unless there's some subtle difference, I just see them as two different names for the same thing - or should I pay closer attention?

10,

I'm not sure I understand the question.
In a minor ii-V-I, the 9 of the V is often flat. The natural 9 would not sound very good.
But the thing is you can really alter those chords a lot. Much depends on where your melody is going.
So you'll see leadsheets with +5 or #9, or #11, that's usually because the melody note is there.
Take Someday my Prince. It has G7+, that's because the #5, an Eb, is the melody.
Getting into stuff too advanced for me, when you alter chords with tri-tone subs, it lends itself to using nice diminished scales and patterns. For example, over a G7alt chord, you could look into G7 dim, or Ab melodic minor(1/2 step above) or D melodic minor (5th).

The other thing is that dominant 7th substitute nicely for other dominant 7th a tritone away. So having Eb7 D7 to Db7 can be seen as Eb7 D7 G7. If you were to play the descending root, then G7 would have an altered 13 in it. Move this to a b9, you got yourself a nice altered G7, which would lead nicely to a C-6, for example.

I'm glad you're not asking for rules, because I don't really know what they are. But there's a bit of magic happening when you get to make certain tones move from one to another. Watch the Bill Evans masterclass and see how Bill would treat simple progression and add lots of colors and movement. It's really interesting.

That's the beauty of solo piano, you can really move to weird places, and somehow make it work.

Check out some Art Tatum if you got it. It's totally out of this world. The stuff he uses is really out there. Very advanced and whacked out re-harm. I don't get it...

Hi Knotty and thanks for your answer.



I'm starting lesson 7 which has the dominant voicings. There is no theory, no explanation - just play then and absorb, transpose. This is fine and good. But... But as I play them I like to think to myself, 'this is such-and-such-a chord, I might use it in this situation'. And there are just so many alterations, it seems like a bit of a jungle.



Yes. Also the 13 is often flat, as this is the 3rd of the key I'm in, and for a minor key that's flat. Or I suppose it might be written b9#5, but I'm not sure I've ever seen this.



Makes sense. I don't have Someday My Prince written out, but I see what you're saying.



Yes, too advanced for me too. When you say G7alt, do you mean a specific alteration, or just anything?



Sorry, I don't get all of this.
So supposing I play:
Eb7: Eb G Bb Db
Then D7: D F# A C
Then a mystery chord: Db F Ab B
Then my mystery chord is EITHER: a rootless G7 with a flattened 5th and a flattened 9th OR: a tritone sub for that G7 (aka a Db7). Just depends on how I want to see it.

So if I see b5b9 then it's probably a tritone sub?

Am I close?

'fraid I don't get there being a 13th in that G7.



Yes, will get back to the masterclasses. I find they require a bit more time-at-a-stretch than I can normally manage.



I do have some Art T. But as always listening alone doesn't really help. It all comes too fast.

>> Then a mystery chord: Db F Ab B
that's a plain vanilla Db7

That's a also a G7 with a raised 5 and a b9. That's what I call G7alt. When you start altering 9 and 13, I might call that alt.

>> I'm starting lesson 7 which has the dominant voicings. There is no theory, no explanation - just play then and absorb, transpose. This is fine and good. But... But as I play them I like to think to myself, 'this is such-and-such-a chord, I might use it in this situation'. And there are just so many alterations, it seems like a bit of a jungle

I think the idea is to not master these voicings at all, but rather listen to each individual tones, and get used to the fact that many voicings work, especially on a dom 7.
There are many rules for applying voicings. One is you want them to match the melody that you are playing. When you are playing a natural 9, the b9 on the LH doesn't work great, for example.
Also, not all dom 7 is part of a major ii-5-I. For example in the blues. On the blues, #9 work great, because your blues scale's got the minor 3rd.
Finally, you pick voicings that work and move nice together.

For now, no need to go deep into trying to understand it all, because it's a life long journey. Also, you don't have to do all exercises at the same pace. You may stay on Hanon for 2 weeks, but move 1 voicing lesson per week.
That way, you'll finish the voicings quicker and you'll be ready to arrange. Once you start arranging, you kind of just spend a long time picking chords and playing with texture.

As you do the voicings, say the full chord name out loud. Play it with eyes open, then eyes closed, and visualize it on the keyboard. It's a sound and shape kinda thing.

>> I do have some Art T. But as always listening alone doesn't really help. It all comes too fast.
When you start arranging, spend some time alone trying to find nice chord and playing with all sorts of alterations. Then take a break and put Tatum on. Your ears will be more open to the kind of wildness that's going on.

It's kind of like if you practice block chords a la garland, then you listen to Garland. It makes a lot more sense, and you actually hear the tension better, because you just played it.

Just take it easy.

Raised 5th? Humour me. Which bit's the raised 5th?

yeah sorry, you got me!

Good, I thought I was going crazy!



Yeah, I get it. And I do it, don't get me wrong. I just can't entirely silence that part of my brain that says 'what tf am I doing?'

Thanks for your answers, it was just the kind of thing I was looking for.

Hi Knotty
That's interesting, I've been listening to Art Tatum these last few days and thinking "Is his melody driving some of the voicing ?"
When I'm learning to improvise, isn't my chord driving the melody ?

Cus,

When you learn to improvise, you want to keep it simple. Rhythm and time is the most important thing. You can play your whole life, do nothing but play a major scale, and still be very good. If you play with great phrasing and rhythm.

So the approach that we choose is to give a simple scale that you can rely on, one that works against the particular progression you're working on.

I was listening to Barry Harris, who's a really funny educator (and one of the best jazz pianist ever). Particularly opinionated. Anyway he was talking about a dude who said something like "I've done every thing in the major scale, I need more". And Barry saying "He's a fool".

So I'm answering 10s question to the best of my ability, but it's more advanced concepts that we shouldn't really try to apply on the spot quite yet.
That said, when you know you're going to practice improvising with a particular scale, choose a nice chord progression that works, and stick to it.

How many 2-5-1 have you done yet?

Hi Knotty
I've been trying to improvise cool melodies as well as on rhythm and phrasing. Maybe I will now just concentrate on rhythm and phrasing.
I've done all the major ii V I s.
I've done 2 combination progressions (C maj/A min and F maj/ D min) .
Right now I'm learning the tonality for Bb maj/G min doing your scales up, arps down etc exercises.

Unfortunately my right index finger is really sore from tennis, I'm seeing my coach on Friday to find out why. Yesterday I played through the pain but I think I really need to rest it.

Cheers
cus

That's too bad, custard, please do rest it, or get physio.

I suppose you could work on your LH voicings, or even some LH hanons. Yum!