Can help with theory questions.
- Thread starter Drapte
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scrapheaper
Moderator
That's quite a broad statement,how much do you know about scales and chords? Do you know roman numeral notation? Chord extensions? Keys? Key changes?
I know my major scale, the minor scales and the variations. I know Roman numeral notation and as far as extensions go I've used 7ths and not much else. I have a basic idea of key change but I've yet to actually have someone explain good ways to change in a way I can understand
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different-tone
New member
You should explain what a picardy third is because it is a seriously underrated piece of theory
Do you understand the concept of modes? And as for key changes, it's important to understand the concept of cadences. Do you know what a cadence is?
Basically, again it's going to come back to cadences before learning about this.
Understand that most chords are built in 3rds is the best start. Most good melodies hit either the R 3rd 5th 7th or 9th on the beat. For example if you had a C major chord, C E G B D would all be good places to start, the 7th will probably sound quite tense but will work fine over a C major in I or IV. Also playing around with a C Major pentatonic scale - C D E G A is going to help you. It's important to understand modes and also the way that chords are constructed.
MoyoIsDope
HipHopHippie
ive been playing guitar for 10 years, and i have the same question for every jazz musician. How Do You transition from one chord to the next? For Instance, say you are playing a ii-v-i. G C F. From the G playing the 5th before switching (to the C) or playing the 3rd before switching (to the C) and then from C to F without sounding to repetitive (i.e. hitting the same transition notes as in G to C).
I hope I explained this right.
EDIT: I understand modes. When I'm improving over jazz, I'm able to find certain licks, but the usage of half-steps (such as the bebop scale) throw me off. I started off at first playing blues, so my improv is in blue style (kinda going up and down the blues and/or pentatonic scale latching onto the third to transition to the next). Jazz has always had this INVERTED feel to it, but I never understood theory to much to understand what exactly was happening.
I hope I explained this right.
EDIT: I understand modes. When I'm improving over jazz, I'm able to find certain licks, but the usage of half-steps (such as the bebop scale) throw me off. I started off at first playing blues, so my improv is in blue style (kinda going up and down the blues and/or pentatonic scale latching onto the third to transition to the next). Jazz has always had this INVERTED feel to it, but I never understood theory to much to understand what exactly was happening.
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Almost all jazz licks can be brought back to 7 - 3 and 9 - 5 resolutions over the changes. There is a book called "Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony" by Bert Ligon that explains this concept thoroughly.
A basic out line would look like this
You could also resolve the 9ths to the 5ths. The trick is using chromaticism and other things to embellish the lines. There is really no way to explain it here in this post and I would also be lying to say I knew every way of doing it. The best thing to do to understand jazz music is to get something like the Charlie Parker Omnibook and go through it.
In regards to the Bebop scale, the real goal is to hit the chord tones on the on beat now rather than taking my word for it, find some transcriptions on great jazz music and just look at how they almost always do it. Notice in the outline above how 1 and 3 do it too (Most bop lines are played in 8th notes so the above example should be looked at as being played twice as fast) The bebop scale is theory that came after the fact, rather than learning the bebop scale I would suggest learning to place the chord tones on the beat and seeing how you will naturally play "Bebop Scales". The trick with the bebop scale is that the chromatic note is not on the beat. Now again this is not hard and fast, there are plenty of examples of people targeting colour tones like the 6th for example but these 2 concepts I have put to you above are really key to understanding the fundamentals of jazz music.
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