This work would probably not have been created if I had not heard all of my musical heroes both past and present, whose musical and biographical histories are a continual source of joy, motivation and inspiration pour moi. From Louis Armstrong through John Coltrane on to Duane Allman and Pat Metheny, and so many great voices in between, has come the inspiration to not only play music as an art form but a passionate curiosity to understand it's theoretical components, structures and the magic it creates. To voices such as Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Wes Montgomery, Wynton Marsalis, Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, Niels O'rstead Pederson, Duane Allman, Jerry Garcia, Steve Kimock and Michael Brecker, Virginia Mayhew, John Stowell and Paul Asbell, my sincerest thanks and best wishes always.
Sincerest thanks to college professor giants Dr. James B. Miller, Dr. George Belden and Karen Strid-Chadwick, secondary music geniuses Jim Bowers, Margaret David and Chuck Nagel and information / computor specialist John Field. Special thanks to my sister Stephanie Craig Nelson and brothers Peter and Jeffery Craig and families for their lifelong support and encouragement. Thanks to spritualists Lynn Naden and Sandra Calvillo, sound scientist Ken Bettisworth, guitarists Lindy Raines and Kim Kuhl, vocalist Donna Arcario, anthropologist Robin La Vine, bassists Dirk Westfall, Bob Sunda and Bob Andrews, saxophonist Bryon Dickerson, pianists Dianne Mascorella and Tom Bargelski, drummer Greg Holloway, vibesist John Damberg and trumpeter Randy Sherer for their direct contributions, influence abd ongoing interest in this work.
About the author. My earliest musical memories come from my folks when my Mom showed me how to snap my fingers to add to my "Hound Dog" routine much to the delight of my Dad, way back when on the Jersey shore. Years later, after a few guitar lessons during elementary school, I waited till high school to re-enter the musical world of rock and blues music then led in my world by Jerry Garcia and Duane Allman. At farming college I was attending, a friend and gifted player Andy Carballero passed along a George Benson record which opened my eyes so wide that I set my sights on the musical horizons of American jazz. At art college I was blessed to study with aforementioned Dr. Miller and many other talented faculty at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh for a number of years. Dr.'s Yeonin Gibbory, Dr.'s Robert Cancelosi, Alan Frank and Angelo LaMarianna all contributed in making an incredibly gifted faculty of players and educators for so many students for so many years. Band mates from this era include saxophonists Dave Grippo and Sam White, bassist Tim Paree, guitarists Mike LaShey, Bill Pollack and Jeff Druck, drummers Doug Zimmer and Jim Crawford and trombonist Kirk Lamberti.
The evolution of my tonality as a musical artist is based on what my needs as a working guitarist were over the years, coupled with what my ear allowed me to understand in regards to the creation of musical tension and its release. Evolving from a folk player in my teens, where all I really needed was a couple of open chords, to a blues / rock player, where my movable barre chords and pentatonic scale shape covered the gig, gradually moving into the world of jazz music, where knowledge of the full spectrum of tonality of the combined blues and equal temper worlds gradually became more and more essential to my artistic statement and covering the gig. So in a sense, my exploring the theory was directly related to what I needed to be effective on the bandstand and as my style evolved from folk to jazz, so did my knowledge of music theory. This format for this text includes this way of evolving and correlating theoretical complexity and musical style.
So lucky for me in that rather early on in my serious musical studies at college I was introduced to the music of John Coltrane. The evolution of his writing and his improvisations has provided a framework for the gradually evolving and understanding of tonality that I have. As Mr. Coltrane "exhausted" the conventional resources, his need to create an increasingly more difficult improvisational challenge for himself manifested itself in the writing of his compositions. The first "increased challenge" with the double 2 / 5 harmonic motion of "Moments Notice" and minor 3rd 2 / 5 motions of "Lazybird" in 1957 and onto "Giant Steps" in 1959, resulting in the everyday structures of American music organically morphing to Trane's new, highly organized level of harmonic complexity often termed by some "post bop." Learning these three compositions created a pathway for me to organize the theory and my shedding, creating a gradual evolution in complexity from diatonic 2 / 5 into post bop. With the addition of the freer, more chromatic approach on "A Love Supreme" and outward, Mr. Coltrane embraced the full spectrum of our musical resources, and by doing so, showed us a organic pathway of development towards polytonality. Following this pathway through tonality, as founded by Mr. Coltrane, is the essence of the general way the curriculum of music theory unfolds within this text.
I also tend to glue things together from the perspective of the major scale more so than the minor or blues scales. All of my musical roads tend to meet at "Ionian Boulevard" so to speak, and take that joyous cruise down main street in the major tonality. Sensing that how the theory is presented might bias the reader artistically towards certain elements, the idea that "only in theory" is the major scale so important and at the center of these discussions. For instance, for blues players, the blues scale is often at their tonal and artistic center, but to try and organically "grow" all of the theory from the blues grouping of pitches is just not practical for me as an educational writer. After a lengthy struggle, I eventually justified to myself using this major scale perspective by examining the tonality of each composition in the Charlie Parker Omni Book. Out of 55 tunes, 51 are written in the major tonality. So, are 9 out of 10 songs in the American songbook written with the major scale / major tonality? Good enough for Mr. Parker, good enough pour moi.
Early on in my career of performing jazz music, I needed to create lines over rapidly modulating chord changes and using the major scale simply turned out to be the easiest fix. Big relief for me when I started "making" the changes, even just diatonically with the major scales. From this perspective of the major scales the church modes emerged, adding to my palette of colors more subtle minor colors. Creating arpeggios from all these groups have gradually elevated me towards the polytonal world, where I generally like to try and hang these days. So, most of the theory, at least the reasonably complex ideas and onward, so often are projected from the major scale group of pitches and return back to the major scale color for closure.
The bridge, for lack of a better word, in how I correlate the relationship between styles of American music and the complexity of it's theory comes at the point where the diminished color emerges in the literature. Rarely used in folk and rock, a bit more in the blues music, the diminished color is an integral player in the world of jazz and pop music in a couple of basic ways. Understanding it's sound was a major step forward for me. For not only are the colors cool, fun and exciting, but it's resolving symmetry of minor 3rd's created an initial organic path towards polytonality, a path I continue to truck along everyday.
We find this color initially used in basically two ways in playing jazz standards. As a passing chord between diatonic chord progressions as in the following idea. Example 1.
| C major 7 | C# dim 7 | D min 7 | G 13 |
The second common use for the diminished sound finds this color in the upper part of dominant harmony ( V 7b9 ). Example 2.
| D min 7 | G 13 G 7b9 | C major 7 | % |
So why is the diminished color my breakpoint in the theory? Well basically in that the symmetrical properties of the diminished color allow for some interesting possibilities in regards to modulation and chord substitution. Modulation, or changing keys, is something that happens frequently in jazz but somewhat rarely in the other styles, at least as a structural, compositional element. The ability to reshape one fully diminished chord to create 4 different dominant seventh chords and it's minor 3rd symmetry, is what I believe to be part of Mr. Coltrane's evolution of the double 2 / 5 motion towards his "post bop" harmony. After a player exhausts this multiple resolving diminished gamut of tonic possibilities, not only are the polytonal sounds readily accepted but ascension to the 12 tone perspective of tonality becomes natural. That is, if a player decides to go there. So again, thanks to Mr. Coltrane for leading the way.
So, in my evolution of tonality, when I reached the diminished chord, which became necessary to play the tunes of the band was working with, I became intrigued by its properties and challenged to be able to use these properties in my playing. A rather intense lesson with blues and jazz master guitarist Paul Asbell set me on a course to explore these multiple resolutions. This study became a rather long period of shedding, whereby I got control of the color and its multiple resolving properties under my fingers. After a few years of totally abusing this color, it gradually became a bit tired and started to sound very cliche. It was at this point that I met modern jazz guitarist John Stowell, an incredibly gifted lyrical bebop player, who discussed the possibilities of using the melodic minor color in what turned out to be a similar fashion to how I was abusing the diminished color at that time. After a few months of examination, I gradually began to merge the two colors, creating new possibilities. What resulted was a gradual softening of the all too obvious diminished color ( to my ears anyway ) into new "softer" colors that I began to use in basically the same way I used the diminished color, i.e., permutations in minor thirds and resolution to multiple tonics. As the colors got softer, they theoretically emerged as upper structure polytonal chords and colors, musical elements located in the upper part of altered arpeggios, where tonal gravity is not so powerful a force, thereby releasing one's musical ideas to the wider universe of creation. So as the color softens, it's tonal gravity is reduced? Exactly. And we can move these softened colors in a diminished fashion? Yep. That's the idea.
Coming full circle. Interesting in that from the purely diatonic world of folk music I moved into the blues, where some of the pitches fall between the diatonic cracks, into the world of jazz, where my needs gradually included yet more and more dissonance. And after a few years of exploring this dissonance, I gradually evolved back to a less dissonant sound and concept, although now my less dissonant diatonic world is softened by the polytonal colors, creating a different sense of dissonance and tension, allowing for a greater freedom in shaping the tonal gravity of my ideas. So very cool.
Here is a historical timeline of the above sequence of how I learned the resources and gradually landed in the world of polytonality.
Learned a few triadic open chords on guitar / no idea of the theory of these chords.
Learned movable triadic barre chords and a pentatonic scale shape / necessitating to begin to learn the letter names of the pitches on my instrument. The concept of a key center emerges. Play in a blues / rock band. Begin pentatonic and blues soloing.
Begin playing jazz tunes that require using more of the color tones for the harmony. Major seventh and major nine become the new, cool tonic colors. Begin to study the theory of classical music. Learn how to spell any chord quickly and accurately.
Begin to solo over changes on the gig. Necessitates learning all of the pitches on my instrument. Learn to play the 12 major scales over the entire range of my instrument. Discover the relationship between the major scale / and Ionian mode. Church modes emerge. Introduced to the music of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.
Need of the diminished chord for tunes on the gig. Learn two diminished chord shapes and one diminished scale shape.
Lesson with guitarist Paul Asbell, which opens up the theory of the diminished color. Also outlines the interval studies with the major scale and the idea of permutation of melodic ideas. Begin shedding on both.
Lesson with guitarist John Stowell, begin exploring the melodic minor color. This leads to begin to gradually reshape the diminished tension into softer, less dissonant colors. These colors in theory become elements of polytonality. Begin using softened diminished colors in the same way as diminished colors. Work out new voice leadings to accommodate the new colors. Tonal gravity gradually begins to go away, emerging only when chosen to do so. Freedom of melodic and harmonic choice expands dramatically.
And today, back to the basics for the aspiring jazz artist, learning tunes and a continuing exploration of Bebop.
Essential texts over the years. A long lost soft cover music theory workbook that sketched out scales and chords. Then into the William Ottman theory series 1 and 2 in college and analyzing J.S. Bach chorales. A two volume set of guitar books by jazz master Johnny Smith. Guitarist Ted Green's essential Chord Chemistry. Then I read through Tonal Convergence by guitarist Ted Dunbarr of Rutgers University, which basically looks at possible lines of convergence and why within a key center. This led to George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, which to a certain extent shifts our entire musical paradigm from the Ionian to Lydian modes. Rather complex but very cool, I've been through it almost three times now and still find new and exciting ideas and possibilities while getting totally lost. Today it is a chromatic approach to the theory, looking at loops of pitches, interval sequences, cycles of chords and composing, while the Charlie Parker Omnibook by Jamie Aebersold and Ken Sloane provides the shedding challenge. Sifting through Bird's ideas looking for coolness that get filtered through my own palette and approach. Cool?
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