Guide Tones (8:53)

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Do curso por University of Rochester

The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form

305 ratings

University of Rochester

The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form

305 ratings

The blues is an American art form and the most important musical form in jazz. Although there are other formal paradigms of the blues, such as 8-bar or 16-bar, this course focuses on different incarnations of the 12-bar blues. There are considerable differences between Early Jazz blues, Swing blues, Bebop blues, Modal blues, and Post Bop blues. Each type has its unique harmonic syntax, melodic vocabulary and, associated with them, improvisational techniques. While other aspects of jazz performance practice have been constantly changing from one stylistic convention to another, the blues has never lost its identity and expressive power, and continues to exert a powerful influence on the harmonic and melodic syntax of jazz. This seven-week course explores important aspects of the blues, blues improvisation, basic keyboard textures, jazz harmonic and melodic syntax. Topics include: (1) Blues Progressions; (2) Blues and Other Scales; (3) Improvisational Tools, and others. This course will also cover valuable theoretical concepts enabling the student to master the art of jazz improvisation. Each topic will be introduced from a practical perspective with the clearly stated goal: to improve one’s improvisational skills. Jazz improvisation is rooted in spontaneity, creativity, self-expression and, at the same time, self-control and order. A unique pedagogical approach based on a one-to-one musical interaction conducted with different instrumentalists will help to reinforce many of the concepts introduced in this course and realize its stated objectives.

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Keyboard Realization

Lesson 3 introduces the concept of guide tones and its association with invertible counterpoint. Four-part and five-part chords are discussed in detail by exploring their construction and function, as well as techniques to facilitate good voice-leading between chords using chordal inversions.

Lesson 3 Introduction (3:45)3:44

Guide Tones (8:53)8:52

Invertible Counterpoint (4:20)4:20

Charleston Rhythm (10:04)10:04

Four-Part Chords (9:35)9:34

Five-Part Chords (9:43)9:42

Comping Texture (18:58)18:58

Conheça os instrutores

Dariusz Terefenko
Associate Professor of Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media
Eastman School of Music

Let's begin with a discussion of guide tones.

Each note within a chord has a specific harmonic,

melodic, and tonal function, as well as a specific voice leading behavior.

Given the B flat 7 chord

[MUSIC]

Each note, of that chord, can be labeled.

Each note of that chord can be labeled as the root, the third,

the fifth, and the flat seventh.

So the guide tones of any dominant seventh formations,

are the third, [SOUND] and the flat seventh, [SOUND] all right?

We can do the same thing with other chords of the blues.

For instance, the E flat 7 chord in measure 5.

[SOUND] The root, E flat, the third.

G the fifth, B flat, and the seventh, D flat.

So the guide tones of the E flat seventh chord are G and

D flat, and they form the interval of the tritone.

So each guiding pair within the dominant seventh

chord will always form the interval of a tritone.

Let's take a different chord type, minor seven chord.

[MUSIC]

C minor 7.

Root, minor third, perfect 5th, minor seventh.

The guide tones of any minor type seventh chord are E flat.

[MUSIC]

And B flat.

Minor third and minor 7.

And just to complete our investigation of guide tones let's use major 7 type chords.

[MUSIC]

You have root, third, fourth, and the seventh.

So the guide tones are major third, and major seventh.

All right, so let's recapitulate our discussion of guide tones.

[SOUND] Dominant type chords, major third minor seventh.

Minor type chords.

[MUSIC]

Minor third, minor seventh.

Major type chords.

[MUSIC]

Major third, major seventh.

So now let's talk about how to deal with those guide tones in chord progressions.

Let's talk about their voice leading behavior and

how to connect chords using the principles of good voice leading.

Take for instance the first four measures of the basic blues progression.

And I'm going to play it with thirds and sevenths only, in that order.

So a third would be at the bottom, and the seventh would be on top.

[MUSIC]

That's realization doesn't sound quite right

because I'm using a lot of skips between consecutive notes.

But there is a better way of connecting the chords and

realizing chord progression using specific voice leading considerations.

And when we talk about voice reading considerations, or

the principles of voice reading, we should remember about common tone retentions,

parsimonious voice reading, which means moving mostly by step,

and focusing on contrary motion between the voices.

So when I realize the chord progression and the first four bars of the blues,

with good voice reading, the progression would sound like this.

[MUSIC]

Notice my hand, my right hand, is basically in the same position.

I'm not jumping around.

I'm only utilizing stepwise motion.

So the seventh, flat seventh, the dominant chord,

goes to the third of the next chord and the third goes down to the flat seven.

So in any chord progression related by descending fifths, B flat to E flat,

C flat to G.

The behavior of guide tones is always going to be the same.

The seven will go down to the third and

the third will go down to the seventh, all right?

When you look at measure four of our progression,

this is slightly different chord progression using minor seventh chords.

[MUSIC]

And chords.

This particular instance is our 2,

5 progression resolving to the E flat 7 in major 5.

In that progression notice that the third of F minor is heard

as a common tone and becomes the seventh of next chord.

The minor 7th, another guide tone, of a minor 7 goes

down to the 3rd of B flat 7.

Now listen to the entire realization of the blues progression.

Which I will play with a good voice reading.

On the screen you

can follow along

with my playing.

One, two, one two three four.

[MUSIC]

As you can notice, my right hand is kept in the same register.

It doesn't shift.

It doesn't go too low or too high.

Basically everything is in one hand position.

[MUSIC]

Because the rules of voice leading are retained.

[MUSIC]

The seventh goes down to the third and so forth.

There's one different progression that I would like to talk about.

In measures 7 and 8 we have motion from B flat to G 7.

That's a different root movement utilizing minor thirds in the base, right?

So there's no way of connecting guide tones using stepwise motion,

no such a possibility.

So we have to jump.

You have to use minor third jump.

But notice that the outer voices, the relationship between

hands are in contrary motion, right?

So instead of the left hand goes down a third and the right hand goes up.

So you have a nice countering motion between hands.

And there's another reason for that countering motion.

If you'd gone down then our

categorization what has been too low and

we'll be in danger of getting too muddy in the register, all right.

So here we have the readjustments.

Not only are we utilizing a better voice reading but an outer voices emphasizing

the contrary motion but also we are adjusting the register.

So and our progression in the same position that we started on.

And that's our opening position, okay?

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