Curriculum
I guess there are about 6 discrete units of study at this time:
I. RHYTHMIC UNDERPINNINGS
II. BLUES
III. AN OVERVIEW OF FUNCTIONAL TONAL HARMONY
IV. MODAL HARMONY, MODAL CHORD PROGRESSIONS, AND MODAL IMPROVISATION
V. JAZZ HARMONY: THE SCALE-TONE SEVENTHS AS A FOUNDATION
VI. JAZZ IMPROVISATION
I. RHYTHMIC UNDERPINNINGS
This is where we explore the various rhythmic feels and grooves common to Rock, Blues, Pop, R&B, Latin, and other genres. This is material that is often glossed over by many rock musicians, but it should be like the first boot-camp for anyone wanting to really get inside the music in a professional way. For the great majority of folk musicians, this is really a foreign language, and there is extremely little exposure to it.
Here are the main areas:
-
Straight-Eighths 4/4
- driving rock-style beats
- Latin influenced, Afro-Cuban rhythmic displacements
- Bo Diddley
- 16th note grooves and funk
- bossa-nova
-
Swing-Eighths, Shuffle, and 12/8
- the sub-division of the beat into threes
- anticipations and syncopation
- polyrhythmic 12/8: putting twos against threes, threes against fours
- and mapping out concurrent measures of 4/4 and 3/4 and 2/4 against
- measures of 12/8.
- jazz waltz: 3/4 and 6/8 blend
II. BLUES
dominant 7th chords as the base
various 4-bar jams
12-bar: from simplest to embellished turnarounds and sub-cycles
fundamentals of the blues scale and its different versions
- minor pentatonic: 1, b3, 4, 5, b7
- blues scale: 1, b3, 4, #4, 5, b7
- bebop blues scale: 1, b3, 4, #4, 5, (6?), b7, 7
uncle_jerry's_mixolydian_plus_b3(#2)_chromatic_lower_neighbor_approach_tone_to_3: 1, 2, b3, 3, 4, 5, 6, b7
III. AN OVERVIEW OF FUNCTIONAL TONAL HARMONY
the definition of FUNCTIONAL and TONAL: ti-do tone relations, tritone resolution, V7-I, secondary dominants and tonicization
IV. MODAL HARMONY, MODAL CHORD PROGRESSIONS, AND MODAL IMPROVISATION
MODAL HARMONY and modal tone-relations: getting away from FUNCTION or redefining tone-gravity in the first place.
INTRO to melody-over-drone concept pentatonics and the modes of the major pentatonic interval structure of the pentatonics in detail
Modal Chord Progressions:
- building scale-tone triads and 7th chords on each mode
- redefining cadence chords and function (tone-gravity) unique to each mode
- inventing your own "pet" modal progressions to build melodic material
- experiments with pure Dorian or Mixolydian 12-bar blues progressions
Modal Improvisation
- expanded jazz concepts of modal improvisation, where the boundary between the linear (horizontal-event-in-time) melodic line element and the harmonic (vertical simultaneity) is blurred and these elements are freely intermingled
- polychords
V. JAZZ HARMONY: THE SCALE-TONE SEVENTHS AS A FOUNDATION
building the scale-tone 7th chords in D Major with D-A-D-D 4-string equi
- building all other categories of jazz chords
- various sus2 and sus4 voicings
- 9th, 11th, and 13th chords
- altered chords
The Harmonic Minor Scale
- diminished chords and their birthplace in harmonic minor
- building all seven scale-tone sevenths in harmonic minor
VI. JAZZ IMPROVISATION
soloing over changes: devices and your toolbox for building lines
practical considerations for the mostly diatonic fretboard