Dear John,
Amen!
Chuck
On Jan 22, 2007, at 8:57 PM, John Howell wrote:
Jean wrote:
OK, folks, I "lurk," and sometimes for years. But, as a "sort of
professional" Bass player (String Bass for a 16 piece "Big Band,"
and Eb Tuba for a
Dixieland Band) this topic of how to "write" chord symbols sure
hits nerves.
However, my point is that WHY can't y'all agree on ONE name for
each chord?
Why several names, regardless of your "musical point of view?"
Just hoping somehow, some way, the folks who arrange and publish
and sell
arrangements for the more mundane music could make life on the
stage a lot easier
if they could manage to AGREE on ONE name for ONE chord.
Hi, Jean. I feel your pain!! Someone commented that jazz theory
is pretty young. I look at it a little differently.
Any living language is constantly changing, partly in response to
fashion changes, partly in response to fads, partly because words
fall out of use or take on new meanings, and partly because new
things happen and new words are needed to describe them.
The language of chord symbols is just such a living language. It
originated with the Tin Pan Alley music publishers, who wanted to
make their sheet music attractive to the largest public, so they
added either guitar boxes, ukulele boxes, or banjo boxes giving the
chord changes, but since they couldn't give all 3, they also added
chord symbols.
They were pretty crude in the years between, say 1900 and 1920 or
'30. The chords that turned up the most often--like major triads
and dominant 7ths--got the simplest symbols. And as pop music and
jazz gradually evolved and changed, new, more complex symbols had
to be adopted involving modifiers and extensions. Sometimes the
harmonies that were used were more complex than the available
symbols. Richard Rodgers' music is full of chord symbols that
spell out the right hand notes, but don't properly identify the
chords because they ignore what the bass notes have to say about
the harmonies. (The old "is it an added 6th chord or a minor 7th"
question.) The fraction notation didn't exist until songwriters
like Burt Bacharach (and undoubtedly jazz composers as well)
started using chord structures like subdominant chord over dominant
bass note in the '60s. For years it was common to write "add 9"
when what you really wanted was "add 2" without adding the 7th.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I AM NOT A JAZZ GUY, AND
I AM NOT A MUSIC THEORIST! With that said, however, I've been
arranging and using chord symbols for many years. My impression,
with Hiro's comments and those of others, is that they are indeed
moving farther and farther away from the basics, and trying to
specify every last aspect of a chord, which sort of inevitably
calls a LOT more attention to the extensions than to the basic chord.
A parallel can be drawn with the figured bass of the 17th and 18th
centuries. (This, by the way, is a no-longer-living language, but
one that served for generations to solve exactly the same problems
that were faced in 20th century pop and jazz.) They didn't really
NEED to cram so many figures in and try to give a number for every
single passing tone, but modern editors tend to do exactly that,
and for a good player it's simply overkill. I think that probably
describes the confusion you're complaining about, as well. A good
player just needs the basics, and his or her musicianship takes
over from there and the fingers create music that's MUCH better
than I could have written!
As David Bailey pointed out in his very well thought out response,
no, there isn't going to be any Academy of Chord Symbols to lay
down the law, because it's a living and changing language and too
many people would ignore it, as they properly should. So just use
the ears God gave you and play what belongs there without worrying
about the hyper-specialists and the things that turn them on.
There are always going to be chord changes that are ambiguous, and
different people are going to interpret them differently. And
without that freedom, music would be BORING!!!
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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Chuck Israels
230 North Garden Terrace
Bellingham, WA 98225-5836
phone (360) 671-3402
fax (360) 676-6055
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