Re: What's the relation****p between scales and chords?

On Feb 27, 7:08 pm, Joey Goldstein <nos...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Joey Goldstein wrote:
>
> > In the jazz community, when analyzing chord progressions that are to
be
> > used by jazz improvisers, things are usually the way I've said they
are.
> > I.e. We tend to use upper case Roman numerals and spell out the chord
> > quality in our analyses of chord progressions. Spend some more time in
> > the jazz community maybe?
>
> Preface that paragraph above with "In my experience...."

The carats seem to be messed up here. But if I am following them
correctly, YES, if you (Joey) preface your comments by saying that "in
your experience" then they are more true than the statements that you
had made in the first place! That would change your claim to a great
extent as the claim was that it was STANDARD. This shows that it is
only opinion and I would have no way of knowing that you would not me
telling the truth.


>
> Lots of jazz players I've associated with have also used lower case
> Roman numerals, sometimes with qualifiers (eg. "iim" vs "ii") and
without.
> Almost all schooled jazz musicians have taken a legit Tonal harmony
> course in school *in addition to* their jazz harmony courses. So they
> all understand the norms of classical Tonal analysis techniques.
>
> But in general, in my experience, most jazz musicians prefer to use
> upper case Roman numerals with qualifiers, eg "IIm".


As I have pointed out in another post, that is certainly true. The
problem is now being whittled down a bit. YES, the do this, but it is
not really analysis. When they do use the UC with qualifiers they are
only spelling chords in the context of a key.. It is really not much
more than a way to help them to learn to transpose the tunes to
various keys. We used these methods verbally when calling out R&B
chords back in the 50s and 60s. We did not, however, profess this to
be analysis. When we analyzed the tunes, we talked about them in
different terms and in ways that were specific to our local and to the
music that we were playing. It was very effective for having new
players learn the tunes on the job. It was not, however, a standard of
analysis.


>
> If you don't want to do it that way, fine. Don't do it that way.
>
> Meanwhile, did someone up-thread say that Piston used upper case RN?
> Did he write out chord quality too? Or was the student expected to
> interpret "II" as being a minor chord based on the active key?

As stated many times in the past the latter is correct. That was the
problem with Piston's Harmony. The information was all quite right,
but the student had to learn both systems. I believe that this was
related to the fixed DO used in Europe, but I may be wrong about that.
Piston was a more modern musician writing about an older style and he
presented the music in that manner. Personally, I like his approach
although I certainly realize its limitations as an introductory book
on harmony. Piston is a great book to use as long as you use one of
the other ones that uses the UC/LC as well. The problem occurs when
you get into more modern progressions and a lot of extra information
has to be penned into the analysis to show function where as the UC/LC
eliminates a lot of these extra notes as it accounts for the various
scale implications that may be used in a more directly related manner

On the other hand, his other books like the one on Counterpoint can be
taken as one of the best standards on the subject and can stand alone
and is not dependent on other knowledge to understand a wider range of
musical eras.

>
> My main exposure to classical Romantic era harmony was the Delamont
> books. And I was surprised to find out later that his labels were non
> standard. He used upper RN for all primary chords in both major and
> minor keys. LC for everything else, including non-primary major chords
> within minor keys.

I don't know that specific author. But I don't understand what you
mean by LC for everything else. I don't know what you mean by 'primary
chords'. I can guess that you mean (well, he meant) I IV V and ii iii
vi vii (?) If this is the case, I can see why you have some difficulty
with the functional harmonic analysis techniques. This is also why I
consider it im****tant that even slight misrepresentations or
generalizations or "slightly off" explanations can't go by
unchallenged when presented in a media that has many beginners looking
for understanding

In my case, I was lucky to have a minimum of misinformation before I
fell into a "den of analysis" that did not tolerate this kind of half
info. If we had shown up with the book you mentioned, it would have
been pointed out why it was not a good source and possibly corrected
in the text. lol The same was true with the Piston Harmony book. In
this case, they merely pointed out that we were using the UC/LC
notation and that after we understood that enough to pass the course,
then the Piston book was excellent and all the information was indeed
correct, but that the more modern music required that the UC/LC in
order to more easily notate and understand some of the relation****ps.

> Eg.
> In C major
> I ii iii IV V vi viidim
> In C minor
> Im iidim biii IVm V bvi viidim
> (Note: He used the small superscripted circle for dim. I just can't
> remember how to type it right now.)
>
> At the time I was reading his books, it was all clear to me.
> But nowadays it seems really convoluted and confusing. I know he was
> trying to impress upon the student the im****tance of the primary chords,
> but still.
> Thankfully, there are many other gems within his pages.

I see that i did understand you opening statement and you seem to see
that all theory books are not created equal!


>
> So, things don't seem to be nearly as standardized as I think LJS would
> like them to be. Perhaps he could start his own Harmony Standards
Council.

You could do this, but wait! You say that this author gave you non
standard information, you understood it at the time, but later it
somehow seemed convoluted and yet, because there were little gems in
it that things are not as standardized as I think? I think your
convolution is still hanging around. The point of the whole thing is
that your quoted book by Delamont is NOT standard. It is a flawed and
incomplete approach. Was this a book used in your school? or did you
stumble on it thumbing through the library? You got started with a non
standard book! you just explained this to us? Now this is a valid
reason to say that the basic method taught in most every music theory
class in good schools is NOT standard?  Joey, you are so close. Too
bad if you can't make that last little jump to understand the truth of
the matter. I hope that you can see it, you seem to actually try, but
early misconceptions are really hard to ignore.
LJS


>
> --
> Joey Goldstein
> <http://www.joeygoldstein.com>
> <http://homepage.mac.com/josephgoldstein/AudioClips/audio.htm>
> joegold AT sympatico DOT ca