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Bass Lines

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 9:26 pm
by Bob
Any special considerations playing jazz bass lines in an LCC environment?

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 9:08 pm
by sandywilliams
Once the Lydian tonic is established the bass player could spontaneously reharmonize in real time (if the piano/guitar is playing or not playing the right voicings).

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 9:45 pm
by dds1234
George puts some vague (yet helpful) info on bass tones in the Concept. I looked for the page for a bit but didn't find it.

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 11:17 pm
by Bob
WOW
That was not the answer I anticipated, but as it resonates: Of course. and how profound. Thank You.

(The rest is optional, just me sorting out the implications from outward in.)
>At minimum, as long as long as I play the root on 1(chords at one per measure), I can play any notes in between. (guided by aesthetics, and my hand (facility). Any note can be theoretically justified by LCC).
>As I (mind/hands) absorb the Concept, my choices become more coherent (vis-a-vis tonal gravity)(assuming a modicum of taste).
>( I have no point 3)

(even more optional)
After studying the Pali Canon, I hooked up with Tozan Akiyama, whose response to Q/A was always, "Just sit." Your response seems to be "Just play." Works for me.

(How optional can you get)
I will "run this through the world" and report back.

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:48 am
by sandywilliams
"At minimum, as long as long as I play the root on 1(chords at one per measure), I can play any notes in between. "
Who says you have to even play the root? You would be making new root motion.

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 7:07 pm
by Bob
If I may unpack this:

"At minimum, as long as long as I play the root on 1 (chords at one per measure), I can play any notes in between." Change to: At minimum... [Given the stock changes ], root ....any note in between. While at 'minimum plus' acknowledging that 'on 1' one could play a third, fifth, etc. ... any note.... A frequent response of piano/guitar players, thus far has a common "...roots are good...." {Does "Allow the scales of the solo to express the vertical coloring of chords." (p. 112) present a dilemma?} Further re: "spontaneously reharmonize" Without playing a root of the reharmonization somewhere, who would know one was reharmonizing? Perhaps my minimalist sentence, may have been interpreted as 'root of the original chord.' However "You would be making new root motion." May have already answered this, No?

At what point would a LCC approach to (accompaniment, leaving counterpoint out of it for now) bass lines differ from a 'statisically 12-tone, (e.g., Seymour Schifrin's woodwind quintet) -tonal environment, realized by a 'reverse Shoenberg' (e.g., Wourinen or Burt Levy) approach where in one might suggest a tonal center or centers by reiterating certain notes, or through prominent interval roots (somewhere between Hindemith & Russell)?

Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2007 9:27 am
by bobappleton
Bob B says:

<At minimum, as long as I play the root on one chord per measure, I can play any notes in between.>

Bob A says:

<At mniimum, as lnog as I paly the root on one cohrd per maursee, I can paly any ntoes in beeewtn.>

This appeared on the Internet in 2003:

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

And there's more:

In 1999 New Scientist magazine reported that "reversing 50-millisecond segments of recorded sound does not greatly affect listeners' ability to understand speech (In Brief, 1 May, p 27)."

This is called making the tacit explicit.

Back to the Concept.

Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2007 11:18 am
by Bob
Again, WOW (a religious expression, "I believe in WOW."

A response from the 'committee.'

The Psychologist: You scared me, man. I was going for my script pad. (word salad v dyslexia).

The Drummer transmigrating to Bass Player: Optimally, you can't quite hear what the bass and drums are doing without hitting the Karoake function and slowing the tempo, as when transcribing. C.f., Varese' re: recording and the death of music.
Also Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins as exemplars.

The 'Professsor': I just finished facilitating a modest pre-doctoral seminar on "The convergence of psychology, cognitive neuro-science, quantum mechanics and mysticism on the study of consciousness." Your comment is consistent with the notion that any event re-occuring at faster than 50 frames per second is perceived as continuous. (see Freud for why I didn't see the correlation with this thread.) (see my daughter for "Duh") May I use this thread as an example in the next round? Do you have the Cmaigrbre reference? If not I will task my crack team of RAs first thing Monday morning.

Bob B: Who are those guys? If you and Sandy give me another Aha experience, i'll have to fly to Kyoto, get Tozan out of retirement for a tune up. In a Milesian understatement, Thanks.


Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2007 11:42 am
by bobappleton
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/

this is a good start. there are conflicting stories about who did it first. that's why i'm saying the tacit to explicit journey is "music history" - classical, jazz, ancient, improvised musics of all kinds.

b

Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2007 12:37 pm
by Bob
By "Who did it first" are you referring to Russell, Hindemith etc? If so, did not nature do it first?

"Tacit - Explicit": Polanyi?
I need to keep reorienting myself.

By "who are these guys" I was referring to "the committee."

Perhaps I should de-quip my postings.

Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2007 6:47 pm
by Bob
Primarily relevant to this thread (see also the Ron Miller v(?) George Russell thread: Miller's books, Modal Jazz: Composition & Harmony V1 & V2 are a resource for practise guidelines implied by this discussion.

Vol. 1
pp 16-17 Tetra-chord formulas for Lydian Scales

p 20 Color tones for Lyd modes (e.g., in order of priority Lydian Modal Tonic #4 7 3 6 9 5(opt). (note that the LCC terms are my transliteration).
These color tones suggest the mode more clearly than running the I Maj 7(#11).

pp 32-33 Tetra-chord & Color tones of the Lyd.Aug (Miller: Altered diatonic no. 1; Levine: melodic minor harmony)

p 40 combination table Lyd & Lyd.Aug

p116-117 Tetra-chords & color tones for Lyd.Dim (Miller:Harmonic major
Vol. 2

pp 51-78
Re-harmonization Tables (see "creating new root motion" above.

p 91 Table of Trichords

or you could trust your ears. however as a drum teacher of mine once said, Sure Buddy Rich never practiced, but someone trying to take his lead runs the risk that they're not Buddy Rich.

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 12:00 am
by dogbite
assimilating this thread will take some further study; i had a little trouble remembering exactly what the original query was - oh yeah - bass lines. one thing about my perception of "bass lines in a LCC environment" is that it doesn't take long to conclude that the member scale used for the bass need not correspond to the member scale for the harmony and/or melody:

i know that one of the participants of this thread pointed out some time ago while pondering a paul chambers bass line in a miles davis tune the following situation - Dm7 chord; harmony and melody drawn from F lydian, bass line drawn from F major...

i think that this is a good example of HTG in action - the F major scale (bass line) seeking resolution to the F lydian, which was already happening in the other parts. i caught a vocalist doing this sort of thing on a demo tune of mine without realizing it - she was singing a C lydian fill over what most would consider a C major (A minor, really) situation: the chord of the moment was E7b9 resolving to Am9 and F# was being prominently used over the E7b9 with no ill effect - whether or not one would point out that this is VTG and HTG happening simultaneously i cannot say, but i did find this observation intriguing...

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 2:53 pm
by Bob
Just got a two hour phone call from a well known 'modernist' composer (not Ron Miller), responding to my request to review the "bass line" thread. It started with "Looks like b... s... to me, but resolved to: 'theories, and Russell's is important, are interesting and provide a perspective. However, it ultimately gets down to expression (etc.). This was supported by a dazzling synthisis of Shoenberg through Bird, Coltrane and you name it. Consensus was reached, in the jazz domain, with an appreciation of Miles Davis & Bill Evans. Much of what was discussed should not rankle anyone's Ezzthetics. However, a point well taken was that the notion of sort of a bass random walk irrespective of middle & foreground, was exquistly singled out for the b... s... award (my gloss). Was that a WOW buzz-killer, or a window to a higher truth?
Continuing to follow my bass instincts,
The Artist Formerly Known as Bob B: Bob Bb

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 7:29 pm
by Bob
I inferred from a pm or 2, that I should clarify the last post, to wit:
I was not putting my opinion in a fictional character's mouth, but sharing some counterpoint in the interest of the dialectic. In this e-medium, it's easier to forget that ideas are attached to egos, and sans the opportunity for clarifying miscues in real time.... Truth only exists in the context of the cultural narrative in which it is embedded. A final point, I find this dialectic invaluable in sorting out "bass lines."
Slcneery,
Bob Bb

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:15 pm
by Bob
OK. So it's not a dialectical forum. Thanks guys, It's been a slice.