Re: My Romance

Marc Sabatella ( (no email) )
Mon, 26 May 1997 16:14:08 -0600

>> The big problem I have with chord scales is that I see no evidence
>> whatsoever that the great players were doing that. This makes we wonder
>> where it came from.
>
>It probably came from early players' solos often hanging around chord
>tones, and many descriptions of bebop tend to stress improvising on the
>"upper intervals" of chords. The link between harmony and melody has to
>be thought through, and chord-scale approaches seem to be one "after the
>fact" explanation.

I think it mch more liekly it developed from an attempt to play non-tonal
music, where it is really the only way to proceed. The concepts *can* then
be applied to tonal music, but there is no particular reason to do so,
except as device to add chromaticism.

>I think Reed has successfully shown us many times that this explanation
>does not really serve well in explaining how great players actually
>create their music.

I think this all depends on how you define your set of great players. It
seems to be rather circular. I'm frankly getting a little tired of this
continued implication that modal and other non-tonals musics don't exist or
that the musicians who practice these styles are not great.

--------------
Marc Sabatella
marc@outsideshore.com
http://www.outsideshore.com/