When I was at the University of Southern California a man who had been
studying at Berklee transferred in to the USC guitar program and had to
adjust to the terminology. There are definitely some differences in the way
each school teaches its theory courses, but I feel they have the same goal in
mind: to ingrain the basic mental concepts and physical techniques important
to an improvising musician. As most musicians do, I transcribed and
committed to memory many solos and melodies before I had the names for the
particulars. The names only helped me in communicating the ideas with other
musicians.
>I'm used to calling things like Fmaj7 for Dmi7 a chord superimposed
>on another chord or a chord equivalence. TO me that is a more consistent
>usage because to say you are substituting Fmaj7 means that the bass
>player is also playing that chord and that's not what you want.
>There are lots of seventh chords and triads that can be superimposed
>over other chords. They are still just tensions but it's easier to
>see them as just chords.
>The fmaj7 is a particular voicing which can be used for dmi7. I guess
>"substituted" but that term is already used for chord subsitution.
I think the main difference in our definitions is that you seem to have more
different definitions of similar things than I, whereas I have many specific
categories which qualify the terms ("Compound" substitution, "Direct"
substitution, "Common-Tone" substitutions, "Tri-tone" substitutions,
"Diatonic" substitutions, etc.). As far as the bass player's involvement,
that falls under the term "re-harmonization" for me, which means
pre-determined substitutions (written in the lead sheet, or agreed upon
before the performance). I think of substitution as its literal
translation, one chord in place of another. This includes many different
categories/forms of substitutions including what is called "common tone"
substitution, which is used to create rootless 9th voicings.
>For example write a chart with |Fmaj7 G7 | C | and see what kind
>of performance you get.
Again our definitions are at odds not our ideas. The form of "substitutions"
I am talking about are made by the player in soloing form or by the
accompanist while reading from the standard lead sheet and are made on the
bandstand while playing to make the changes more interesting and to widen out
the harmonies from their basic seventh chord structures. Your example, to my
terminology, is an example of re-harmonizing a tune at the compositional
level, and this can lead to confusion for the player. I believe in making
the lead sheet (blowing changes) as clean and simple as possible and leaving
the chord substitutions for the discretion of the player. I have often been
on the bandstand and heard some piano player or bassist throwing me different
changes to a common standard or blues, I just rely on my ears and try to go
with the flow (if I have done my work in practice sessions I am fine). As a
cleaned up paraphrase of what Sonny Stitt said to a befuddled famous piano
player who was trying to play on a "rhythm changes" tune behind his sax solo
and having troubles: "Just Listen."
Surely both our terminologies can co-exist with a little translation. In
music I have found that there is no absolute terminology that spans all
regions, eras, and schools (during the early bebop era the term "flatted
fifth" was much more prevalent than the term "sharp eleventh" is now; we can
name a French, German, or Neapolitan sixth chord as a seventh chord form in
basic R,3,5,and7 style, but they won't sound different if voiced the same) it
is more important that we are flexible in our definitions and eventually get
on the same page as one another.
I would like to get past explaining semantics and back to music as soon as we
understand ourselves. I think we can agree on most things as we are both
teachers and professional players. I have found that the methods I learned
from my schooling have worked quite well for my understanding of jazz and
we probably share some common ground in our teaching and playing ideas.
Brian Oates