Lately, I've been listening to Steve Kimock. He has an incredible touch. And he has some very unique (to me) Concepts on Music.

Here's a link to a clip of him playing some Slide Guitar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdYf30vxchM

What has me very excited, is some of the things I've read about "Blues Theory" and the Overtone Series, among other things.

Here's a cool Quote:

"There is a pre-existing physical order to vibration. Fixed in nature.
All people, all cultures share certain basic response to resonance, octave equivalance being the foremost.
Ten thousand years of primarily untempered pentatonic practice across the planet a distant second.

So there's a species wide history of shared response to resonance in a closed (by octave equivalance) system against the fixed background of the overtone series.

What's not fixed is each individuals center of their own emotional and aesthetic response. That is a moving target.

The purpose of the study of harmony, as in "things as they are together"
is to map the pre-existing natural order of vibration onto your own emotional/aesthetic center in order for you to most clearly use it to express or communicate with others in that emotionally resonant fashion we're calling music.

The "theory" has always been there. It's the physical nature of the universe. The process of internalizing and expressing those resonances just doesn't happen to have much to do with "music theory" as it is being discussed here.

It's a matter of definition.
I think music is the feeling I get when I listen to good music.
I've felt like that since I was a little kid.
I didn't really need the "music theory" I learned over the last four decades to tell me how to wiggle my fingers at a grid.....
I got that.
Next?
That's what I want to know"



I thought that was very well said.

Anyway, I think that learning to play like I did, may be why some of his writings have struck a chord with me.

Growing up, we had a LOT of Music(s) playing in the house. My older Brothers would play Guitar , Drums, and Saxophone. Also, a little Piano. My Dad was always playing old Blues and Jazz records. Also, just about anything Alan Lomax would be involved in. I'd hear Ledbelly, Joseph Spence, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jimi, etc. I didn't know just how good I had it!

I was pretty much self-taught. I say this, but I did bug the shit out of every person I saw even look at a guitar! I would hang out in Music Stores and pester Employees and Customers, both. I would leave my guitar sitting out in my living room, plugged in and ready to go. Nice and innocent. Anyone who would pick up the guitar, would be subjected to teaching me whatever cool Chord or Lick I could get them to show me.

So, after playing guitar for a few years, I finally found an excellent Instructor who taught me all about Diatonic Harmony, the Modes, etc. He's the one who first suggested I start Teaching, as a matter of fact. I owe him a debt of Gratitude, to this day. And I have taken that information and tried to expand on, and refine it all into a complete "package" (for lack of a better word). And I have always known that there were still holes in my understanding.

For example, Blues and Blues-Based Musics. Sure, I could twist a little of Diatonic Harmony and make it "kinda" explain what I had always heard. But, it never feels quite right.

After reading about some of Mr. Kimock's Concepts, I am wondering if these are the pieces I've been trying to get at. Anyway, I just thought I'd share something that looks to be pretty cool. I'm diving into this, to see what I can come up with.

Wish me luck.

Here's something I'm chewing on, right now:

That chord/scale stuff isn't going to fly for blues music.

Blues is 7 limit overtonal harmonic territory.

It's already way further out than anything you'll come up with using that approach.

It's staring you in the face, it's right there under your nose, on the string,

Figure it out.


In western harmony, all of our harmony is derived from just two interval sizes, 5th's and 3rd's.
5th's are a tripling of the tonic, 3rd's are a quintupling of the tonic.
Because no interval larger than a quintupling is used, western harmony is a five limit system.
Nothing past the 5th partial.

Blues harmony assumes a dominant seventh chord as a tonic chord.
For this to be the case, you have to include the 7th partial to resolve that chord.
So, blues harmony is 7 limit harmony.

Imagine the circle of 5th's, not closing, but spiraling out until both E, and B flat are adjacent C, and G, as overtones.

This seriously sKews any major scale relationships that you might try to apply.
Interval relationships percieved as chromaticism from the 5 limit perspective are in reality part of resolved tonic areas in 7 limit, and need to be understood and treated as such.

The Tonic area of C in 7 limit, for example, contains the minor triad E flat,
33 cents down.
Including the pitches E flat, G flat, and B flat from the 5 limit perspective
would be considered "chromatic", while from the perspective of 7 limit harmony, they're required.

For this mess to function around the 3 limit 1, 4, 5, scheme requires you also to understand the basic musical concepts of symmetry and polarity, concepts currently absent from the intermediate improvisors vocabulary.

In any case, the chord/scale relationship approach, which is almost universally regarded even by beginners as offering very little traction in actual playing situations, is completely useless for developing anything of any real substance in blues harmony.

You already Know this, you may just be unaware of the theoretical concepts to explain it, understand it, and use it.

This is really a great area for guitarists to dig into, don't sell it short.


Play a major scale. Hear the blues?

Well... no, of course not, it's got the wrong interval sizes..

The chord/scale relationships are a byproduct of the diatonic naming system.
They don't give you the available notes, they're lists of relationships consistent with their arbitrary generation following the rules of that system.
The "substance" you create by using these "lists" requires you to basically
ignore most of the information they provide. Right?
That's why we say "Just playing a scale against a chord is not particularly musical and not the point etc."

MOST IMPORTANT!!!
That's not how you learn to hear and use sounds.

The only way to internalize a sound is to internalize the actual resonance of the intervals by singing them.

Sound in, Sound out.
List in, List out.

"even the blues scales have harmonic relationships to the chords" ??

OK, what do you suppose the blues scales' harmonic relationship to itself is?

Define "harmonic relationship".

To answer those questions you're going to have to understand how the diatonic naming system worKs, and why, in this case, it's not applicable.

Sure, you can do the chord/scale thing, throw out 75% of it, connect it to another C/S thing that you threw out 75% of,and dig the result as a sound,
but that's a lot of waste, and you still might not be dialed in to what you're trying to hear. (BINGO! Just what I had been thinking. I thinj.)

So what do I play over Blues in C?

Anything I want, but it doesn't have anything to do with scale construction.
It's all about harmony, and the strength of the tonality from a 7 limit perspective

Jeff, the problem with your posts is that they're shoddily written, empty headed, and offer no food for thought to potential posters.

I hope that the smiley face I added properly indicates that I'm totally goofing on you. Whew! is an understatement; there's way more to ponder here than I can assimilate in one sitting, so I'll look at one basic premise for now:

quote:

That chord/scale stuff isn't going to fly for blues music.

This in and of itself is a can o' worms that could inspire an encyclopedia. As you know, "blues" can mean anything from Blind Blake to John Lee Hooker to T Bone Walker to Kenny Burrell to Miles Davis to Rory Gallagher to Led Zeppelin to Professor Longhair to Billy Gibbons to Jack White to Robben Ford, as well as about a million other artists that I'm leaving out. There's just so many different hues and shades of "it". Blues "purists" are prone to favor a more visceral approach, and some have been known to say that "thinking about it" breaks the spirit. "Harmonically sophisticated" musicians that "play the blues" tend to champion the chord/interval relationship, and conversely, the blues police will accuse them of sounding 'clinical'.

So where's the happy medium? Well, blues is blues. It's just a very complex idiom that cannot be quickly and easily defined according to any one enthusiast's liking. Many define blues by string bending, bottleneck slide playing, and by playing minor 3rds over chords that contain major 3rds. Afficianados of jazz and jump swing slur and slide into notes, and are huge fans of chord and note substitution. On a purely physical level, the syncopation of some early country blues and ragtime music may be elusive to some as well. And this is just guitar stuff; it doesn't begin to address the stylings of other instrumentalists such as pianists, including the aforementioned Professor Longhair, or Fats Waller or Oscar Peterson, not to mention horn players. It goes without saying that some simply don't get hung up by any one person's 'definition', as they define it for themself, which, in a sense, perpetuates the original spirit.

If we're playing a "minor blues", is there a difference between the sound and function of a 6th and a 13th over a I minor chord? There is to me, albeit subtle. Is it a big deal to know what to call each? It can be a big deal if you're charged with the responsibility of teaching others and providing insight as to your experience with such. For the player that just needs to express, it doesn't make a hill of beans if one calls a 6th "Charlie" and a 13th "Ruby", as long as the ears get the difference as to practical applications between chord tones and intervallic participants within "line cliche's", and extensions.

Yeah, I totally agree. And with teaching, I wouldn't "uncork" any of this stuff on my Students!

But, I do want to really explore these ideas.

I think his description of "5 Limit" and "7 Limit" Musics is pretty intereting. I have always thought that "Blues" and all of it's subtlties were more complex, in Phrasing, and Microtonal ways, than Diatonic Music. So, if there's a way to get a better perspective and way of organizing my thoughts, then maybe I can bring something fresh, and more importantly for Instruction, practical and useful, I want to do it.

Plus, if I can twist the minds of some of the "Masters Of Music I work with, all the better! LOL (I LOVE screwing with the Opera guys!)

Anyway, I'm going to re-read my post, your post, and some of what I've already read from SK. WHEW! Fun stuff! (For a Geek like me, anyways!)

P.S.

I just realized that I contradicted myself.

I do want to "uncork" this stuff in my teaching. But, I"VE got to get it down first! Then, I can see using it in instructional situations.

Corleone, when I get some more concepts working, I'll post some here, if you're interested in this stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by Swain:
Plus, if I can twist the minds of some of the "Masters Of Music I work with, all the better! LOL (I LOVE screwing with the Opera guys!)

Well, let me know how you do it. I teach for two hours on Thursdays where the adjoining studio is occupied by a piano/voice opera teacher, and I swear to God, I wish it were a drum or sax teacher instead. She does all this obnoxious over-the-top Wagner stuff and it's ungodly loud. It either cracks my students up or pisses them off, and they're only in the room for a half hour at a time, unlike meself.

I'm thinking of getting a blonde wig, a brass bra, and one of those metal helmets with the horns on the sides, and blasting into her studio with a cheesy solid state 10 watt amp, dimed, guitars all out of tune, and ruining her lessons like she does mine. Not that I'm vindictive or anything.

Here's a good one!

When the singers start practicing their Arpeggios or Scales, play a Harmony line along with them. And then.........(Insert Evil Laugh)

For example: Play a Diatonic 3rd. above the Singer's Line. But, somewhere along the line, throw in a m2nd.

They will probably hear you through the wall. But, not be paying attention. So, the m2nd. will be a subliminal "WTF?" to them.

As soon as they stop singing, stop playing. Just be there, lurking in the background. HEHEHEHEHEHEHE!

(Not that I would ever actually do this, myself. "I don't know, I didn't hear anything. Have you asked the other Instructors?")


Works great! LOL

Thanks, that's a great tip. Among the "greatest hits" of voice/piano teachers is the dreaded unison arpeggio workout that continues ad nauseum in half steps (LA LA LA LA LA LA LA). I think I'll complement it in fourths this coming Thursday.

I don't get the opera teachers, they're just so over the top. Maybe I should point out that the piano has an una corda ("soft") pedal. I work on Carcassi and Bach pieces with some of my guys, and our neighbor students and teachers barely know we're there. All I can think is that these opera folks need to land an actual gig, so that they can belt it as fucking loud as they want to. There's no need to be that loud in the teaching/learning environment, ever, but they're evidently oblivious to the needs of others.

Sorry for the rant and tangent, and thanks for listening!

I can see maybe 5 minutes of "Volume" for their breathing exercises, etc. But yeah, they're Divas!

I get a similar argument from Drummers. I can't teach on "Digital" Drums or use pads. "It's not the same." No shit, it's a lesson. I have to explain this to them? When I'm teaching a kid "Purple Haze", it's NOT through a Marshall 100 watt stack. Some things have to be approximated, and worked on by the student. At their own home. Hell, my Brother learned to play on a wooden block, with a rubber pad on it. And he also learned Brushes on the same pad. From Mel Brown, who learned Brushes from Philly Joe Jones. And yeah, my Brother has EXCELLENT stick control.

Okay, no more venting from me. For now.........LOL

Let me know how the "Blessed Harmony Of The Fourths, by Vivaldi and Bowen" goes!

Oh yeah, a pretty funny story here:

My Uncle had been involved with Ballets, Operas companies around the world, for his whole life. When he was "retired" he volunteered at the Met selling tickets, painting sets, etc. Anyway, he had a GREAT story that they always seem to pass around at the Met.

I don't recall the name of the singer here. But, she was a very famous Opera Soprano. And a REAL Diva. A total P.I.T.A. No one could stand her. So, at the end of her Opening Night at the Met, she was to "Jump to her death" at the close of the Opera. (Aida, maybe? I can't remember the show either! I'm OOOOLLLD!).

So, my Uncle piles like 10 times the pads and mattresses behind the set, where she was to jump off into. And it must have been quite a sight.

Apparently,she bounced back up into view of the audience, dress over her head, ass out! Must have been hilarious! From then on out, my Uncle became the "Toast of the Crew"! And the story followed this singer wherever she went. And, apparently, she became a little softer in her tone of voice, whenever speaking with the Crew Members, at the various venues.

Chalk one up for the power of a good slap in the face!

Just thought I'd share one of the many great stories from my Uncle Edward's "colorful" life.