Chord Progression Part 1

As I begin my study and research for Beyond Chord Melody, Volume III: Strategies for Jazz Improvisation (3-4 years down the road), I am grasping for a better personal understanding of some pretty advanced jazz concepts. The subject of chord progression is at the top of the list. I have to be honest, much of the material goes in one eye and out the other! I am realizing several reasons for my resistance to learning. By the way, this will be a fairly long-winded essay, meant as much for my own learning as for readability. This subject deserves the close scrutiny, but I also want to avoid writing too much in the book.

When I took up the banjo at the age of 12, I had no concept of what a “chord” is. I had heard the songs since before birth, so learning the banjo was simply a matter of releasing what I heard in my head. I don’t think I was ever a true “beginner.” As I’ve learned more about music, I’ve discovered that my youthful ear was pretty darn good! This is all fine and dandy, and one may think “how lucky you were!” Well, okay: yes, I was lucky I could just play (and I know I should be more grateful for it), but when it comes to going beyond the limits imposed by those simple sing-along songs, that’s another story.

If I could somehow be satisfied within those simple limits, then I would consider myself to be the luckiest banjo player ever! But I’m not satisfied: I want more. Maybe if I had never met or heard Buddy Wachter… I want what I might have had if my childhood soundtrack hadn’t been so simple and if I had been more self-confidant and inquisitive. I have allowed those limits (and the resulting laziness) to become a prison. My writing—and the research/study/practice that feeds it—is my attempt to escape from prison. I understand why some folks do not want to open up the music theory Pandora’s Box; willful ignorance is an easier route to happiness.

In college, I struggled with music theory and music history, though I managed to get decent grades. They were much too dry and “academic” for my short attention span. The next step in my teacher training however really made my ears stand up and take notice: Counterpoint. This is the study of how individual melodic/harmonic lines interact with each other, creating music. I naturally excelled at it, unlike most of my classmates. In counterpoint, it is fruitless to try to put “chord names” to the resulting harmonies. The individual lines just work together—no need to “name” anything. The only thing named in counterpoint are the different methods of creating it.

I see “contrapuntal” thinking as a logical approach to jazz improvisation. Yes of course, the lines you can play are very much informed by the “chord of the moment”; if all you play is a bunch of random notes, chances are it’s going to sound terrible. But does it make more sense to strive for appropriate chord tones, or to simply play a moving line that works with the chord progression? I tend to believe the latter. So, how does one learn to play these correct moving lines? That is the $64,000 question that I hope to answer for myself before I put it in a book.

When I returned to active duty as an Army Bandsman, I had to do Basic Training again (at the age of 38!). I then went to the Armed Forces School of Music (Army, Navy, and Marine Corps musicians all training together; what could possibly go wrong?). Their music theory program was much more practical, meant for actual performing musicians. A big part of the program was sight-singing (basically ear-training). I sailed through that part and ended up helping some of my classmates with it after hours.

Throughout my remaining 15-year career, I often heard bandmates—many of whom were outstanding musicians—say “oh, I sucked at sight-singing!” I basically sailed through my whole career on my ear but failed to get as good as I might have if I had studied and practiced more. My audition score (on clarinet) barely met Army standard.

I had the distinct pleasure of playing tenor sax in a small jazz combo 12 years ago; the group had a long-running gig at a jazz club in Seoul, South Korea, and I played with them for a year and a half. The leader was the pianist Shin Kwan Woong, the “Korean Godfather of Jazz”; he had been employing U.S. Army jazz musicians since the 1970s! I got the gig initially because I owned my own horn (government issued instruments cannot be used outside of official Army gigs) but kept the gig because I learned fast and could sing.

We used the “Real Books,” which are filled with tunes written by the modern jazz greats. Many of them feature very complex chord progressions—well beyond my childhood sing-along banjo song limitations. I quickly learned that I didn’t have to take the written music so literally. I could ignore all the fancy gobbledygook and just play the simple chords at the base of it; the letter name and “qualifier” (major, minor, etc.) are all that are really needed. It also didn’t take me long to realize that I could get by on my ear for most of the tunes, especially once I was familiar with them. I wish that improv was as easy for me on the banjo as it is on the sax!

Would I have been better if I had a more complex ear and/or better-trained fingers? Of course! But the point is I kept the gig, learned a lot from some great jazz musicians, and had a lot of fun/drank a lot of Korean beer. No, the real point is that even with that golden opportunity, I failed to learn much about chord progressions. Once again, I fell back on my ear, limitations and all.

Shortly after this experience, I discovered the “Classic” banjo writing of Emile Grimshaw, Burt Bassett, and Alfred Cammeyer. I was hired by the Clifford Essex company to update their 100+ year-old banjo compositions. What a revelation! Even though I put them into TAB (along with the original standard notation), the editor requested that I also provide chord symbols, since most of his customers wanted them. Most of the music was fairly simple, so no problem, but as I progressed into the more difficult pieces of music, it became quite a challenge.

I’m almost afraid to look back at some of them, in fear that I will realize how “wrong” my analysis was! I realize that, sure, I may have gotten the chords themselves “correct,” but the important question is, did I get the best chord names for the situation? The more complex the harmony (and the counterpoint), the more correct names a chord can have. So, it becomes a matter of chord progression—that dreaded subject that I still feel I know nothing about!

Fast forward to today and the impetus for writing this essay: I am just finishing my third book update for Clifford Essex—Emile Grimshaw’s How to Excel on The Banjo (written for finger-style, adapted by me for plectrum). Classic banjo music—and Classical music in general—does not use chord symbols, and I’m finally beginning to realize why (and why we maybe shouldn’t be so obsessed with them).

Going back to my comment about customers wanting chord symbols, I now ask a simple question: why? The standard notation gives you the notes the composer wanted us to play; what difference does it make to have the chord symbols as well? At the time I saw the educational benefit of it (for myself at least—thus this realization), but now it just seems unnecessary—and potentially confusing. If all one had was the melody and chord symbols (like modern-day fake book charts), then it would be up to interpretation—and in my simplicity example, I would interpret with some pretty basic harmonies. I may even leave out some of the fancier modifiers, just like I did when playing sax in a jazz club. Again, the composer gave the notes (and note combinations) he/she intended for us to play!

In that book update, I am also incorporating some material from Grimshaw’s How to Play the Banjo (another finger-style book): that book includes some interesting chord studies. But I realized that, because he didn’t include chord symbols, it is more a study of voice-leading than it is of chord progression. And that I think brings back my comment on counterpoint. If you are focused on static chords, it is very easy to miss the point of the active scale-based lines, weaving in and out of each other and creating chords in passing, as they move.

In my view then, the study of chord progression on its own is a red herring, meant to pull you away from the scale-based counterpoint that allows jazz improv to happen. I do intend to tackle this monster, which is my primary motivation for writing; this essay is meant to clear my head for the fight. I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Now, all of this over-thinking is generated by one thing: my laziness. I have known and worked with many fine jazz musicians—guys/gals who can simply hear and imitate the music in their head—who’s learn-ed, working knowledge of jazz concepts is also downright scary. Especially bass players! They have the ability to analyze more than just simple chord spellings; they also understand how the chords work together to create voice-leading (or should I say, how the voice-leading creates the chords). Having “natural” skills as well, they don’t necessarily need all of that knowledge to perform, but there they are—and there I hope to be someday.