Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday July 31, 2010 – Music Lab

Very productive Lab today. Eight in attendance: Christina, Mary Beth, Taylor, Rob, Ian, Carl, IgorK and Greg. This made an exercise possible that we could not address with fewer people.

We began with three circulations in A Harmonic Minor, tuning the air as it were.

To begin to get inside A Harmonic Minor we spent about 30 minutes on the circulation exercise we have been addressing for the past few weeks. We began on “A” at the 12th fret of the 3rd string. The first player played that A, followed by the note one diatonic step above or below; G# or B. The second player began with the second note, and followed it with a note one diatonic step above or below that, and so on. With so many people in the circle, keeping track of where we were when our turn came was something of a challenge, but the work of the previous Labs has paid off, and there was significant improvement. We moved on to include diatonic thirds to this exercise, which although a little more difficult, still resulted in noticeably more musical choices in the circulation.

Sticking with A Harmonic minor, we came back to the exercise first addressed a couple of weeks ago. I assigned notes from the tonic seventh chord to the players: A-C-E-G#. With 8 players, this arpeggio was repeated: A-C-E-G#-A-C-E-G#. We walked up through the diatonic seventh chords:

I-II-III-IV-V-VI-VII-I

…and then repeated this. In A Harmonic Minor, this was:

Amin(Maj7)-Bmin7flat5-Cmaj7aug-Dmin7-E7-Fmaj7-G#dim7-Amin(maj7)

I asked the players to track this sequence both in terms of the scale degrees (I, II, III, etc) and the root note names (A, B, C. etc – I did not insist on the full names of the chords, but simply to be aware of the harmonic movement in terms of the root). The aim was to begin to recognize the quality of each of the chords formed by this scale – however we might choose to characterize those qualities.

We then began with the I chord in the high octave and then moved “up” through the sequence while moving down in terms of voice leading. For instance:

• We began with Amin(maj7) in the high octave: A-C-E-G#
• Then moving “up” to the II chord, Bmin7flat5, with everyone who needed to change notes choosing to move to the closest available note down the scale: A-B-D-F
• Then moving “up” to the III chord, Cmaj7aug, with everyone who needed to change notes choosing to move to the closest available note down the scale: G#-B-C-E

And so on. The secret to this is that whoever is playing the root of the current chord does not change notes when the chord changes.

Once we had this sequence under control, we moved up the sequence while moving down the scale, and then repeated the sequence moving up the scale, and so on. We applied a number of different circulation strategies in order to illuminate the quality of the chords in the sequence while moving through different voicings.

With 8 in the circle, 2 groups of 4, each with the same arpeggio, it was possible to explore the concept of contrary motion in voice leading. One group began in the high octave and moved down through the harmonic sequence while the other began in the low octave and walked “up”, and then the reverse.

Some stunning musical moments, simply by following this very simple exercise.

This exercise stretched out well over the first hour, so when we reconvened after a short break, there was really only about 30 minutes available. We used this to have a little fun with the bridge of Rhythm Changes, a little practical exploration of the Circle of Fifths.

For this, rather than assigned notes, we went with the notes of our choice, making necessary adjustments to ensure good sounding and complete voicings. The basic rule of voice leading remained the same: stay with common tones, otherwise move by step, and only change by “leap” within a chord. E7-A7-D7-G7, 2 bars each, followed by a C triad as the resolution, turning around back to the E7. In reality, an 8-bar phrase would have been used in that place (likely I-V7-I-VII7), but time demanded this short-cut.

Before we were done, we were actually circulating in swing. Big fun. Very sad that time ran out.