The Jazz Harmony Book Pdf
Thora Buckner
Jazz harmony is the theory and practice of how chords are used in jazz music. Jazz bears certain similarities to other practices in the tradition of Western harmony, such as many chord progressions, and the incorporation of the major and minor scales as a basis for chordal construction. In jazz, chords are often arranged vertically in major or minor thirds, although stacked fourths are also quite common.[1] Also, jazz music tends to favor certain harmonic progressions and includes the addition of tensions, intervals such as 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths to chords. Additionally, scales unique to style are used as the basis of many harmonic elements found in jazz. Jazz harmony is notable for the use of seventh chords as the basic harmonic unit more often than triads, as in classical music.[2] In the words of Robert Rawlins and Nor Eddine Bahha, "7th chords provide the building blocks of jazz harmony."[2]
The piano and guitar are the two instruments that typically provide harmony for a jazz group. Players of these instruments deal with harmony in a real-time, flowing improvisational context as a matter of course. This is one of the greatest challenges in jazz.
In a big-band context, the harmony is the basis for horn material, melodic counterpoint, and so on. The improvising soloist is expected to have a complete knowledge of the basics of harmony, as well as their own unique approach to chords and their relationship to scales. A personal style is composed of these building blocks and a rhythmic concept.
Jazz composers use harmony as a basic stylistic element as well.[3] Open, modal harmony is characteristic of the music of McCoy Tyner, whereas rapidly shifting key centers is a hallmark of the middle period of John Coltrane's writing. Horace Silver, Clare Fischer, Dave Brubeck, and Bill Evans are pianists whose compositions are more typical of the chord-rich style associated with pianist-composers. Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Wayne Shorter and Benny Golson are non-pianists who also have a strong sense of the role of harmony in compositional structure and mood. These composers (including also Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Mingus, who recorded infrequently as pianists) have musicianship grounded in chords at the piano, even though they are not performing keyboardists.
The authentic cadence (V-I) is the most important one in both classical and jazz harmony, though in jazz it more often follows a ii or II chord serving as predominant. To cite Rawlins and Bahha, as above: "The ii-V-I [progression] provides the cornerstone of jazz harmony"[2]
Other central features of jazz harmony are diatonic and non-diatonic reharmonizations, the addition of the V7(sus4) chord as a dominant and non-dominant functioning chord, major/minor interchange, blues harmony, secondary dominants, extended dominants, deceptive resolution, related ii-V7 chords, direct modulations, the use of contrafacts, common chord modulations, and dominant chord modulations using ii-V progressions.
There is variety in the chord symbols used in jazz notation. A jazz musician must have facility in the alternate notation styles which are used. The following chord symbol examples use C as a root tone for example purposes.
The jazz chord naming system is as deterministic as the composer wishes it to be. A rule of thumb is that chord alterations are included in a chart only when the alteration appears in the melody or is crucial to essence of the composition. Skilled improvisers are able to supply an idiomatic, highly altered harmonic vocabulary even when written chord symbols contain no alterations.
Much of jazz harmony is based on the melodic minor scale (using only the "ascending" scale as defined in classical harmony). The modes of this scale are the basis for much jazz improvisation and are variously named as below, using the key of C-minor as an example:
Yet, no matter how much I practiced, I was still lost and stuck thinking about individual notes as the chords flew by. I felt like I was missing an essential skill that would finally allow me to navigate chords in a melodic way.
I would isolate a single line over a chord searching for a system or technique for creating lines, but in my effort I failed to consider the other chords in the progression and how this relationship affected the line.
The trouble happens when these theory definitions become the main tools for improvisation, a substitute for digging deeper and actually learning functional harmony and the musical language of navigating it.
This is why you see countless players using scales to get through a progression or using the dorian mode for every minor chord in a tune. Methods that are often incorrect or unrelated to the actual harmony happening in the progression.
The trick is changing the way you approach chord progressions, switching from a theory mindset with isolated chords and scales to one of harmonic relationships operating within the universe of a larger key.
Your responsibility as an improvisor is isolating and identifying specific sounds within a key that are arrival points or destinations that are tonicized and learning the common ways of arriving at these spots and resolving away from them.
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Understanding chord progression is particularly important when trying to learn jazz standards. If you recognize what chord progressions you are dealing with, you can start simplifying things into categories rather than trying to remember individual chords.
In my opinion, the first place to start with jazz theory is chords. If you understand chords, then you can start to learn jazz harmony. Specifically, regarding harmony, the ii-V-I progression is an essential part of how standard tunes are composed.
Same as a major 7 chord but with a b7. Dominant 7 chords play a huge role in jazz and the blues, so these are important chords to have down solid! This chord comes straight out of the Mixolydian scale.
Take a minor 7 chord and flat the 5, and you have what we call a half-diminished chord. This chord is also commonly known as a minor 7(b5) chord. We can draw these chord tones from the Locrian scale.
Scales are essential for learning how to navigate your instrument, understanding chord qualities, how to read music and other cornerstone elements of learning how to play. If you want to be a good jazz improviser, you need to know your instrument!
One of the most important things to be equipped with as a jazz musician is a great ear. To become an extraordinary improviser, you need to be developing your ear. Scales are calculated and, therefore, not great for training your ear.
Locrian is the 7th and last mode of the major scale and starts on the seventh scale degree. The Locrian mode is a bit of a more obscure one. The best way to think of it is a major scale starting and ending on the leading tone (the preceding and last tone of the scale).
This being said, there are other chords that are used depending on the circumstance or the composition. This chart is just to help you have a basic understanding of what you commonly will see come up in jazz chord progressions.
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