[Dixielandjazz] melody vs chords & the importance ofwords

[Charlie Hooks]

on 1/20/03 11:50 AM, James Kashishian at kash at ran.es wrote:

> It's gotten very quiet on DJML, so here's something that may start
> things up.  I have found that those that play instruments dealing heavier into
>chords than we melodic instrument people do tend to place more importance
>on the chords than on the melody.  My argument has always been that...in
>most cases....songs spring up from the melody line, or even the words,
>and the chords are then added to embellish that line.



    Just writing while I think about this--melody and/or chords?  I think
both.  I've never considered at any length just how I improvise, and I'm not
sure I am aware enough to tell you--or to tell myself.

    But start with the blues.  Always start with the blues.  When you think
about jazz, or when you think of any music.  Because you know the blues. You
may not know doodeldee scata about anything else, but if you are a jazz
player, then you know the blues.  Because if you didn't know the blues, you
couldn't BE a jazz player.  Simple.

    Well, then.  The blues start with a feeling.  Not necessarily sad, but
steady and level: been thinking about things.  No melody given to you.  Just
a series ("progression"?) of chords and kinda loose, at that.  Don't really
know which a-way this thing gonna go yet, just hangin' loose and lettin it
happen till I kin catch onto it....

    The blues don't have a melody supplied by some "composer."  Lyrics may
be supplied by a lyricist, or not.   But the melody is up to you. And God.
Oh, sure: "The St. Louis Blues" or the "Dallas Blues" or the "Basin St.
Blues" were written out.  But JUST the blues is not.  NOBODY'S blues: your
very OWN blues.  Think, gentlemen, about how you "improvise" to nobody's
blues.  What do you invent?  What exactly IS "the blues in Bb"?

    If you are wise, you try to invent a feeling--or whatever will create a
feeling--in your listeners.   You try to open your mouth (horn) and talk to
them: collectively by necessity, but really one on one, "me and you."
"Here's what I'm thinkin', rightly feelin,' right now.  You hear this?"

    Sometimes you whisper, other times you speak to them clearly: "You may
not even have thought of this yet, but you will.  Yeah, you hear me now,
hear what I'm sayin'!  Am I talking to you?"

    Sometimes they hear and respond, other times not; and, at those times,
are they are deaf or are you mute?

    I know one thing: if I am merely playing variations on some melody line,
then I'm not saying anything worth listening to.  I must invent my own SONG
from these chord structures, right out of the way I feel.  That itself is
the "improvisation."  The greatest compliment I'm ever paid is when someone
says, afterward, "it's the song, but it's another complete song, really...".

    Nobody really knows how this works, how it happens, when it happens.
It's fun to speculate, but no one really knows.  The music I invent comes
from an infinite number of variables, never exactly the same, never
sequenced the same.  Even if I could explain one chorus, every other chorus
would differ.  

    Chords, melody line, words?  Each helps--or hinders--in unpredictable
ways at different times.  Some songs are, for me, inseparable from the
lyrics: "Old Folks" leaps to mind, and "Don't Worry 'Bout Me."  But I can't
"play the words," not really, so I may easily think I'm playing more than I
am.

    Chords?  I'm a clarinetist/saxophonist who also plays some piano (not
enough, say the other guys), and the chord sequences of any tune greatly
affect ("impact" as they now say--and I hate it!) my emotions as I play that
tune.  If the pianist is SO HIP that he alters every chord, the entire
emotional mood can be altered, the "chords" turn into distractions ("what
the hell is he playing NOW?")   But chords sequenced by our great composers,
like Gershwin, Rogers, Kern--you name your favorites, mine include Willard
Robison--can--"inspire" is not the word--can create some deep basis for the
tune, a basis on which a player with ears just has to respond in kind.  "All
The Things You Are"...please don't substitute hip chords behind my chorus
unless you are better than the composer.  News is: most of you ain't.  Good
chords can put me up; bad chords can bring me down.  No news there.

    If Kash is really talking about what goes through the original
composer's mind, then I simply don't know.  I've written a few tunes, and my
experience has been that writing a tune, with all it's attendant debris of
the mind, the extra time at one's disposal to critique, to change, to second
guess and then to zillionth guess, to erase and start over--all differ
greatly from improvisation: instant demand, instant supply, no revision, no
excuse.  'Tis or 'tain't.  Cheers or tears.

    Not sure that any of this makes sense.  But it's an interesting thread.
Thanks, Kash.

Charlie