[Dixielandjazz] No chordal Instrument - was Two horn front line

[Bill Gunter]

Hello listmates,

Some discussion lately regarding chord choices:

>I don't see variant chord choices related to caliber of musicianship.
>Instead relates to personal preference, ears, and preferences of members of 
>  groups
>with whom the individual has most often done chords in the past . . . etc,

I think it's time to re-introduce a revolutionary new approach to chords. It 
has been proposed before but does not seem to have gained much acceptance in 
our genre (or, for that matter, any genre) of music.

The system is called "Chord Averaging" and holds great promise in the 
generation harmonic accompaniment to a melodic line.  The way it works is as 
follows:

1. Chords have numerical equivalents - I, IV, V chords, etc. (this can also 
be referred to as the 1, 4 and 5 chords which are the basis for virtually 
all 12 bar blues tunes and many, if not most of all popular music.  
Nevertheless, other chords are often inserted - passing chords, color 
chords, etc. and they all have numerical values.

2. Using the information in the paragraph above, one adds up ALL the 
numerical values of ALL the chords used in any given song.  One then divides 
the total sum by the number of chords in the song to arrive at the average 
(mean) number.

3. The mathematically oriented musician will immediately see the value of 
this system . . . all one needs to do to accompany any given song is simply 
play the average chord throughout the entire rendition.

No thanks are necessary for introducing this marvelous musical system . . . 
a job well done is thanks enough for -

Bill "producing 'mean' music" Gunter
jazzboard at hotmail.com

ps - this is especially useful to washboard players.