Coltrane Changes

[chopinlover01]

Can someone explain to me the phenomena?
I'm a closet jazzer and still don't understand it. I can solo over Giant Steps, too, and I still don't understand this $#!&.

[109natsu]

Hi again,

I don't do Jazz....

But I hope this can help you out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltrane_changes

Best I can do.

Natsu

[huaidongxi]

what set 'giant steps' apart, when coltrane and the peerless tommy flanagan worked out its changes approximately sixty years ago, were its modulations, based on a symmetric division of the octave, rather than the conventional asymmetric 'changes' in jazz previous to it (use of the dominant and subdominant).  specifically in 'giant steps', the modulations progress through ascending or descending major thirds.

if you can solo over the 'giant steps' changes you are far, far ahead of me, and my study of 'trane's musik and attempts to play bits of it go back four plus decades.  you might enjoy flanagan's trio renditions (geo. mraz, al foster) from his '72 tribute album also titled 'giant steps'.

[chopinlover01]

Hi again,

I don't do Jazz....

But I hope this can help you out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltrane_changes

Best I can do.

Natsu

Read the article, and it felt like jargon. Thanks though.

what set 'giant steps' apart, when coltrane and the peerless tommy flanagan worked out its changes approximately sixty years ago, were its modulations, based on a symmetric division of the octave, rather than the conventional asymmetric 'changes' in jazz previous to it (use of the dominant and subdominant).  specifically in 'giant steps', the modulations progress through ascending or descending major thirds.

if you can solo over the 'giant steps' changes you are far, far ahead of me, and my study of 'trane's musik and attempts to play bits of it go back four plus decades.  you might enjoy flanagan's trio renditions (geo. mraz, al foster) from his '72 tribute album also titled 'giant steps'.

Maybe it's my classical background, but once I got the chord changes in my LH it wasn't hard to create lines based off of them; the chords form quite well around themselves, which, as I found out from you, is because they're based symmetrically.
Thanks for the explanation, friend!

[j_tour]

Maybe it's my classical background, but once I got the chord changes in my LH it wasn't hard to create lines based off of them; the chords form quite well around themselves, which, as I found out from you, is because they're based symmetrically.

Well, that's pretty good, I would say.  I'd agree that it's not too difficult to select the most consonant/"inside" notes for each key center, but I haven't heard very many, if any people, making good melodic lines all the way through a piece based on the idea, like "Giant Steps."  The original recording is awfully fast -- probably a good place to observe just how much practicing someone like Coltrane must have done, to come out with his landmark solo. 

I know you're talking about the changes themselves, maybe as applied to other tunes, like in "26-2" or all the others he did, but I guess "Giant Steps" is as good an example as there is, sort of the one that is the prime example.

I don't have the link now, but Barry Harris has a good video demonstrating why everyone basically fails at "Giant Steps" on YouTube -- his main statement is that people don't think about the tune in the same way as, like Rhythm changes, but rather as one giant opportunity to play many vaguely-related arpeggio-based patterns.

Anyway, good discussion -- nothing more to add, other than that I agree with Barry Harris, but that I think the changes could be part of a pretty good scheme for practicing scales, even for someone not interested in the tunes themselves.   I'd forgotten about that for a few months, so thanks for reminding me for a practice idea.