Comprehensive Notes on Music Theory: Scale Frequencies, Audiation, and Rhythm Changes

Scales as the Organization of Frequencies

  • A scale is fundamentally defined as an organization of frequencies. It is described as a "total, total, 70, total" organization of these frequencies.
  • These frequencies determine the "order of the mob" and its relationship to the "diatomic two."
  • Specific frequency components mentioned include:
    • Third
    • Minus third
    • Minus second
    • Minus second
  • The speaker provides an example of modal classification, stating that Dorian is "mode two two."

The Concept and Practice of Audiation

  • Audiation is the process of being able to associate a technical name with a specific sound.
  • There are various levels of aural skill, but a primary goal for a musician is to recognize a mode as easily as they would recognize the sound of someone "knocking walking through the door."
  • Musicians in jazz spend their whole lifetimes attempting to internalize the specific sounds of modes such as:
    • Lydian
    • Lockheed (likely referring to Locrian)
    • Dorian
  • A musician must be able to recognize a specific pitch set, such as "e log in," and identify its technical designation immediately.
  • This ability to hear what one is playing and connect the sound to a technical identity is essential for every musician, regardless of whether they specialize in jazz or classical music.

Oral Culture vs. Text-Based Principles

  • The transcript highlights a fundamental distinction between harmonic practices:
    • Text-Based Culture: Often associated with Western or colonial ways of thinking, where music is considered valid only if it is written down.
    • Oral-Based Culture: Central to African music traditions. This system is valid in its own right, despite not being traditionally document-based.
  • In oral cultures, musicians work with specific harmonic principles that offer vast flexibility. For instance, the Pentatonic scale can be applied in over 100100 different ways.
  • The core question in this study is which harmonic structure is most conducive to a specific chord, such as a Lydian chord.

Jazz Vocabulary and Harmonic Structure

  • Vocabulary Analogy: The speaker compares musical proficiency to vocabulary. In music, vocabulary means having a "bigger pool of words" or many different ways to deal with a single harmonic situation.
  • Chord Limitations: While vocabulary is expansive, the number of fundamental chord types is actually quite small, limited to approximately 33 types.
  • Instructional Example: Using the analogy of giving directions to a house, the speaker explains that there is no one way to play over a particular chord.
  • Dominant Chords: The depth of jazz vocabulary is illustrated by the fact that an instructor could give a whole semester's lecture on the different ways to play over a dominant chord.

The Jazz Singer as an Instrumentalist

  • The speaker emphasizes that jazz singers are indeed instrumentalists, even if they occasionally claim they "don't play any instrument."
  • There is nothing that precludes a singer from performing the exact technical tasks of a saxophonist.
  • Singers are required to:
    • Learn how to sing all the notes within a given scale or mode.
    • Achieve the standard of audiation, which involves hearing the music internally before or as it is produced.
    • Recognize that titles or designations for singers can sometimes be "glorified titles," but the underlying requirement is the same: the ability to hear and connect with the music.

Rhythm Changes and Music DNA

  • Rhythm Changes: This is the name of a particular form that became popular in jazz but is now omnipresent across genres.
  • Fundamental DNA: At its most basic level, the DNA of this movement is a 1−51 - 5 relationship.
  • Harmonic Progressions: Rhythm changes typically utilize specific progressions that allow for consistent harmonic movement:
    • 1−6−2−51 - 6 - 2 - 5
    • 2−5−12 - 5 - 1
  • Ubiquity: The "one six two five" (1−6−2−51 - 6 - 2 - 5) progression is described as being "everything" and "everywhere," appearing frequently in pop music structures.

Questions & Discussion

  • Q: If you are talking about A Dorian, you are relating it to which major key?
    • A: It relates to G (and g).
  • Q: What do you know about R&B? Who likes R&B? What's R&B?
    • A: The discussion notes that while R&B and the blues will be covered, the current focus is on rhythm changes as the other foundational part of the music's progression.
  • Discussion on Recognition: The goal is to acknowledge the mode immediately—like hearing a "hey" or a "lock"—as a common practice in the jazz tradition.