Exploring Smooth Jazz: Jingle Bells

As stated in my project brief, a large part of my ruleset creating involves listening to existing smooth jazz reharmonizations and dissecting them in order to access the gooey harmonies within.

Below is a version of Jingle Bells by Beegie Adair.

There are many, many, many added chords in this - chords which are not in the original jingle bells chord sequence.  I've decided to focus on a few key chord changes and substitutions that I'll be using in my rulesets, in order to gain a better understanding of how reharmonising a simple song may work.

The verse of Jingle bells contains the following chord sequence in the key of F major:

F | Bb | Gm  | C7 | F | x 2

In the above video, the following sequence is played:

F Adim7/Eb Am D7 | Gm Dm G7 | C7 | F

Instead of a Bb an Adim7 is played with an Eb base.  This isn't a substitution I'd usually think of adding in, but it works with the melody.  The Abdim 7 chord features the 9th, 11th and 13th of the Bb chord, as well as the major third.  The Eb bass note descends to E, then D, etc.  Since I'm focusing on solo piano here, I'll stick to focusing on what the piano does.

If we think of scales rather than chords, the chord technically still resides within the Bb Ionian mode (or the Bb major scale).  Any root note within that scale could have been picked and it would have worked in some way.  The Eb works well with the melody of the tune.  

This means it may be possible to substitute any 4th chord (or any major chord for that matter, but for now we'll stick to the 4th) with with the "other" notes within the scale the chord in question is derived from.  Picking a root note depends simply on what the melody is doing.  This may prove trouble some when trying to create a one-size-fits-all rule, but it is something I can look at further down the line.

The chorus chords consist of

 F | (x 4) | Bb | F | G7 | C7 | F

In the track above, we can hear:

F x 3 | Adim7 D7b9 | Bb |

This is curious. Between the 1 and the 4 the player has added a minor ii-V in the key of the relative minor to the resolving chord (Gm).  Having tested this in different keys on other songs, a rule can be made out of this when going from a I chord to a IV chord.

The G7 in the chorus has also been replaced by a Gm7#9b5.  There are passing chords between the F and the G7, but the Gm7#ªb5 sticks out the most.  There is then little movement to go to the C9 chord preceding it (replacing the C7 chord).  

This is a basic description, but I'm starting to see ii-Vs - both major and minor) used everywhere.  There is a pattern emerging, and one that I seek to use.  ii-Vs can be placed almost anywhere, and then reharmonized themselves.  They can be altered, substituted or taken even further with the use of back cycling, which I'll talk about in a later post.

There are so many options for reharmonizing pieces - the difficulty is going to be in whittling the options down into rules. 

J

Reharmonisation and Orchestration

"Chord substitution is easy.  All you have to do is take a chord, any chord, from an existing chord progression and replace it with a related chord.  That's it."  - Michael Miller, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Arranging and Orchestrating".

If only that were true.  When researching text based reharmonisation sources, I found this textbook on arranging by Michael Miller.  While I wouldn't use this book as an authority on jazz based harmony, the book contains many simplified theory based tools that can be used to alter chord structures.  Perhaps the most useful thing that can be gained from this book is his work on chord leading.

Chord leading is the art of creating sequences of chords which flow naturally into other chords - this is often based on the melody of a piece.

By studying arranging and orchestration - something I wouldn't normally associate with a jazz based project - an understanding of harmony and the ins and out of arranging (important because when you think about it this project is basically aimed at rearranging existing pieces of music).  It was this discovery that led me to decide that I'd have to study harmonic techniques and guidelines associated with music in general - not just in jazz.  This was the point where I discovered that the successful completion of the project would entail much more than I initially thought it would.

While very basic, the following chord chart taken from the book will help me to create early rules.  It details which chords can effectively lead to any chord.  While any chord can technically follow any other chord, knowledge of which chords are deemed by most to be most "effective" will help create rules and chord sequences which make musical "sense".  After all, the end result of the project is to create something that is musical - not just throw any reharmonised chords together and say "this works".

References

O'Donnell, Eric. 'Jazz Contrafacts And Jazz Reharmonization For Improvisers | Jazzadvice.Com'. Jazzadvice.com. N.p., 2013. Web. 21 July 2015.

Reharmonisation Techniques: Youtube guide video

Early stages of the project saw me attempt to find as many resources on reharmonisation theory, techniques and examples as possible, from a wide variety of mediums - through literary sources, audio sources and video sources.

The following video serves as one of the earliest Youtube videos I examined.  A video lesson, it shows various important reharmonisation techniques and tips on how to use them effectively.  Many of the early rules were stemmed straight from this video.

[This video provided a basis for much of my early work.  It showed me that Youtube videos can be extremely helpful for certain things, though I made sure that I wasn't basing any large segments on my work on them.  2-3 instructional videos were consulted throughout the whole project, and they each extensively helped contribute to the ruleset.]

Exploring Reharmonisation: Examples Tritone Substitution in Work

An earlier post looked at Mark Levine's jazz reharmonisation book where he talked about tritone substitution.

The following sound except is from the jazz standard tune "Autumn Leaves".  Again, a very brief snippet due to the early stages of the project [at least when it was recorded], it shows the original chord sequence followed by a sequence where elements of tritone substitution have been implemented. 

The private link can be found here.

[This tritone substitution technique proved to be vital to the rest of the project.  Tritone substitution and the creating of reharmonised ii-V sequences became one of the central foundations to every major reharmonisation produced.  This early recording and the subsequent study that followed it was perhaps the most important step in the ruleset's maturity and in the project's practical development.]

Exploring Smooth Jazz: Audio Example

Since the project's initial aim was to create a ruleset which would reharmonise music into that of a smooth jazz style.

Below is an example of what a smooth jazz piece sounds like.  Voted #1 best Smooth Jazz song of 2013 by the smooth jazz top 20 radio show in the USA, it features extensive use of ii-V-I sequences and 7th chords.

Not to everyone's tastes (and this may be a little too light for my tastes), it doesn't showcase tritone substitution or any major chord alterations.  It does however provide a good jumping off point for further reharmonisation - if the chord sequence of any pop song can be made to sound similar to this, it will be much easier to then reharmonise it into other styles of jazz.  It is for this reason that smooth jazz was chosen as the original aim for the project.

[In hindsight, the final recorded results led to a smooth jazz-esque style.  Some of the chord arrangements were slightly more adventurous and dissonant than recorded here, though it is clear to see that this style is where the end results came from]

Early Audio Example: Amazing Grace

Below is a brief snippet of a simple reharmonized chord sequence that I recorded using Logic Pro.

The first is the final line from the hymn "Amazing Grace", showing my earliest attempt at reharmonisation.  It is a very short piece and the reharmonisation is very basic: as time went on, the reharmonisations became longer and more complex.

Here is the audio recording, posted using a private link to my Soundcloud page.

The first play through contains the chord sequence "Bm G A7 D".

The reharmonized playthrough contains the chords "Bbdim Bm7 E7 C9 D".

These chords work very well with the melody.  The melody note during the second chord is an F# - the major 7th of the G chord and the 9th of the E chord in the reharmonized sequence.  The melody note during the A7 chord is E, the fifth.  In the reharmonized sequence however, the melody note is the third of th chord (C9).  Generally speaking, the third is a stronger note than the fifth, as its one of the two guide tones (3rd and 7th) of the chord.

So how do the reharmonized chords here relate to the original chords?

The Bb diminished is added in because adding the diminished chord a semi tone below before a minor chord is a well known and often played way of spicing up a chord sequence. This could give us a rule straight away, but I'll talk about that in another post. 

G into E7 is a strange shift, though. How does that relate? Well the fifth of G is D, which is the 7th in the E chord.  The fifth of E is also the third in G, so that remains.  We have two notes that remain the same.  The biggest difference however is the G# in the E chord - this has raised the root of the G chord by a semitone, giving us our tension.  

What about the C9? Why was that put in place of the A7? Well he 5th and 7th of the C chord (G and Bb) are exactly one semi tone above the resolving notes of the following ad chord (F# and A). As they drop down to the D, the tension they create is instantly released.  Why not just make the chord C7 then? Why does the 9th work so well?  The 9th of the chord is D - the root note of the chord that follows. By adding the d, there's a melodic and harmonic constant throughout the two chords, leading to a smoother resolution. 

When I originally chose the C9, it wasn't because of anything id heard played elsewhere orhad read - I was toying around with different chords and accidentally put in a C9.  It worked, but until i analysed it, I didn't know why.

The C9 works so well because of the chord that follows it.  This has given me another option to think about when reharmonizng - we can choose a chord to reharmonize based on the chord it's substituting, the melody note, the chord before it or the chord after it. Already I'm beginning to think about new ways of selecting chords.

What is Reharmonisation? (Randy Felts)

Randy Felts of Berklee College of Music states that:

"Reharmonization is the musical equivalent of a new paint job on an old car. When you reharmonize a tune, you give the melody new color by changing its underlying harmonics."

In his book "Reharmonisation Techniques", Felts discusses the concept of harmonic "families" within music.  In keeping with his illustration of reharmonisation being like a new paint job, he talks about different families of colours: you can repaint a car blue, though there are many, many shades of blue. You can repaint a car pink, though there are many shades of pink.

Similarly, you can reharmonise something, but that's only a blanket term; it' like saying you can paint something.  If you reharmonise something into a specific genre (or colour) like Bebop (or blue), you have several sub-genres and styles within be-bop that you can reharmonise it to.  Or you could reharmonise into a smooth-jazz style (or paint something pink), but you'd then have to look at the many ways in which something could be reharmonised in that style (the various shades of pink).

Because of this, an effective project based on reharmonisation requires researchers who are able to differentiate between various styles, in order to create something that sounds authentic - if a reharmonised piece sounds like a be-bop piece at one point, a smooth jazz piece two bars later then ends up sounding like a thrash-jazz piece at the end, it won't sound like an authentic replication of a piece.  It will just sound like a mish mash of chords thrown together for the sake of it.

It is for this reason that the project has chosen a single sub-genre to focus on, and why it is important for the researcher to study all genres - a basic understanding of what harmonic concepts go where will mean that chord sequences and harmonic movements that may be out of place in the targeted genre will not show up in the reharmonised pieces.

[In hindsight, the end result of the project was more than smooth jazz - smooth jazz turned out to be the starting point for the whole project; from then onwards the ruleset proved to be diverse, able to reharmonise pieces into many different styles.  In this way, it could be seen that the project was either a success or a failure from the viewpoint of this early blog.]

References

Felts, Randy. Reharmonization Techniques. Boston: Berklee Press, 2002. Print.