Talk:Coltrane changes
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[edit] First appearance of coltrane changes
Hyacinth wrote, ...and first appearing on Giant Steps and appearing in many tunes. I'm not certain that is correct. Coltrane appears to have been using the changes with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, at least two years prior to Giant Steps. --Viriditas | Talk 13:07, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- How do you know? Hyacinth 23:26, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks for asking, as I erroneously assumed you were familiar with my sheets of sound article ("sheets of sound" is the non-technical description of coltrane changes), where I covered this point. According to music critic Ira Gitler [1], musician McCoy Tyner, and John Coltrane himself [2], Coltrane began playing the sheets of sound/matrix/changes in the late '50's (1957-1958) with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. Before Coltrane honed the technique in songs like Giant Steps and Countdown, he was experimenting with it on Milestones (April, 1958) and at the Newport Jazz Festival that same year, in Straight, No Chaser. --Viriditas | Talk 02:18, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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- Either I am confused or you are conflating two seperate musical techniques. I did not conclude from reading both articles that they are the same technique. Hyacinth 03:42, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- They refer to the same thing, except one is a description of the arpeggiated structures that are based on coltrane changes (sheets of sound) and the other is a term that musicians use to refer to the order of the chord progression itself (coltrane changes). The former is more of a music history article with room for expansion regarding jazz history (sheets of sound as a period between 1958-1960), while the latter is intended as a technical article on music theory, with room for growth. Here's what Coltrane had to say about it:
- About this time, I was trying for a sweeping sound. I started experimenting because I was striving for more individual development. I even tried long, rapid lines that Ira Gitler termed "sheets of sound" at the time. But actually, I was beginning to apply the three-on-one chord approach, and at that time the tendency was to play the entire scale of each chord. Therefore, they were usually played fast and sometimes sounded like glisses...I found there were a certain number of chord progressions to play in a given time, and sometimes what I played didn't work out in eighth notes, 16th notes, or triplets. I had to put the notes in uneven groups like fives and sevens in order to get them all in. [3] --Viriditas | Talk 08:21, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- They refer to the same thing, except one is a description of the arpeggiated structures that are based on coltrane changes (sheets of sound) and the other is a term that musicians use to refer to the order of the chord progression itself (coltrane changes). The former is more of a music history article with room for expansion regarding jazz history (sheets of sound as a period between 1958-1960), while the latter is intended as a technical article on music theory, with room for growth. Here's what Coltrane had to say about it:
- Either I am confused or you are conflating two seperate musical techniques. I did not conclude from reading both articles that they are the same technique. Hyacinth 03:42, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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- I'm no expert, but I don't read the quote above as equating 'sheets of sound' with 'Coltrane changes'. I've always understood these to wbe two different things; one harmonic and quite specific, the other stylistic and consequently vaguer. The major-3rd root cycle is a harmonic idea. You could play this chord cycle slowly and apply a lyrical solo style and it would still be a set of 'Coltrane changes', but nobody would say you were employing the 'sheets of sound' style. On the other hand, one could take the whole-scale approach to playing on, say, I Got Rhythm and you would be playing 'sheets of sound'; but you certainly wouldn't be playing 'Coltrane changes'. I don't see the quote above contradicting that. Ornette
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[edit] Comment by 69.254.88.237
(Side note argument)
- "Have You Ever Met Miss Jones" doesn't follow the root movement by 3rd pattern in the Coltrane matrix. Most charts available (for Miss Jones), regardless of the starting key, go from a (the note is interchangeable depending on key, and the songs starts on what's known in jazz as a "turnaround - 2-5-1 or a 6-2-5-1) (F)Maj7, (D)dom7b9, (G)m7, (C)dom7.
