tritone sub, altered dominant

marciero

Okay, not a technique question, but...
Dennis, I remember a post where you talked about being annoyed by an accompanist who used a particular tritone sub somewhere that you thought was inappropriate-can't remember the context.
To my ears, using Eb9 - Bbdomb5 - Am6 in Minor Swing sounds pretty innocuous and solo-friendly, even in a situation where you are trying to play it straight and give the soloist room. It seems like, for example, the b9 is so commonly used that it's almost like it's not an alteration at all. What say you?

Mike A

dennis

Hi Mike I'm generally not bothered when someone uses the tritone sub (although, personally , i much prefer the basic chords). However, what happenned with that particular accompanist was a bit more complex theory wise...

it was in a ii V I situation.

theoretically speaking, the ii is an optional chord so if u have one bar of

Am7 then D7 and G

you can easily drop the Am7 and make it two bars of D7


now with the tritone sub rule, you can replace any dominant chord with its tritone sub

what this accompanist did (who has no knowledge of theory whatsoever, he just likes to make things as "fancy" as possible) was drop the Am7 and go for 2 full bars of D7... for the first bar, however, he played the tritone sub Ab, thus in effect replacing the Am7 with Ab.....

that totally $!#$ up my soloing options especially for the ii chord....

not cool!

pallopenna

As I recall from my bebop sax playing days (ah youth!), tritone subs are most effective when placed in the right context with regards to cadence resolution. So, in the case you mentioned Dennis, the Ab - D7 doesn't make any sense because the tritone is very close to using the dominant with a b9, b5, and 7th - which doesn't resolve to the D7, it resolves to the I (G). So, the best (most innocuous) use of the sub there is Am7 - Ab - G. This is essentially equivalent to II - V7 b9, b5 - I, but has the nice chromatic descending bass.

No comment on its approriateness for gypsy playing - I'm much too much of a novice to know!

-Paul

dennis

it can be done if the melody allows it, it's just a lot of theoretical manipulation (see my first post)

but it 's really something that shouldn't be thrown in randomly like that, it should be discussed with the rest of the band.

and i agree in general that the tritone sub should only be used for resolutions.

pallopenna

I totally agree. I didn't mean to disagree with you, I simply meant that, in general, the approach I mentioned is the most innocuous use of the tritone sub. But, you're absolutely right about dicussing it with the banc first.

pallopenna

uh...make that discussing it with the BAND first. I'm not sure what effect discussing it with the banc will have...

:oops:

dennis

when i teach this style of music, it's quite hard to talk about harmonies without going too much into theory and all that academia, which is why i try to show the basic progressions first.

There are lots of books out there aimed for beginners with crazy chord subs and it confuses the hell out of everyone ... i don't understand why there isn't a single book with just the plain changes that django used.

this style is particularly scary because of the harmonic liberties that lots of people take.

I had a discussion with fapy about this, and i showed him the way one of my accompanists plays "out of nowhere"... he told me, if that guy were in my band, he'd be fired...

he said it best: "you're either the soloist or the rhythm player, you can't be doing both at the same time"

pallopenna

I'm sure that you're right. So, what are your opinions of Colin's books?

-Paul

dennis

well i apologize to colin if he reads this, but if someone asks i'm not gonna lie.

i dont own the book but i remember teaching someone once and he d always show me the colin book and to every chord i d show him he d show me the version on colin's book

now, i dont think it's a bad book, but it's DEFINITELY not a book for beginners and i think those chords should be used wisely and carefully.
I can see this book being of benefit to someone who's fairly harmonically confident. Also, if i'm not mistaken (and if i am i apologize), it seems to be advertised as a book of chord progressions used by all the gypsies which obviously isn't true, and that can be misleading for someone who wants to play the way they do.


if you're the only rhythm guitar player, they could work if the soloist doesn't mind, but if there's another rhythm guitar player playing the real changes, it can clash a bit.

nwilkins

I agree that the book is not for beginners and that there is a definite possibility of clashing with other rhythm players if you were to follow it blindly. But I don't think it is misadvertised - it is simply a book of potential chord subs/ways to spice up a song, which are used by experienced players in this style. If you know what you're doing (ie if you can see the subs and how they relate to the original progression etc.) then I think it is a highly useful book. Most of the people I've talked to seem to view the book this way.

Regarding chord subs and harmonic complexity in this music, I think we should also take into account Scot's great post regarding the separate folk (improvised yet Djangocentric with very particular rules and ways of doing things) and jazz streams of GJ. Fapy's comment epitomizes the folk school approach. ie - play simple chords like the original hotclub did, allowing the soloist to improvise within a certain well-defined set of boundaries. In the other more jazz-based branch of GJ I think there is far more room for adding harmonic complexity, not least because the soloists are more willing to take chances and are not as limited by "rules". Adventurous accompaniment will perhaps inspire the soloists to go off in a new direction, a direction which might not be Django-like and is therefore eschewed by proponents of the folk school. Of course, all of this assumes a very very capable soloist (see the Ferre bros for example).

We all have to decide which approach we want to take, but I think there is certainly a place for more interesting/daring accompaniment. As Dennis says, however, such accompaniment should be left to those with a sound knowledge of what they are doing either theory-wise or sound-wise (ideally both).

Ando

Perhaps even folk-approach groups can let rhythm players get their ya-ya's out by providing solo, chordal intro's and outro's to songs. Little harmonic holidays, -- then it's back to the salt mines.