Duved Dunayevsky: The 1930s Django sound

Bones

So for the C major use Eb 'major' pentatonic or 'minor' pentatonic? Thanks

wim

Buco wrote: »

It's just that when Duved says "you can play m4 over the domV during 2-5-1" and demonstrates how great it can sound when musically applied, that's specific enough to me.
Then you hear: "but master, why?", "why does it work?".
In that case I agree with "who cares why?".

I think we have to agree to disagree. You can certainly go deeper here, if the student is still curious about it... †

The minor triad on 4th scale degree has
- a root which is the b7th of the V (an important note for the V7 sound)
- a m3rd which is the b9th of the V (a nice colouration for the V7 sound)
- a 5th which is the familiar "Vsus4 pulling to V7" sound

You might then wonder what other chords have notes providing these same functions, and you'll probably find the 2m7b5. Which, of course, also works equally well over V7.

Congrats, the neural pathway for the 4m6 and 2m7b5 equivalence is now a little bit stronger in your mind. You were already aware of it, sure, but you're now a little bit more prepared to throw those in as substitutions on the fly. When noticing voicings conveniently nearby, in role as a rhythm player, you might have a millisecond's less hesitation in grabbing that substitution. Or as a lead player, you might have the confidence to hammer out that m6 arpeggio, knowing it's going to sound good.

^†_{Of course, not everyone brains work the same way, so you don't want to derail class time by going into too much detail! For people without a mathematical/analytical approach to learning music, this stuff might not even be helpful in the slightest. But as a teacher I might try to answer more "why questions" after the class, one-on-one..}

NylonDave

Eb Major. You can think of it as Cm pentatonic if you prefer. I don't like to

Bones wrote: »

So for the C major use Eb 'major' pentatonic or 'minor' pentatonic? Thanks

Eb major, it is the same notes as Cminor pentatonic. You might also like to experiment with Eb minor lines over C minor. I don't like minor pentatonics much in minor keys for swing music ( different thought in bluegrass folk and americana), but that is my preference and I often hear other people do it and sometimes I like it.

In C minor if you drop the seventh (Bb) and use the sixth (A) then you get a real nice sounding scale (C D Eb G A). You might enjoy contrasting that with the same construction over Ebm (Eb F Gb Bb C). These are still minor pentatonic scales in that they have five notes per octave and a minor third. On the guitar they only requires moderate alternation from the box shapes that we all know and work out nice two notes per string.

Hope that clears things up.

Any way this is all besides the point. Duved is great and thanks Adrian for putting this package together.

D.

Buco

No worries Wim, this is not even something I'm taking a hard stand on, it just caught my curiosity when I heard it from different people. It does strike a note with me though. I was never of a person who was able to learn something on the page and in my case the below doesn't get me any closer to sounding better next time we meet for a jam (hopefully I will sound better next time whatever road I take to get there)

Wim Glenn wrote: »

Congrats, the neural pathway for the 4m6 and 2m7b5 equivalence is now a little bit stronger

but of course I understand curiosity and it is perfectly ok to wonder and get the explanation.
Only thing I know for sure is the older I get the more I realize that in the future I might read what I wrote here and think what an idiot I was. That is to say I might change. At least for now though I'm of thinking that creation and performance of music is what pleases the ear, not what makes sense on the paper. Working out the "why's" comes after the music has been made already. Although knowing why something might please the ear will could get you closer to hear some ooh's when you play.
So know I'm not even sure what I tried to say in the first place. Time to sleep. But not before I jammed on some 2-5-1s throwing in some m4 notes over the V chord while I pondered on my thoughts.

bopster

Denis C. includes the chord charts and suggested arpeggios/scales for each tune in his play along purchase, that explore sonorous to dissonant choices for the progressions. Our own ideas about what constitutes playing “in” or “out” makes this music theory and not law. He gives quite a few approaches to each.

BillDaCostaWilliams

When discussing the concepts he has distilled from 1930s Django, Duveed sums up the key idea very well I think:
“The music of Django is about playing melodies (...) It’s very important to use these concepts but choose just the juicy notes and try to make a melody of your own.”
But the quest for the juicy notes is a lifelong project!

Lango-Django

Yup. Those "juicy" notes are often hiding right behind the "rancid" ones!

Shemi

Really enjoying this course. I have a question which will probably make me look dense but when talking about the ii V l ii#dim Duved mentions that is it all over the place but I'm not seeing it. What am I missing? I get that it leads nicely back to the ii but I'm not conscious it used in the rep I'm familiar with.

klaatu

Bill Da Costa Williams wrote: »

When discussing the concepts he has distilled from 1930s Django, Duveed sums up the key idea very well I think:
“The music of Django is about playing melodies (...) It’s very important to use these concepts but choose just the juicy notes and try to make a melody of your own.”
But the quest for the juicy notes is a lifelong project!

Stephane Wrembel once said that improvisation is all about creating new melodies based on the original.

Buco

Shemi wrote: »

Really enjoying this course. I have a question which will probably make me look dense but when talking about the ii V l ii#dim Duved mentions that is it all over the place but I'm not seeing it. What am I missing? I get that it leads nicely back to the ii but I'm not conscious it used in the rep I'm familiar with.

I remember him talking about this at Django in June but can't remember the specific details. That exact question came up though. I think it's about taking freedom to make variations in your rhythm playing. For example think of a chords for Djangology, it's that kind of chord progression he's talking about.
I'd be mostly guessing if I go on so I'll stop here.