A few months ago, I was studying Giant Steps and I came across the “Giant Steps is actually very simple (yes, really)” video by Dave Pollack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd75Mwo4JNo
Pollack argues that the main reason that Giant Steps is such a high mountain is because it is traditionally played at such a ferocious tempo. Slow it down, and the Coltrane Changes become fairly ordinary ii-V-I substitution progressions.
I’m persuaded. I love Coltrane, and I’ve listened to the Giant Steps album countless times. The Coltrane Changes are very nice, but in the line of other jazz theory such as tritone substitution, the deceptive cadence, and so on.
The main thing with Giant Steps is that to play it like Coltrane does you have to practice it to death, accumulate a vocabulary of riffs, and gain facility at improvising over sophisticated changes moving at a speed that other tunes won’t have prepared you for.
Not only does it cycle through a ton of keys, but wind instruments like the sax require unique fingerings and embouchure changes in each key. It’s not nearly as hard on a guitar.
If you don’t have the time (or the musical background) for the full article, this short YouTube video touches on some of the same ideas in a much more condensed and accessible version:
Thanks for sharing! I've been playing music for 30 years but my theory knowledge is pretty bare bones. That video was really accessible but still got the point across in enough detail.
On the bandstand, there's usually a ton of highly aware counting going on. 24 bars of rest! followed by 8 bars of rest! and then 16 bars of latin feel! now back to 8 of swing!
On top of that there is definitely some feel and intuition going on. But for a band to play non-trivial music, everyone is counting unless they know the material cold, and even then they are probably counting at times.
Indeed, as a long time fan of prog metal and tech death I'm quite aware of the importance of counting (and the existence of people whose counting abilities far surpass my own)!
But I think the quote is also referring to casual enjoyment of music where the counting might not be deliberate.
I want to consider the higher-level claims in the article. In between the historical context helpfully provided by the article there is also some speculation about Merkaba, Platonic solids, Flower of Life and other sacred geometry.
There is a premise hidden in those speculations that there is some strong connection between the structure of the universe itself and the structures humans find pleasing when listening to music. And I detect a suggestion that studying the output of our most genius musicians might reveal some kind of hidden information about the universe, specifically related to some kind of "spirituality".
This was a sentiment shared, in some sense, by the deists of the enlightenment. They rejected the scriptures and instead believed that studying the physical universe might reveal the "mind of God".
If we are looking for correspondences between these things - why limit ourselves to Euclidean geometry? Modern physics leans on Riemannian geometry, symmetry, and topology. It appears the topology of the universe, under a wide array of experiments, is way more complicated than the old geometric ideas. Most physicists talk about Lie Groups, fiber bundles, etc.
If you take "as above, so below" seriously and you want to find connections between cosmology and music, I believe you have to use modern mathematical tools. I think we need to expand beyond geometry and embrace topology. Can we think of the chromatic scale tones as a Group? What operators would we need? etc.
It's interesting to try to get into the head of a guy like Coltrane and his mathematical approach, but perhaps we could be pushing new boundaries based on new understanding.
Fascinating, well-written piece. Thanks for sharing! I plan to revisit it more closely when I free up (probably while listening to A Love Supreme -- arguably the greatest jazz album of all time).
Just finished listening to it yesterday! My first time with it, excellent stuff, but not topping Mingus Ah Um! I've been on a Jazz kick since listening to an episode of Kirk Hamilton's Strong Songs podcast about John Williams[1]—which was an excellent listen and I learned tons—that touched on Jazz and Mingus in particular.
I, unarguably, agree. My all time favorite part is "Psalm". Love the story behind it, too: They had just moved from the city to Long Island, and he said it came fully formed into his mind. He then spent days and days in solitude intensely teasing it out to perfection.
A Love Supreme is a wonderful album, but Ascension and his later avant-garde work marked a new direction in jazz. Listening to Coltrane play his later work, feels to me like he had unshackled himself from the past, from the changes, and was his most pure expression of self.
Without more prominent melody or harmony I could not find what is finer about it than conventional approaches to jazz. Could you please elaborate on what its quality is?
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Pollack argues that the main reason that Giant Steps is such a high mountain is because it is traditionally played at such a ferocious tempo. Slow it down, and the Coltrane Changes become fairly ordinary ii-V-I substitution progressions.
I’m persuaded. I love Coltrane, and I’ve listened to the Giant Steps album countless times. The Coltrane Changes are very nice, but in the line of other jazz theory such as tritone substitution, the deceptive cadence, and so on.
The main thing with Giant Steps is that to play it like Coltrane does you have to practice it to death, accumulate a vocabulary of riffs, and gain facility at improvising over sophisticated changes moving at a speed that other tunes won’t have prepared you for.
EDIT: I originally posted the wrong link, to Giant Steps slowed down 30%. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilbrDJy9-98
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62tIvfP9A2w
I haven’t heard that one. I think I prefer this one, attributed to Leibniz:
“Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.”
On top of that there is definitely some feel and intuition going on. But for a band to play non-trivial music, everyone is counting unless they know the material cold, and even then they are probably counting at times.
But I think the quote is also referring to casual enjoyment of music where the counting might not be deliberate.
-- some movie I don't recall
There is a premise hidden in those speculations that there is some strong connection between the structure of the universe itself and the structures humans find pleasing when listening to music. And I detect a suggestion that studying the output of our most genius musicians might reveal some kind of hidden information about the universe, specifically related to some kind of "spirituality".
This was a sentiment shared, in some sense, by the deists of the enlightenment. They rejected the scriptures and instead believed that studying the physical universe might reveal the "mind of God".
If we are looking for correspondences between these things - why limit ourselves to Euclidean geometry? Modern physics leans on Riemannian geometry, symmetry, and topology. It appears the topology of the universe, under a wide array of experiments, is way more complicated than the old geometric ideas. Most physicists talk about Lie Groups, fiber bundles, etc.
If you take "as above, so below" seriously and you want to find connections between cosmology and music, I believe you have to use modern mathematical tools. I think we need to expand beyond geometry and embrace topology. Can we think of the chromatic scale tones as a Group? What operators would we need? etc.
It's interesting to try to get into the head of a guy like Coltrane and his mathematical approach, but perhaps we could be pushing new boundaries based on new understanding.
1: https://strongsongspodcast.com/blogs/episodes/s05e05-john-wi...
Else: Deringers at noon. Bring your second.
Of which you're undoubtedly aware; I'm just explaining the inside joke in your second line to others.
P.S. Kind of Blue is also my favorite.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/...
In my opinion the underrated "Get Your Greasy Head Off The Sham" by Breastfed Yak is jazz at it's finest.
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