Thoughts on my project idea.

Here are my thoughts on my project:

Pros -

-It will develop my own knowledge of three jazz based styles I love - Gospel, funk and smooth jazz.
-It has a clear "this was successful/this wasn't successful" thing about it.  If it all goes pear shaped and doesn't work, I won't be able to hide it.
-Following on from last point, it means I actually have to work - this isn't a project I can half arse and expect to do well in.  I'll need to be on the ball, sticking to my working schedules day in and day out.
-It has something it can give to the musical and educational establishment.  If I create these rulesets, others may be able to benefit from them.
-Even if it doesn't work, my dissertation will give me a chance to explain why which Kenny tells me can still lead to a good mark.

Cons -

-It requires the intense study of three styles.  A little bit adventurous maybe, especially in the time scale given (end of March-April).
-Finding out whether or not it's been successful may be difficult - do I test it on people? Do I make recordings? If I make recordings, how will I test whether or not they work?  Reharmonization and whether or not someone likes it is entirely subjective.  It's not my place nor anyone else's to say "This reharmonisation is good or bad".
-Creating a ruleset that is applicable to any tune will prove very difficult.  Many tunes are different - there likely won't be a "one size fits all" approach to any ruleset, so I'll need to discover and create compromises.  How do I research that?
-In general - how will I research this? Or even better, how will I document my research? Blogs are good, but much of the work I'll be doing will be done sat in front of the piano.  How do I document the work done there?  Writing about every daily practice session I have?  Video recording every session?  I'll need to talk to Kenny or Simone about this.

Kenny's idea in his email was a good one - putting the ruleset into a MIDI based program which will apply it to any chord chart automatically.  This is good but would require me to brush up on my programming/MIDI skills.  It could become an entire project in itself.

This is a great idea, but I'm not sure if I'm going to go through with it.  I'm hesitating whether or not I should put it in my project pitch.

My next post will be about the pitch - in it, I'll detail books I've used, my thoughts behind it, and what I'm missing out and why.

J

I emailed Kenny...

...I was on the train and suddenly out of no where my project came to me.  I've been stuck for ideas this past few weeks and haven't done much in regards to studying.  Then suddenly I was on the train going over my past idea and an idea just came to me - an amalgamation of everything I've done up until now.

I quickly wrote my ideas down and sent Kenny an email.  I got a reply back fairly quickly, and the results were positive.

This is what i emailed:

"The subject will be based on reharmonistion. In short I'd be seeking to develop and create a series of musical formulae that could be applied to the chord chart of any tune (modern or old) in order to harmonise it into a specific jazz based style.

For example, I'd have a formula that could reharmonise simple mono tonal hymns into gospel styled hymns, and a formula that could turn modern pop tunes into swing/smooth/fusion jazz sounding pieces or vice/versa, etc...

The songs would be reharmonized at a basic level - the idea is that the formulas would help introduce players who are perhaps unfamiliar with the styles to new forms of harmony.  An intermediate player should be able to apply one of the formulas to any tune he wants and end up sounding like he has a basic grasp over the harmony of whatever style he's playing.

The formulae would focus specifically on harmony and melody - rhythm, technique, etc, would be left out for the player to develop on his own.

Cons and difficulties:

-how do I measure whether or not the formulas are successful in achieving their purpose?
-Creating a formula that will work for anything - there are many different musical contexts to consider in which something might not work.
-Defining what "gospel" or "jazz" means.
-Even in its many sub-genres, how a jazz based piece sounds depends entirely on the player.  How will I decide on which harmonic style to focus on for each formula?

I had a few other thoughts about difficulties but they're currently beyond me. 

In total, I'd be looking to create a total of 3 different formulae, each with a method for turning a chord sequence into a specific style. "

Kenny's reply was encouraging:

"I think this sounds like an interesting idea - so you’d be devising a formal rule system for (re)harmonisation of melodies (or bass lines, similar to figured bass)?

Just in terms of process, I think it might be an idea to start simple, and begin with fairly standard 4-part harmony (a la hymn tunes) before you start to complicate things with extended chords.

In answer to your questions/points:

-how do I measure whether or not the formulas are successful in achieving their purpose?

I would have thought that applying your harmonisation rules to a few different tracks and then analysing the results would be a good way of doing this. That, in turn, though, means that you’ll need to think about how you analyse harmony and what makes for a ‘good’ harmonisation. This, though, is something that you will have to do anyway if you are planning on analysing case studies.

-Creating a formula that will work for anything - there are many different musical contexts to consider in which something might not work.

I’m not sure that you will be able to create a one-size fits all solution, but nor would I worry about that. What you’re effectively trying to do here is build a model of how harmonisation works. All models have their limits. The interesting question is more about what those limits are, and even when you push beyond the limits, your method might throw up interesting (though unconventional) results. These are all things that would make good material for a dissertation.

-Defining what "gospel" or "jazz" means.

Why do you have to? Your harmonisation rules don’t care if the melody is a jazz tune or a gospel tune. Isn’t that sort of the point of a formal rule system like this? It would be enough to identify common chord structures/progressions from jazz or gospel (or wherever) and then use these as part of the grammar of your harmonisation rules.

-Even in its many sub-genres, how a jazz based piece sounds depends entirely on the player.  How will I decide on which harmonic style to focus on for each formula?

See above - I don’t think you can create a universal solution here. What you might want to think about is creating different ‘flavours’ of reharmonisation rules, perhaps which emulate the style of particular players.

You should maybe read a book called ‘Computers and Musical Style’ by David Cope. This is specifically about trying to get computers to analyse the work of composers (he works mainly with Mozart and Scott Joplin as examples), and then compose in their style. Clearly, this is a bit broader than just looking at harmony, but there’s a lot of stuff in there that might be useful.

Have you considered automating all this? It might be a bit of a red-herring if you don’t have any programming experience, but you could use something like Pure Data to load a MIDI file and apply your rules to create a harmonised version and re-output a MIDI file. It would be a nice way of demonstrating your approach if it were possible."

This has given me much food for thought.  I'm glad I finally have something refined that I can begin sharpening up.  This means I can start looking for resources - I can start planning, studying and actually WORKING towards my honours project now.  

The first thing to do will be to get my project proposal done.  I'll need to start looking are more specific resources for my project.  A trip to the library is in order.  My next post will discuss my thoughts about this project and what I could potentially do with it. 

This is good.  I'm starting to make progress.  Finally.

J

Links I've looked at so far.

I haven't posted in a while. I've been pretty confused and haven't made any progress in developing my project, which is a worry as I'm going to have to start working towards deadlines very soon.

In the mean time, here is a link of various sites I've put in my book marks folder over the weeks.  I can't remember even looking at some of them or why I looked at them, but I think it's a good idea to document the fact that they were looked at here.   Maybe looking back at them in a couple of weeks will give me some ideas.

In no particular order:

http://music.stackexchange.com/questions/15496/why-is-the-basis-of-jazz-harmony-tetrads-7th-chords

http://berkleepress.com/catalog/product?product_id=40669022

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hhpQzHvIr80C&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=Academic+Reharmonization+Books&source=bl&ots=URBVP_aLOW&sig=YOUEQc4FS3sC_esrob6_KKUZXxY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5nhTVM20LIvasASrvIDgDQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Academic%20Reharmonization%20Books&f=false

http://www.berkleepress.com/catalog/product?product_id=58600

http://www.berklee.edu/bt/131/reharmonizing.html

As you can see, most of my research has come from Berklee, which comes as no surprise considering they offer entire courses based around the sort of things I'm looking to do for my project.

J

Kenny's feedback.

At first I was pleased with how my meeting with Kenny went, though having digested what he said, I have even more ideas now than I did in the first place!

My initial idea was to take three distinct artists - esbjorn svensson, Bill Evans and Thelonius Monk, for example, and reharmonize hymns in their styles.

Kenny asked why hymns, and I couldn't really give a good answer.  Any typical pop song would do, I suppose.

He said that I wouldn't have to go as in depth as I'd think for each artist - perhaps just getting the main aspects of their harmony together would be good enough.  He also mentioned a good point about how these players playing goes further than their harmony - their use of rhythm, their solos, the band they play with (even though I'd be focusing on solo piano instruments).
I was pleased at how knowledgable he was at the subjects I'm thinking about.  He seems to be an accomplished keyboard player with a great deal of knowledge over various jazz artists, which is very helpful for me.

My second and what I thought most interesting idea was to create a small EP of tracks reharmonized in the specific style of one artist.  The catch would be that the chosen tracks would be tracks that were written after the artist died.  I'd learn the styles of the recording artists so in depth that upon first listen, it would seem as if the artist I'd chosen were playing the recorded track, even though it would have been physically impossible for them to have done so.

Kenny's feedback for the last idea mostly applied to this one too.  I said that it would probably too adventurous to do for an honours project - I've looked up pages online about an artist's style, and the kind of detail I'd be looking to go into is more akin to that of a master's degree in jazz.  Kenny said that I could give it a good bash and wouldn't worry about that though, so that's encouraging.  Not entirely sure I'd be able to actually do it at the level I'm at just now, though.

He gave me many more ideas - like how to discover what about an artists makes his own style his own style?

He also made me think about gospel playing more - I mentioned that I couldn't really do a project based on gospel music because I'm not as experienced in it as I'd like to be, and especially couldn't do organ based music (which I'd love to do) because I don't have and have never played a real B3/C3 - all I have is a Nord Electro.  Again though, he questioned why that would be a problem and said that if I really wanted to do a project on gospel i could.  He also mentioned the idea of me playing some of the many organs he owns if I absolutely needed to!  The prospect of that excited me.  Though I don't think it'd be a good idea to do an honours project just because it meant I'd get to play a real organ...

Decisions decisions.  I'm pretty confused now but will hopefully have a EUREKA moment soon.

Hopefully.

Meeting with Kenny

So I had a meeting with Kenny and he seemed interested in many of my ideas - he spent a lot of time thinking about the first idea, which I was surprised at.  It's been a long day so instead of making a new post I'm just going to copy and paste the document I used for notes in the meeting. Hopefully it won't effect my mark!

Will post later on in the week going over what he said.

J

Project: Jazz Harmony - reharmonization 

First idea: Study various different styles of keyboard based jazz (jimmy smith type organ, gospel organ, piano - bill evans, thelonius monk, esbjorn svensson, etc) (artist specific) and record a collection of hymns in the style of said artist.

Second idea:  Study the style of a particular artist - a deceased artist. Learn harmony, commonly used voicings, stylistic elements, key phrases, etc - using that knowledge, reharmonize tunes that were released after artist’s death.  Goal: Create a convincing recording that makes it sound like the artist himself is playing a song that he couldn’t possibly have played.  Would be played on pianos that are edited to sound very old/out of tune. 

To the average listener, difference between an existing track by artist and one of the new recorded tracks should be identifiable as the same person, even though it’s not.

Eg. Study Bill Evans in depth - cover songs written in this decade in his style.  

Cons:

 Can I feasibly learn someone’s techniques/style as well as required within a year?

 According to what little research I’ve done, the level of depth I’d be looking at is verging on masters/doctorate level.

Third idea: Study artists who have reharmonized music extensively - ie. dirty loops, etc...Work out their methods and style - what is it that makes the reharmonization of a chord sequence work? AIM: find any key traits or similarities.

Fourth idea: Study various artists styles.  Combine them together to create my own style.  Use this style to reharmonize various tunes - pop, hymns, etc...)

Fifth Idea: Gospel organ.  Hymns are reharmonized in beautifully colourful ways - would love to study this but gospel harmony would take me down a path different to what I’m currently on - jazz harmony.  Would be like starting from scratch - couldn’t really do gospel organ in depth with a single Nord, unless focusing purely on harmony.  

Refined ideas 2 - list of ideas

Below is a list of every idea I've come up with so far:

-Reharmonize hymns into a modern gospel style.  2-3 ye olde hymns reharmonized into a gospel style with jazz-based chord voicings and changes.

-Study 2-3 artist's style of jazz playing and try to emulate as close as physically possible.

-Study artists who have already made a living reharmonizing music (Dirty Loops for example) and find out what they did to their reharmonizations - how do their chord charts differ from existing chord charts?  Look at before and after - what do they do that makes it effective?

-Study the styles of various artists and combine their styles to make a single style - Question could be something like "To what extent is it possible to merge the distinctive styles of well known jazz artist's together?"


I keep having thoughts about a synthesis based project - starting a sound from scratch (ie. a raw waveform) and trying to emulate a separate instrument as closely as possible in order to create a replication of an existing orchestral piece that sounds very similar if not indistinguishable from the original.  It seems a tad difficult though and a little unrealistic, though we'll see.

I have a meeting with Kenny on Friday and will present what little i have to him there.  I have a feeling I'll need to cram as much information as possible into a file to make it look like I have something worth presenting!  Though from what I've gathered, many people in the course (or at least the musicians) are in the same boat as I.  We'll see...

J

Jazz harmony - first ideas

I've had many ideas about what my project may be.

Some of these have been based around other jazz players - trying to emulate their styles and find out what exactly makes their style their styles.  This idea may work, but needs more thought.  I have to look at each idea and think critically about it.  My thoughts about this idea: what exactly would the academic purpose be?  People emulate styles of their favourite artists all the time - many just do it for a hobby.  Why would this idea be worthy of an honours project?

The concept of reharmonisation interests me.  If you listen to any recording of any jazz standard by  a well known jazz pianist like Bill Evans, for example, you would be forgiven if you didn't realise what tune they're playing until a few minutes in when you can just make out parts of the head (or melody) of the tune.  what is it each artist does and why does he do it?

Finding out how other jazz artists reharmonize standards into their own style would be good, but again, what would the academic purpose be? 

I need to look into each idea with more depth.

Another problem I'm having is coming up with a question.  I'm led to believe that we need to have some sort of research question or statement.  How would I word a project like that I mentioned above in question form?  

I've a lot to think about and a lot of ideas to develop.  I'll make another post soon mentioning briefly every idea I've had up to this point.  Perhaps seeing them written down will help me develop them better.

J

Refined ideas

Having thought about what makes a successful project and what I'd actually like to learn more about, I've decided that my project is to be focused on jazz harmony.

Simone said something in her lecture that helped me decide on the spot: "This is an opportunity for you to find something you're really interested in and would like to see yourself specialise in and develop your knowledge of."  Or words to that effect.

I could compose anything any time, and don't see myself as much of a composer, so the composition idea was out.  Synthesis and production skills are more hobbies than anything, and I don't think I could dedicate an entire year to a project based around those.

Jazz based skills and harmony theory, however, I use every day in many aspects of my playing.  They are both things that interest me greatly and areas of my musicianship I'd like to develop as far as I can.  Not only would I enjoy a project based around this more, but they'd help me develop my own musicianship more than anything else on the list in my previous post would.

The next few posts will be based on my initial thoughts about my possible approach to this project, and ideas as to how I could make a project based on jazz harmony and it's practices work.

Initial Ideas

For my honours year at Abertay University I am to carry out a research project that will be the basis of my work for the rest of the year.

I knew what would be required of me prior to starting the course, so have had a few ideas in mind.

These are as follows:

-A composition

-A sound-production based project, using synthesis to recreate orchestral pieces of music

-A project examining jazz harmony 

-A project examining various jazz styles and their uses on the piano.

I have rough ideas for each but won't list them here - instead I'll document my developed ideas here, exploring their various stages of production.

My lecturers will likely help me decide which of the above ideas I'm going to follow through on, so I'll begin to write more as the semester goes on.

J