Harmonization vs. Single Notes

Scott Swartz · From: St. Louis, MO

I have been thinking about single note playing vs harmonization, where and why I use each for a given passage.

The simplest answer is because it sounds good or “works”, but I am wondering if approaching it in a more organized manner would open some doors.

Take a simple melody, the notes D – E – G played over the I, a G chord

To keep things basic, assume we will use no more than two strings at a time and the melody is the upper voice, so this three note melody could be played one of three ways

-Single Notes
-Moving melody note over a pedal tone
-Harmonized scale

richard burton · From: Britain

The title of this post, referring to single note playing, prompted me to remember that, on a recent topic about ET versus JI tuning, a lot of the JI proponents were exclusively single note players, quite often with distortion, which renders JI inconsequential

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Scott,
You skipped contrary motion. Melody notes moving up so harmony notes move down. This is one of the coolest things about pedal steel harmony. I actually base most of my harmony choices on musical context. Where is the dissonance and where does the melody land ? Is the melody a transition to another part ? I really like chromatic voice leading. How I study and practice lower voice harmony ideas is by listening to the viola parts in string quartets and Ellington trombone lines.
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Bob

Joe Gretz · From: Washington, DC, USA

Scott,

Thanks for starting this thread! Bob, thanks for your response!!! For quite some time I've pondered this issue, and couldn't arrive at a satisfactory answer...only for it to be under my nose the whole time!

CONTRARY MOTION!!! Smile

DANG IT!!! I've studied formal Counterpoint and Harmony for DECADES! Embarassed

How could I have overlooked something so OBVIOUS? Whoa!

I wanted to post when this thread started, but opted against because I wasn't going to say anything except that I was eager to see what people would say...

Well, time to get "Gradus Ad Parnassum" off the shelf for a fresh re-read! Very Happy

THANKS AGAIN!!! Cool

Joe
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Dattebayo!!!

Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

Bob,
you have got it RIGHT !
With only 3 yeares of PSG experience, I've heard it, couldn't put it into words,or do it, but now you've given it a name, at a time when I'm finally being able to do some of it !
Thanks
I needed a little inspiration, and insight
Rick

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

I love that book "Gradus Ad Parnassum". Although for a more practical steel guitar application you can always try to figure out what Buddy Emmons did. His intro to "Touch My Heart" has a nice touch of contrary motion. Emmons is to steel guitar what Bach is to western music. Every time I think I came up with something wild and new on the steel I find out Buddy Emmons did it a long time ago and way better than I ever will.
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Bob

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

WHAT, THE FUX?*

Diatonic harmony is fairly well-ingrained in my brain and in my six-string playing from many years of playing (and listening), but it's not so well under my fingers on steel, due to the odd interval changes among the strings on C6th tuning. Careful listening is important - identifying intervals, not just tapping your toe & humming along.

*(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Joseph_Fux)

2008 was my "Year of Chords" - it took me 16 months but I made some progress on hearing and on locating things on the steel that I thought was needed. Still, to me I need to have some conceptual idea first, then the rest just becomes working it out = the easy part.... Confused

In the course of my chord stuff, I found that I really didn't feel comfortable in using chromatic and non-diatonic note pairs on the fly, the only things that I was sure worked were pre-arranged bits = the opposite of improvising. Just know some little bluesy chromatic walkdowns isn't theory, in my book. So:

2010 is my "Year of Diminished Expectations", I'm working up some exercises around the symmetric scale with near-random pairs of notes. At any point in the exercise I'll stop and name each note in terms of the other - either the high or low note as the root, and the other's interval. Once I get those shapes and sounds, eventually I'd like to be able to identify both notes as projected against another, separate "root" - working toward three-part chromatic writing. The exercises I make up for me are always the hardest, because I want to attack weaknesses, and jazz harmony is a big one for me.

My "year" may take two or three, or I may have to bag it after six months and work up commercial guitar or bass tunes, or (likely) it may lead to an entirely different set of questions which require a different approach; certainly the exercises are bound to change and evolve. It's not at all just about finding the things that sound most pleasant, but also figuring out why others sound "bad", and where that might be useful or even "good." My initial goal is to become free(er) with the use of chromatic notes. I look to the example of Miles Davis, who is still unmatched in his ability to play the weirdest goddam note choices that were just... perfect, in all their weirdness. You have to know a lot about oddball harmony substitutions to even begin to get there.

(NONE of this stuff belongs in a country band, or even anywhere near a piano player, who always want all the fun for themselves....bang bang bang bang bang) Shocked

(None of this may actually even be USEFUL in a practical sense, but the same could be said about the entire human species, if you wanna get all DEEP an' hairy.)

Olli Haavisto · From: Jarvenpaa,Finland

"a lot of the JI proponents were exclusively single note players"

Question

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Olli Haavisto
Finland

Joe Gretz · From: Washington, DC, USA

"WTF"!

GOOD ONE David!

I feel I am in a similar boat to yours in regard to my ability to apply my years of training to a "relatively new" instrument.

"Relatively new" in the fact that:
A) The relative youth of the instrument itself-the PSG having not evolved an established pedagogy.

B) I still have SOOOOO much work to do before I will consider myself "competent", despite my having played for a little while now. (There is currently another thread on that very topic)

Great thread!!! Smile

Joe
_________________
Dattebayo!!!

Bo Legg · Posted 25 Dec 2009 6:03 am

Given the fact that the harmony possibilities over a 5-6-1 are almost endless it would be hard to give a wrong answer.
It would be even harder to agree on a right answer.

If we blend in a little JI and ET we will really have a straight up sht salad to un-mix.

Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

Bob,
That is the perfect example. I "do" that intro, sounds great to me, then I go back and listen to Emmons playing it, and WHOOOOO! (same song??)
There are a "few" men, who all of us, learn and aspire towards,(until we come into our own), and the big "E", cannot receive too much accolade !
He has the master touch !
Rick

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Paul Franklin has been doing some astonishing stuff with chromatic contrary motion licks for a while now. I have not heard it on recordings though. Just when I've seen him play his jazz type gigs.

John Hughey was a master at having these crafty middle and lower notes in his chords move in counterpoint. They are always those tricky notes that are so hard for me to find when I'm trying ( mostly unsuccessfully) to cop a phrase of his.

Noel Boggs did amazing things with chords by keeping his top notes stationary while moving the lower notes around. His playing is always worth more investigating.
_________________
Bob

Dick Sexton · From: Greenville, Ohio

We being Me! Eleanor Rigby?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpoint

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

With regard to contrary motion, here is a link to a thread I started years ago, on the old Forum:

Click Here

Lee, from South Texas

Christopher Woitach · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

I teach my six string students about the need for textural playing, especially when they are the only harmonic instrument. The coolest thing about guitars of any kind is that they can play more than one note at once, in my opinion.

I see the possibilities as these:

Single lines
Single lines with comped chords in between phrases
Single lines with chords embedded in the line, like note note note chord note note
Harmonized lines
Block chords
Counterpoint

I use various combinations of these in most solos, depending on the situation

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