I'm working through Johnny Smith's Approach to Guitar and I'm finding it a very interesting take on how to really increase one's harmonic understanding of the instrument.
What I find really fascinating is that Smith puts everything in concert pitch, which means, of course, that much of the music happens on the bass cleff. I have never really stopped to think that most guitar music is transposed up an octave.
So my queestion to you composers out there -- do any of you compose in concert pitch, or do you transpose everything? Do you think that composing in concert pitch would make you think differently about the music?
Smith's contention is that:
One of the contributing factors in the misnaming, misuse, and misunderstanding of chords has been the misconception that the guitar is a treble cleff instrument.
He gives examples of several compositions for guitar that are not composed in treble cleff by Schoenberg and Di Julio as examples of composers not making this mistake.
He then goes on to discuss his view that the proper way to under stand chords is in understanding their bass notes. One of his examples is giving the chord G (1st string 3rd fret), D (2nd string 3rd fret), A#/Bb(3rd string 3rd fret), E (4th srting, 2nd fret).
Then depending on what note you take to be the base note of the chord, the chord could be one of C-9, G-6, Gb+7b9, Bb6b5, E-7b5 or E-halfdim.
He then explains how the difference in these chords in terms of how they would normally be used in chord sequences and their typical resolution.
I'm finding the whole thing very interesting, but I'm wondering about this method of looking at the guitar.
Any jazz composers out there think about things this way?
As an aside, my teacher studied with Smith, and is very much sold on the idea that you have to understand chords in terms of their possible bass notes (which may not be present in the chord as played), but doesn't particularly think that writing in bass clef has any real advantage as a way of looking at the guitar.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
Am I missing something?
A note dropped an octave is the same note an octave down. G is G.
How does clef selection change the chord?
I'm sorry if I'm being confussing :)
It's really two different points that Smith makes.
The first, is that learning the guitar as a treble clef instrument means that the musician who learns that way doesn't "see" the notes nad chords as they're really played, so he misses out on understanding how what he's playing fits in with the other instruments.
The second is that chords are properly understood by what the bass note is, which may not be being played by the guitar (and further adds to his argument that the guitar player should be able to read both clefs so he can see and understand what his own instrument is really doing when the piano or bass guitar is carrying the base notes.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
I think all composers work in concert pitch, even if they're transposing while they write it down. We all start out by hearing what we want in our mind, and that sound is always 'concert pitch'.
My take on Smith's comments is that composers who think about the guitar in the written range don't think of it as a voice to be used for those bass/baritone range parts. If you're thinking a piece needs a voice to go in that register, many composers would think of trombones or cellos before the guitar would come to mind - simply because most guitar music is written in higher registers.
The bit about understanding root movements is written towards guitarists. It's easy to grab written chords and think that's all there is going on... if there are additional bass notes you're not playing, you'll miss some of the harmonic possibilities.
Smith's book/books (I have the same work in the original 2-volume set) are very good for providing the tools to think of the gutar harmonically. They're written with a teacher/student relationship in mind, though - if you just work through the books on your own you'll miss a lot.
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My take on Smith's comments is that composers who think about the guitar in the written range don't think of it as a voice to be used for those bass/baritone range parts. If you're thinking a piece needs a voice to go in that register, many composers would think of trombones or cellos before the guitar would come to mind - simply because most guitar music is written in higher registers.
I think that's spot on, and it makes sense. I just have never seen guitar music in concert pitch in a book for guitarists before. So I was wondering if Smith is really on to something (the more time I spend with it, the more I appreciate it in working on my songs), or if "good composers" skip the step of composing in concert pitch.
It sounds like you're saying that most don't in fact write in concert pitch at any point in the composition process, but transpose on the fly into treble cleff.
The bit about understanding root movements is written towards guitarists. It's easy to grab written chords and think that's all there is going on... if there are additional bass notes you're not playing, you'll miss some of the harmonic possibilities.
Yup. This has really opened up a whole new world for me in the last few weeks -- thinking about composition as a single sound instead of multiple voices really brings out some fascinating insights from the score. Having thought about some of what Smith is bringing out I've had to actually go back and re-score a few of my songs because I really did have the wrong chord names (though of course it's the same notes).
Smith's book/books (I have the same work in the original 2-volume set) are very good for providing the tools to think of the gutar harmonically. They're written with a teacher/student relationship in mind, though - if you just work through the books on your own you'll miss a lot.
I couldn't agree more. The are areas that are a bit sparse, and lots of things are missing (he only gives 3 shapes for major scales, for example!) I spend at least twice the time with my instructor talking about what ELSE what we just went over implies as we do with the material itself.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
It sounds like you're saying that most don't in fact write in concert pitch at any point in the composition process, but transpose on the fly into treble cleff.
No, I mean that composition and notation are two separate steps in the same process, and every composer uses concert pitch to compose - because we create with sounds, not notation.
Consider composing at the guitar: you either have a sound in your mind, and you find it on the guitar, or you're experimenting on the guitar and you find the seed of a composition. Either way, you're creating with the sound, not the notation - that fifth fret on the third string is middle C, no matter what you call it, or how you write it.
When it comes time to write it down, you can use whatever notation you like... concert pitch with a grand staff, concert pitch with alternating clefs for registers, or transposed pitch for treble clef.
For a more complicated example, let's say I'm writing something for a big band... I'll compose my melody and harmonize it on the grand staff, working at the piano (or more frequently the computer these days). Once I've got something I'm happy with, I'll start thinking about the registers of the saxophones and brass, and do a rough division of my voices between the instruments.
Next I have to imagine how those voicings will sound divided among the instruments... today's software makes that a snap. I'll make chord voicings more open or closed to get the overall sound I want.
Now I have to look at instrument ranges... that's where orchestration starts to come in - you have to know that high C on a tenor sax is going to sound thin (and be hard to play)... alto sax or soprano might sound better, unless I want that edgy effect. So I rearrange/redistribute again.
Finally, I've got a working score. At this point, I'll have to transpose all the parts from grand staff to the 'working' parts for each instrument, changing clefs and altering accidentals for the Bb and Eb instruments, etc., until I've got playable parts.
No matter how you work it, you start with sounds (or concepts of sounds). The only exception I can think of would be folks working in 'mathematical' composition... they probably set their formulae for cells, tone rows, etc. up front, and then work from written representations.
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