I remember seeing this documentary on Picasso.
They showed these 4 different sketches that Picasso made of the bull.
And in the first sketch, you see the bull, almost in completeness.
By the second sketch, there are things that are being removed.
By the fourth sketch, you have only what is the essential part of the bull, which is nothing more than an outline.
This economy...
I'm incredibly interested in music that is economical.
and what composers do with so little.
"Blues Minor," John Coltrane.
Coltrane really rips apart the 12 bar blues.
He gives us a 12 bar pattern of 4+4+4, starting with the 1 chord, in this case, Fm7.
The next 4 are Bbm7, and then he goes back to Fm7.
But, he also adds something that's very interesting:
Instead of giving us the minor chord, he gives us a sus4
and because of that, he opens up the harmony.
So even though we only have 2 chords, we have an open harmony.
So that when he does go to the 4 chord, which he does,
and then he goes back to the 1, and those are the only 2 chords that he uses.
But in the end, it's actually only 1 chord with a bass movement.
You see, it's only this:
And we know the distinction because the bass, which has been playing on F, now goes to Bb.
Now what's wonderful about that is it gives us a sense that the harmony, while not progressing forward,
or there not being a lot of harmonic changes,
But what we have is this open kinda harmony.
Which allows the improvisor to really, really expand on the language.
Which is really the point, of course.
It's to take what the composer has given us, which is very little, and create improvisation.
Now Coltrane just doesn't expand the melodic language or the harmonic language.
He also gives us a melody that's ridiculously economical.
He gives us the same riff 6 times.
And he does it again.
And he does it again, and again, and again, and again.
I've always asked myself as I've listened to that recording, "why isn't it boring?"
Why is it that it doesn't sound redundant?
Because of what he does with the harmony, and the fact that the harmony does not progress forward
that melody has 2 different shades of color.
in Fminor, it sounds like this:
and you add that little suspended 4th, it gives us a little openness.
Now, same thing when it goes to Bb.
Even though it's the same thing, it has a different sound quality.
Because the riff has a different relationship to the harmony.
It's just "hey everybody, this is what the scale looks like. Pentatonic scale."
It's really extraordinary that so much has opened up with so little material.
Now in that same vein, he does something very interesting in Blue Trane.
He actually has the very basic 12 bar blues harmonic progression.
But the melody is another riff based melody.
It's not really a melody at all — it's just a riff
And it outlines the 5 chord to the 1 chord,
then he does it on the 4th degree when he moves to the 4th,
then he repeats it again back, back to 1.
He modifies it very slightly as he goes to the 5.
And then just repeats it back to 1.
Now, what is 5 1?
It's the end, man!
But why is it in Coltrane, man,
it doesn't sound like it's the end at all.
It actually sounds like it's the beginning.
And the reason is, is the way in which he looks at, the way in which he treats,
the way in which the 5 functions as compared to 1.
Instead of it being 5, 1, it's a minor 5
And therefore it has a duality.
That, in terms of improvisation, allows us to explore something that's very basic to the harmonic language.
Which is 5 to 1.
Now, he also gives us a melody that outlines a chord.
Which means that our improvisation
can be arpeggiated,
it can also outline chords.
So in that very very economical, in that little sketch, going back to that Picasso,
Coltrane gives us the compositional material that allows us as improvisors to explore a
multiple series of possibilities.
In Blue Trane, it's actually more of "what is 5, and what is 1?"
It asks the question.
And it allows us to move our tonal center.
Even though our chord is Eb minor, I can focus myself on different degrees of the scale.
so I can make the Bb, which is the 5th, the most important note.
And that allows me to keep progressing forward
because what I'm doing is avoiding the 1.
If I can move it to Bb, why can't I move it to C?
I can. And that actually opens up more possibilities. Why?
Because I have these wonderful things called dissonances.
The more dissonant that intervalic relationship is, the more possibilities I have for expansion.
Never avoid the wrong note.
Never avoid:
because that is the question.
That's the answer.
The more you stay in the question,
the more you can keep talking.
That means the more you can be improvising.
But the minute I do:
the minute I sit on that tonic note,
the discussion now is coming to a close.