{"id":405,"date":"2015-02-16T17:04:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T21:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/?p=405"},"modified":"2024-02-28T12:51:30","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T16:51:30","slug":"will-the-circle-be-unbroken-reflections-on-the-circle-of-descending-fifths-and-the-dominant-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/2015\/02\/16\/will-the-circle-be-unbroken-reflections-on-the-circle-of-descending-fifths-and-the-dominant-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Part 2: an exercise and reflections on the circle of descending fifths and the dominant cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"

My exercise \u2018Jody, Donna, Four Brothers and Koko\u2019 is the second in a series of exercises including licks from \u2018Donna Lee\u2019<\/a> (the first, \u2018Midnight Donna and Reets in Paris\u2019 is in an earlier post<\/a>.)\u00a0 Besides \u2018Donna Lee\u2019, other sources I used for this exercise include Horace Silver\u2019s The Jody Grind<\/a>, Jimmy Giuffre\u2019s Four Brothers<\/a>, and Charlie Parker\u2019s \u2018Koko\u2019<\/a> (one of his solos on the changes to \u2018Cherokee\u2019.)\u00a0 My intent is to show how the voicings for dominant chords most commonly used by jazz pianists – i.e. those built \u2018off the third\u2019 or \u2018off the seventh\u2019 – are equally useful as both melodic fragments and as harmonic structures. The exercise uses a harmonic rhythm of one chord per bar, as in the first two bars of \u2018jazz blues\u2018 progressions such as \u2018Billie\u2019s Bounce\u2018 and \u2018Tenor Madness\u2019.<\/p>\n

Practicing the ‘Jody, Donna, etc.’ exercise will make more sense if you first practice a one bar pattern of seventh scales ascending or descending in eighth notes (i.e. seven up or seven down only) around the circle of ascending fifths\/descending fourths in the RH with three note rootless voicings for dominant chords in the LH as shown in Degreg p. 87:<\/p>\n

\"7th<\/a><\/p>\n

I would then suggest practicing the rootless voicings doubled in both hands (i.e. LH plays treble clef voicings from p. 87 while RH doubles an octave above.)\u00a0 Once you can play doubled voicings at a moderate, steady tempo, you should be ready to move on to the \u2018parallel patterns\u2018 exercise, where the RH plays patterns derived from the voicings that the LH is playing simultaneously.\u00a0 Below the parallel patterns exercises I have shown the ways that the two patterns can be combined contrapuntally.\u00a0 Below the exercise are some reflections on the circle of descending fifths, both in music history as a whole and in jazz tunes.<\/p>\n

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When the first keyboard instruments with a twelve-note chromatic scale were introduced around the beginning of the 14th century, they entered a world where years had twelve months and days were measured with a twelve-hour clock.\u00a0 In addition to the number twelve being an important unit of measurement in this era, it also figured prominently in two major wisdom traditions: the Christian tradition, founded on the Gospels and their stories of Jesus\u2019 twelve apostles, and the Zodiac signs, which divide the year up into twelve periods, each named after a different animal or mythical figure and each aligned with a constellation of stars or a planetary movement.\u00a0 The recurrence of the number twelve in so many foundations of Western culture (including the twelve-bar blues) suggests that while it may occur naturally in some kinds of measurements, scientific, artistic and religious thinkers have also deliberately or subconsciously chosen it in some cases for its association with beauty, symmetry, and truth.<\/p>\n

I believe an association between twelve and the pursuit of harmonic symmetry can be heard in C.P.E. Bach\u2019s Solfeggietto<\/a>, composed at a time in the 18th century when a debate was still raging between different approaches to tuning keyboard instruments.\u00a0 The approaches to tuning that were prevalent at the time (such as \u2018mean-tone temperament\u2019) rendered some intervals and key signatures more consonant and others more dissonant, while a newer approach called \u2018equal temperament\u2019 allowed composers greater freedom to modulate through multiple keys within a single piece.\u00a0 In Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground For the Great Minds of Western Civilization, Stuart Isacoff writes that C.P.E. Bach \u2018wanted equal temperament but was confused about how to get it.\u2019\u00a0 The conclusion of Solfeggietto uses all twelve tones of the chromatic scale in the space of four measures, through a progression of five dominant seventh chords sequenced through the circle of descending fifths followed by a diminished seventh chord.\u00a0 This passage, which may have tested the limits of a tuning where not all major keys were equally consonant, suggests that Bach\u2019s interest in equal temperament may have been related to an interest in using wide-ranging modulations in his compositions.\u00a0 C.P.E. Bach\u2019s progressions and melodic shapes, and their relationship to the pop song structures on which bop players based their improvisations and compositions, caught the ear of Bud Powell, who made \u2018Solfeggietto\u2018 the introduction to his remarkable hybrid piece Bud on Bach<\/a>. The dominant cycle can also be heard in the Mazurka in G Minor Op. 67, No. 2 <\/a>by Chopin.\u00a0 Among the bop players who used Chopin\u2019s melodic ideas in their improvising was Charlie Parker, whose use of the Military Polonaise and the Minute Waltz is documented on a fascinating webpage devoted to Bird\u2019s use of quotes.<\/a><\/p>\n

In many jazz standards from the swing and bop eras, dominant seventh chords moving through the circle of fifths are used in extended harmonic rhythms.\u00a0 The bridges of \u2018Stompin\u2019 At the Savoy\u2019 and \u2018I Got Rhythm\u2019 move through a four-chord sequence along the circle of fifths, spending two measures on each chord. and the first half of the progression in \u2018Sweet Georgia Brown\u2019 moves through a three-chord sequence in the dominant cycle, spending four measures on each chord before resolving to the I chord.\u00a0 In addition to being often-played jazz standards, the chord progressions of these tunes have been used as the basis for many jazz compositions: Charlie Parker based his\u00a0 \u2018Relaxin\u2019 With Lee\u2019<\/a> on \u2018Stompin\u2019, and was one of many jazz players to base multiple tunes, including his \u2018Anthropology (a.k.a. Thrivin\u2019 On A Riff)\u2019<\/a> on the chord progression from \u2018I Got Rhythm\u2019.\u00a0 Monk\u2019s \u2018Bright Mississippi\u2019<\/a>, J.J. Johnson\u2019s \u2018Teapot\u2019 and Jackie McLean\u2019s \u2018Dig\u2019<\/a> are based on \u2018Sweet Georgia Brown\u2019.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the relatively expansive use that Tin Pan Alley and swing-era composers made of the dominant cycle, composers in the bop era and afterwards used dominant cycles with a more accelerated harmonic rhythm (two beats per change) to reharmonize standard progressions; Thelonious Monk\u2019s \u2018Humph\u2019<\/a> is a dominant cycle reharmonization of \u2018I Got Rhythm\u2019; and the heads of Barry Harris\u2019 \u2018Save Some For Later\u2019<\/a> and Benny Golson\u2019s \u2018Blues March\u2019<\/a> use the dominant cycle to reharmonize different phrases of the twelve bar blues progression.\u00a0 Monk\u2019s tune \u2018Skippy\u2018 is based on his dominant cycle reharmonization of \u2018Tea for Two\u2019 (although the \u2018Tea for Two\u2019 reharm was not recorded until a number of years after \u2018Skippy\u2019).<\/p>\n

Jazz composers also have used the dominant cycle as a building block of new progressions, rather than just as a means of reharmonizing existing ones. \u00a0Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn deftly interpolated the dominant cycle into a number of ballads, using the tritone substitution on\u00a0\u2018Prelude to A Kiss\u2018<\/a> and using altered dominants on \u2018A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing\u2019<\/a>, and Duke Jordan based the bridge of his tune \u2018Jordu\u2019<\/a> on the dominant cycle.\u00a0 (Two lesser known tunes, John Lewis\u2018 \u2018Three Windows\u2018 and Vince Guaraldi\u2019s \u2018Like A Mighty Rose\u2019, also make interesting use of the dominant cycle in their bridges.)\u00a0 Dominant 7th chords moving through the circle of descending fifths also are used in Blossom Dearie\u2019s intro to her version of \u2018I Hear Music\u2019<\/a> (which moves all the way around the circle).\u00a0 McCoy Tyner\u2019s ending to \u2018The Days of Wine and Roses\u2018<\/a> and Hank Jones\u2018 ending to \u2018When There is Love\u2018<\/a> (from his album of the same name with Abbey Lincoln) move halfway around the circle.\u00a0 (Cycles of this type have also found their way into a number of keyboard-driven rock tunes.\u00a0 In The Doors\u2019 tune \u2018Light My Fire\u2018<\/a>, Ray Manzarek\u2019s intro includes a sequence of major chords moving around the circle of fifths and far afield of the \u00a0tonic key of the chorus (D) .\u00a0 In some live versions<\/a> of his tune \u2018Such A Night\u2019, Dr. John includes a dominant cycle in his solo piano break.)<\/p>\n

As always, I welcome all kinds of comments on this blog entry, but I would be particularly interested in hearing about other culturally significant uses of the number twelve, or in other examples of pieces that include dominant-cycle modulation.\u00a0 I encourage musicians reading this to try composing a twelve-bar blues melody following the Barry Harris scale outline discussed in an earlier post<\/a> and incorporating some of the dominant seventh chord patterns from this post.<\/p>\n

Acknowledgements: Thanks to friend and piano tuner Justin Rose for the suggestion of Temperament, to Will Burhans for introducing me to \u2018Like A Mighty Rose\u2019, to Bruce Sklar for assigning me ‘Donna Lee’ many years ago in a lesson, and to Tom McClung for introducing me to \u2018Skippy\u2018 and its relationship to \u2018Tea for Two\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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My exercise \u2018Jody, Donna, Four Brothers and Koko\u2019 is the second in a series of exercises including licks from \u2018Donna Lee\u2019 (the first, \u2018Midnight Donna and Reets in Paris\u2019 is in an earlier post.)\u00a0 Besides \u2018Donna Lee\u2019, other sources I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":865,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/865"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2429,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/2429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}