Schoenberg Jazz

Lead Sheet in C; hoping to get my combo to play this

Schoenberg jazz.mid

Schoenberg jazz.pdf

I listened to the midi first, and I was like :blink:

But then I looked at the lead sheet and realized it was in 7/8. Nifty. Unfortunately, I don't have my keyboard, or perfect pitch, so I don't know how well those chords gel together, but they seem pretty spicy. One thing- If you have the same chord two measure's in a row (that GM7), I don't think you need to put it in the second measure. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I guess it couldn't hurt either way. :sleeping:

If you could post a midi with the melody and some chords behind it, that'd be helpful.

~Kal

Oh yeah, The chord grid is a function of the program, which ain't too pretty.

Imagine a normal walking bass using permutations of the series and a chord instrument doing the same idea chordally; a second chord instrument doing the notated chord the whole time.

The drums are in "normal" 7/8 swing time.

I love that you're attempting a melding of Schoenberg-esque music and jazz.

Not to nitpick, but measures 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 14, and 15, have the tone row returning to an already used pitch without completing the series. while Schoenberg's early expressionistic works didn't follow strict 12-tone rules, they usually refrained from intervalic motives, such as the ones in the aforementioned measures.

You're hillarious. Normals 7/8 swing. Right.

Like I said, I don't have perfect pitch. I can hum the root notes out relatively, but that's about it.

~Kal

Oh yeah, its not straight up Serialism, but even his op 23 returns to a note before completing the series.

Oh yeah, its not straight up Serialism, but even his op 23 returns to a note before completing the series.

Granted, but returning the way you have, gives the sections, a much too tonal sound. And just FYI, 12-tone and serialism are two distinctly separate schools of thought, your composition being more in line with the prior.

As I said before, for what it is, it's great.

Granted, but returning the way you have, gives the sections, a much too tonal sound

yeah, part of that's cuz I'm trying to get jazz people to play this, and i like challenging expectations. I told my sax player about this and he was wary of a bleep-bloop kind of piece...

Plus i like stuff like Eric Dolphy (or a bunch of others, he's just my go-to example) who'll have a pretty tonal, even head and then a disgusting solo that's all over the place.

apologies if i sounded corrective, it was more of a explanation of influence.

Yeah, i do mix the two terms a bit too freely...

No worries...best of luck with this piece.

I like it... I am getting a little jazz trio/quartet together (trumpet, guitar, trombone and possibly drums or piano depending on who we can find).

If you want we can try to put this together and send you a copy. None of us are very experienced with atonal improv. but we can try. That is if you want.

Yeah, that'd be killer, man, thanks :)

You could probably derive the tone row from the melody; I'll look for where I wrote it down, though.

Interesting idea, 12-Tone should work quite well in a jazz context, now itd just need to be developed more with multiple instruments, variations etc.

Im actually pursuing a very similar idea with 12-tone death metal (see a couple threads above for some midi/sheet) its really a quite universally applicable concept full of unseen possibilities...

If Robin's game for this on trombone, I could try a run at it on trumpet and/or clarinet. We could find a percussionist to lay down some drums and vibraphone.

I just don't get how this lead sheet works... surely you don't just play through it once. How do you start the thing? How do you know where to improv-solo? How do you know when to end? Probably simple things, but I'm not familiar. Mind a brief explanation?

I mean, it's a just a 2head-solo ad infinitum-head. Part of the issue is that I'm really big on the autonomy of the players, so i didn't put much thought into it. I'd figure a bass and drum intro for a few bars and then into it, leads solo out?

It's an awkward form, certainly; 17 bars of 7/8. But the beauty is that it's freed from chords (the ones on the sheet are more explanatory than prescriptory) -- so the only unifier is the melodic content, so the form is only a matter of counting bars, tu sais?

Well Ferk like what you are doing though not sure it is always in 7/8 only because the dotted half note pulse is emphasized much with the extra eighth. Unless you have the rhythm section doing a 2+3+2, 4+3, 3+4 or another variant of 2,3 and 4. 6 +1 and its retrograde 1+6 I would think may cause some stiffness due to the need to count 6.

Anyway not a huge matter as the combo may get an apporximation of 7/8. The piece is in its way tonal - often your chords and the melody take advantage of cross relations which I like.

I'd love to hear th final product.