Coltrane will be like Mozart in 300 years. People will still be analysing his approach. An interviewer asked him about his "Sheets of sound" and why he sometimes played so many notes and he said he had not found the right one yet. Pentagram? NO - When you draw a diagonal from one point to another then another, you are tending to indicate a parallel equivalence or connectivity. Eventually, within a circle, you will create a STAR-like pattern, not a pentagram. Implying anything else is like creating a conspiracy theory in music. A Pentagram is only a descriptive word and a symbol anyway it does not belong exclusively to any satanistic cult unless it flies as a banner which this does not and is not intended to. This is "Connect the dots" and nothing more. It demonstrates harmonic relationships, and interchangeable non-standard relationships. Check out "Giant Steps" and "Countdown" by Coltrane, pieces some people are still trying to work out. Some people use his relationship chart to navigate them. Last edited by a moderator: Jun 10, 2021
Music theory is strongly rooted in mathematics. The fact the base teachings have time-signatures and bar divisions give that away, even to any person learning music theory for the first time.
So there is one troll, and you lose your time answering to him? While this thread is about one of the most interesting legacy piece of the 20th century. So please, if you see troll, or off topic comment, just hit report.
You have that right. It has helped a lot of people understand how Coltrane approached some things. Not all. I say not all because there would not still be people worldwide trying to figure out better ways to solo on Giant Steps and Countdown Also - I did not realise they were a troll because I had not seen them before. Was that Foster under yet another name 'trips'? I did not know Carpendale was a troll too? He's intelligent and sometimes abrasive, but I never thought he was a troll?
And? It's the same figure. You can use graphs like this one to study the interval (and chord) relationships in any equal temperament. They are very popular in academia in studying late romantic and modernist music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_graph#Examples All the relationships in equal scales from 12 to... 0 notes can be seen here.
Ah, Coltrane, my personal hero... I was shocked when I saw his original "manuscript score" for A Love Supreme..... Last edited: Jun 11, 2021
That's actually a normal improvisation chart. If you have ever seen a Graphic impro music chart, or some of Ornette Coleman's, this one is pretty normal. Some of them have no descriptions whatsoever.
The most notable part of this is it is not simply a cycle of fifths chart. It's a tritone chart with the inner layer a semi-tone away either side creating an inner-circle. The inner layer is a semi-tone away, changing the inter-relationship and while the diagonals may be accepted as normal relationship mapping, they aren't. It also seems as noted by many that what Coltrane started here is being diatonic. He isn't. The most noticeable shift in this is after his numeric relationship sequence descent that ceases to be in sequence after 1-7 and 7-1 This....3,3,4,5,6,3,7,3,4 - But it is incomplete. The "T" is what people have thought to be the tonic. Another academic believes it to be for Tritone. if you look at a lot of Trane's patterns they follow a specific way of note sequences that seem logical and at times, at other times very angular and in ofter a set of intervals in distance. He was onto something. Note the butterfly circles with a semi-tone either side, this is why some academics suggest this is a Coltrane Tritone mapping chart and not a cycle of fifths other than as a start point because if people look closer, it links to his butterfly mappings as well which are clearly tritonal. He has mapped that relationship giving a nod to a cycle of fourths by showing the cycle clockwise contained within - Look at the darker pen markings within each butterfly - G, C, F.Bb, Eb etc etc etc Last edited by a moderator: Jun 11, 2021
Forget it, and let's focus on what matters. When the wise shows the moon to the fool, the fool looks at the finger.
@BEAT16 - @Jameshow - If you know the history, John Coltrane gave this to Yusef Lateef who also published it in his work 'The Repository of Scales and Melodic Patterns'. I studied it circa 1990. It's in that. It's correct. This is where you will find what is thought to be the point and the "How" to use it. If you go to the sister site and possibly download and play through his solos (I think there may be some there???) - You will see this in action. especially in Giant Steps, Countdown and later works. Ignore the pentagram everyone FFS. The shape has nothing to do with the concept other than the connectivity of the lines to the notes. The fact people see a dark meaning first is more troubling than seeing a face in the clouds or in the trees. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1...42946&linkId=12095ce4d8a54a6e0ce09c708b01d58b While you are at it, there are some interesting articles on Coltrane being compared to Einstein at a mathematical level for those who want to search for more. Do not trust Wikipaedia - It is mostly rejected at an academic level for the simple reason that John and Jane Doe can add to it. Not that some are not accurate, just academically it is not considered a reliable source. Last edited by a moderator: Jun 11, 2021
The only true pentagram meaning LOOK CLOSELY Lose the satanic Bullshit - Look They all point to the note C and a hexatonic scale concept- It is an inter-relationship pattern chart using a cycle and tritones. Not directly a scale chart, not directly a cycle of fourths or fifths though they are contained. Every time the chart inter-relates and hits a C, it has been correspondingly numbered CLEARLY 1,2,3,4,5 Look on the chart and see for yourself. There is no voodoo, no satanic BS nada. Just the musical writings of a man who found a set of relationships few had considered. If you look at either side of the C's in the diagram, the identical tri-tone relationships that occur in any one of them at any point on the chart, reoccur at each point. P.S - Speaking as a player and also someone who studied this some time ago, the pentagram is exactly what I said it was earlier a CONNECTING OF THE DOTS. There is no other M.O in this. His M.O would have been some kind of problem he wanted to solve and this was the result. That would be most musician's M.O. The pentagram is a result not a goal. I can also see triangles in that which are possibly more important as shapes for what this chart intends. ONLINE this is the best available dissection: https://roelhollander.eu/en/blog-saxophone/Coltrane-Tone-Circle/ A sample above if people truly want to know. They need to research themselves. FINAL COMMENT: - All of this is only of any use if you intend to make performed, real music out of it. Otherwise, it is only theoretical. Anyone can learn this, but making music out of it is what matters most of all. Last edited by a moderator: Jun 11, 2021
Firstly, huge thanks to @rudolph for providing the link to https://roelhollander.eu/en/blog-saxophone/Coltrane-Tone-Circle/ I hadn't seen this before and I thought it was superb. Probably everyone sees something different in Coltrane's Circle. The 2 bits explained below, taken directly from the above link, are what I personally found most interesting. Basically a really lovely way to visualise the tonality implied by the two complementary 6-note whole-tone scales
So you clearly explained to me and also translated the key well. Jazz is freedom! Belief in freedom, justice and jazz! The immense sonic resources of this music seem getting bigger and bigger. Jazz means individual freedom combined with musical creativity. These are central elements of a myth that surrounds jazz. Jazz musicians feel a sense of freedom. Freedom and For the musicians, improvisation is inextricably linked. You redesign every piece. At the beginning the theme is voiced, then improvised, this is how they define their type of freedom. Jazz was not just about freedom, music itself was a real-time exercise in human liberation: jazz musicians reinvent themselves every evening. There In jazz, by its very nature, it is about to expand one's own limits. So it is not surprising that jazz became the symbol of the black civil rights movement. The music is rhythmically, melodically and spiritually deeply rooted in African culture. The jazz musicians stuck in an innovative Process of self-invention, the result of which is a revolutionary and constantly new sound.
@BEAT16 - I have been performing and teaching for a long time (Please do not ask). I can tell you truthfully that the more I learn the more I want to learn. I know that even in 500 years I would still not know as much as I would want to know if it was possible I could not only live that long, but my mind could stay lucid that many centuries. Charlie Parker said something I'll approximate like this which I believe and agree with - 'There may be some boundaries in music but there are no boundaries to Art'. You can probably find the correct wording online. How do you create something unique? Try and remove any boundaries to your creation. Cheers
You are a really onto it person so I figured you read more than that and posted what you saw first that grabbed you and yes that's a great part of it. It certainly has a degree of what some people call "The wow factor". Yeah, he was way ahead of his time. His interconnectivity skills were phenomenal. Last edited by a moderator: Jun 11, 2021
Now it's good time to make unique music because we have technology to use it. Computers, DAW´s (VST, VSTi etc) & Midi together will give endless possibilities to produced whatever kind of sounds and rhythms. We're living it now!
Agreed - With COVID limiting the world to being more indoors, now, more than ever, people have the opportunity to try and combine things that seemingly have no relationship, use instruments that on the outset seem unusual and of no use in their normal writing and so much more.... Trying different time-signatures, different drum sounds, combining unrelated styles, trying things that we never had.... so on and so forth. At the moment it is a better time for composing something unique than ever because normally that luxury of having to perpetually be out there working is less for many musicians, many who lost positions, work and a consistent income. It's also a great way to stay off depression for some people who feel that way over the world because it's hard to be depressed writing music or tapping your feet.
