The Vi ol i n Harmony Handbook

Christian Howes
Preface
Acknowledgements:

The materials in this book have been developed with assistance and inspiration from several
people:

Christopher Marion provided substantial editing, notation, feedback, and organization
throughout.

Yap Shu Mei provided transcriptions and notation.

Tomoko Omura provided transcription.

Thanks to my former classical violin teachers Ginny Christopherson and Michael Davis.
Also to my former classical music coaches, among them Markand Thakkar and Marshall
Haddock. My classical teachers taught me to listen and play with musicality.

Thanks to Paul Brown and Bobby Floyd, among other jazz mentors, for teaching me to think
about jazz improvisation and harmony.

In recent years, Ive become a friend, collaborator, and fan of the great violinist, Billy Contreras.
Several of his ideas have come to influence me in the study of jazz violin, and his influence can
be found throughout this book.
Billy would undoubtedly credit many of his own ideas to his mentor, the great violinist and
teacher, Buddy Spicher.

Introduction
If youre a violinist, violist, or cellist interested in creating your own music, I hope this book will
enrich your understanding of harmony on the fingerboard and give you a clearer sense of the
choices available to you as a composer or improviser. Youll find approaches to developing a
strong harmonic comprehension, both from a listening and a theoretic viewpoint. Through
application of these materials, I hope youll be able to improvise richer melodies which flow
from a strong harmonic understanding and intention. This book can be useful both for beginning
improvisers and advanced jazz string players.

Outline (Synopsis)
1)Context- Harmonic fluency is one important component of the knowledge and skill set
necessary to improvise and compose on your instrument. Here we provide a context within
which this book fits.
2) Finding triads in all inversions on the instrument.
3) Applied theory: How does improvisation relate to keys/chords/and modes, and what is voice
leading?
4) Harmonizing melodies
5) Tips on improving your ear to hear chords.
6) Chord pairs
7) More on chord pairs.
7) Tomokos Lesson- In this lesson we go quickly through much of the material weve already
covered, showing one possible practice regimen
8) solo arrangements for violin
9) chord glossary

The best scenario for approaching music is one in which a player has developed a harmonic ear
and theoretical knowledge base. One supplements the other. For example, if you hear a chord
which your ear cant intuitively recognize, then you use your theoretical knowledge to make
sense of how to treat it. Conversely, when youre confronted with a theoretical situation that
doesnt make sense, trust your ear. The exercises in the following chapters are designed to
develop both.

By compiling these exercises into one harmony handbook, I hope you will find yourself
empowered in your creative musical pursuits.


Context
There are at least three challenges facing any creative (improvising) string player, i.e.,
improvisation, style , and harmony.
Style is difficult to teach. Like when learning a spoken language, one needs to listen to and
speak the language, for a long time, preferably around other native speakers. I cant teach style,
but I encourage my students to do a lot of listening, transcription, and interacting within a
community of players who are fluent in the musical language they are interested in learning. If
theres a cultural origin of the style theyre interested in, all the better to study (or somehow
participate in) the culture from which the music comes.

Improvisation is easy and natural, like an ability were born with, but most of us have, through
training, conditioning and/or socialization, become self-conscious and inhibited. Were afraid to
take a chance, play a bad note Those of us lucky enough to be encouraged from an early age to
be creative on our instruments are well-adjusted. The rest of us need to get over our fear and, in
effect, learn to be comfortable with improvisation. We have to learn to be creative with our
instruments.

The best way to learn to be comfortable with improvising is to just do it. However, we feel we
must have a structure to work within. Completely free improvisation can be overwhelming
because it offers too much choice. Too much freedom is unbearable. It exacerbates self-
conscious doubts. Better, when first learning, to assign limits, parameters, i.e., structure, to our
improvisation. One advantage this provides is that improvisation becomes more of a task, like
a question on your math homework, a household chore, or anything with simple steps to follow.
People arent self-conscious about tasks, but theyre self-conscious about overt creativity, about
making choices... Common structures include tunes, chord progressions, grooves, and drones.
But there are many other structures we can use to practice improvisation and gain comfort
improvising. If I ask a player to improvise continuous eighth notes in the key of D major , in a
4/4/ tempo at 90 bpm, this is much easier to accomplish for some than, playing something free.

I am preparing a separate book to address this issue. One does not need to know style or
harmony, or even technique, to improvise. One only has to be comfortable enough to be
creative., and this must be practiced by improvising as much as possible. The more accessible
structures one is given to work with, the easier it is to become comfortable with improvisation
over time.

When it comes to harmony, string players tend to be like the emperor who was wearing no
clothes. We pride ourselves in our ability to hear and comprehend music, but rarely can we
actually recognize the harmonic progressions underlying melodies.

Many of us classically trained string players thought that we had actually learned harmony and
theory in our classical studies or our college performance degrees, but we never learned either to
hear the chords, create melodies that fit over the chords, or even how to play the chords on our
instrument. On the other hand, fiddle players trained by ear in folk traditions typically have a
different set of problems. They often hear and improvise comfortably and intuitively over simple
chord changes. But when the chords become slightly more irregular, their ears break down and
they have no theoretic foundation to lean on.
The optimal scenario is one in which a player has developed their harmonic ear and their
theoretic knowledge. One supplements the other. For example, if you hear a chord which your
ear cant intuitively recognize, then you use your theoretical knowledge to make sense of how to
treat it. Conversely, when youre confronted with a theoretical situation that doesnt make sense,
you should be able to trust your ear. The exercises in the following chapters are designed to help
you develop both.
Triad Chord Voicings

Build Harmonic Proficiency

I doesnt hurt to internalize basic triads on your instrument. Try these rigorous, yet rewarding,
exercises in which you will learn to articulate all major and minor triads as double stops, triple
stops, and quadruple stops. Lets start with a D major triad. Our goal will be to find all ways to
play (or imply) the triad on the violin. The notation at the bottom of the page corresponds to the
text below.

Step 1. Single Notes: Start with the single notes in the arpeggio. Each note in the D major
arpeggio represents the triad. In other words, play any one of these three notes - D, F# or A -
anywhere on the violin, and you are, in effect, "implying the chord D major". That was easy!

Step 2. Double Stops/ Close Voicing: Now harmonize the arpeggio by playing the next voice
in the triad above. For example, if you start in the low register, your first double stop consists of
the notes A and D (a perfect fourth on the G and D strings). The next double stop is D and F# (a
major third). Then the notes F# and A (a minor third). Keep going up (you will duplicate the first
three double stops up an octave.) As you harmonize the D major arpeggio using the note directly
above, all your intervals will be either 3rds or 4ths. The combinations include these note pairs: D
and F# , F# and A, and A and D (voices in close proximity).

Step 3. Double Stops / Spread Voicings: This time you will harmonize the arpeggio using 5ths
and 6ths, instead of 3rds and 4ths. Starting from the bottom of the register on violin you'll have
the following note pairs: A and F#, D and A, and F# and D (and then duplicating up the
octave).

Step 4. Triple Stop / Close Voicings: From the bottom up you'll find the following voicings:
D, F#, and A (root position triad). F#, A, and D (1st inversion triad). A, D, F# (2nd inversion
triad). Continue up the octave.

Step 5. Triple Stop Spread Voicings: The spread voicings skip over chord tones to create a
triad using wider intervals. From the bottom up you'll find the following: A (on the G string),
F# (on the D string), and D (on the A string). D (open), A (open), and F# (on E string). F# (on
D string), D (on A string), A (on E string) Continue up the octave.
Note: In these exercises, you should never double a note. In the triple-stop exercises, you
will always play three notes that form a triad.

Step 6. Quadruple Stop (Spread) Voicings: (Here you will double one note per triad): A, F#,
D, and A. D, A, F#, and D. F#, D, A, F# (6ths and 5ths)

Step 7. Next, we'll look at diminished chords, augmented chords, and start to play 7th and other
extended chords. After you've figured out the triad shapes in a few keys (minor and major),
you'll start to recognize the shapes in all keys, and this will be helpful whether you're comping,
soloing, harmonizing, arranging, or composing. This is a great way to build your comfort and
understanding of harmony. I suggest working no more than about 15-45 minutes per day on
these, depending on your burn-out meter.


CHORDS/KEYS/MODES/Blah Blah Blah
Some nuts and bolts:
What is a key?
A key is simply a group of seven notes. Thinking of the key signature is the easiest way to
comprehend the key. The scale is identical to the key because the scale contains the seven notes
which are in the key.

The key does not change every time a chord changes!
I used to think that every time a chord changed, I needed to use a different scale. Thats wrong.
Often when chords change the key stays the same. When this happens you can use the same scale
because youre in the same key!

In order to find a scale that corresponds to a chord, make sure youre aware of the key. One way
to determine the key is to look at the chord that came before and the chord that comes after. If
you can figure out which key all chords belong to, youve got your key.
So for example, take this progression of three triads:
G//// F////C////

What key do all chords share, i.e., belong to? Take all the notes from each chord and put them
together. You will end up with enough information to determine the key.
The G triad has G,B, and D.
The F triad has F, A, and C.
Finally the C triad has C, E, and G
So we have altogether, G,B, D, F, A, C, E
Rearrange them and they look like: GABCDEF- No sharps, no flats, seven notes. Clearly we
have the key of C major.


So, what can you play over these 4 chords?
Your safest scale choice is the C major scale, also known as the 7 notes in the key of C major.
Rather than using this scale indiscriminately/generically, you could think of each chord scale like
this:
For the G chord, play a C major scale starting on G.
For the F triad, play a C major scale starting on F.
For the C major triad, C major scale starting on C.
You get the picture. This is what people mean when they refer to modes.

The modes (Dorian, Lydian, Locrian, etc) are the names given to the scales that form from the
seven notes of the major scale. It seems to me that the process of learning the names of the
modes is both redundant and confusing. Instead, I recommend thinking of modes in the way
described above. In other words, as C major scale starting on B, or C major starting on G.

Another way to think of this, perhaps the easiest way, is to, as my friend and colleague Rob
Thomas suggests, think of the key signature. Instead of thinking C major, you could just
think, no sharps, no flats.

Using modes, especially at first, seems unnecessary and somewhat ineffective to me. For
example, if you play over a G chord and think, a C scale starting on G, it amounts to an
attempt to emphasize chord tones on the strong beats. By starting the scale on this note, you
ensure that the root in the chord is played on the strong beat. This reinforces the chord briefly,
giving you an illusion of knowing where you are, but it still does not give you what you need to
improvise with confidence over the chord progression.
All this stuff about using the scale works somewhat, but only to a point. If you really want to feel
empowered when youre improvising, you need to know your chords.
The chord is boss. Your most effective melodic improvisations will come when you truly have a
harmonic intention, i.e., when the melody is driven by a constant awareness of the chords you are
implying.
Implying harmonic motion with melody is richer than using melodies based on scales. The
comparison is similar to the difference between pencil drawings and oil painting.



Chords are boss. The safest note to play in your improvisation is always a note in the chord. A
chord scale (the scale that works over the chord you want to play on) contains the 3 (or 4)
notes in the chord (chord tones) plus a few other tones. The remaining notes in the scale could be
thought of as connector notes.

As an exercise, try to improvise a melody in which a chord tone always falls on the strong beat.
Any other tones besides the chord tones can be used on the weak beats (and you can use chord
tones on weak beats as well).


Heres an example in which the strong beat is defined as every half note:
1)


Heres another in which the strong beat is defined by the downbeat of each 4 beat measure:
2) every whole note

Notice in this example that the strong beat is defined as every quarter note. Sometimes using
eighth notes.
3)



The correspondence of the consonant chord tone with the strong beat is a sure way to imply or
state the chord via your improvised melody. Practice improvising melodies which utilize this
chord tone-strong beat relationship. Once you can do this, then youre ready to break away
from it.


Voice-Leading

When you play over more than one chord, i.e., a chord progression, the trick is resolving from
the first to the second chord. This is where voice leading comes into play. Voice leading is the
process of leading from a chord tone in the first chord to a nearby chord tone in the second
chord.


USING CHORD STACKS:
Here we will present the Kanon Chord Stack exercises



Do the following exercises using the Kanon Chord Stacks and the audio file (or your own backup
tracks, or a second player):

Play one note from the stack per chord. When moving from chord to chord, always
move the smallest distance possible, i.e., either one step down or one step up, or stay
the same if two chords share the same note.
Play two (consecutive) notes per chord. Like in the first exercise, only use chord
tones and move the smallest distance between the first note in each pair
Play two (consecutive) notes per chord. Like in the first exercise, only use chord
tones, but this time move the smallest distance between the LAST of one pair and the
FIRST note of the second pair.
Play 4 (consecutive) notes per chord. This time only the FIRST note of each 4 16ths
must be a chord tone. The remaining three in each group of four can be chord tones or
scale tones.
Now mix between all of the above.
Also: Practice playing 3 note arpeggios
1)from the bottom note of each triad ascending
2)from the top note descending
Play the chords in any other ways you can think of, i.e., as bluegrass style double stops,
as Paganini or Bach-like chord sweeps, as double stops, triple stops, as harmonized arpeggios, as
bass lines, etc.








Harmonization of Melody
Bluesette

In the following examples, I harmonized based purely on the intervallic relationships. In other
words, I wasnt necessarily thinking about chord tones as much as I was about the chord scale.
For example, in the 11
th
bar in the tune Bluesette, when the tonal center (key) modulates to Db
major, I had to use the notes in the Db scale. The harmony line follows the key.

To show this, we will harmonize the first half of Bluesette 5 different ways using double stops.

3rds and 6ths sound very natural:
3rds:

6ths:

The next 3 examples are very colorful and useful in certain settings. 2nds, 4ths, and 7ths.

2nds:

4ths:


7ths:

Overcoming the Harmony Handicap
Overcoming the Harmony Handicap - With your Ears

Classically trained string players often have the ability to recognize classical-sounding melodies
by ear without being able to recognize chord progressions. Folk players can often hear bluesy
and modal lines, and they can recognize simple diatonic chord progressions.

Any improvising musician should strive to hear chord progressions and complex melodic lines in
any style. If you play fiddle styles, jazz or any music where theres improvisation long enough,
eventually youll begin to intuitively hear the chords commonly used within that style. But there
are ways to develop your ear more quickly, and youre better off by attacking the problem from
all sides.

Change your listening. You can accomplish a lot when you're listening to your iPod, just by
changing the focus of your listening. Think of it like a workout for your ears. You are probably
in the habit of focusing on the melody. Next time you listen to music, try to focus on the chords.

As a Suzuki trained classical violinist, I was always proud of my so-called perfect pitch. I
could recognize most classical sounding melodies. But then one day it dawned on me that I
couldnt tell when the chord changed, let alone what the chords were. By implementing these
listening techniques, eventually I was able to train my ears to hear more.

Select a song which you want to transcribe the chords to. (Dont pick something too difficult.)
Draw a blank chart on a piece of paper with only bar lines. When does the chord change? Put a
mark inside the bar each time a chord changes. (Are there one, two, or more chords per bar? Or
maybe theres only one chord that stretches over several bars?)

Now, what is the bass line doing and how does it relate to the harmonic motion?

Write in the letter name of the bass note that corresponds with the change of each chord. In other
words, only write the bass note that occurs on the point of the chord changing. Often this will be
the first beat of the bar, but sometimes, chords change within the measure. (If you cant
recognize the notes in the bass because theyre too low, just sing or play them up an octave, or
two octaves if necessary, until its in a high register and you can recognize the note). You can
simply transcribe the entire bass line if you want, but the note at the point of the chord change
will be especially important.

Ok, so you now have a bass note where each chord changes. Listen back to the same segment
and see if you can hear any other notes in the chord (in a higher register than the bass). Write in
the staff any notes you hear (as notes or as letters, doesnt matter).


Now, listen one more time and see whether you can hear the quality of any of the chords. Can
you tell if anything sounds major, minor, diminished, or augmented?

Now look at the information you have about each chord. Often the bass note is the root of the
chord. If you wrote other pitches from the chord above the bass line, it may support this idea.
Or, take a guess - If you have a B in the bass line, play a B minor or B major triad on the piano
(or sing the triad as an arpeggio). Does it sound right? Your ear will know when youve found
the chord.

If the bass note is NOT the root of the chord, try it as the 3
rd
or the 5
th
of the chord. If it still
doesnt work, you might need to leave the chord blank. Go through this process of transcribing
chord progressions to tunes frequently. As you do it, youll get quicker and your ears will
develop.

Other approaches:
*Choose a really simple song that you know the melody of, like a holiday tune, or twinkle
twinkle little star, or a lullabye, or a pop tune, or a song you sing in the shower, and try to figure
out what the chords are. If you can't figure it out on the piano, or using your instrument, then
write out the melody and try to analyze it on paper to narrow down the possibilities, assuming
that most of the notes falling on strong beats will be chord tones.

* Learn guitar or piano. Piano is best, but guitar is easy for a string player. Electric bass is great
too. If you do learn piano, start by playing melodies in the right hand and playing voice-led
chords in the left hand. You might read the tune out of a fake book or something.

* A tip on perfect pitch- If you have good relative pitch but can't find the first note, try locating a
pitch in your voice using physical memory:
a) By singing a note in a song that you sing sooooo much, you always start in the same key
b) By finding either the lowest or highest note in your vocal register, might be the same every
time) or by finding a note in your register that occurs in the transition between your falsetto and
natural voice.

It doesnt work to try to remember the pitch, but I think you can remember a physical feeling,
or location, in your body. Singing allows you attach a physical feeling to a pitch.
Once you have located a constant pitch in your voice (it should be like a physical memory, i.e.,
you recognize the feeling in your body of singing a certain pitch, and you can always find this
pitch without help of a tuner) use this one known pitch as a landmark by which to locate any
other pitches you hear. Every time you hear a snippet of music, check your voice to find your
reference pitch, and then use your relative pitch to find the key of the song you're listening to.
This will gradually become seamless, and you will recognize pitches without using a reference.
Learning to hear the chord changes is one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself
if you want to compose and improvise diatonic music. It may be frustrating at first, but it will
make your life easier in the long run.

*In addition to hearing chord changes by using perfect pitch, it is equally important and useful to
recognize the chord changes by identifying the function of the chord within a particular context.
A chords function is simply its expression of either tension or release. When youre using your
ear to identify function, there are several strategies that will sharpen your ability to successfully
pinpoint specific movement in the chords.

The most important strategy is to always be aware of each chords relationship to I. If you can
hear the distance of each root (most often heard in the bass), then your general awareness of each
chords relationships from I will become sharper. The next most important strategy is to hear
dominant/tritone resolution. When a dominant 7
th
chord resolves, it has an unmistakably distinct
quality. Arguably the V7 chord is the chord that most defines a key and therefore the most
important chord to identify (It is also helpful to understand that substitute dominants serve the
same purpose as their less colorful tritone cousins and they should be heard and identified
accordingly). This concept of hearing dominant resolution is very important to build on, because
when you understand where dominant chords resolve in their relationship to I, it even becomes
much easier to hear more advanced elements such as modulation within a tune.

The final step is to learn to identify all of the different chord qualities and their typical uses. The
ability to hear these chord qualities removes harmonic blinders and makes improvising over
changes by ear much more attainable.
Harmonic Heavy Lifting:
Exercises for Voice Leading Chord Pairs

Improvising over one chord isnt so difficult to comprehend. The really difficult part about
playing the changes is getting from one chord to the next.

Once youre comfortable articulating triads on the violin as double stops and triple stops in
spread and close position, youre ready to begin practicing voice-leading chord progressions.

By starting with isolating two chords (a chord pair), we build up to playing progressions of
several chord progressions of several.

Most progressions will contain relationships similar to the chord pairs that I suggest, so once you
get to working on a longer progression, you will have internalized many of the pairs within it.
Its the transition between any two chords that hangs people up, and this exercise takes us into
the heart of the problem. Well use the chord pair of G major and C major. (these examples can
also be articulated as arpeggiated triple stops in close voicing)


Start by playing the G major triad in root position. Then play the C major triad in 2nd inversion.
That's your first chord pair.



Now, we'll express the same chord pair by using double stops and triple stops in close and/or
spread voicings.-


Double Stops (Spread Voicings)-


Double Stops (Close Voicings)-


Triple Stops (Spread Voicings)-



Triple Stops (Close Voicings)





Quadruple Stops (Spread Voicings)




For additional exercises, arpeggiate any of these double stops.

These exercises might cause you to burn out pretty quickly, but they are really worth checking
out for 10 minute periods at beginning and/or end of your practice sessions. I also really
recommend doing them on the piano.


Besides playing these exercises literally over progressions, we can super-impose chord pairs and
longer progressions over modal or one-chord vamps.

For example, on a C- vamp we can superimpose the chord progression of C- to Bb-. In this
example the chord change is implied every quarter note.



Here are four more examples of implying particular chord pairs over a C vamp:

I to IV- (implying the change every four eighth notes):


I- to bVI- (implying the change every bar):

I to Idim- :

I to bVII:



In addition to super imposing changes over one chord vamps, these chord pair exercises facilitate
reharmonization of melodies. For example this one melodic phrase can be harmonized many
different ways.

Here are just five examples:


More Chord Pair Examples
Here are 6 more examples of chord pair exercises using various chord changes:

This example uses arpeggios to express the triads G and F:


This example expresses the chords G and Cmin using Double Stops (close voicing):

This example expresses the chords G and Gdim using Double Stops (spread voicing):

This time we will use a neighboring tone to create a four note grouping that expresses the chords
G and F:


The next example expresses the chords G and Ebmin using Triple Stops (Spread Voicing):


The next example expresses the chords G and Ab using Triple Stops (Close Voicing):



More on Chord Pairs
I recommend practicing the following chord pairs in the same fashion as the examples above.
Each roman numeral represents all types of the triads (major, minor, augmented, diminished, and
sus) and 7
th
chords (maj 7, min 7, aug 7, dim 7, min7 (b5), major min7, sus7, maj6, min6). Try
using different combinations of any of these different types.

I to IV (C-F)

I to V (C-G)

I to b VII (C-Bb)

I to bII (C-Db)

I to VIIdim (C- Bdim)

I to Idim (C-C dim)

I to bVII (C minor- Ab minor)

I to II (C to D)

I to bIII (C to Eb)

I to bV (C to Gb)

I to III (C to E)


Tomoko Omuras Lesson
The following material includes a condensation of what weve discussed throughout this book so
far. The following exercises can be interspersed as part of your practice regimen.

OK. Lets take F major7. Play 4 note arpeggios of the chord in each inversion descending and
ascending




So, now Lets harmonize. The bottom voice is the arpeggio. The voice above is the same
arpeggio beginning from the next note in the chord. Its a harmonized arpeggio.



I call what we just did close voicing. Its harmonizing the arpeggio with the note
closest above in the chord.
We can also articulate it as spread voicing, in which you skip the next note and go to
the one after, like this



So, instead of the harmonizing the A with the C directly above it, Im skipping that and
going to the E.

For three-note spread on a 7th chord is difficult Lets back track and deal with just
triads now.
So, just F major triad. First of all, close-voicing double stops.


Good. So, now, the spread-voicing.



OK. Now, triple stops, close-voicing.



And we have quadruple stops, spread.



So, basically, these are all the possibilities with triads.

Double stops, close-voicing
Double stops, spread-voicing
Triple stops, close-voicing
Triple stops, spread-voicing
Quadruple stops, spread-voicing

So, for every minor and major triad, this our foundation.
For seventh chords, it becomes more complicated and there are some
other things we can do.
This is something Billy Contreras showed me:



This is an important shape because its one position, one way to play the seventh chords
in any key. You can do this in all keys.

If I want to play -- in G, I can use only 3rds and 7ths like this:



And with the root


Also, we can do Ab7 sub for the D7 like this:



For the same chord, I might take out the root and I might play 9th like
this


Or


You can find many other ways. This is also - in G.



Take two chords and voice-lead ascending and descending between
them with variations.
Well do arpeggios first. Well do G to F like this



Now two notes, close-voicing. (3rds and 4ths):



Triple stops, close-voicing:



Double stops, spread-voicing. (6ths and 5ths):


Triple stops, spread-voicing:



Quadruple stops:





More Chord Pairs: to in triple stop spread voicings:


I to IV- in triple stop spread voicings:



We can play seventh chord pairs as arpeggios. For example:



Heres a variation:



We can do, you know



Then, you can add a chromatic neighbor



OK. So, more chords things. First of all, if you want to play more chords, this week,
whenever youre practicing, whenever youre soloing and improvising, only improvise using
double stops. Thats one thing to do.
But also, take any melody and play in third with the third below and third above or six
below or six above.



Now another thing you can do is you can play static harmony underneath changing
melody.


Lets take an easier one.



Then, you can also play a combination.


II Vs and Stella


Multi-Purpose Scale Exercise

1) The first step is to understand the scale in its most basic form. As an example, lets use G
major. Play the following sequence:


It can be expressed in scale degree numbers:
Beginning on G: 1, 3, 5, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3
Beginning on A: 2, 4, 6, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4
Beginning on B: 3, 5, 7, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, etc.

2) The next step is to play the inversion descending.


The scale degree numbers are as the following:
Beginning on G: 8, 6, 4, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Beginning on F#: 7, 5, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Beginning on E: 6, 4, 2, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4
Beginning on D: 5, 3, 1, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, etc.

3) Then, move to second position and play the same pattern in the key of G major. Your
first note will be B (with your first finger on the G string). You will play the same
exercise in second position, requiring that you find the related fingerings.

4) Next, play the same exercise up and down two octaves in all positions (through seventh if
possible) in the key of G major. This will enable you to find all the notes in every
position on the violin, giving you a more complete grasp of the scale all over the
instrument.

5) Make sure that you practice this exercise using the melodic minor scale. The melodic
minor scale is very important to internalize if you want to play bebop and modern jazz.
Thus, this exercise will help you fully internalize the scale and begin to hear it
intuitively.


6) As with all exercises, be sure to improvise your bow strokes. In other words, use a
different bowing for each eight-note pattern. This promotes more freedom with the bow.
There are endless possibilities for randomizing your bow strokes. Here are two options
that demonstrate a good random bowing:

Example 1:



OR
Example 2:



7) To develop rhythmic fluidity, try this variation:
Play the same exercise while tapping your foot on every third note while playing in 4/4.
This will develop your ability to imply 4-note groupings of triplets. The triplet is a key
rhythmic figure in jazz. Many beginning jazz violinists play lines in duple feel without
developing their triplet vocabulary. If you are able to tap on every third note while
playing this exercise at a fast tempo, you will be well on your way to having a fluid and
well-developed rhythmic palette for improvisation in jazz. (The accents below represent
foot taps.)


8) Finally, you can play the exercise in double stops; thirds, sixths, and
octaves are most common.
Perfect Practice
My former classical violin teacher, mentor and friend, the late and widely beloved Michael
Davis, told me many things which influenced me early on as a classical musician and later came
to influence my growth as a jazz player.

Regarding the amount of time spent practicing daily, he felt that, "if you can't get everything
done in three hours, you're not practicing efficiently". In his view, the saying, "practice makes
perfect", wasn't adequate. Better to adapt the mantra, "Perfect practice makes perfect".

Many of my students at Berklee and abroad come out of a classical tradition and have developed
practice habits conducive to making gains as a technician and classical player. Often though,
these same habits become detrimental to growth in "creative studies". This is not to suggest that
practicing technique and jazz/ improvisation are mutually exclusive; quite the opposite is true.
It's actually advantageous to consolidate improvisation practice with technical practice. For
example, one can focus on technical issues such as string crossing, bow control, intonation,
double stops, etc. all while improvising- this is the equivalent of killing two birds with one stone,
and offers the added advantages of 1)developing technique beyond the "given" and limited
possibilities of the classical repertoire and 2) providing the student w/ a sense of ownership in the
vocabulary he/she is practicing/creating.

However, you must remember that regardless of how many years you have studied your
instrument and/or classical music, the moment you begin to study jazz and/or improvised tonal
music, you are a novice.

Accepting this is difficult, because you have come to identify yourself as an expert. Both can be
true, i.e., that you are an expert musician and instrumentalist, and at the same time a novice in
jazz or improvised tonal music. In studying improvisation or jazz, you are embarking upon a
journey to obtain an entirely new and different skill set. It will take time. (In his 2008 book,
Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell refers to a study which holds up the "10,000 hour rule", i.e., it takes
about 10,000 hours, or 10 years at 3 hrs per day, to effectively master any given discipline. Even
accounting for your accrued mastery on your instrument, you might want to allow yourself about
6 years.) I've referred before to the difficulty and discomfort that comes out of accepting your
new status as a "novice". For many musicians switching from classical to jazz, this discomfort is
intolerable. It can threaten one's self esteem and cause all sorts of defensive thoughts/behaviors
to arise. One of these is denial. The sooner you accept the truth about where you are in your
development and get over your insecurity, the sooner you can begin to make progress.
Remember, you can still take credit for the mastery that you have developed over years of
practice. You have a lot to be proud of in taking the plunge into something new. Ultimately, by
forging ahead in a discipline which is totally new to you, you will come out stronger for it.

One of my favorite and most accomplished young adult students frequently arrives to his lesson
with a list of concerns and questions including things such as sound production, shoulder rests,
philosophical questions about the state of the mind while playing, posture, et al. These are all
very good questions for a classical student, but often they strike me as distractions for a jazz
student. Every week, as he plays solos for me over standard tunes, a large part of the things that I
notice holding him back are related to gaps in his grasp of harmony, i.e. "playing the (chord)
changes". Sure, there are other things worth working on as well, but this is a consistent thing that
comes up which he continues to evade. It's not that he can't execute ideas on the violin- it's that
he can't Conceive of the ideas because the harmony is challenging and eluding him. I continually
give him exercises for internalizing the harmony, and he continually avoids doing them. Is this
denial? Why do so many of us have this same tendency, I wonder. I have to be ever vigilant in
my own practice to make sure I'm not "practicing" what is comfortable, but rather addressing the
gaps, the uncomfortable areas. Every day you practice you are faced with one crucial challenge,
which is to practice effectively. Make it count. Practice the things that matter. Michael Davis
once also told me, "if you sound good, you're probably not practicing". Most of your practice
time should be devoted to things which you don't sound good doing. Once you sound good, it's
time to move to something else.

Their are several ways you can go about drilling harmony such that, over time, you assimilate
and internalize the information (and once you have internalized harmony, the understanding will
never go away.) I've covered many of these in other articles, but to recap:

1) articulate the chords on the violin in various forms (as double stops or arpeggios in all
inversions or shapes)

2) play the voice-led chords on the piano (or guitar)

3) when you listen to music, Focus on listening to the harmony instead of the melody. Try to use
your ears to transcribe the harmony on any music you listen to.

4)play voice led arpeggios or double stops of chord progressions (including both chord pairs
and/or longer progressions)

5) harmonize melodies and/or solos in double-stops (both as parallel thirds, 4ths, 6ths, 7ths,
2nds, and as non parallel harmonies)

6) play 3rds and 7ths of chords in various comping styles. Play root/3rd/7th voicings of chords.
Play voice-led upper extensions of chords. Walk bass lines.

Importantly, one's brain is typically only able to handle this kind of practice for so long. Perhaps
an hour tops. So, if you practice 2 hours in a day, you might want to spend 1/3-1/2 of your time
drilling these harmonic issues. The rest of the time can be spent on other things. But if you
ignore this practice, you are just stalling, and Nothing can replace real harmonic understanding.
It will never come easily, and there's no way around it. You have to practice the important things
or you will just be living in denial, and on some deep level, you will be frustrated. On the other
hand, make these a regular part of your practice and you will see results over time. The rewards
are worth it.
Howes your Giant Steps

Emily Transcription


All the Things You Are

4/5/09 5:21 PM

Chord Glossary


This book is a work in progress. Please be sure to visit www.christianhowes.com for
supplementary materials. New editions and many more educational resources. Feel free to
contact me directly at chris@christianhowes.com.