Howard the Duck

huh? it's the crux of all improvisation

stuff that is composed with all the rules that you speak of lack that spontaneity

of course, you have to adhere to certain rules, when improvising over a chord structure, but it's mostly free-form

and the "passing chords" you mentioned, feel more like sub-dominants to me, the anchoring chords are still the diatonics

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Rubato

I didn't say anything about following rules to compose music. There are far better ways of using spontaneity in your works, if you have the ear and you can play directly from what's in your head why not compose melody and harmony as one single unit? if you can't then you're fumbling blindly at a few scales to play within a safe boundary of an already set harmonic progression.

I did say they were secondary dominants, I was against the idea of calling them passing chords.

You're not taking into account the voice leading, dissecting a phrase into separate parts and explaining them as if they exist in a vacuum goes against the idea of music analysis, it's listened to as an organic whole so why shouldn't it be analysed as an organic whole? Every chord even the diatonic ones are deviations from the tonic, a vi in A major could just as likely be a iii in D major applying functions to them is useless without looking at their place within the phrase.

Howard the Duck

isn't just having a chord sequence based on its root chord, with the scalar elements of each key, say - I major, II minor, III minor, IV major, V major, VI minor and VII minor, the most widely-used tonality in most modern songs? - it's because they appeal most to the untrained ears

if you're gonna subsume it and lead it to another key/root chord, the tonality isn't really that appealing, at least to somebody who's already used to the "normal" tonality

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Rubato

not really, a lot of music makes use of elements from closely related keys and the relative minor that the untrained ear has no problem with. The more distant regions may leave the average listener a little stumped but sacrificing creativity for a wider audience isn't always a good thing.

Howard the Duck

he was a sideman to R n B acts

although Howlin' Wolf wanted to hire him and he said (quote) - "you guys play the real thing" - meaning he wasn't really into "authentic" blues

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

blastingas10

I didn't understand a word of what y'all were saying.

blastingas10

Did ya'll go to a music school or did you teach yourself?

Howard the Duck

half-half

blues and rock are self-taught

i took jazz lessons, in improvisation and theory (never had a classical backing, though, i can only understand jazz theory)

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

SIRIUSB

I'm 51 I've studied with loads of people including advanced theory and composition.

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Frownland

It's good to know a little bit about scales and keys. Knowing modes can help you to solo in a more interesting manner, but once you learn these you should just learn improvisation. It's also a good idea to play other songs by other guitarists that you like so that you can emulate them in your solos after developing somewhat of a muscle memory attuned to your instrument.

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