Chord changes are important

Subject: Chord changes are important
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 28 Jun 16 - 02:25 PM

:... the famous shooting incident of December... 1928.... [A]n argument broke out between Sidney Bechet and banjoist Gilbert McKendrick. The cause [according to witness Charlie Lewis] was a dispute about chord changes...."

http://ragpiano.com/comps/gcompton.shtml

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: Stim
Date: 28 Jun 16 - 02:54 PM

That will happen, Joseph. People can get very touchy about chord changes.

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: Will Fly
Date: 28 Jun 16 - 03:38 PM

Interesting article. I hadn't realised that Compton was one of the sources used by Rudy Blesh - in one of my favourite and much-read books "They All Played Ragtime".

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: Pete from seven stars link
Date: 28 Jun 16 - 06:10 PM

Seems like they could,nt be of one accord ....

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jun 16 - 06:33 PM

I had two mates get into a fight (literally) about what key was the right one for a song.

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: GUEST,Gilly
Date: 29 Jun 16 - 05:32 PM

"There aren't really any 'right' chords, you know"
[Paul Havell, beautiful melodeon player and friend, RIP]

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: Pete from seven stars link
Date: 29 Jun 16 - 05:52 PM

Dunno about that, I sometimes play a wrong chord !

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: Stim
Date: 29 Jun 16 - 05:56 PM

A much more detailed account of the incident, which ended with Bechet's imprisonment and deportation, is here:
Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz, by John Chilton Chapter 9, Mayhem in Paris

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: Stringsinger
Date: 30 Jun 16 - 11:13 AM

He threatened Mez Mesirow with a pistol, killed a prostitute in Paris and has a big tomb in Paris, a musical hero there. His wide vibrato can get on your nerves but I'm biased because of who he was.

Fights over tempo are common. I've had my share of disagreements about chord changes. When you are passionate about music, sometimes you can get crazy.

When an artist becomes socially irresponsible it makes me sad.

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Jun 16 - 04:10 PM

I can admire Bechet's genius but, like Stringsinger, the vibrato on his soprano gets on my nerves and I can only listen to a few bars of his playing.

Some of my older musician friends met Mezzrow when he visited London in the 1950s or 1960s. He made an appearance at Dobell's jazz record shop in the Charing Cross Road. He was peddling his "Really The Blues" book and acting like a superstar, apparently. I'm sure he appeared to be a colourful character to the British jazzers, though word had it he was not a particularly great musician. A curious man who tried his hardest to be black rather than Jewish, and spent a large part of life peddling marijuana.

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jul 16 - 01:15 PM

chord changes can also be irrelevant, i have just been playing peggy and the soldier in double c using double thumbing[and a g drone, works perfectly getting away from chords, and using a drone gives a n unfinished sound specially where the c chord might be used just using cgcd, creating a suspension, this is what Carthy is always on about. i also play it in standard tuning on guitar using c and g chords works fine but is different both are good

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jul 16 - 09:20 PM

I don't know whether Mezzrow was a particularly good musician, but his book shows him to be a great storyteller. How far he stuck too closely to the actual facts, but great storytellers tend not to worry too much about that. As someone once said "all that I tell you is true. Some of it actually happened."

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: GUEST,Bloke in Groucho mask
Date: 04 Jul 16 - 04:23 AM

Chord changes can be important of course. Although if you are playing chord to chord, then something else springs to mind.

More and more people in "singarounds" with their folders full of printouts of websites claiming The Dubliners wrote every MacColl song... All in three chords.

Dick mentions above how he did a song recently. I put it to him that yes, he's a seasoned experienced pro who can sing. (Daft as a brush with it mind, but there you go.) Sadly, the dumbing down of what used to be folk clubs is accelerated by people believing the tosh about three chords. Interesting how in order to pull off that lazy stunt the websites claim is easy, you need to be a good powerful singer to compensate.

If you are such a person and wish to use a guitar, do yourself a favour and find the intermediate chords or runs. Your voice requires it. If you can't, try learning more chords anyway. Your singing will improve, I promise.

Back on topic. My fiddle playing "partner" years ago refused to talk to me for a couple of days once when we were doing a stage gig and my foldback failed. I was in Eb and he was in Dmaj. He could hear the ensuing "new age" accompaniment but I was oblivious.

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Jul 16 - 10:01 AM

If you are such a person and wish to use a guitar, do yourself a favour and find the intermediate chords or runs. Your voice requires it. If you can't, try learning more chords anyway. Your singing will improve, I promise."
your overall performance will improve, agreed, if one wants to improve singing, there are several other things ,posture, breathing, practice, listening critically to ones own performance, and thought about presentation, voice intonation can be improved by singing chromatic scales or any scales or intervals with an instrument.

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Jul 16 - 11:55 AM

The article says the dispute may have been over chord changes and may have been over who was to buy the next round of drinks. Drink probably had a lot more to do with it.

I've read that alcohol is involved in 97% of serious crime.

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Jul 16 - 11:57 AM

Will Fly: I listened to Petite Fleur. I see what you mean about vibrato. Would it help to think of it as sean-nos style applied to jazz?

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: Richie
Date: 04 Jul 16 - 02:19 PM

Hi,

I can think of at least two "chord changes" incidents I've had which are insignificant compared to the number of times I've played wrong chords in jams when I didn't know the song :) Both are true or as us fisherman say: "only true lies!"

The Jazz Pianist: I was playing guitar at the Sans Souci Niteclub in South Carolina and young black jazz pianist would play the late shift after I got done which started at 10:00pm. One night I stuck around after my show and listened. After the first set he asked me to play with him. On the first song he didn't even bother to say the song or the key, he just started playing. On that number, which I didn't know, I played single note riffs in the right key- he gave me no solo and ignored me. The next song, Girl from Ipanema, I knew the chords at least well enough to back him somewhat. I started playing chords and after a couple bars he yelled out, "Wrong chord," then he said, "No" even louder and finally he banged the keys with both hands and stopped. Then he yelled, "you don't know how to play it, get out of here." So I left, somewhat humiliated but in retrospect- he may have been trying to show me up. I couldn't tell. If I had told him he was wrong, who knows what would have happened!!!

The Picky Fiddler: Having played bluegrass for many years I ran into a traditional fiddler who was busking on the street here in Florida. He was good and knew a bunch of tunes but he was a sloppy player. So I agreed to play with him the next time he played. So we'd start playing and he would frequently look over at me and say, "wrong chord." Since this was a song I knew I was befuddled and we'd keep playing and he'd say "wrong chord" again and just stop playing. He couldn't tell me what the right chord was when I asked but he said he'd just have to show me later. So every other fiddle tune he's say "wrong chord" and just stop playing. Finally I had enough, I said Show me." He took my guitar. Where I was playing C/// for four beats he played C/Am/ and I'd played the same song with other people and never seen an Am in that measure. The problem was he played guitar and had his own chord changes that were different from the standard versions for every song and fiddle tune! He told me there was no reason for me to play with him until I learned the right chord changes!!!

Richie

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Jul 16 - 07:45 PM

Richie, good post. chord changes are important and there is often more than one way of harmonising a song correctly.

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: foggers
Date: 05 Jul 16 - 07:26 PM

Yup. Chords are important....... Especially if you aint even in the right MODES...... *runs for cover*

Subject: RE: Chord changes are important
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 16 - 05:14 AM

Our little band of men had been playing Flowers Of Edinburgh for donkeys' years, then one night the guitar man started to insert a different and weird-sounding chord into the B part, every soddin' time it came round, a real affectation. I asked him what he thought he was doing. He more or less told me that his strumming was his business and he'd do what he liked. I told him that if I ever heard that chord in that tune again I'd stop dead straight away. He got into a terrible sweary huff and stormed off into the gents. After about ten minutes he came back and all was sweetness and light. We never heard that bloody chord again! Don't ask me what it was either!