John Coltrane
Welcome to what is, perhaps, the hardest aspect of jazz improvisation; what has made many a musician cower in the corner while others step up to the plate, knock back massive grand slams, and take home the hottest girl in the club (hopefully not the girl that came in with the guy now cowering in the corner).
To date, the rite of passage for aspiring jazz musicians has been whether or not they can effectively improvise over the song Giant Steps, the seminal composition by tenor saxophonist John Coltrane.
What makes the song – and others like it that Coltrane wrote – so challenging, is a sophisticated chord progression that has proven to be very difficult for most to play, let alone master.
So, What Are the Changes?
The basis of Coltrane Changes lies in the interval of a Major 3rd. This interval divides the major scale into three equal parts – C, E, and G#/Ab – for example.
Where it gets a little tricky is understanding where (and how) these changes get applied. Let’s take a standard ii-V-I progression in the key of C Major – Dm7 / / / | G7 / / / | CMaj7 / / / | / / / /
What we want to do here is target the last CMaj7, but we get there by substituting the rest of the progression with the Coltrane Changes. Since we know we want to end up in C Major, we can use the Major 3rd cycle to get there. In this kind of progression, where the ii-V-I lines up evenly across four bars, the changes line up like this:
Dm7 / Eb7 / | AbMaj7 / B7 / | EMaj7 / G7 / | CMaj7
What we’ve done here is worked forward towards the CMaj7 while moving backward in intervals of Major 3rds. So, after two beats of Dm7 we know we want to get to Ab Major (Maj7 chord). To get there we put its V7 chord in front of it – Eb7. So, two beats of Dm7 and then into a V-I in Ab Major (Eb7 to AbMaj7).
After Ab Major we want to go down another Major 3rd to E. (If you are having trouble with this, maybe a quick review of enharmonic note names will help.) Precede the EMaj7 chord with its V and that gives us B7. To finish things off we want to have the V of C Major lead us to the last chord, so we use G7. You might be able to visualize it better this way:
-- (V7 | I) (V7 | I) (V7 | I) Dm7 Eb7 | AbMaj7 B7 | EMaj7 G7 | CMaj7
Where this becomes even more interesting is when you apply this Major 3rd/Coltrane Changes principle to reharmonizing other jazz standards. As a very basic example, try improvising over the above changes with the song “Impressions.” Since Impressions uses a long modal vamp on Dm7, you can think of that Dm7 as the ii chord in C Major. The above example is technically in the key of C, so you can really open up the way you approach a solo by playing thinking these changes while you solo over a long Dm7 chord pedal. Very cool stuff!
Coltrane wasn’t necessarily the first person to play around with the Major 3rd progression, though he certainly is the one to bring it to the forefront. The song “Have You Met Miss Jones” by Rodgers and Hart (1937) has a bridge section with a Major 3rd cycle. You can check out the Wikipedia page on Coltrane Changes for a bit more information about that.
I certainly won’t claim to have mastered this concept; not by a long shot. But I really like the idea of superimposing a seemingly unrelated chord progression and making it work. Consider this concept – Coltrane Changes – to be a goal to aspire to, so you can get your girl back from you-know-who during the next local jam session.
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Good article Josh. You rightly point out that it’s the DOMINANT of each key that’s used to setup the change. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be 2 beats, 2 beats. If you subscribe to Hal Galper’s theory of Forward Motion (which I do) you pretty quickly realize that almost every phrase you play can be thought of as a “pickup” so all you really need to do is play continuous “pickup” phrases of dominants to tonics. The interesting thing is that because the dominants are so strong, you really only need to play a note or two of each tonic (maybe just beat ONE) before launching into the next Dominant. This gives you a little more time to really establish the sound of each change, and helps avoid the obvious 1235 1235 1531 1235 kinds of cliches that it’s easy to fall into on these changes (not that you shouldn’t know those, but by the time you’re really playing the Coltrane changes, they should be kind of “behind” you).
Try thinking of Giant Steps like this (from the LAST measure of the song):
F#7 / / / |B D7 / /|G Bb7 / /|Eb / / D7| / / / /|
G Bb7 / /|Eb F#7 / / | B / / Bb7 | / / / /
Eb / / D7 | / / / / | G / / F#7 | / / / /
B / / Bb7 | / / / / | Eb / / F#7 | / / / /
And you’ll notice that I’m launching into the dominants a beat early on the long measure long changes of Tonic as well. The idea is to keep playing long lines that propel the whole thing forward (this is also why I like playing it in 5/4, I get to play even LONGER lines, it actually feels EASIER
After you get more and more comfortable with this kind of approach, you’ll learn that where you put the changes in relation to the bar lines becomes VERY flexible (as long as you keep ENDING your lines in the right places of course).
Fantastic response, Rick. Thanks so much for chiming in. You are absolutely right about the chords not having to be two beats. I was going for the most simple explanation I could, and quite often I forget to tell people that it’s not the only way to do it. However, I am by no means an expert on Coltrane Changes, so I’m going to take your suggestions and work on them when I’m in my next practice cycle. Always a student…
I love your 5/4 Giant Steps, by the way. I takes a lot of the mechanical sound out of the tune.
Thanks Josh. Yeah, I like to play lyrical and dislike sounding mechanical. After mastering all the basic stuff (chords, scales, arpeggios & such), I’ve definitely spent the MUCH larger part of my own practicing life working on making those raw materials into melodic ideas.
Interesting point, Rick. How did you “master all of the basic stuff?” Was it just a case of blitzing all of the scales and modes until you didn’t have to think about them anymore? Was there something specific you did to ensure that you nailed the material?
I think “mastering all the basic stuff” was something I did over about a 10 year period, and yes, it was practicing something like 4-6 hours a day of scales, modes, arpeggios, intervallic patterns, tunes, chord changes, transcribing (sometimes learning whole solos, other times just taking a particular lick or phrase that I liked and learning it with many different fingerings from different strings, different keys, etc. And like I said, these was a pretty steady and sustained effort over a long period.
And truth be told, I STILL practice basics all the time. Lately I spend lots of time on things like triad arpeggios and/or pentatonics moving in different combinations of beats, intevallic modulations, etc.
Specific?: sure, practice!
A LOT!!!!!! :-O
With ANY of this stuff, if you still have to think about it, you don’t really KNOW it yet (there are a lot of different levels to “knowing” something, especially in music).
I think in order to do this (or anything else for that matter) REALLY well, you just have to LOVE doing it, and LOVE practicing so much that you don’t even notice how much time is going by.
Hope this clarifies.
This is fantastic, Rick. Exactly what I and I’m sure many readers needed to hear. It’s awesome to get perspective from a well-established guitarist who is out there doing it professionally. I try to be very heavy on motivation and constant practice, but even I need inspiration from those who are out there doing it.
I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to respond with such detailed responses. Truly, thanks!
Yeah, inspiration is good! I’m like an inspiration junky, which I guess is why I continue to stay in NYC after 28 years, even though I know that I can’t work all that steady here. But I do get gigs, and I teach, and I get to just BE in this pressure cooker environment. There are so many AMAZINGLY talented musicians here. I go out as much as I can to catch the younger guitarists coming up; Peter Bernstein, Jonathan Kriesberg, Kurt Rosenwinkle, Peter Mazza, Gilad Hekselman, Lage Lund, etc., etc., (some of them I’ve been going to hear for 20 years, so I guess they’re not exactly “young” anymore, but they’re younger than me!) Sometimes I just feel like all these guys can run circles around me, all the more reason to keep practicing
You are very fortunate to live in NYC. Here in Philly we are down to one exclusively jazz club. It’s very difficult to find good, steady jazz performances in this area, let alone find gigs. And that’s not to mention finding other people to jam with and learn from. It’s a shame because Philly used to be such a great jazz city. But, NYC isn’t all that far away so I could always bribe my wife with a day of shopping if I really wanted to head up to the Big Apple to hear some good jazz.
Hi,
I have one question, would it be possible to sound good soloing these chord changes using E/Ab/C
Blues scales?
I’m a music lover and with an attraction for this kind of discussions and just want to understand better the music I ear so excuse me if I’m saying something absurd.
Thanks
Would it be possible? Sure! Sounding good – I think – is more about playing confidently than it is playing the “right” notes. “Right” is all subjective, anyway. Granted, there are some things you probably don’t want to do, like playing only an ‘F’ note over a CMaj7 chord, but as long as you know what you’re doing and have the confidence to go for it, you can certainly play it.
You guys are hardcore, wow, i live in Mexico and luckily have had the chance to study with great teachers both here and the in the US, it’s great to find this kind of enthusiasm for learning more about this endless concepts, very inspirational. Josh, seriously, consider Mazatlan for your retirement then we get to hang out and play some music! Great post!