linear vs. vertical
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study bill evans. in college i listened mainly to his trio work with scott lafaro and paul motion. “explorations” is one of my favorite records of all time. first off there’s two types of playing (in my opinon).
1) linear, meaning melodies, or lines. 2) vertical, meaning harmony, or chords. you can almost see the concept through sound. a melody is something that runs through space horizontally. imagine walking between 2 points in a room with a marker on the ground, but not in a straight line. after words you could look at that line and see it as something that’s linear. harmony are notes stacked on top of each other to create a more complex sound. now imagine you could float and mark the air and ground between those same 2 points. if you could look at that line from an angle it’d have a line on the ground, and one in the air. together they create 2 points at the same time, but in diffent spots vertically. that is a chord.
i used to play chords with my left hand and melodies with my right. as i progressed i started to put them together. chords should have a melody too. in the audio example, listen to evans use of chords and melodies together. i’ll explain more in detail next time about how to handle this. for now, just think of playing a chord with your left and a melody in your right at the same time, same rhythms too. you’ll notice a more complex sound.
first chorus he plays a single note lines with his right with limited comping chords with his left. by the 2nd and 3rd chorus he backs up his lines with chords playing at the same time. see if you can tell.