Nice explainer on Coltrane's Giant Steps

Yes, thanks for posting!

Much is way over my head but it makes sense at a basic level.
 
Honestly, this is a very misleading and uninformative analysis of the song. The circle of 5ths is no problem for a schooled musician, and really, it isn't an issue in improvising on this song. All that discussion about the 5ths and the overtones has NOTHING to do with improvising on "Giant Steps".

A lot of people who play Giant Steps and other pieces, chase the chord changes, arpeggiating on each chord, without knowing how to run scales into each other, and playing melodically. Running scales doesn't mean that you can't arpeggiate. But many musicians relegate themselves to that alone when dealing with a lot of changes, including the very interesting ones in "Giant Steps".

Master pianist Barry Harris talk about this in depth below in the two clips. The main point to understand is that you can play one scale under a number of chords, instead of chasing each chord. And each scale goes into the other. Barry talks about this here. The clips are about 20 years apart.


 
Nice. Thanks for that. I love stuff like this. I'm a rudimentary piano play (emphasis on rudimentary), but I know just enough to be able to follow the conversations. I get fascinated by this.
 
Nice. Thanks for that. I love stuff like this. I'm a rudimentary piano play (emphasis on rudimentary), but I know just enough to be able to follow the conversations. I get fascinated by this.

Hey sure, my pleasure! I'm going to go back and try to play some of the lines he is talking about here. Barry's whole thing is that chords comes from scales. The chords are a part of those scales, they shouldn't be separated from them or isolated from them. It's really illuminating what he says in that first clip.

I have heard him talk about Giant Steps in person in his class. And believe it or not, he didn't feel Coltrane himself was running the changes correctly - that he was kind of falling into the thing where he is playing a little bit on each chord, instead of running scales to improvise. The first part of the tune is definitely tricky. The second part of the tune is mostly ll-V-l in a few different keys. That's not really tough. Barry btw, doesn't believe in using the ll chord when soloing. Instead of thinking A min 7 - D7, he would say just think D7. There are many films on YouTube that get into his approach. If you get a chance, check them out. I think you'd find them interesting!

BTW, you got me listening to the "Giant Steps" LP right now...
 
The first part of the tune is definitely tricky. The second part of the tune is mostly ll-V-l in a few different keys. That's not really tough.

Yeah, I printed out some sheet music for the song and the first bit definitely had me finger tied. Then it opens up. Gonna have to practice that one a bit more.
 
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