Welcome to Week Nine of Jazz Appreciation.
Although jazz musicians use a large body of common language in their
improvisation, individuality and creativity are very highly valued.
One of the most individual voices in jazz was that of the pianist
Thelonious Monk, who lived from 1917 to 1982.
He's our second "beyond category" artist in the course, as his sound and
his compositions are an interesting combination of logic and surprise.
We'll start our time with Monk in the manner we have with several of our
great artists.
Listen to the two-minute excerpt that follows, and write down any musical
feature you hear, or any character in the music that you perceive, along
with an elapsed time.
I'll tell you in advance that this song is in the blues form.
We'll reconvene after this excerpt.
Here's the music.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We're back to discuss the things I heard in this excerpt that are
features of Monk.
The first, most prevailing feature I heard was dissonant, grinding sounds.
So sometimes I heard multiple notes played at the same time that create
dissonance.
Monk loved to do this:
[PLAYING PIANO]
Play those half-steps together.
Sounds like he's playing around, but he's doing that deliberately.
Other times, he'll just pick a single note to end his phrase that'll be
dissonant against the chord.
So if the chord is here [PLAYS CHORD]
he'll pick [PLAYS NOTE]
that note, and it'll sound like [PLAYS RIFF ON PIANO]
And he'll pick a different dissonant note on consecutive times.
So those were two ways that he creates dissonance.
The multiple notes, you can hear those at 31 seconds, 50 seconds, a minute
25, minute 31, a minute 45, and a minute 53.
They're all over the excerpt.
Let's listen to an example of multiple notes played at the same time that
create tension.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In our next clip, we'll listen to single notes chosen at the ends of
phrases that sound grinding.
Of course, he mixes these two techniques, so in this excerpt, at
first, we hear a single note at the end of the first
phrase that's grinding.
Then we hear him play two notes at the end of the second
phrase that is grinding.
And then in the third phrase, back to a single note.
Now, here it is:
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So those big leaps of those last notes really emphasize that dissonance, and
it's an important part of Monk's style.
Now, Monk certainly loved to use that as a way to keep surprise in his
music, and a way to vary ideas when he developed them.
The second aspect of the music that I'd like to point out to you is what I
would call playful or repetitive ideas.
You probably noticed this as well.
It's one statement that's repeated or slightly changed numerous times, and
quite a few times, in Monk's case.
Often times, this lasts for one chorus, or in one case, there's
actually two choruses about the same idea.
It happens many, many times in this excerpt, and the episodes are often
organized by choruses.
So right at the beginning, at 28 seconds, 38 seconds, 56 seconds, a
minute two, and a minute 15 for two choruses, and then at a minute 54.
So many, many examples of this.
As you know, when one idea of a few notes is repeated or changed numerous
times, we call that motivic development.
And that's certainly a trademark of Monk's.
Let's listen to one example of motivic development.
You might notice that this example's organized into three phrases over the
12 measures of the blues, similar to the statement, repetition, commentary
lyrics of the blues.
We're starting right at the beginning of the chorus.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The third aspect of Monk's music that I notice we haven't talked about very
much since we left Miles Davis.
That's the use of space between motives, or rests.
This is particularly important when Monk engages in longer sections of
motivic development.
It gives his improvisation more clarity.
You might want to listen back for this use of space, especially between a
minute 12 and a minute 51.
It's like punctuation in between sentences.
The final aspect I heard was Monk's use of the bebop two-note phrase
ending, and a lot of times with a leap.
Two eighth notes that say "bebop." Monk spent years playing at Minton's
Playhouse on 52nd Street with the bebop pioneers, and this definitely
influenced his playing.
These phrase endings occur at 1:19, and 1:25, and from 1:32 to 1:47.
Here's an example of a few of those phrase endings:
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We just don't know what note those phrases are going to end on.
We're not really sure.
So this discussion gives us a good aural image of Monk, and a list of the
musical tools that he uses.
A few other things you might have noted in this recording: there are
many portions in the piano solo where Monk doesn't play any chords in his
left hand, particularly from one minute 15 to two
minutes and 10 seconds.
This gives the piano and the music a leaner texture.
And secondly, there's very little comping on the snare drum, and when it
occurs, it's played softly.
Once again, these are bonus tips that will help you develop
your listening skills.
In both Monk's improvisations and compositions, there's an underlying
logic in the improvisation, even though the language is somewhat
grinding, and at times, he sounds like he's childlike in his piano playing.
We'll learn more about that in our next video, and we'll get acquainted
with Monk's great compositions.
We'll see you in the next segment.