What Bach and Charlie Parker Had In Common

In this episode of Everything Music we will explore what Bach and Charlie Parker had in common which was octave displacement. It is a way for you to make your melodies more interesting and more intervallic. It will also give your lines much more interesting shapes.

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[charles-mroz]

I have no idea what you are talking about but sitting in my quiet kitchen having my first coffee at 4.30am I am very much enjoying this tutorial

[viggosimonsen]

It is an absolutely correct observation. Parker is the exact equivalent of Bach in classical music - both in the technical sense, and in terms of his role in music history. It just shows that music history goes through cycles. Parker rediscovered the techniques of Bach and reapplied them to jazz, just like Ellington and Bill Evans applied the techniques of Debussy. The entire history of jazz can in fact med mapped to the history of western classical music. Jazz went through the same evolution from simple diatonicity to increasing use of chromatism and harmonic extensions, facing the same harmonic dilemmas between form and chaos.
Those are basically cultural life cycles.

[stevefleth]

4-string bass players do this all the time when they hit the low E but need to play a Eb, D or C next. They go up an octave to hit those notes. So now I know that's called octave displacement. Thanks Rick.

[davidgerber]

Thanks for showing the way for us wannabes. By spending time with videos by you, Aimee Nolte, Adam Neely, and many other skilled and generous-minded YouTube teachers, I am getting first-class, professional level instruction...for free! All I can offer in return is to tell you I share whatever knowledge I can, whenever I can, in the same spirit that you guys share with me. May good Karma follow us all!

[jamesfreeman]

Absolutely! All these years of playing Bach (and Parker) I always loved the skips, but nobody ever explained it to me like that before. I always felt they were so similar and now I have a much better idea. Thanks!

[tomasrevillacortazar]

Rick, YOU are a real treasure. THANK YOU. I think most music teachers and them wanting to teach music should have a close look at your videos. They'd spare us for many many hours of wasted shed time. Even the gifted ones would learn something. Could really copy and paste my comment to most of your videos.
I play sax and your octave displacement video has virtually transformed the way I practice scales. Killing lines all over the place! Regards from an Spaniard living Denmark, who's a bit happier today than yesterday ;-)

[jimjarnagin]

Thank you!!! I’m (finally) making a serious effort to learn walking bass and octave displacement adds a whole new angle to scalar lines. 😊😊😊

[OrignialDublix]

after 4 years of hardcore piano training I can finally follow along! Thats just what I needed - thanks Rick!

[chimurengacomposer]

Wow what a blessing in my life you have been Mr Rick Beato! Amazing videos, please keep doing the good work, you have so much to give, thanks, all the way from South Africa!

[jimwinters]

Another mind-reading video!
Have been thinking of re-learning the chromatic scale with displaced octaves. Introduced to me at NGSW. I'd eventually hear it on various records. Vai, Becker, Jarzombek, Kalle Rademaker... and possibly Jarrett on Radiance.

[benyoungblood]

I found this video incredibly thought-provoking. As a guitarist I really appreciated the part at the end with the demonstrations on the guitar. It gave me my next technique to practice!

[QuaqQuao]

Hah! Turns out, due to the very limited range of my voice, I'm an expert in octave displacment already.. ;)

[modularmuse]

Great stuff Rick, thanks! I remember being told, decades ago, that if you sped up a lot of Bach lines they would sound like bebop, now I know a little more about what they might have meant.

[voltz]

Rick is greatest music educator in the world! Thanks.

[shkyrbty]

Wow! Really mind opening, thank you for posting! This helps us to understand both classical and jazz and the connections shared by both. The first guitar example reminds me of some lines Duane Allman played. Sweet!

[heifetz]

Eric Dolphy took it further with double octave displacement which works well on sax or bass clarinet.I have tested some of my pupils by playing "happy birthday" on the piano with big displacements of 2 or 3 octaves.They never figure out what the melody is.

[nicholasrees]

Rick, I'm surprised and impressed to hear the Gradus ad Parnassum refererenced here - and cantus firmus. I thought you were more of a rock guy. This is solid musical theory that was very important in the Baroque era where the guide lines were important - Bach learned them at his father's knee before he passed away and later from his brother. A lot of this stuff was more or less forgotten as the Classical era came in and rules of counterpoint were regarded as old-fashioned dogma and the texture of the music changed, I'd say simplified. The sympathy between Bach and Jazz is well documented - I have been listening to a Jazz version of the beautiful G minor Sinfonia this very day. Great to choose the 3rd Sinfonia as an example here. The Sinfonias represent some of Bach's best short pieces and are pretty much ignored most of the time. The C minor and G major are also great works though not easy to play despite their brevity. And of course, the F minor is justly famous for it's extreme chromaticism.

[ignaciocondecarmona]

Thank you very much Rick, I find it enjoyable, the way you share.

[luishermano]

Great lesson, Rick! There's also a great book written by the pianist Hal Galper called Forward Motion - From Bach to Bebop. It's worth a read and he talks a lot about these similarities. The best book I ever read about jazz phrasing.

[treblemaker]

The octave-displaced chromatic scale on guitar sounds like something Fripp would do and/or did! Very cool!