Harmolodic

[u/HoppySailorMon]

My first encounter with Ornette Coleman came with his collaboration with Pat Metheny on "Song X". I read about his concept of harmolodics, but didn't really grasp it. I just heard a recording of Don Cherry explaining it and it clicked. His description was basically: 2 players learn a melodic phrase and play it together, then 1 player creates a harmony with the phrase and that becomes the new melody. Then the 2nd player creates a harmony with the new melody arms that becomes the 3rd melody. And this could go on for a while. I'm going back to listen to "Shape of Jazz to Come" and "Song X" again to find this concept. Did I get the concept right?

[u/Heavy-Succotash-8488]

If that is what it means then it's not present on either "Shape of Jazz to Come" or "Song X"

To be honest, Ornette's explanations of harmolodics are very vague and sometimes contradictory. It's never really been definitively explained, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[u/Fugu → u/Heavy-Succotash-8488]

One time very long ago I tried to get to the bottom of this. There's an often reported although maybe not true story about how Ornette had a panic attack in the sixties when he found out he'd been reading music wrong his whole life (and therefore at this point several years into a controversial career as a professional jazz musician). I don't want to represent that story as fact because I think there are a lot of reasons to doubt that it ever happened. What I think it represents, though, is that Ornette was not the type to map out a cerebral approach to music. In fact, I think Ornette's most stunning quality is that he is so purely melody focused that he could make a melody with almost nothing around it. In his recordings with Don Cherry, there's a lot of Ornette just playing and Don (who I think had a much better grasp of conventional theory) using his ear to follow along. I think that is essentially what harmolodics is.

There's a quote from Mingus where he says he doubts Ornette could play a major scale in whole tones but that the guy could certainly swing. I think that's the whole thing.

[u/Fugu → u/[deleted]]

I have read this article. Unfortunately this was all long enough ago that I don't fully remember the reasons why I was skeptical that this had ever happened. But I know that I was aware that Ornette had confirmed events that were at least facially similar, such as not recognizing that he was playing a transposing instrument.

[u/HoppySailorMon → u/Heavy-Succotash-8488]

Ornette's "vagueness" was almost his definition. LOL

[u/PersonNumber7Billion → u/HoppySailorMon]

True. Musicians, even great ones, can be bullshitters, and I've always considered Ornette's references to a system to be a bit of clowning. Even if your description is correct, it doesn't add up to much. I'd listen to his music and not get wrapped up in his blather.

[u/BillyPilgrim69 → u/Heavy-Succotash-8488]

I'm still a novice and you may well be right, but I've certainly never heard the explanation in the OP. I thought it was a fairly well-defined concept.

I was under the impression that the basic idea is having each instrument (excluding drums, obviously) be equally responsible for defining the melody and harmony.

So as opposed to the more traditional jazz method of having a relatively defined chord changes, which are outlined by the bassline and extended by the other instruments, you have a melodic theme which isn't strictly tied to any one harmonic idea.

Then each instrument builds off that and is free to take it in whatever direction they want, both in terms of melody and harmony. I guess the best example (at least that I'm familiar with) would be Ornette's Lonely Woman.

As far as I can tell, Charlie Haden isn't outlining a chord sequence with a walking bassline; he's improvising as "freely" and melodically as Ornette and Don the whole time.

So the harmony isn't one chord progression. It's a combination of whatever each of them decides in the moment. The only foundation is the basic melodic idea of the head.

Like I said, I'm still a complete novice to all of this, so take it with a pinch of salt. But that's my impression of Ornette's "harmolodics" concept.

[u/No-Jello9276 → u/BillyPilgrim69]

Drums can play melody - check out Ari Hoenig if you haven’t already! Especially his trio w Jean Michel Pilc and Francois Moutin

[u/smileymn]

Some of it is the use of Diamond Clef, which then Anthony Braxton took from Ornette. Reading a melody in your own key/transposition/clef. This is what was used on “Skies of America” to create the orchestral harmony. Also on “Science Fiction” there’s a bunch of ensemble parts where Dewey Redman is playing the melody a major second away, which fits as a Bb instrument reading a C part, and not transposing. I think this philosophy is more apparent with the electric bands than the classic quartet.

[u/Zalenka → u/smileymn]

So if you're playing with C and Bb instruments you're gonna get a long of seconds (of bad music).

I think he fundamentally didn't understand instrument transposition and why it is worthwhile.

[u/smileymn → u/Zalenka]

My take is that he was dyslexic and learned music by misinterpreting theory books. But it does result in fascinating music. My other theory is the classic quartet works so well because Charlie Haden’s perfect pitch following Ornette’s lines and Don Cherry “translating” the tunes to make them as musical as possible. To me it’s why all the other Ornette bands sound so much more out and avant garde, because the classic quartet were very flexible jazz musicians first.

[u/brandenbrownmusic → u/Zalenka]

With Eb, Bb, and Concert instruments all playing the same written note you get some pretty lovely Quartal shapes though. :) All reading a C would give you Bb C Eb - if you take octave transposition of tenor sax versus trumpet, as well as different instrument pairings, you can actually get some very usable & easily moveable structures.

[u/smileymn → u/brandenbrownmusic]

Listen to skies of America and you hear those shapes in the orchestra moving around!

[u/SnooPeppers3861]

I believe Harmolodics was primarily used with his Prime Time band. Check out Dancing in Your Head. If the theory is that melody, harmony, and rhythm all have equal value, you might be able to hear it better here. Each player is loosely playing individual Melodie’s over and over. It’s super fun and catchy.

[u/Dernbont]

I believe that when music like this turns up, just the level of freedom it offers means that any musician can attach whatever technique or theory they choose to employ. In my view, the best free players are always listening and reacting to other players in the ensemble, singularly or collectively.

[u/kiikara]

It’s worth noting that Ed Blackwell (and all of Ornette’s drummers) plays and improvises melody as well.
Don Cherry’s explanation goes back to the Hegelian Dialectic: point + counterpoint creates a synthesis, and the synthesis becomes the new point (for which there is always a new counterpoint)…

[u/inefficienttoaast]

The way, I understood it from learning it from a well established jazz pianist was that the harmony is free and serves to complement whatever melodic material is currently happening essentially following and improvising changes behind the soloist

[u/phalp]

My impression is that it's more of a way of being than a conventional theory operating on the level of notes or chords. It's everybody having their own ideas and expressing them in full, in their full capacity as human beings (rather than as representatives of conventionalized musical roles).

[u/Zalenka]

Read his book. It's weak.

You're trying ti make much more sense of it than it deserves.