To help us understand Thelonious Monk’s chord progressions, and specifically why they’re so hard to improvise over, let’s make a musical experiment involving chords and improvisation.
With our right hand, let’s play the melody to “Mary Had A Little Lamb”:
Next, we’ll add the song’s basic harmonies in our left hand:
We have a nice melody, and chords that support the melody and would also be easy to improvise over.
Now, let’s reharmonize the melody. We’ll have some fun and intentionally use some chords that are unexpected, to give the melody a whole new flavor:
So far so good. But what happens when we try to improvise over these new, colorful melodies?
Go ahead, give it a try. (I’ll wait.)
Hmmm…. Not so easy, is it?
This process is exactly what Monk did in many of his tunes. He’d compose a melody that sounded catchy and tuneful. But then he’d harmonize that melody in unique ways. These chords sound great with the melody, and give a “Monk-ish” flavor to the tune, even when the melody is essentially diatonic or even consisting of repeated notes.
But when we take those same chords as the starting point for our improvisations, and try to navigate those changes while creating spontaneous melodic lines, we quickly find out how challenging it is.
If you’d like to watch me demonstrate this on one of Monk’s greatest tunes, check this out:
I hope this gives you some insight not only on the challenge of playing Thelonious Monk’s music, but some insight into a way to approach his great compositions for yourself.
Enjoy the journey, and “let the music flow!”
Ron
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great video and lesson. I am going to woodshed your suggestion on Bemsha. I explored this tune a few years ago on a multi-tracked harmonica recording that includes snatches of his solo from the ’52 trio recordings:
https://randyweinstein.bandcamp.com/track/bemsha-swing
My personal experience is that it is worthwhile to either actively transcribe or study transcriptions of Monk solos, and learn to play them modestly well. If, like me, you play a different instrument — chromatic harmonica in my case — devise adaptations for sections of the solo that simply don’t map to your horn. Then explore improvising on Monk’s improvisations. Though his solos could be described as a combination of melodic paraphrase and riffs, my audition suggests a much deeper and adventurous approach on Monk’s part.
Note: I think you’re harmonizing “Mary Had A Little Lamb” in the example provided in this post.
Good catch on the song title, Randy – thanks! Yeah, Monk’s music give us a lot to dive into. There are so many ways to go about it, and as you’re implying, we can begin to get a sense of Monk’s musical outlook and what he was going for while improvising.