MELODIC STUDIES- NARDIS
“Nardis” by Bill Evans is one of my favorite compositions. i love the way the chords move, as well as the feeling the melody evokes. i thought it would be interesting to do the same thing i did on a recent post where i took the melody of “Body And Soul” and transposed it diatonically. “Nardis” presents some challenges because there are several notes in the melody that don’t belong to the harmony. for example, in the second measure, there are D#’s that don’t belong to the FMaj chord. in measure seven, there’s an F that doesn’t belong to the EMaj chord. in the third and fourth measures of the original melody, the B is held through the B7 and CMaj chords. the note will sometimes change from chord to chord as the melody is transposed diatonically. i put those notes in parentheses. like i said before, playing through these transpositions reveals other aspects of the original melody…
Tags: Bill Evans, Exercise, Lead Sheet, Transcription
October 28th, 2009 at 5:34 PM
I think that Nardis is a modal piece, basically a E phrygian piece. You can’t analyze it like a E minor with the classical western harmony rules for major and minor. Have you ever heard of the spanish phrygian scale-with the leading tone as well? Check this: E, F, G, G#, A, B, C, D, D#. In flamenco is very common harmonic progressions like: FMa7-E7(b9), or even F/D#-E(b9). Two leading tones at the same time one descending and one ascending to the tonic, E phrygian,an unthinkable procedure in western music. I think that’s the original flavour that inspires those notes on this melody.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:31 AM
Hey Albert,
thanks for the comment. re: Nardis, i think you’re correct that the melody itself could be considered modal, but the song as a whole was composed with a progression that isn’t modal. the changes i used were taken from an Aebersold book, “The Magic Of Miles”, and may or may not be the original changes that Evans wrote. nonetheless, i based the diatonic transpositions on them, considering those D#’s as non chord tones. whether that’s right or wrong is open to debate… the changes don’t express the melody, i agree with that, but my thinking is that the progression is meant to be an approximation of the sound, and the first two chords do approximate the phrygian sound that you mentioned. when someone blows over a chord, they have any numbers of scales to draw from, among them, the Spanish phrygian scale you mentioned. anyway, it would be interesting to use that scale instead of Emin - F Maj for the diatonic transpositon… please respond.