A question about Rawlin's Jazzology: how trustworthy is the answer key?

[JeffreySchroeck]

Hi, I'm Jeff. I've been playing guitar for 20 years, and I'm starting to try to get into improvising and writing jazz.

I've been playing in punk bands my whole life, and I've managed to piece together a decent amount of theory cobbled together from a combination of noticing the patterns in guitar magazine transcriptions (the ones with tab AND notation), and various books like Aaron Copland's "What To Listen For In Music" gave me a more fundamental knowledge of how chords are built, and their relationships. I also took a community college music fundamentals course a few years ago, which helped even more with how intervals are built and named.

I recently bought Rawlin's Jazzology book, and started going through it from the beginning, working through it as though it were an assignment from that course. Before the section on naming whether certain intervals are consonant or dissonant, there is a chart that basically says unison/octave, 4ths, 5ths, and major and minor 3rds and 6ths are all consonant. Towards the end of the section, there is an interval which is F-G#, which is an augmented second, but is enharmonically a minor 3rd. The answer key lists this as dissonant, though it is sonically identical to the consonant minor 3rd (consonance and dissonance being ultimate relative, of course-I'm just going by the chart for this instance). Should it actually be listed as consonant? Or is there something is the building of a chord or use of the note against a chord that I will see as dissonant later on in studying the material?

I did come across a review on amazon that said that there were some problems with the answer key, like a mode that was mislabeled.

[jazz oud]

consonant and dissonant mean different things in different contexts.

The thing is that even that an equal-tempered A2 is the same as an equal-tempered m3, our ears interpret them as different intervals depending on the tonal context.

Not to mention the notion of "consonant" and "dissonant" have multiple meanings depending on the harmonic and theoretical contexts. For instance, a P4 is considered dissonant by many in certain contexts.

The bigger picture is that gross generalizations are not very useful in regards to intervals like this: an A2 sounds like an A2, a M6 sounds like a M6, etc. A generalization of sorting all the intervals into two boxes "consonant" and "dissonant" is not helping you musically (in my opinion).

[JeffreySchroeck]

Of course it's relative based on context and personal taste. I was asking more specifically about it based on this one early section of this particular book-whether it's a proofreading error (maybe the editor saw it was only one step away on the staff and changed it to dissonant without looking for the quality of the interval) or if the difference between a minor third (F to Ab) and an aug 2nd (F to G# in the example) might become clear later on in the book. There is a review for the book on amazon that praises the book except for some mislabelings of modes in the answer key, and there is a comment that points out a possible mistake in the spelling of a chord (using an F instead of an E# in a B with a raised 11th). I just don't want to go through it and learn something that is inaccurate.

[jazz oud]

In that case, then it is correct insofar as an A2 is traditionally considered a dissonant interval.

It doesn't seem to make sense if you are just looking at isolated intervals with no context, but an A2 is only spelled that way because of the context.
However, from a jazz perspective, it can sometimes be treated as a consonance, like in a diminished chord. I prefer the notion of tension-resolution and active or stable tones . . . context-free "dissonance" and "consonance" don't really mean anything, IMO.

Also, simplified spellings are common in jazz chords, so an F in a so-called B7#11 chord would be normal (though in a theory text it should have a footnote clarifying). Also, depending on the key, a B chord might actually have a b5, not a #11. For example, a B7 chord in the key of C would generally have an F, not an E#.

[Jeff Brent]

As some of you know, I was the proofreader for this book.

Any book containing this much information is bound to contain some inaccuracies.

in 2006, I received a first edition copy, and the bulk of my initial observations were incorporated quickly into the revised edition and published (you'll see my name at the bottom of the last page of the revised edition).

At the authors' prompting I did a second and much more thorough proofing and found a good number of new items which will eventually be corrected in the forthcoming second edition.

Jazzology is still in its revised edition state (only one edition removed from first edition). The second edition will not be published until the revised edition has sold out. There is no way to know when that will happen.

Yes, there are a number of problems with the answer key. Let me know the page numbers in question and I will consult my notes for you.

The typos and inaccuracies that might exist due to human error in no way diminish the importance and relevance of this useful and informative jazz theory work.