UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

FACULTY OF MUSIC

MUF555 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

PROPOSAL

LICKS AND MODAL HARMONY OF HERBIE HANCOCK’S

‘SO WHAT’

MUHAMAD HARIS BIN ARIFIN

2018424292
CHAPTER ONE : INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Herbie Hancock is a well know jazz pianist in the last century that have been an icon to all
jazz pianist in the world. Furthermore, he gave a lot of contribution of new knowledge especially on
jazz sort and the way his playing skills are world class and scent the jazz in world music. Absorbing
and then building on the developments made by his predecessors, Hancock brought a fresh approach
to melodic line construction, harmonic accompaniment and compositional song structure, emerging as
a new breed of modern artist and setting the benchmark for the contemporary pianist (Steve Barry,
2011).

In 1940, Herbie Hancock was born in Chicago, Illinois. During his life until now, he
composed a lot of memorable jazz songs which contain a lot of interesting motive and harmony that
really give impact to other jazz activist. He start his music experience as sideman to glamour jazz
trumpeter which is Miles Davis. After two decades, he started his recording on Blue Note Label as a
leader and sideman with Miles Davis. After a few years, he joined Miles Davis quartet band.

In his jazz performance, he occasionally used the modal harmony on dorian jazz songs.
Dorian is modes or scales in jazz music. Licks are produced by him when he improvised on songs and
other jazz pianist make his licks as an idea for solo or improvise. It is because his licks contain
something valuable that can be reference to all jazz pianist.
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Nowadays, Jazz is a crucial subject and knowledge that should be learned by pianist. Hence,
pianist should implement one of criteria of the piano jazz knowledge to be executive musician. Just
what is improvisation? A popular general dictionary maintains that “to improvise is to compose, or
simultaneously compose and perform, on the spur of the moment and without any preparation.”
According to David McEvoy (1995), “Melodic, harmonic and rhythm aspects are identified so as to
give a well-rounded view of his musical style”. Therefore, jazz pianist need to discover the
techniques, licks and harmony knowledge for the lines they use and produce during improvisation.
Presently, the problems and issues faced by many jazz pianist are to produce and create improvisation
ideas using the right harmony and licks to make the musical works rich in jazz criteria and
knowledge.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The objectives of this study are:

To investigate the common licks used by Herbie Hancock

To explore the modal harmony used by Herbie Hancock

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research questions for this study are as follows:

What are the different types of licks used by Herbie Hancock’s ‘So What’?

How does Herbie Hancock apply modal harmony?

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY/ LIMITATIONS

This study is very significant especially for modern or jazz pianist. This study will helps jazz
pianist to provide idea and knowledge that elaborated by Herbie Hancock’s style or licks to jazz
pianist especially during improvisation part on ‘So What’ as he is the main pianist that plays and
improvise on that song beautifully using the right harmony and skills. The modal harmony used by
Herbie Hancock discovered in this research will be helpful to jazz pianist as a key to develope ideas
using the right modal harmony on jazz songs.

This study involving a secondary resources from journal, article and books which contain
lessons, documentaries to gather useful information and knowledge which connected with my topic.
In addition, this study also involving experience lecturers from Faculty of Music, UITM, to provide
some information about the study. The lecturers that involved are Rizal Tony, John Dip Silas and
Melvin Goh. This three lecturers was chose based on their experience and qualification in jazz music.
CHAPTER TWO : LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Herbie Hancock

Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock is one of the most successful and respected artists of the last
century. From the beginning of his career as a sideman with the trumpeter Miles Davis through to his
modern collaborations with pop artists such as Christina Aguilera, Santana and John Mayer,
Hancock’s music has always pushed musical boundaries and redefined stylistic norms. Primarily
regarded as a ‘jazz’ pianist, his approach is one of the most instantly recognisable in the sphere of
improvised music – a style which “remains a basic touchstone of contemporary jazz piano.” (Steve
Barry, 2011). Herbie Hancock was born in Chicago in 1940 and has a career that spans more than five
decades. Dobbins writes that he is “certainly one of the most influential jazz pianist of the second
second half of the twentieth century”. During the 1960s he made a number of important recording
which attracted critical acclaim. He recorded as both leader and sideman for the Blue Note label, and
was a member of Miles Davis quintet from 1963-1968, pushing the musical boundaries of small group
jazz, ( David McEvoy, 1995). We all have a natural human tendency to take the safe route to do the
thing we know will work rather than taking a chance. But that’s the antithesis of jazz, which is all
about being in the present. Jazz is about being in the moment, at every moment. It’s about trusting
yourself to respond on the fly. If you can allow yourself to do that, you never stop exploring, you
never stop learning, in music or in life (Herbert J. Hancock, 2014)

2.2 Modal Harmony

The modes have provided fertile musical soil for jazz composers since the late 1950s. In
effect, modes can be viewed as displacements of the major scale (Ted Pease, 2003).Analytical
descriptions of modal musical systems have played an important role in ethnomusicology since the
inception of the field. From d'Erlanger to Densmore, early ethnomusicologists took special interest in
documenting the modal practices of traditional non-Western music cultures. The scholarly
concentration on traditional modal systems (and Western art music) has nevertheless left significant
gaps in our analytical descriptions of world musics. In particular, it has entailed a neglect of the
syncretic musical systems that have arisen, especially in the last two centuries, as products of the
confluence of modal traditions with Western chordal harmony (Peter Manuel, 1989). Modal music,
where many fourth voicings are commonly found, does not contain the traditional “avoid or weak”
notes that are commonly found in in diatobic harmonies. In fact, many of the avoid notes in diatonic
harmonies are the desired “characterictic” notes in modal music

Harmonizing given melodies is in contradiction to the process of composition ; a composer

invents melody and harmony simultaneously. Subsequent correction may sometimes be necessary;
improvements anticipating later developmennts and adaptations for changed purposes may challenge
the composer’s technique (Arnold Schoenberg, 1954). Harmony and voice leading touches on many
of these aspects, including rhythm, melody, counterpoint, and form. Instruction in harmony or
counterpoint usually follows a review of fundamentals: scales, key signatures, intervals and so forth
(Edward Adwell, Carl Schachter, 2002).Up to this point, harmony texts have attempted to
systematically together all types of sonorities, making it impossible to consider each sonority type in
its proper context. One of the most important tasks of a harmony course is to point out the vital
relationship between individual creativity and the development of harmonic materials (De La Motte,
1983)

2.3 So What

Miles Davis’s “So What” is one of the most famous compositions in jazz, instantly recognisable
from its introductory bass phrase. Recorded in 1959, it has sold millions of copies as the opening track
of the album Kind Of Blue. It is simple, melodic and catchy, but the song’s origins are complex. They
can be found in what was once revolutionary harmonic theory, in classical music and African ballet,
and several sections of the song were “borrowed” (Ian McCann, 2016).

Popular when first issued in 1959, the album continues to be one of the top-selling jazz
recordings, and consistently appears at or near the top of “best of” lists of jazz musicians and critics.
In 2003 Rolling Stone magazine listed Kind of Blue as the its twelfth-best album of all time,
alongside records by The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, and The Rolling Stones. Five years later,
in October 2008, the album was certified as “quadruple platinum,” signifying sales exceeding four
million units. Kind of Blue has also attracted the attention of the scholarly community. In anticipation
of its fiftieth anniversary, important studies have emerged that shed new light on this music and the
circumstances surrounding its creation (Jason Roger Titus, 2010)

2.4 Licks

Jazz players learn to build a vocabulary of phrases and patterns by imitating, repeating, and
memorizing the solos and phrases of the masters until they become part of their repertoire of “licks”
and “crips.” (Frank J. Barret, 1998)

2.5Score
Transcription by (Rino Maiol, 2012)

Herbie discovers an even changing array of harmonic colours which make the same bass
notes sound fresh each time they return. His brilliant harmonic spontaneity gives the entire piece a
feeling of continual harmonic evolution and development, even though it is based on a single ten bar
repeated chorus.The solos based on the harmonic progressions of standard tunes contain chord
changes in every chorus (Dobbins, 1992). Composers search for the right chords to fit a melody or the
right melody to fit a chord progression; arrangers search for the right voicings and counterpoint for
constituent parts; improvisers search for the right phrases to play over a particular set of chord
changes. Certainly, the notion of “right” is individual, but a typical musician “knows what she likes,”
and this aesthetic sense guides the search through the various problem spaces of notes, chords, or
voicings (John. A Biles, 2015). One of the greatest difficulties facing someone who is learning about
jazz for the first time is the difficulty of developing a fundamental definition of jazz (Christopher
Meeder, 2008).
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Steve, B. (2011) Signature Characteristics in the Improvised Melodic Lines of Herbie Hancock,
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Ted, P. (2003) Jazz Composition Theory and Practice, Berklee Press 2 62-67.

Peter, M. (1989) Modal Harmony in Music, International Council for Traditional Music 21 70-94.

Arnold, S. (1954) Structural Functions of Harmony, Faber and Faber London, Boston.

A. Edward, S. Carl (2002) Harmony and Voice Leading Thomson Schirmir, School of Music Faculty
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