Talk:Avoid note

Question
Hi: is there a citation of who uses this term? I've taught theory and evaluated quite a number of texts and journal articles and haven't come across the term. Thanks. --Myke Cuthbert 23:00, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with it either, but that isn't my main objection. My main objection is that it sounds like Pidgin English or baby talk: Avoid is a verb, not an adjective. Tone to be avoided would be a much less objectionable phrase. I have a third objection as well: Tone to be avoided and the original phrase are markedly more proscriptive than conventional pedagogical theory is. I should like to see this stub deleted altogether, and if I discover no further comments here, I’ll likely nominate it for deletion myself in a about a week or so. TheScotch 05:56, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * If the term exists, then we have to call it by what it's been called in scholarship, rather than what we'd like it to be called. But, we both seem to have our doubts about the existence of the term in scholarship.  Examples of other terms with similar names do exist, escape tone, immediately comes to mind.  --Myke Cuthbert 21:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, I think I haven't been doing enough to Assume good faith on the part of the contributor yet. I've removed the prominent links to this term from high traffic pages, but I'm not sure I'd support a deletion yet.  --Myke Cuthbert 21:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Searching around more, it seems to come up in jazz discussion boards and in at least one professor's handout, so I'd think to keep it. I changed "music theory" to "jazz theory," since that seems to be the only context it's used. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mscuthbert (talk • contribs) 21:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Jazz pedagogy is in general a mess, but let's put that consideration aside for the moment. I traverse both worlds, and as a player I'm primarily a jazzer. If this is part of jazz theory, it's a minority usage and a neologism, and I don't think the circumstance that somebody somewhere uses a term is enough to justify it, especially not in a case in which the term is blatantly contrary to the logic of English syntax. TheScotch 05:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Re: "Examples of other terms with similar names do exist, escape tone, immediately comes to mind. ":


 * An escape tone is a (non-harmonic) tone that escapes, whereas an "avoid tone" is not alleged to be a tone that avoids--and even if it were thus alleged, we'd still have a problem, considering that to avoid is a transitive verb: it requires an object. I'll concede that escaping tone might be (or have been) a better term than escape tone--and one parallel in form to passing tone--but I will not concede that escape tone is comparable to avoid tone. TheScotch 08:02, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:47, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Avoid tone → Avoid note – The usual name for it among musicians and in books on jazz harmony and improvisation. Example Google Books search: "avoid note" jazz improvisation, 14; "avoid tone" jazz improvisation, 2. Unable to move over redirect. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 02:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - also in the article, it's defined as "avoid note." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Devin.chaloux (talk • contribs) 13:00, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Support per above. -- Klein zach  16:07, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

harmonic minor modes
What about the avoid notes for modes of the harmonic minor scale? there should be a chart too. For instance, can I use a bVI maj7 with #9? --Tommy The Wise (talk) 18:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Standardizing the Article
Looking over this article, there seems to be some fundamental issues in how information is presented. The difficulty of "jazz theory" concepts is that there remains a lack of standardization in various "rules" (e.g. available tensions) and practices. I applaud previous contributors for their efforts.

Within this article, discussion of major key avoid notes uses the Berklee system (which I consider logical as Berklee as an educational institution pioneered the related "chord-scale system", and they remain one of the few academic institutions releasing their own textbooks/materials on jazz theory as opposed to individuals). However, the information relating to minor key harmony uses a separate system by Haerle, which while valuable, does not follow the established rules previously established in the article for avoid notes (e.g. Haerle's idea of the Dorian b2 chord scale includes 13 as an available tension, which it isn't in Berklee's system due to the mentioned "dominant quality"). The Haerle system also names the melodic modes differently to the standard established in the Modes of the melodic minor scale article (e.g. the sixth mode named Locrian #2 as opposed to Locrian♮2 or Half-diminished).

I propose the article could be made more informative/logical if the primary information on avoid notes is standardized around Berklee's system, and if the need is felt, discussion of other avoid note theories such as the Haerle system could be put under a separate heading. This would align the article with Wikipedia's greater discussion of the chord scale system.

Berklee's Harmony 2 Text discusses all three common minor key possibilities, with charts on pages 31, 34, and 37 for natural, harmonic, and melodic minor tensions, respectively. These charts, as well as the chart on page 35 of the Harmony 1 text seem to more logically lay out available tensions compared to the ones currently in the article, separating diatonic tensions by adding an additional column for "exception" tensions (such as the dominant b9, #9, b5, b13 tensions).

Is there any opposition to this idea/counterpoints on what to do with the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.27.168.18 (talk) 20:19, 4 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for starting a discussion, 73.27.168.18. I've removed your link to a text on Jason Du Mars's website because I see no evidence that it is hosted there with permission of the copyright holder. I have the Berklee/Nettles texts and have looked briefly at those pages of the second volume, and I see no mention of avoid notes on any of them. As I recall, when I wrote this material, that was why I used Haerle as a reference. This page is not about tensions but about avoid notes – and yes, of course one could argue that an unavailable tension is, at least some of the time, an avoid note. It seems to me that what we really need is a page at Tension (jazz harmony) or some similar title – the page at Tension (music) is unfortunately about something quite else. Calling a sharpened second step "♮2" is bizarre in the extreme and obviously at variance with what we routinely do in practice. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2020 (UTC)