The Coltrane changes are lovely, but if you slow them down they aren't substantially more difficult than other Jazz changes from that era. What makes Giant Steps so challenging is mainly the tempo.
Tommy Flanagan, the pianist who struggled a bit on the original Coltrane recording, put out a recording of Giant Steps with his own trio in the 1980s. Having had enough time by then to woodshed the changes, his improvs are exquisite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3PWynH-CEc
It's also just that they're weird and not terribly melodic. They're great, but it's not like some jazz standard from a musical where you just kind of feel where it's going after hearing it a few times.
The Coltrane Changes pattern of descending through major keys via major thirds is actually used at moderate tempo in the bridge of the Rogers/Hart tune Have You Met Miss Jones? [1] ... which is a standard from a musical haha.
But I acknowledge that in that context, it's an "out there" harmonic adventure which builds tension, to be released when the final section harps on the tonic.
I still think that it's mostly the tempo that makes Giant Steps feel alien. Modulating through major keys by major thirds isn't that exotic, but doing it so quickly that ear just doesn't get a chance to orient itself is.
This makes it a perpetual challenge for me, and I've never mastered it. Doing something sensible on double bass is hard enough without it always having to be at some unmusical tempo.
On more straightforward changes, I can usually internalize the melody and harmonic motion well enough to form a sensible solo, but I've got my limits. Fortunately the era of "Giant Steps" getting called on every gig has more or less passed.
> they aren't substantially more difficult than other Jazz changes
IMO it's not only the tempo. It's also the fact those changes kind of subvert any feeling of tonality, so you can't really rely on tonal formulas (i.e. cadences) when improvising, so you need to come up with other ways to structure your improv, while constantly shifting between modes/scales/patterns. Becoming fluent in this kind of context is a huge challenge, even in slow tempos.
The changes are actually easy and melodic because they are easily related to other changes that are very close, and you can train yourself to hear into that.
For instance consider that pitch class inversion of a major scale around its root results in precisely a major third key change. E.g. if we invert C major, we get C Phrygian, and C Phrygian is a mode of A♭ major: Coltrane change!
Try improvising around the two chord loop CM7, C♯M7 (or D♭M7), CM7, C#M7 by shifting between C major and its inversion C Phrygian; it is very melodic and intuitive.
You can feel/invoke similar mood changes when following the Coltrane changes.
C#M7/D♭M7 contains a Fm triad, so it evokes hint of the common parallel minor device. C Phrygian and C Aeolian/minor are in fact only one note off, Phrygian is Aeolian with the second degree flattened.
A Coltrane key change can be fibbed by the improviser by a parallel major/minor shift which is so ingrained into the pop music repertoire that it's easy to find familiar idioms that the listener will latch onto. You omit one note that doesn't work and are good to go.
Here is a cool thing about the Coltrane keys (related to the above semitone chord change). In each key you can pick a major triad such that their roots form a semitone progression. WE already identified C,C♯/D♭ from C and A♭. Then the third key, E, gives us the B triad.
The B triad in E major is at the root of the Mixolydian mode. The C triad in C is of course at the root of Ionian. The D♭ triad is at the root of Lydian. I.e. we have the I chord from one key, IV chord from another, and V chord from the third, and they end up chromatic. This can be exploited in improvisation. As the accompanist goes through changes you can just move by a semitone and then change one note in the scale at the same time. E.g. if we go from Mixolydian to Ionian, we sharpen the 7th. At the same time we go up a semitone, since the root is moving from B to C. Then for the next change, we do it again; root moves to D♭, scale shape changes one note to make Lydian. You can emphasize the chromaticism so the half note shift intent is clearly conveyed, while the changing note in the scale takes the sharp corners off it and makes it more interesting. The small chromatic movement helps the listener make sense of the weird chords that are going on (because the Coltrane chord progressions have a II-V-I in each of the three keys and whatnot).
Speaking of the II-V-I progressions in those keys: here is one more thing. It's possible to see a tritone movement there that evokes the tritone substitute.
Here is why. Consider the II-V-I in the key of C, where I is C. Now consider II-V-I in the key of E. What is the II note? It is G♭. That is exactly a tritone away from C.
So it's like we have a circle of fourths with tritones thrown in: D-G-C-G♭-E♭-A♭-... 4, 4, ♯4, 4, 4, ♯4, .. (if we do the key changes in that direction).
I use this as a trick to find the chords on the guitar fretboard.
The tritone has musical implications though, too. Suppose we alter the CM7 landing note to C7 and also change the G♭m7 II chord of E to G♭7. Then we have a note-sharing tritone root movement between two dominant chords.
Sure. It's also true that if you speed anything up enough it becomes impossible for anybody to play. But neither of those reductio ad absurdum observations tells us much.
The point is that this Vox presentation and many other articles on the Coltrane changes present them as so revolutionary that improvisers struggle, but on its own that's not true.
There are records which predate Giant Steps which are equally harmonically interesting and challenging and which similarly modulate through many key centers, like Con Alma [1] by Dizzy Gillespie from 1954 or Lush Life [2] by Billy Strayhorn from 1948.
What Coltrane did with Giant Steps was akin to calling for Lush Life at 300 beats per minute.
"Everyone thinks Coltrane wrote that, he didn’t. It’s Slonimsky. That book started all the jazz guys improvising in 12-tone. Coltrane carried that book around till the pages fell off."
Maybe this works as review for people who already know it, but it seems like it might be overwhelming for beginners. Learning to recognize 2-5-1 when you hear it in a song might be a better way to start?
Despite taking piano lessons as a kid, I was in college before I learned to recognize 12-bar blues whenever I heard it. That's pretty late, but you're part of the lucky 10,000 whatever day you learn.
This stuff is completely irrelevant if you haven't gotten at least proficient at Bebop and blues. Following the career trajectory of musicians around that era is a good way to build up to those types of music. You start with swing in the 20s and 30, bebop in the 30s and 40s, post-bop and modal jazz in the 50s, then the weird Coltrane changes and free jazz and stuff like that later. I tried really hard to learn those Coltrane patterns when I was first starting off with Jazz but if you don't have much improvisational vocabulary, especially over 251s you will be doing 10x as much work
dat dude sounds half the time like complete nonsense and then like jazz and blues ... he has so very few out of the box moments, ... is what I thought a few days ago .. and just now I remembered he's one of them fellas who made that box before there was one
Here I made this for you cool cats: https://eznj.github.io/coltrane
Audio doesn’t seem to play on Safari, iOS.
Maybe it’s fixed now, but works on my iPhone 17
Here's an explanation of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62tIvfP9A2w
The Coltrane changes are lovely, but if you slow them down they aren't substantially more difficult than other Jazz changes from that era. What makes Giant Steps so challenging is mainly the tempo.
Tommy Flanagan, the pianist who struggled a bit on the original Coltrane recording, put out a recording of Giant Steps with his own trio in the 1980s. Having had enough time by then to woodshed the changes, his improvs are exquisite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3PWynH-CEc
It's also just that they're weird and not terribly melodic. They're great, but it's not like some jazz standard from a musical where you just kind of feel where it's going after hearing it a few times.
The Coltrane Changes pattern of descending through major keys via major thirds is actually used at moderate tempo in the bridge of the Rogers/Hart tune Have You Met Miss Jones? [1] ... which is a standard from a musical haha.
But I acknowledge that in that context, it's an "out there" harmonic adventure which builds tension, to be released when the final section harps on the tonic.
I still think that it's mostly the tempo that makes Giant Steps feel alien. Modulating through major keys by major thirds isn't that exotic, but doing it so quickly that ear just doesn't get a chance to orient itself is.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHGFo7fRIqc
This makes it a perpetual challenge for me, and I've never mastered it. Doing something sensible on double bass is hard enough without it always having to be at some unmusical tempo.
On more straightforward changes, I can usually internalize the melody and harmonic motion well enough to form a sensible solo, but I've got my limits. Fortunately the era of "Giant Steps" getting called on every gig has more or less passed.
> they aren't substantially more difficult than other Jazz changes
IMO it's not only the tempo. It's also the fact those changes kind of subvert any feeling of tonality, so you can't really rely on tonal formulas (i.e. cadences) when improvising, so you need to come up with other ways to structure your improv, while constantly shifting between modes/scales/patterns. Becoming fluent in this kind of context is a huge challenge, even in slow tempos.
The changes are actually easy and melodic because they are easily related to other changes that are very close, and you can train yourself to hear into that.
For instance consider that pitch class inversion of a major scale around its root results in precisely a major third key change. E.g. if we invert C major, we get C Phrygian, and C Phrygian is a mode of A♭ major: Coltrane change!
Try improvising around the two chord loop CM7, C♯M7 (or D♭M7), CM7, C#M7 by shifting between C major and its inversion C Phrygian; it is very melodic and intuitive.
You can feel/invoke similar mood changes when following the Coltrane changes.
C#M7/D♭M7 contains a Fm triad, so it evokes hint of the common parallel minor device. C Phrygian and C Aeolian/minor are in fact only one note off, Phrygian is Aeolian with the second degree flattened.
A Coltrane key change can be fibbed by the improviser by a parallel major/minor shift which is so ingrained into the pop music repertoire that it's easy to find familiar idioms that the listener will latch onto. You omit one note that doesn't work and are good to go.
Here is a cool thing about the Coltrane keys (related to the above semitone chord change). In each key you can pick a major triad such that their roots form a semitone progression. WE already identified C,C♯/D♭ from C and A♭. Then the third key, E, gives us the B triad.
The B triad in E major is at the root of the Mixolydian mode. The C triad in C is of course at the root of Ionian. The D♭ triad is at the root of Lydian. I.e. we have the I chord from one key, IV chord from another, and V chord from the third, and they end up chromatic. This can be exploited in improvisation. As the accompanist goes through changes you can just move by a semitone and then change one note in the scale at the same time. E.g. if we go from Mixolydian to Ionian, we sharpen the 7th. At the same time we go up a semitone, since the root is moving from B to C. Then for the next change, we do it again; root moves to D♭, scale shape changes one note to make Lydian. You can emphasize the chromaticism so the half note shift intent is clearly conveyed, while the changing note in the scale takes the sharp corners off it and makes it more interesting. The small chromatic movement helps the listener make sense of the weird chords that are going on (because the Coltrane chord progressions have a II-V-I in each of the three keys and whatnot).
Speaking of the II-V-I progressions in those keys: here is one more thing. It's possible to see a tritone movement there that evokes the tritone substitute.
Here is why. Consider the II-V-I in the key of C, where I is C. Now consider II-V-I in the key of E. What is the II note? It is G♭. That is exactly a tritone away from C.
So it's like we have a circle of fourths with tritones thrown in: D-G-C-G♭-E♭-A♭-... 4, 4, ♯4, 4, 4, ♯4, .. (if we do the key changes in that direction).
I use this as a trick to find the chords on the guitar fretboard.
The tritone has musical implications though, too. Suppose we alter the CM7 landing note to C7 and also change the G♭m7 II chord of E to G♭7. Then we have a note-sharing tritone root movement between two dominant chords.
If you slow down a song enough you will make it easy enough for anyone ha the tempo is part of the challenge!
Sure. It's also true that if you speed anything up enough it becomes impossible for anybody to play. But neither of those reductio ad absurdum observations tells us much.
The point is that this Vox presentation and many other articles on the Coltrane changes present them as so revolutionary that improvisers struggle, but on its own that's not true.
There are records which predate Giant Steps which are equally harmonically interesting and challenging and which similarly modulate through many key centers, like Con Alma [1] by Dizzy Gillespie from 1954 or Lush Life [2] by Billy Strayhorn from 1948.
What Coltrane did with Giant Steps was akin to calling for Lush Life at 300 beats per minute.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLUyVyM626A
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqTDm34vyj0
"Everyone thinks Coltrane wrote that, he didn’t. It’s Slonimsky. That book started all the jazz guys improvising in 12-tone. Coltrane carried that book around till the pages fell off."
-- Quincy Jones
https://archive.is/yfQpJ
Isn't this basically just mirror image of this?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths
From the second paragraph:
> At its core, the drawing is the circle of fifths, familiar to most musicians. Coltrane's version fills in the circle with chromatic scales...
These visual aids will make a musician of you the way a slide rule will make you an engineer.
Giant steps is a triangle, Central Park west is a square
Maybe this works as review for people who already know it, but it seems like it might be overwhelming for beginners. Learning to recognize 2-5-1 when you hear it in a song might be a better way to start?
Despite taking piano lessons as a kid, I was in college before I learned to recognize 12-bar blues whenever I heard it. That's pretty late, but you're part of the lucky 10,000 whatever day you learn.
https://xkcd.com/1053/
This stuff is completely irrelevant if you haven't gotten at least proficient at Bebop and blues. Following the career trajectory of musicians around that era is a good way to build up to those types of music. You start with swing in the 20s and 30, bebop in the 30s and 40s, post-bop and modal jazz in the 50s, then the weird Coltrane changes and free jazz and stuff like that later. I tried really hard to learn those Coltrane patterns when I was first starting off with Jazz but if you don't have much improvisational vocabulary, especially over 251s you will be doing 10x as much work
dat dude sounds half the time like complete nonsense and then like jazz and blues ... he has so very few out of the box moments, ... is what I thought a few days ago .. and just now I remembered he's one of them fellas who made that box before there was one
[dead]
[flagged]
It’s 2026 and you’re obviously a bot
Cool, but I was expecting it to make sound.
https://eznj.github.io/coltrane/
Me too, especially after I got the notification to play drm media. It was just for an apple music embed though...
https://eznj.github.io/coltrane/