Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

[Marcel]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

I can't remember what famous player said this , but it really hits home for me....."learn everything you can, then forget about it and just play." I believe in this because music isn't a recipe or chemical formula..... it's nice to know all the ingredients, it's also nice to mix them up into your own creation.

how true!

[Guitar Toad]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

I saw where it was said about Charlie Parker, that Bird's genius, the thing that he brought to jazz was his ability to improvize. They said he had the ability to take any note in the scale over the chord being played and he could make any note fit.

How do you do that? Is it simply a matter of surrounding that note or any note with R-3-5 tones from the local chord?

If your improvizing, and you know what's coming up, do you think in terms of notes because you've memorized the notes of all the scales? Or do you know where the R-3-5-7 tones are via the scale boxes on the fretboard? Or Do you know the formula for every scale and mode, and you can simply work out the scale you need from any starting note? or It's second nature to you now and you just do it, pure experience has taught you? You let your ears be your guide. you know what notes need to be played and your hands and ears know where they are?

From high school I can figure out the sine, cosine and tanget of the 30, 60 right triangle. I haven't memorized the values but I remember the hypotenuse one side of the triangle has a length of 1, the other side is the square root of three and the hypotenuse is 2. I can visualize it. I'm inclined to use the same methodology by incorporating the scale box patterns, but the helps horizontally, I need a method for working vertically up and down the neck. I don't have a problem from the nut to the 5th fret, but from 7 to 12 I kinda get lost. It'll probably come in time as I play in that region more.

[tone4days]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

one way to bust out of ruts thinking up and down the neck (as opposed to across the neck in one position) is to limit yourself to playing on one string ... improvise against a chord progression (or an entire tune) this way ... you can make it easier on yourself to start by getting a progression in C major (or one of its modes) and improvise by choosing only from the notes C D E F G A and B ... and no bending more than a half step ... get the feel for the intervals in your ears ... do it on each string ... you can go back and do toher keys as you advance .. i like this because it kinda gives you 'wormholes' to slip between the positions you might already know (i think you call them boxes)

of course, onceyou get this under your fingers, you will be as facile at zipping about up and down as easily as back and forth ... will give you true 2-d freedom on the fretboard

good luck
t4d

[Osensei]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

I saw where it was said about Charlie Parker, that Bird's genius, the thing that he brought to jazz was his ability to improvize. They said he had the ability to take any note in the scale over the chord being played and he could make any note fit.

Please bare with me!

From our earlier discussion, we have seen how the domain of any given dom7 chord is practically a chromatic scale. Surely all chord types can be viewed as having similar domain/scale family types. From these domains we can easily discover which modes are compatible with a given chord. The idea is cool because it reveals modes that people would not normally consider for a given chord. But knowing which notes to play is only one aspect of improvisation/composition.

Music, as traditionally defined is a combination of several elements. Namely, they include harmony, pitch and rhythm. Our discussion up to know has only dealt with pitch. Keep in mind that none of these elements are totally independent from one another. In this way rhythm and pitch are combined to create melody. Rhythm and harmony are also combined to form accompaniment.

It is the concept of rhythm when combined with pitch that gives us the tools with which we construct melodic ideas. It is within this context that we must begin to explore the idea of melodic motif. The art of creating motifs envolve the use of sequence or repetition of key elements of phrases among other things. We can simply call these restatements within melodic motifs. These restatements can either be literal or relative. A literal restatement would be to replay the motif (remember pitch combined with rhytm) verbatim. A figurative restatement would be to replay the motif but transpose its second occurance up or down by a certain interval - let's say a minor third just for grins. The second motif in the latter example therefore would not be an exact copy of the first. It quite often is even in a different modality than the one it was cloned from. The repetition can continue up or down in sequence if you like!

The next time you listen to some music see if you can pick out the use of this technique! Sometimes the motifs are repeated, but the pitches are not related! Rather only an underlying rhythmic motif is restated. Freeing up the improvisor or composer to use any pitches they choose in the restatement! In this instance the focus of the repetition therefore is on the rhythm rather than the pitch and rhythm. You see!

So what does this have to do with Parker being able to play any note against a chord! Well the motifs (rhythm and pitch) form a GROOVE! Once you have the listener captured in a GROOVE then you could play the friggin chromatic scale and nobody would care! As long as its GROOVIN!

[Guitar Toad]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

Just play! Establish a feel with the song and go with it. Just like that?! That's it. Alrighty then. I wonder if he visualized the notes on a musical staff, and just was genius enough that he didn't really have to think about what he was doing, he just played it.

T4D- Thanks for the reminder on the single string focus. Sometimes I sit down to do that, then the next thing I know I end up all over. I need to be a bit more disciplined and force myself to stick with that part of my practice. Thanks for the kind reminder.

I think the more I play, the better my ear gets. I've been playing the vocal lines to some Ray Charles tunes. This exercise is really a great help for ear training. I have an older Ray Charles, Brother Ray's Blues, he is fabulous. I know that's not a news flash. He's soul and he is blues. He's a musical phenomenon. Great stuff. There's a reason they call him genius.

[Osensei]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

Just play! Establish a feel with the song and go with it. Just like that?! That's it. Alrighty then. I wonder if he visualized the notes on a musical staff, and just was genius enough that he didn't really have to think about what he was doing, he just played it.

There are a couple of schools of thought. One is based on theoretical analysis. I think you'll find more youngsters prefer this method. The old timers from Charlie Parker's era generally practiced the art of keeping the songs melody in their heads and improvising around the songs melody!

I can't say what Parker was thinking, obviously! However, there is a good chance that he used the latter of those two methods.