Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

[Osensei]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

Modes are cool as long as they are kept in their proper context. The problem is that a lot of guys that preach modal playing put entirely too much emphasis on the concept.

I wish I had a nickel for everytime I hear some guy grab an axe and play a straight scale verbatim with a bunch of bends and harmonics thrown in and have the audacity to call it a solo! Yes it may sound cool at first but it gets to be old hat after awhile. If you had a job at a guitar store you would see what I mean! There has to be a thousand guys a day that walk into a shop and play this stuff with distortion boxes and phase shifters and every effect you can care to name and wonder why they don't have a recording contract!

It's very much like a Zen thing! The trick is to use modes in such a way that it isn't obvious that this is what you're doing! Sorta like playing modes without playing modes!

Not saying that this is what the previous poster is elluding to but you have to be aware of the pitfalls.

[Osensei]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

You guys really should read Toads previous topic before commenting. I think it will help shed some light on what he's refering to concerning his use of modes and stuff. It's probably not what you're thinking.

[YJM_Rocks]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

To me, modes are really only important for setting up one or two chord vamps. Going beyond a one or two chord vamp, I feel that you're really not sitting in a mode or certain type of sound anymore, making modal scales a little out of place. At that point, it's all about target notes and just playing from your heart/mind. At the same time, using the theory derived tools to make sure you play from your heart/mind well.

When the mode or tonal center of the music changes, you change your mode too.

[Osensei]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

When the mode or tonal center of the music changes, you change your mode too.

Yeah! When the song has two chords in it. Try keeping up when you play a style where chords change every two beats or so with key changes all over the place. And do it double time while your at it.

When I perform I want to be relaxed so I can enjoy what I'm doing. I don't want to have to fight my way through the performance goin Lydian, Mixolydian and Phrygian in my head trying to keep up with a thousand chord per minute changes.

It's easy for metalist and rockers to go, "Oh yeah! Modes man!". When you have a week to solo on a single chord it easy isn't it? Try some fast moving II-V-I's! Most cats can't do it! That's a fact!

[Fretology]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

I look at modes as a way to learn the sonic differences of "each" tone related to others within a particular key. You have to learn it....you'll be better at chords/harmony and melody by being armed with this sonic knowledge.....you will have spent years perfecting your ears and you'll know what tone sounds good either by itself or against another tone..... so like others have said, you will be able to just "forget and play". However, telling some new kid to just forget and play might tend to confuse him into thinking he doesn't have to learn what to forget. There is a reason to learning the things within the music theory realm.

But after you learn it, the "forgetting it" part is not that you forgot it but rather it has become an innate part of you and what you know and thus it has become automatic.

[Guitar Toad]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

This is what I said in my introduction:

A more important and better focus is to learn chording and chord construction to enable chord tone melody and solo improvisation. After that is learned, then one may begin discussion and thinking about modes.

My error, as much as I can tell, was to overlook chord construction and I attempted to jump straight into modes. I might have been better off to thoroughly work with the standard scales and chord theory before trying to jump straight to modes.

The following will be telling as to whether I've really learned anything or not: A musical composition is usually written in a Key, i.e. the key signature tells the key, not the mode of a song. The key provides some basic structure for the composition. Usually the key is for starting and ending the song. Modes, simply put, are the various voicing or mood that can be given to the key for the song. In the context of the song, don't be limited by the key signature, you can do what you want go where the song leads.

For the record, I recognize that chords, scales, and modes are inextricably linked together and really they cannot be separated. Again, I'm no expert, I'm no teacher of music, but, I'm thinking a better order for learning is the scales, really learn chord theory, then modes.

But, then again, none of us really like being told what we can and can't do. Who says you can't put modes first? Well okay you can. and perhaps you can handle it better than me.

I've seen it in more than one place, and in finally started to sink in, that new guitarists and those new to theory often times put undo emphasis on modes. Forget modes just for enough time to learn and understand chord tone melody and improvization. Then, go on to modes. That's really all that I'm saying. The thread title is probably a bit too sensational. But, I can't change it now.

[Fretology]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

Guitar Toad,

I can agree with that

[Guitar Toad]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

I look at modes as a way to learn the sonic differences of "each" tone related to others within a particular key. You have to learn it....you'll be better at chords/harmony and melody by being armed with this sonic knowledge.....you will have spent years perfecting your ears and you'll know what tone sounds good either by itself or against another tone.....

Man, that is so what I'm trying to do. I need to learn the tones. Get that hand, finger, brain tone linkage established.

I pushed chord theory aside because it appeared quite daunting and intimidating. Then, modes came across my path. I thought I could handle modes, and I think I can. But, I think if I had done the chord tones stuff first, I might have been better equipped to handle the proper use of modes.

I guess in a way it's two sides of the same coin. Chord/modes. Modes/chords. But, as I said earlier, modes like scales without chord building leaves the notes as random tones. Chord theory provides some structure to assembling and using the tones. I think I said that already.

[Osensei]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

Theory is valid period. Modes and scales are necessary period. It's in the actual application that many struggle with and come up lacking. Having pursued my degree in music education many years ago, I have had the pleasure to attend clinics in Universities across the country conducted by people whose autographs would earn me a fortune on eBay!

Once again, the application is the rub. I have seen many stand behind the podium and profess the utility of playing different modes against harmonic structures in the heat of improvisation. It is a perfectly legitimate concept. Nevertheless, all too often when demonstration time comes around many end up playing some Rock or Jazz/Rock Fusion where they get to ride a single chord for 10,000 measures.

When it comes to really complex progressions that pass by quickly, many would get lost if they were not prepared way in advance. By the time you pick which mode you're going to play the progression will have gone by and left you and modulated to a different key. If you are successful you might get three or four notes out of your mode before you have to change keys. To be honest the only cats I've seen during my life on the planet that truly convinced me that they could thread together modes in a non-rehearsed, realtime, harmonically complex environent include: Herbie Han****, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Pat Martino and Gary Burton. I'm sure there were many that would have gone on to meet their maker during that time.

All the rest of us mere mortals better have our leadsheets markedup to the max in advance. At least a sketch or solo template or something if we know the changes are gonna be complex.

[Guitar Toad]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

Cool! I think your main problem was with the key signature though. I remember you saying stuff like how can a Bb7 chord exist in Bb when the 7th in Bb is A and not Ab. I think what you failed to consider is that music seldom remains in the same key for long.

Based on your previous diatonic train of thought a Bb blues would literally be in the key of Bb. Actually, Bb7 is the 5 chord in Eb isn't it? So why do people call it a Bb blues? The answer is because it's simpler to say Bb blues. That way everyone knows that the first chord is Bb7. It's really no more complicated than that! It's a traditional thing.

The next chord would probably, according to tradition be Eb7. That's the 5 chord in Ab right? Just think of it as another key change. That would fit your diatonic view perfectly. In classical music key signature changes were notated in the score. In modern styles such notation is often skipped. You should be able to see that the key has changed by simply looking at the chords. Better yet don't worry about! Treat each chord as its own individual entity instead.

My problem before was like this. In the Am pentatonic, A Blues, and then playing an A7 (A,C#,E,G but since I'm talking blues I should say A,Db,E,G) there's no C#/Db unless you add in a natural 3. Which I have since learned is acceptable. The blues is free and accepting of additional notes as needed.

[Diego]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

I hear so many guys whos fingers are just playing patterns...over and over. Lew

Satch and Petrucci, to name a couple.

[Osensei]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

My problem before was like this. In the Am pentatonic, A Blues, and then playing an A7 (A,C#,E,G but since I'm talking blues I should say A,Db,E,G) there's no C#/Db unless you add in a natural 3. Which I have since learned is acceptable. The blues is free and accepting of additional notes as needed.

Good! I hope you realize by now that the A min pentatonic played over an A7 in an "A" blues does not indicate the key of the song is any different that what it started out to be. That happens to be A major.

Think of it like this. Suppose a song is in A major and a tone deaf singer gets up to the microphone and sings a bunch of wrong notes. That doesn't change they key of the song or modify the original chord progression does it? No! All it means is that the singer is simply in the wrong key (which, by the way, has nothing to do with theory).

Blues is sorta like that If you view it purely from the standpoint of classical music theory. By chosing an A min pentatonic you have created a controlled situation where you are purposely playing in the wrong key from the standpoint of classical theory.

So you must ask yourself this question: "When a poor black guy came home after a hard day's work in the late 1800's to early 20th century and picked up an old rusty guitar to play some blues he had ..."

A. been pickin cotton all day.
B. been studying Mozart.

Also please consider that the physics of Sir Isaac Newton is great for predicting where a ball shot from a canon might be expected to land. Once you delve into the world of subatomic particles however, Newtonian physics fails to make accurate predictions. That's why physicists developed Quantum Mechanics. It would be rediculous to try to apply Newtonian physics in an attempt to predict the behavior of gluons, neutrinos and quarks!

Likewise the theory that you have been studying was great for Mozart when everything was based on purely diatonic constructs and harmonies that never extentended beyond the first octave. That theory has since been updated so that it could more accurately describe musics from later periods in history that defy the original classical theory. The theory that describes Brahms, Wagner, Debussy and Copeland had to be updated from the original classical theory. In short there is an up-to-date music theory that accurately describes styles like blues and jazz that you haven't touched on yet.

Complete the theory that you are studying now, but use it for what it is ment to be used for. That is the study of musics that are obedient to the polite diatonic world of classical music and its basic concepts. Once you have a firm grasp on this "classical" theory then advance forward to modern music theory. It is there that you will find the explanation for styles like blues and jazz that you seek.

[Osensei]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

There is also one other key issue. The theory of the classical period dictated what could be played. Modern theoretical concepts only attempt to describe or analyze what has already been played.

The idea is to find a way to explain why something sounds good. This is done by either applying the current state of the art theory, stretching/reinterpreting the current theory to accomodate the description of the phenomenon, or developing a new more advanced theory to descibe it. This is done so the sound can be replicated or reproduced at will. If there is a cool sound then someone is going to come up with a name for it and a methodology for reproducing it. Therefore, theory becomes a living thing that evolves to conform to its environment.

Modern theoretical approaches are more scientific in that regard. You take a thing! You dissect it! You do controlled experiments with it! You observe the results and document your finding. This is just the opposite of classical thinking were a thing existed in it's current state because God ordained it to be so! They're approach to music was the same way! They had an official panel (the Manheim) that dictated what was musically "acceptable" based on strict diatonic guidelines. A panel of several men handed down the law for the whole western world!

If Mozart had played an F# against a Cmaj triad, then the powers that be woulda said, "Oh no! That cannot be!". The only other alternative would be for them to reinterpret their current theory and say, "Oh yes! That F# was simply a passing tone that quickly resolved back to the diatonics". Although I doubt that Mozart's contemporaries would be that leniant with him. In modern theory and its interpretation we would say, "Ah! An augmented 11th! Cool!". In fact, in classical times melodic intervals like the aug 4th were called the "Devil's" interval because to the ears of the classicists the sound it made was "Satanic".

[tone4days]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

osensei, you rock dude! thanks for all that ... too true indeed!

i thought the devil's interval was the 'minor second' ... how'd i get that wrong? of course the tritone makes more sense given that none of the partials blend nicely

cheers
t4d

ps - i am one of those dudes who can't play ii-Vs at ANY speed

[Osensei]

Re: Forget Modes - Advice That Set Me Free

LOL! You may be correct Tone! I remember my Form and Analysis instructor brought the "Devil's" interval to my attention when I used it in a fugue assignment. That was probably before some of you cats were born! LOL! So my memory might be less than fresh.