Sam Spoons wrote:Did I think of G7 with a 13th in the melody or G mixolydian? No I just played it. My ear tells me which are the right notes, which are the wrong notes and which are the right wrong notes and which are the wrong wrong notes (but I may be wrong ).
If you got through the bridge of Ipanema by ear then, no, you don't need modes. It is a perfectly valid way to learn jazz -- learn the standards and solos by your favourite players.
There's no such thing as a wrong note -- only a wrong line.
Paraphrasing that "in Jazz you are never more than a semitone away from the right note"
What I mean is there are some 'outside' notes that sound bad, others that sound good, but, as you infer, that's often to do with context. WRT improvising, I hear the chords and, in my mind, I hear the notes I want to play. Where it goes pear shaped is that the connection between mind and fingers is not always 100% reliable which, I guess, could be solved by more practice
I have been playing it on and off for 45 years since I had a restaurant residency in the mid '70s so I ought to be able to do a 'Kenny G'* with it at least.
The recording was done in my home studio with the drums added by said 'luddite drummer' but to all intents and purposes it was done live with each part (I played both guitars and bass) done in a single take (but not always the first take) so it's pretty much how I'd have played it on a gig.
* I've always struggled to move my playing from that 'elevator jazz' feel to 'proper' jazz which is one of the reasons I'm so interested in modes and such.
Sam Spoons wrote:
I hear the chords and, in my mind, I hear the notes I want to play. Where it goes pear shaped is that the connection between mind and fingers is not always 100% reliable which, I guess, could be solved by more practice
I'm pretty much the same, I can do some killer solos in the bath or in bed, but as soon as the fingers get involved I just can't transmit from brain to hand fast enough.
But other than that I am with you in that the ear drives me rather than thinking what mode should I be using.
merlyn wrote:That's fine for diatonic chord progressions. But take The Girl from Ipanema as an example. You might find yourself playing this tune
I take your point here, though my example was of course specifically a dominant 7th rather than any other 7th chord. I can see that your chord/scale approach might be useful as a learning/analysis tool. However this doesn't make the music modal at all - it is still firmly tonal.
Always a joy to play or hear The Girl From Ipanema by the way.
I love modes and I love this topic. Effective use of modes can make music sound very refreshing. I see many people struggling to understand the point of modes, or the difference between a mode and a scale. While I'm not an authority on music theory, I can contribute some of my own insights. Feel free to disagree! (And yes, it's too long, but hopefully somewhat interesting!)
As for the point to modes: I think it was nicely demonstrated in the "girl from Ipanema" conversation. Modes in some ways function more or less exactly like scales. First of all, they are just a collection of notes with a name and a given distribution of tones and semitones, they provide a path from one point in a melody to another as someone described it. Second, typically some notes in a mode or scale are considered more "important" than others: e.g. the first, third, fifth note would e.g. occur more often on strong beats, whereas other notes like the second or the seventh would come more often on weaker beats. Tunes will often start and end with the first note of a scale or mode they are written in. In that sense, this first note of a given scale/mode can be considered the most important one, the one that a tune continuously gravitates to (unless it modulates to a different scale along the way). Because different modes have a different distribution of tones and semitones, the resulting melodies with important (first,third,fifth) notes on strong beats and other notes on weaker beats will have a different "color". This relates to the comparison of modes with spices in one of the conversations before. To put it differently (oversimplification to make a point): a tune in C major and a tune in D dorian would use the exact same white notes on the piano, but the tune in C major would start and end with a c note and use many e and g notes on strong beats, and the tune in D dorian would start and end on d note instead and use many f notes and a notes on stronger beats. The resulting melody has a very different character.
As for the difference between modes and scales: in what are typically called (diatonic) scales, there are some properties that you don't find in modes, and which can influence how you write music with them. One of these properties is a "leading tone": a note that naturally gravitates towards the first (most important) note of the scale. In a melody made of tones and semitones, the semitones usually resolve to their "nearest neighbor" (i.e. a semitone down or up). In C major melodies, the note f (fourth note) often resolves to e (third note, more important), and the note b (seventh note) usually resolves to note c (first note, most important). This latter resolution b->c is important because c is the first note of the C major scale, so in light of the previous paragraph where I said the first note of the scale is the most important one, b naturally resolving to c is a very powerful combination to establish the C major scale in the listener's mind. If you look at harmony (chords), the way to establish to a listener that we're in a given scale is to write a "cadence". A very common cadence is ii - V - I, where the V-I also uses the leading tone to provide a satisfying conclusion to a phrase. (ii - V - I means building triads on the second, fifth and first scale degree, so in C major that could be the chords <d f a> <d g b> <e g c>) In a natural minor scale, there's no leading tone leading to the tonic, so composers of the past would artificially introduce one, leading to the harmonic and melodic minor scales, so they could again write satisfying cadences.
Now if you take any of the other modes (dorian, phrygian, etc) you don't have a leading tone naturally leading to the first, most important, note, and the cadences you get by writing a ii - V - I therefore sound less powerful/convincing. In such modes, you can either learn to live with a weaker cadence (perfectly possible), or you can search for alternative ways to establish the mode, which exploit the location of the semitones relative to the important notes of the mode. In such approach, you can bascially throw out a lot of what you know about traditional harmony rules, and restart from scratch (entire books have been written about this subject). So I hope this gives a feeling of why modes and scales are different: a lot of music theory related to cadences and modulation that has been developed for diatonic scales requires some adaptation/rethinking to work for modes.
If we count all the transpositions of modes based on tempered tuning then it's about the same.
There are seven modes of the major scale, seven of the melodic minor, seven of the harmonic minor, two of the diminished scale and one of the whole tone scale.
Those five scales cover most jazz/pop harmony. We now have 24 different step patterns and each of those can start on any one of 12 notes :
I suspect the first thing you'll discover is that 'Indian' music covers several really quite different traditions and heritages. You'll need plenty of time for your exploration.
I would reserve 'scale' for the underlying step pattern that the modes are derived from. So 'major' is a scale, 'dorian' is a mode. 'melodic minor' is a scale, 'super locrian' is a mode.
The question is then is C dorian a different mode from D dorian?
Not really, so to avoid confusion I think I would revise my terminology to 120 transpositions of 10 modes.
EDIT :
BJG145 wrote:Oh, OK, so you're doing calculations about tempered tuning ...
Your point was valid. I used 'tempered tuning' to differentiate from Indian music which can be microtonal -- e.g. a sitar has movable frets, so the possibilities could get seriously out of hand
blinddrew wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:35 pm
I suspect the first thing you'll discover is that 'Indian' music covers several really quite different traditions and heritages. You'll need plenty of time for your exploration.
I should have started during lockdown, when I had time on my hands
blinddrew wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:35 pm
I suspect the first thing you'll discover is that 'Indian' music covers several really quite different traditions and heritages. You'll need plenty of time for your exploration.
Tbh I try to fill myself with less theory as possible.
I was never gifted in any sense musically.
Theory would just clog me up frazzle me.
At the same time I can appreciate the complex to the simple to even atonal as Arnold Schoenberg.
blinddrew wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:35 pm
I suspect the first thing you'll discover is that 'Indian' music covers several really quite different traditions and heritages. You'll need plenty of time for your exploration.
I once sent a chum a youtube link of one the notable elderly Indian vocal singers.
This particular improvisation by the elderly gent was one of my favourite Raaga known as Raaga Darbari.
This chum said it sounded like a drunk warbling
The major scale has a tritone between the IV and VII degrees. Hence each mode of the major scale contains that same tritone, but in a different position relative to its modal tonal centre. Taking C major as an example:
C Ionian (major), tritone between IV (F) and VII (B)
D Dorian, tritone between bIII (F) and VI (B)
E Phrygian, tritone between bII (F) and V (B)
F Lydian, tritone between I (F) and #IV (B)
G Mixolydian, tritone between bVII (F) and III (B)
A Aeolian, tritone between bVI (F) and II (B)
B Locrian, tritone between bV (F) and I (B)
Because it's the same tritone, it wants to resolve to the same interval (i.e. the major third on the I of the parent major). Preventing that from happening is the key (no pun intended) to staying within a particular mode, rather than "falling through" to the parent major scale. In other words, as the functional V7-I is the essence of tonality, so avoiding it - though it lurks within - is the essence of modality.
(Just in case you're not completing the conceptual circle, observe that the note we think of as giving each mode its unique flavour is always one or other of the two scale tones comprising the diatonic tritone - the natural sixth of Dorian (B), the raised fourth of Lydian (B), the flat second of Phrygian (F), the flat seventh of Mixolydian (F), etc. In the case of the Ionian mode, of course, it's both).
tea for two wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 7:55 am
Approximately 200 Modes yes 200 in Indian music.
I had a look into this and I think you mean there are over 200 ragas. A raga isn't exactly a mode as we understand it -- there is more to it. It's a vehicle for improvisation and includes melodic phrases. A parallel would be a jazz standard which is also a vehicle for improvisation, but the parallel is not exact as a raga is not a song or a melody.
There are scales called thaats that are a way of classifying ragas. Probably important to think about it that way round -- the raga comes first and the thaat is used to classify the raga. In the northern tradition there are ten thaats and on the raga Wikipedia page there is notation for nine :
You can see Indian music has its own solfege. The practice is to use flats (komal) for all scale degrees except the fourth which can be natural or sharp (tivra). When all scale degrees are natural we have ... the major scale. Coincidence or what? Or maybe people like the sound of that one.
Not a very satisfying name -- it's merely a description as this step pattern doesn't appear in any of the major or minor scales we are familiar with. It could also be :
Purvi : Blues scale with an added natural seventh.
To see how Purvi contains a blues scale I've started on the natural seventh. It's easier to think of it as C# blues scale : C# E F# G G# B C# + C natural (B# spelling it correctly).
Purvi could also be thought on as chromatic enclosures (i.e. the semi tone above and the semitone below) around the root and fifth + the major third
Marva : Lydian b2 or
Marva : Blues scale with added b2
In this case it's F# blues scale -- F# A B C C# E F# + G
Again a merely descriptive name. Todi could be thought on as the minor version of Purvi -- chromatic enclosures around the root and fifth + the minor third.
The tenth thaat is Khamaj : Mixolydian.
I have also seen Bhairav given as the double harmonic which you will know the sound of from Miserlou, the theme from Pulp Fiction.
If you turn these scales/modes/thaats/pool of notes to improvise with into sound then you've left the realm of theory and moved into practice. To get a feel for them every time there's a semitone bend up to it. Shakti have a track India which is bendtastic.
).
It is a perfectly valid way to learn jazz -- learn the standards and solos by your favourite players.
