Mode chord discussion

Okay so melody involves alot...

chord tones
support tones
line direction/motion (stepwise,skip or leap)
decorations (how many of these are there?)
note duration
dynamics
contour <--

and probably a million more things too....

How the heck am I supposed to memorize it all and improvise a melody in the moment? Especially if the changes are fast and furious? How the heck do people do it???

I am not a computer (clearly :lol: ) nor am I a robot (beep beep)...

:evil: = angry kitty
:twisted: = evil kitty

^what's up with those emoticons?

"No kitty,that's a bad kitty"...

I guess the answer is that you don't really memorize it, you internalize it. It's every bit as complicated as you make it out to be, but you get it in steps.

It's like that open E chord - when you first learned it, you had to place one finger at a time, check to make sure they were all on the right strings, make sure you were pressing far enough, get yourself mentally set... and then you'd strum. Now I'll bet it's E chord - bang, there you are.

Yeah, it helps to be aware of the chord tones, and when you start soloing (or really start working at soloing) you'll be focused on them. Later on you'll just hear them.

Support tones establish the mode, but over time you get the 'feel' of them, and you don't worry so much about them, they're just there.

Duration and dynamics both affect the sound of a solo, but they're also internalized.

Ornamentation / decoration... it's something that 'decorates' your solo, to be sure, but it's the gravy, not the meat. There's a lot of decorations, from the baroque keyboard techniques like mordents and trills to things you might consider decorative like slides and bends. If the underlying melody is strong, decorations are nice extras - and if the melody is weak, they won't fix it.

Line direction... yeah, that's something I definately think about when I solo. Contour, definately. But you'll find as you go along that solos go through some stages:

1. The "I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing" stage. You've got a pattern you've memorized, and you're banging out notes from it. It might not sound bad, but it probably doesn't sound good. You're playing with your brain at this point, working your memory.

2. The "I think I know what I'm doing" stage. You've got that pattern down. You can zip around it up, down, and sideways. Your technical chops are developing, and you're paying attention to chord tones... chord tone, little run, chord tone, zip up and down a fast scale... you're playing with your fingers at this point. Now it sounds like you play guitar, but you wish you could visualize what you were doing better... it feels mechanical a lot more often than you'd like.

3. Zen. Ok, I'm skipping a bit of development here, but when you're technically sound and you know what you want, you'll figure out a way to get from A to B eventually. Maybe you think of solos and vocalize them while you play. Maybe you take an analytical approach and take apart other people's solos, try their licks on similar chords, alter notes and see how it sounds. One day it'll click (frustratingly, you'll dance back and forth between this and the previous stage for a long time, but the first time it happens you'll know what's possible and you'll never want to settle for less!). Your mind thinks a line, your fingers play it. You don't worry about the scale, you have the melody in your mind, and it will direct you in where you go. It's no longer about memory, theory, technique, or anything else - at this stage you play from the heart.

I've found that when I hit that zone, music just comes out. Lines that would trip me up if I was sight reading them in practice end up being nearly effortless. You play beyond your limitations. You play what comes.

My first trip to the edge of that zen feeling came when I'd been playing for about 4-5 years. It was overwhelming... I had trouble breathing. If I could think it, I could play it. I didn't get another experience like that for another couple of years, and it wasn't until I'd played a good 20-25 years that I could get there with any regularity. I'm still not there every time I play, which keeps me pushing for it - I want to... no, I NEED to be that good.

Don't try to learn everything at once; what you're working on learning, learn completely. When it passes from being 'information to remember' to 'knowledge you own', you don't worry about it anymore.

Okay let's go all the way back to the C Major Scale over an Am chord (sans any melody).Okay we'll reorder the notes to begin and end on A so that we'll be playing the root position A Aeolian pattern over an open Am chord.Okay let's say my buddy "the tape recorder" is playing the Am and I run the scale up and back from A to A and back.There's no melody.Or is there? OBVIOUSLY there's NOT but the support tones are there.

So am I hearing the sound of the mode?

And then If I run the A Dorian or A Phrygian over the same Am chord am I not hearing the difference in sound?

Are not the support tones present in each and therefore I'm atleast getting a sense of how those modes SOUND?

I know I don't even need the Am chord backing if I'm immediately switching from one of them to another.But let's say I play one,go smoke a cigarette,play another,go have another smoke,and then come back and play the last one? (I don't smoke but you get the point?) Okay and I've played each one against the Am backing chord.

I heard three different modes,right? (I know I'm not "USING THEM",okay?)
^How much of that is due to their different steps and how much of that is because of the fact that the support tones are present?

If I junk the 4th and 5th am I not going to hear them anymore?(referring to the modes mentioned)

:roll: am I asking the right "stupid questions" yet or am I just simply asking stupid questions?? :lol:

You're definately on to something, Derp.

A scale is a melody, albeit a very simple one. We've heard enough scales in our lifetime that we're expecting the next pitch, and associating the scale with the root.

When you play the C notes from A to A (with or without chord backing) you're hearing the Aeolian mode. The reason you're hearing it is the arrangement of steps that makes it the Aeolian mode instead of any of the other modes are being presented to the ear sequentially. You get all the building blocks in logical sequence.

If you just play the scalewise mode and junk the 4th or 5th, you'll hear some ambiguity... if you play CDEGABC, your ear will hear Ionian, because it's most familiar - although it could be in Lydian, you don't hear the note that would give you the Lydian sound. If you play Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, or Aeolian, the notes that identify the mode will be present - so scalewise you'll hear the modal sound even without the fourth and fifth. You'll lose that sense when you depart from the scale and bulid a melody.

When you play the tones non-sequentially, as in a melody, your ear needs a reference to tell what mode you're in - because the tones are the same in all the C major modes.

Verbal analogies are tough for this sort of thing, because you need to hear it... but here goes: let's say we have an alphabet containing the letters AENOSTW, and we decide that's got seven modes, each one starting with a different letter. If you see NOSTWAE you'd know you were in the 'N' mode... so the alphabet, or scalewise presentation, is easy to identify.

The word SNOW would be in the S mode, EAST would be in the E mode, etc. - so short phrases will also be easy to keep 'in mode'.

It's when you put the elements together and say NOW EAST SNOW WENT... you've lost the modal center. Every phrase of that 'solo' taken by itself would be in a different mode. To make a coherent solo of SON SAW STONE STEW takes careful arrangement of the elements so you'd hear it and say 'aha - that's in the S mode'.

It's not a direct analogy, because words don't translate directly to music - but if you think of the initial letters as the supporting tone set of root, fourth, fifth, maybe the idea comes across...

Ha Ha that was cool. 8)

That was a helpful post!
If you just play the scalewise mode and junk the 4th or 5th, you'll hear some ambiguity... if you play CDEGABC, your ear will hear Ionian, because it's most familiar - although it could be in Lydian, you don't hear the note that would give you the Lydian sound. If you play Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, or Aeolian, the notes that identify the mode will be present - so scalewise you'll hear the modal sound even without the fourth and fifth. You'll lose that sense when you depart from the scale and bulid a melody.

When you play the tones non-sequentially, as in a melody, your ear needs a reference to tell what mode you're in - because the tones are the same in all the C major modes.

That makes perfect sense. :P

===

Tom,

When you gave your 'proper modes usage' example in an earlier post you switched between C Ionian and C Lydian.

Is this considered a key change or a mode change?

Or does it depend on the circumstances?

...actually this is one of those questions that has been nagging me for some time to the point of getting in my way and holding me back! (I've heard conflicting things on this and it's bugging me)...

I would surely like to know the answer to this one if you could help me out it'd really help.It'd be a huge relief to me to know instead of being in limbo on this.

modes dont really count as "keys", thats major and minor..

it would be changing the mode, so it would be a mode change (scale change, however you want to look at it)

it would be a change in modality, not necaserily harmony or tonality.

It's both, Derp.

Each key has seven modes. When you switch from C Ionian to C Lydian, you're changing modes, of course, but you're also changing keys from C to G. If it's just for a couple of bars, the notation would be done with accidentals, but if you're changing to C Lydian for a number of measures, the key signature would most likely change.

If you keep the same root and change modes, you're changing keys - if you keep the same key and change modes, you're changing roots. It's mutually exclusive.

Okay so from an improvisational standpoint when can you do this?
Only over chromatic chords?

I mean I understand melodies are written and then harmonized accordingly.But from an improv standpoint you have a set of pre-set changes to adlib over so it's the opposite in that the chords come first.

So would this type of parallel mode change only apply to out of key chords then? In an improv situation?

thanks

You could do it on chords that are in key, but you'd have to be careful about which chords.

Playing in C, the Lydian mode has the F# - Against a C, Em, or G you'll have the F# against G, so you'll have tension that you want to resolve. Against F or Dm you'll have the F# against F, so there will be a lot of tension that's difficult to resolve. Against Bº you'll have the tension against the F, but you'll also have tension inherent in the chord which is going to resolve somewhere, so you might be able to exploit that... and against Am the F# you won't have any inherent problems.

Dissonance isn't a bad thing - in fact, it's essential in a good solo. The key is in building and resolving the dissonances.

Man....thanks gazillions for all this,Tom! :)

I think I'll go off and "try" to comprehend some of this now and see if I can absorb some of it and hopefully (maybe?) implement some of it...

:shock: Boy,music is ever the challenge,I tell ya...it's crazy!

8) you're the coolest

Tom and everyone,

Does anyone object to turning all of this thread into an article for publication?

No objections from my end, Nick

Hey it's no skin off my nose.Do whatever you want with it Nick!

Please, Nick, do it.

It''ll save me having to download an reorganise all the pages, into something coherent