youtube jam

Barney

i a bit new to doing stuff on vid but done this the other day and thought i would upload it ....the sound isnt great cos its just the phone mic
anyway its just a little jam over a backing track in a fusiony style....i think..!

viz

Nice bit of Dorian there Barn.

Barney

Thanks Viz...is that what it is..

viz

Haha ... yep! But something tells me you knew that

Barney

viz;224851" said:

Haha ... yep! But something tells me you knew that

Haha....yeah sort of but didnt really set out to play dorian , but it is comfortable mode for me though...

thomasross20

I watched this last night - very good!

Barney

thomasross20;225922" said:

I watched this last night - very good!

Thanks for listening

Branshen

@viz, Been through this a million times by now, but how do you tell he's in dorian? Arent the notes of D-dorian exactly the same as the notes in C-Ionian? Is it because the emphasis of his licks is on the ii?

viz

@Branshen, yes they use the same notes, but no, not because of that. Modes are confusing because we think of them as modes not scales, but we shouldn't. I think of it like this: It's like the word AEGILOPA (an ulcer of the eye). Uniquely in our alphabet, Aegilopa has all the letters in ascending order, starting and ending on an A. Like a scale. Took me ages to find this word, I love it.

There's also a word EGILOPAE, which is an old French ingredient for a flour-based recipe. It happens to be the 2nd mode of Aegilopa, because it uses the same letters, but starts and ends on E, the 2nd letter. But the most important thing is - it is a word in its own right. By the way, astonishingly, every 'mode' of Aegilopa is a word with a unique meaning. Unbelievable eh?

Now Dorian is a scale with the unique charateristic that its intervals are tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone. There is no other scale with that characteristic. It's like Aegilopa is the only word with intervals of 4, 2, 2, 3, 3, 1, 11. Even though there are 462 scales possible, the only one with those intervals is the Dorian scale. It's a minor scale, like the Natural Minor scale but with a raised 6th (or like the Melodic Minor scale with a flat 7th). OK, it also happens to be the 2nd mode of the Ionian scale, which is TTsTTTs. But Dorian is a scale in its own right. It can start on any note. If it starts on D, then it happens to use the same notes as the Ionian scale in C would. That's because it happens to be the 2nd mode of Ionian, like Egilopae is the 2nd mode of Aegilopa. But that's incidental. The important thing is it's a scale with TsTTTsT, it's used over a minor key and it has a sweet, sharp flavour due to that raised 6th.

The Barn's song is "in C Dorian". How do you know this? Because:

First of all it's in C. The whole round is repeated in C. The bass starts on C and the final chord is in C. It's like Aegilopa is "in A".

Next it's in C MINOR. You can tell from the first backing chord which has a minor 3rd not a major 3rd (an E flat not an E natural).

Then on Barney's 4th and 5th notes of his beautiful solo, he uses his pinky and ring finger on the B string. These are the VII and VI notes of the key he's in (C minor). They are an A and a B flat. If he'd used the middle finger instead of ring, and played an A flat for the VI note, he would have been playing in Natural Minor, which has an A flat in it - it's called a natural VI. (It's the Aeolian scale - it also happens to be the 6th mode of the Ionian scale (or the 5th mode of the Dorian scale by the way). But it's a scale in its own right too!) If instead he'd have raised the pinky a fret (so a sharp VII), he'd have been playing in Melodic Minor, which is not one of the modes of TTsTTTs, because it's TsTTTTs, which you can't get from any revolution of TTsTTTs. It's a new family of scales. If he'd have raised that pinky AND lowered the ring finger, he'd have been playing in Harmonic Minor (TsTTs 1.5 s). This is also not in the TTsTTTs family, and is in another family yet again.

Since he was using a natural, unraised VII pinky, and a raised VI ring finger, he was playing a scale which had TsTTTsT, in C, with an A and a B flat - hey presto, he's playing in C Dorian. And it's as sweet and sharp-tasting as any good Dorian piece should be. Not as sugary as if it had been in harmonic minor, but not as sharp as if it had been in melodic minor. And certainly not as plain mournful as if it had been in aeolian. A sort of sweet chilli saucy dorian flavour.

The fact that that happens to use the same notes as the B flat Ionian scale is completely irrelevant.

This is why I have referred to them as scales and not modes throughout this waffle. The fact that one is a mode of another is just irrelevant. I don't go around saying Egilopae is a mode of Aegilopa. Oh no indeed not. I say Egilopae is an antiquated french word for an ingredient in a flour-based recipe.

Branshen

@viz I will try to digest this when I have a guitar on my lap.

Alternatively, over a C-minor progression, I suppose one could use C Phrygian or Aeolian? 

viz

Yep indeedy.

Bellycaster

Lovely playing there, Barney. I think viz may need a lie down to get his strength back.

Barney

Bellycaster;227795" said:

Lovely playing there, Barney. I think viz may need a lie down to get his strength back.

Thanks for listening ..:)....yeah Viz must be exhausted after that explanation. ..all makes perfect sense though..

viz

Knackered still. Typed it with my thumbs.

ChrisMusic

Very, very nicely put @viz.  And really quite succinct for an in depth explanation with a really good analogy.

For anyone who takes the time to read and digest, it really does capture the essence IMO.

But what on earth were you doing looking for Aegilopa though, an unusual use of spare time ?

viz

Thanks! I just had a hunch that there must be an 8-letter word that starts and ends on the same letter with all the other letters ascending so I just started looking! It was not easy ......

citizen68

Larvly legatoing

Barney

citizen68;228868" said:

Larvly legatoing

Thanks...:)

Barney

Thought I would put this here ..its a slow blues..:)