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Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
I'm pretty good on chord theory - which I find quite straight forward - but struggle to 'intellectualise' soloing.
I remember discovering Bb worked well against the V chord when playing a blues in A. I thought I may have discovered some clever mode - then figured out that it was the flattened 5th of the chord I was playing it over - in other words, it was just a 'blue note'.
I was quite disappointed....
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Hopefully you'll break me out out my pentatonic malaise!
Much appreciated.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Modes are generally taught in traditional music theory as being derived from a parent scale, examples: "The modes of the Major scale", "The modes of the Harmonic minor scale", "The modes of the Melodic minor scale". This relates modes to the most commonly taught music theory, Major-minor scales (used since around 1650).
Modern Modal music theory sees each scale as independent and distinct. Each scale having a character note(s), which can be used to create harmonic instability or omitted to create harmonic stability. Other types of Modal music includes: Plateau Modal, Vertical Modal, Linear Modal, non-diatonically related Modal and others. The commonality in complex Modern Modal music is that it avoids using traditional Major-minor music theory.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
when I saw your first reply to my second post, I thought "Oh poo! This is going to take yonks to read and understand" and I thought of quoting this from ny first post:
"Help in words of more than one syllable may not be understood."
(This next bit may read like an insult, it's not meant to be, although I can't think of any other way of saying this that may seem less like and insult so please bear with me.)
But having looked at it, as far as I can tell, much of the first part is irrelavent to my way of understanding my problems with modes. However, the "tstttst" bit does help. I have noticed that two of that list don't have 3 t's. Is this a typo?
As a simple explanation of what I now I understand modes and scales at the minute would be:
Of the C1 (Ionian Mode/Major Scale),
C2 is D Dorian Mode,
C3 is E Phrygian Mode,
C4 is F Lydian Mode,
C5 is G Myxolydian Mode,
C6 is A Aeolian Mode/relative natural minor scale,
C7 is the B Locrian Mode.
I think of the D1 Ionian Mode/Major Scale,
D2 is E Dorian Mode.
D3 is F Phrygian Mode.
D4 is G Lydian Mode.
D5 is A Myxolydian Mode.
D6 is B Aeolian Mode/relative natural minor scale.
D7 is C Locrian Mode.
And so on. Each Mode being useable as a scale in itself.
I also get what you say about how we can make up scales of our own using different TSST combinations from what the 'usual' scales have.
From what I think I understand of your explanation of why Modes can have raised notes or lowered notes without those notes actually being sharpened or flattened, is that, in your example the G myxolydian Mode would be taken from the C Ionian Mode/Major scale, NOT the G Ionian Mode/Major scale, and as the C Ionian/Major Scale does not have sharps or flats in it, then the G Myxolydian Mode can't have sharps or flats in it either. Consequently, the G Myxolydian Mode does not have the F# that the G Ionian Mode/Major Scale has and so can be said to have a 'lowered' F note, without that note actually being Fb (or E) as it would be if we started off with a C Ionian but then decided to 'lower'/flatten the F to Fb.
Again, no insult intended, but all that bit about frequencies didn't help me either, just made things a bit more technical.
Thanks again for your help.
No worries, fundamental maths floats some peoples' boats; pragmatic examples float others'. And I'm always guilty of over-theorising, just ignore the stuff that doesn't work for you. Glad some of it is helping.
No. They do, it's just that they're at the start or end. So, the mixolydian scale, ttsttst, has 3 tones in a row; two at the bottom of the scale and one at the top. When you play two or more octaves of this scale, they link up to make 3 tones in a row.
Not quite right, because D Ionian (or D major) has 2 sharps in it; The F and the C actually need to be F# and C#. Look at that piano. You can see that you need to have an F# to get the major 3rd. In the case of C major you don't need, it because C-E is already a major 3rd, but because of the arrangement of black keys, and the fact there isn't one between E and F, you need an F# to make D - F# a major 3rd.
So you should have said:
I think of the D1 Ionian Mode/Major Scale,
D2 is E Dorian Mode.
D3 is F# Phrygian Mode.
D4 is G Lydian Mode.
D5 is A Myxolydian Mode.
D6 is B Aeolian Mode/relative natural minor scale.
D7 is C# Locrian Mode.
Exactly.
Good stuff too Brad. Yes, this theory stuff is imo well worth it, and can even be fun, but you need to tackle it step by step Sean. Circle of Fifths is a great and fundamental place to start. so is studying the piano's layout. Good luck
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
I got the D3 and D7 starting notes wrong, 'cos I'm concentrating on on the C Major scale and the relative A minor scales for now, so I didn't think about actual #'s or b's.
Thanks for the suggestions UnclePsychosis, but I daren't think of the non-Ionian Modes as 'major scales starting in different places', 'cos I'll get 'em mixed up with the Ionian Mode/Major Scales we already have. As things stand 'D Dorian' would not make me think of the D Major scale and so it wouldn't occur to me to flatten any notes.
On the other hand, I keep thinking that Modes should have the root note of the Ionian Mode/Scale as part of their name, so for example, that all Scales taken from C Ionian Mode /Scale would start with C followed by the name of the Mode, so that they would be C Dorian, C Lydian etc. This would stop me mixing up D Ionian/Major Scale with D Dorian Mode etc.
Don't worry, I'll try and remember the official/correct way of naming modes.
That would be hideously confusing in a wider context. All scale names follow a convention: the name of the note they start on followed by the type of scale. "C dorian" actually starting on a D would be really strange. For example, all of the relative minor keys have the same notes as their relative majors (C major and A minor have the same key) but under your scheme what you would be calling "C Aeolian" would be referred to by the rest of the western musical world as A minor.
If it helps, don't think of the modes as being "derived" from major scales. They're scales in their own right: the fact you can use major scales to construct them is a bonus, nothing more (for now, anyway).
This gives, for example, "C-D Dorian" for D Dorian. This reminds me I'm working from the C Ionian/Major Scale, but also uses the correct name for the Mode.
Unfortunately, this particular name makes me think 'Seedy Dorian, from Birds of a feather", 'cos she is a bit like that.
)
Exactly......................
The emphasis of teaching major and minor music theory, means that some musicians can only think in these terms.
How does a Mode sound different to the Major/minor Scale it's derived from? I mean, when listening, how can we tell what Mode is being used?
Seeing as how the Aeolian Mode/natural minor Scale gives two further 'versions', in the Harmonic and melodic minor Scales, just by messing with a couple of notes, can this be done with the other Modes?
You know the pentatonic scales? There's one for major and one for minor. A-minor penta is A C D E G. It's the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th notes of the natural minor scale. It's missing the 2nd and 6th notes.
For those 2nd and 6th notes, if you were to include them, there would be 2 choices for each, so you can construct 4 minor heptatonic scales from them:
a B c d e F g
a B c d e F# g
a Bb c d e F g
a Bb c d e F# g
The first one is called the natural minor scale or Aeolian. It has a major 2nd interval (because the interval between A and B is a tone, which is called a major 2nd when that tone lies between the 1st and 2nd note of the scale); and it has a minor 6th, rather than a major 6th. You need to listen to that scale to get the hang of how it sounds. It's called the natural minor because of that major 2nd and minor 6th (and minor 7th by the way).
The next one has a major 6th - that's the difference between it and the Aeolian scale. It's Dorian. Once you get used to it you can hear it a mile off. Like A Aeolian it has the five pentatonic notes, so if you're noodlin' in pentatonic only, you can't tell if it's Aeolian or dorian, but as soon as you play a 6th, you immediately know it's one or the other.
Though that's not quite true because look at the 3rd scale. That has a minor 2nd (and a minor 6 like Aeolian). It's Phrygian. So while you're noodlin' in pentatonic, you also don't know if it's phyrgian or Aeolian, until you play your chosen 2nd note.
So I think of Aeolian as being the default; Dorian has a sharpened, or 'Major' 6th as compared to Aeolian, and Phrygian has a flattened, or 'Minor' 2nd as compared to Aeolian. Dorian sounds sweeter than Aeolian; phrygian sounds more, I don't know, spicy.
Playing with the 2nds and 6ths of the minor scale, you could also have a minor 2nd and a major 6th; that's not in the diatonic family - it's the old "phrygian dorian" scale, part of the melodic minor family of scales. It's the 2nd mode of melodic minor. It's a lovely scale and to me it sounds sweet and spicy at the same time.
You can do the same with major pentatonic, which uses the 1st, 2nd 3rd, 5th, 6th. It misses 4th and 7th. In A, that would be: A B C# E F#. Or to make it easier, in C it would be: C D E G A. To know whether you are playing ionian, lydian or mixolydian, you have to choose your 4ths and 7ths. A perfect 4th and a major 7th means Ionian. That would be an F and a B in the C scale above. If you augment the 4th (ie play an F#), that's Lydian. It sounds sweeter than Ionian. If you play a perfect 4th but depress the 7th (ie play a Bb), that's mixolydian. It sounds flatter than Ionian, less major. If you simultaneously augment the 4th and depress the 7th, again that's not a diatonic scale - you get the 4th mode of the melodic minor scale (it's the Simpsons tune).
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/690454/#Comment_690454
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.