Hi all.
Im sorry for all the questions there might come from me, but i heads nearly everbody said just ask if you got anything. so ill do that i hope that okay.

I have a question about modes and keys.

If you play in the key of C, then you can play a C Ionian, but what about the other modes, could you play D dorian or should you play a C dorian, ?.

Hope you understand what i mean.

-Stefan

Those scales are the same. You just think of the new root "D" if playing dorian. Your focus should be that note if the chord in the background is Dm7. Even though it's the same scale your licks/improvisation should be going around that root note instead of thinking of C.

No problem Stefan, keep the questions coming, we are here to help!

If you are just in key of C where chords are C major D minor E minor F major G major A minor B diminshed, then you should use C Ionian D Dorian E Phrygian F Lydian G Mixolydian A Aeolian and B Locrian.
C Dorian you can use when you are in key of Bb major because C Dorian is 2nd scale degree in key of Bb (or second note of Bb major scale).

Hope that helps!

ok here goes....dont shoot me if i get this wrong!

You can play in other modes of the same key, you must be aware of the type of mode you are using though, for instance the dorian, phrygian and aeolian are minor sounding and need a minor third to work over over really ie C minor chord, the ionian and lydian are major and need a major sound to work over, the mixolydian only really works with 7th chords and the locrian chords with aminor 7th and flattened 5th. Of course if it sounds right then use it but these are the general guidelines for using the modes effectively.
Modes have characteristic notes too, so the more complex a chord progression the less scope you have in terms of modes, for instance a I,IV,V blues progression can absord a lot of the modes, hence why dorian, aeolian, mixolydian are all founfd in the blues, however a complex progression may have an augmented chord in which a lydian may be the only good "fit". This is whay pentatonics sound good over everything as they have fewer tones to sound out of place, a minor pentatonic works all day over a 7th chord but technically speaking it should be mixolydian.

Ok hope that made sense! Check out the theory board for deeper explanations mate!

EDIT: Bloody hell pedja! I swear you have a sixth sense when it comes to these posts!

This post has been edited by sted: Aug 1 2009, 05:00 PM

Just a tiny correction, Mixolydian works over simple major chord as well,
you don't have to play 7th chord, it's Mixolydian that would point at minor 7th degree
and you'd be able to hear Mixolydian mode fully.
Same goes for Lydian, you don't have to play +4 or +11 within chord,
you can play simple major chord and let Lydian do the rest of the job for you.
And ofc the same goes for "minor" modes as you described already.

Thanks a lot. i Think i got that now.

- one more Question.

C Ionian D Dorian E Phrygian F Lydian G Mixolydian A Aeolian and B Locrian. is all just the notes of the C major scale, but if i just want to play one scale over chords witch is in the key of C, can i just put all the modes together, then it would be the C major scale ?

Thank you Muris! I think my tutor is just getting me to think this way to distinguish the subtle differences, modes is a minefield!

Absolutely 100% correct
All these modes contain all the notes from C major scale or C Ionian if you will.
Choosing the right mode for soloing determines what harmony is happening underneath and most importantly duration of each chord (harmonic rhythm).

So if i just want to make a little solo thing in the key of C, i dont nessesery have so look what chord is playing right now, i can just play any note of the C major scale and it will be okay.

Just in case, and thanks all for helping out

Thats not entirely true, its actually quite opposite from that really

Certain notes from the scale sound better over certain chords.

For example if you have C major chord and you play F note for long time it will sound like its clashing and needs to move somewhere and resolve. Thats just one example, there are many more.
Over G major chord if you hold C note for a while it will clash as well.

So you basically need to look at the chords and play the scale/modes, let your ear decide what works and what doesn't in the end

If you play some shred it'd be ok.
But you need to think of strong notes or chord's notes.
That's very important if you want to compose nice sounding melodic solo.

It's best to know all the chords in the key that you're playing in. For example C major key has 7 chords. Every chord is made out of three (or more) notes. So these three notes (root, third, fifth) are so called strong notes of the chord. If you have a progression that goes something like:

|C///|F///|

then you can use strong notes of the C major chord in the first bar. Notes of C major are: C E G. In the second bar, staring or landing a phrase on strong notes of F major chord (F A C) would be a good thing to do.

If you want to discuss more on this subject, let us know

Of course you one does not HAVE to do so, and if one does use it all the time (as I some times do ) a solo can become somewhat predictable, I'd say. I always make a comparison with spice. Every note has it's flavor, some are more harsh to the listener, but can be good in the right environment.

Soloing only using the notes of the chords becomes rather "boring", even always landing on those strong notes does so, I'd say. I think it's all about the mood, "environment", tension etc. that one wants to portray though.

That was a confusing reply. I'm not sure what the hell I wanted to say, really!

Yeah, you end up like Yngwie, arpeggios all day long.

You have a point there actually. My post was mainly about the basics. It's better to go from basics and then build to up, not other way around. Using only arpeggios can be a form of an exercise, not really considered improvising.

I think the hardest thing to break out of is playing in one key over a progression, I can play all day long in a given ky but it sounds very predictable after only a few bars, trying to modulate with the chords is a hard thing to do on the ly and takes a lot of concentration but its worth it, just having one key change sounds so much better.

I agree with you Sted, it sounds a lot better if you try to play on the "sound" or mode of each chord instead of playing a given scale for the whole progression. When it comes to modal improvisation you can even turn it all around, eg. play chord thats NOT there, given that we have a static chord it circles around. This is very common in modern jazz, and coltrane draw it to its edge, but Holdsworth is not so bad either.... *lol*

What i mean is, that if we have 8 bars of a plain C, we can do what is known as "back-cycling" = going through all the dominant chords landing on C..... the dominant of C is G7, the dominant of G is D7 and so on......
If we then harmonize the chords with the c major key we will end up with something like:

Bm7b5 / E7b9 / Am7 / D9 / Gm7 / C7 / Fmaj7 / Bb7 / Em7 / A7#9 / Dm7 / G7 and finally C......
This progression is found in the famous "Parker-blues" made up by Charlie Parker.
Of course its possible to play just on the dominants and not re-harmonize the chords...

The easiest way to try this approach out is to play on a minor chord, say Am7, and then sometimes play on a E7#9 even that the backing still plays Am 7, try it, it sounds nice !!!!


//Staffay

Great post Staffy !

This is something I discussed with Oxac today...

If you have one chord for certain duration, you are allowed (as improviser, especially in jazz music) to enrich that harmony with your soloing.
This concept is one of the most important concepts in music. There is 3 very important things that happen :

1) Harmony changes and you follow every chord change strictly
2) Harmony stays static and you change it with your soloing (cadences, modulations, II V I's etc)
3) Harmony changes and you stay static! (example would be if you played blues scale over blues or minor pentatonic = static , but then your harmony player did some reharmonizing and added some modulations, voice leading, constant structure, II V I patterns etc)

If you didn't know about these concepts, now you do
Every time you listen to music try to find out which of the 3 concepts is applied. You can learn a lot that way and appreciate musicians and their creativity even more

Thats absolutely true Pedja !
But I will also add a fourth one....
I dont really know what it's called, but i call it "repetetive pattern"....
If You take a pattern and begin to play it on the first chord, and then just change the appropiate notes for the coming chords, You get a very nice effect... especially if You do it FAST (like the late Michael Brecker..... )

//Staffay

Thanks a lot for everything.
But if you have a song there is in the key of Am, then you can play pure Am pentatonic over it, or is that just sonething i think ?

And why cant you do that with modes ? or major scales ?