Guide to MODAL Progressions???

[Robertkoa]

Well...in the Video above Beato talks about Dorian, Phrygian,Lydian , Mixolydian Chord Voicings referencing the minor seconds in each scale and constructs chords with these and their Inversions -
Inverting the minor seconds to Flat 9ths etc.
- With References to some of Holdsworths Voicings -
whom I don't want to Play like but nonetheless a
Beautiful Voicing is a Beautiful Voicing.

And SOME of these Voicings actually do kind of
create the " Vibe " of Phrygian etc.- not for People who play Standards but Solo Guitar, Fusion, Worldbeat , Michael Hedges type stuff ..
very useful some of them a few of them I used already but did not think as Modal....

And also...Myself - using Parent Keys does not give as much Phrygian Vibe as ripping the scale like a Flamenco Player ...lol...so I really like the Info where he is voicing Chords according to the Modes.

These are unique Voicings which do or attempt to actually BE Modal Chords rather than the Melody..

Interested in how you hear them.

[Robertkoa]

Thanks Fuzz..
I like how they are ambiguous ...

I need to harmonize lots of my Voicings across the fingerboard ...in the Video I liked some of Beatto's voicings - will try these too...

I like to use the big Piano chords too...because I like
the fullness ...but I will see if I can get some low notes under those.

Cool - I just got the E under one of them for a movable voicing and it's really dramatic
Different depending on how it's resolved too..


I don't like open string voicings either as much but do use stretches to sound like them...

I am not a reputable source either- some of my Rhythms may be illegal in Utah...

All the Jazz Guys here are reputable - lots of knowledge!

[Robertkoa]

What I like about some of the Modal Chords in the Beatto Video were the minor seconds and flat nines -
But how some voicings are not as dissonant..

I took one of yours and used a mini barrè with third finger to get an E and a B under it if I use 6th String.

Sometimes 4ths on lower strings or on top make weird chords more consonant.

I like to have favorite transposable voicings. there are so many great ones when you cover six or seven frets.

[pauln]

"The goal of this article is to investigate Schoenberg's conception of modality and its decline so as to better understand his concept of a chromatically enriched extended tonality and its abandonment, ultimately for twelve-tone composition."

Very long, but if you have the time...

https://symposium.music.org/index.ph...ion&Itemid=124

[Robertkoa]

The Modal Chords Beato talked about are Phrygian for example because they have the half step between [ in C Major ] the e and f and a half step between b and c - or the Inversion a b9 then a root
and a b3 third for minor.

They are voiced Chromatically like the Mode itself to 'define' the Chord.

With the half steps between the same degrees...

It usually works..well.

Easier on Piano but inverting the intervals and adding Root and 3rd works.

Modal Chords for other Modes are made the same way ..using characteristic half steps that define each mode.

Never heard of this Chord Construction before...

[JonR]

Sweet Home Alabama is an interesting example. I've always heard the tune as I, bVII, IV in the key of D, and I think the blue notes of the melody reinforce that. Oh, and as an aside, there are F#'s in the guitar riffs, solos, and the back-up vocals. It's probably my own quirk, but I find I can now, at times hear it as V, IV, I in the key of G. Check out the part at 2:39 when the guitar solo starts targeting G, even over the D chord:

You are presumably not aware of the feverish internet debate over this one from a few years back (probably still bubbling under here and there). I summarise below...

Until I entered the debate, I always heard it, 100%, as V-IV-I in G major. The sequence sounded to me like the last 4 bars of a blues, reduced to 2. I never occurred to me there could be any doubt.
So when I read someone saying it was in D mixolydian, I was foolish enough to "correct" him. (The fool, I thought, he's one of those who believes the first chord is always the key chord...)
I was dumbstruck when I found he - and many others - actually heard D as the key chord. The thread exploded, with most people coming in on the "D" side, but a large minority with me on the "G" side. (A few on the G side were also mistaken in explaining it according to the scale: the chords are from the G major scale, therefore it's in G. That muddied the waters somewhat...)

The remarkable thing was that neither side could understand the other. Everyone thought their ears were correct, so the opposite view was plainly wrong. The infuriating mantra from some - even after they accepted the possibility of a G key centre - was "but it's in D"; as if that was an objective fact. They wouldn't say "I hear it in D". They'd say "it is in D". Almost nobody accepted what was plainly the only objective conclusion: that perception of key is subjective.

Personally, I managed to take a step back and listen with more open ears, and found I could hear the key centre as D. It took a little practice, but was definitely understandable. It still felt more like G to me, but I could flip to D without much effort.
I realised that I'd been basing my perception mainly on the bass line (as well as that resemblance to the blues sequence). The bass drops to a low G, and spends twice as long there as on the D or C.
Listening to the vocal, that was more clearly based on D, but to me that just sounded like the dominant (a common melodic focus). And he did occasionally drop to G on the G chord. In the riff and harmony, a D note is very prominent (the C chord has an add9).

What you call the "blue notes" (I guess the F naturals) would support a bluesy key of G as much as D. (There is an F chord later in the tune too: bVII of G, or bIII of D? Both, of course.)

Your observation of the guitar solo's focus on G is very pertinent. That was Ed King, who wrote the original riff the song is based on. He thought of the song in G. That's why all those who believe the song is in D think his solo sounds "wrong", because G is an avoid note on a D chord, especially if the D is tonic.

My other conclusion was that one's key perception is based on subconscious listening prejudice. If one is used to hearing rock music, with its blues/mixolydian bias, then you are primed to hear SHA as D mixolydian - it fits right in with that tradition. If you have a broader listening experience (maybe starting from classical or jazz), then I'd suggest you're more likely to hear it as a V-IV-I. Personally I think I was classing it as a more "country" tune than a "rock" tune, and country tends to have a major key character more than a mixolydian one.
The amusing thing is that the band themselves disagreed about the key in the studio. However, when they played it live, they would end on a very firm G chord, as if they had finally agreed on that.

[bako]

I learned a word from the post tonal books and teachers, "centricity".
If the chords are all derived from the scale but something other than the I chord is being treated as "home",
then that becomes the functional I chord in a modal sense of the word.
Centricity is based on usage and not the basic structural hierarchy of the major scale.
I'm guessing that the post tonalists didn't have Lynyrd Skynyrd in mind when they coined the phrase.

[christianm77]

You are presumably not aware of the feverish internet debate over this one from a few years back (probably still bubbling under here and there). I summarise below...

Until I entered the debate, I always heard it, 100%, as V-IV-I in G major. The sequence sounded to me like the last 4 bars of a blues, reduced to 2. I never occurred to me there could be any doubt.
So when I read someone saying it was in D mixolydian, I was foolish enough to "correct" him. (The fool, I thought, he's one of those who believes the first chord is always the key chord...)
I was dumbstruck when I found he - and many others - actually heard D as the key chord. The thread exploded, with most people coming in on the "D" side, but a large minority with me on the "G" side. (A few on the G side were also mistaken in explaining it according to the scale: the chords are from the G major scale, therefore it's in G. That muddied the waters somewhat...)

The remarkable thing was that neither side could understand the other. Everyone thought their ears were correct, so the opposite view was plainly wrong. The infuriating mantra from some - even after they accepted the possibility of a G key centre - was "but it's in D"; as if that was an objective fact. They wouldn't say "I hear it in D". They'd say "it is in D". Almost nobody accepted what was plainly the only objective conclusion: that perception of key is subjective.

Personally, I managed to take a step back and listen with more open ears, and found I could hear the key centre as D. It took a little practice, but was definitely understandable. It still felt more like G to me, but I could flip to D without much effort.
I realised that I'd been basing my perception mainly on the bass line (as well as that resemblance to the blues sequence). The bass drops to a low G, and spends twice as long there as on the D or C.
Listening to the vocal, that was more clearly based on D, but to me that just sounded like the dominant (a common melodic focus). And he did occasionally drop to G on the G chord. In the riff and harmony, a D note is very prominent (the C chord has an add9).

What you call the "blue notes" (I guess the F naturals) would support a bluesy key of G as much as D. (There is an F chord later in the tune too: bVII of G, or bIII of D? Both, of course.)

Your observation of the guitar solo's focus on G is very pertinent. That was Ed King, who wrote the original riff the song is based on. He thought of the song in G. That's why all those who believe the song is in D think his solo sounds "wrong", because G is an avoid note on a D chord, especially if the D is tonic.

My other conclusion was that one's key perception is based on subconscious listening prejudice. If one is used to hearing rock music, with its blues/mixolydian bias, then you are primed to hear SHA as D mixolydian - it fits right in with that tradition. If you have a broader listening experience (maybe starting from classical or jazz), then I'd suggest you're more likely to hear it as a V-IV-I. Personally I think I was classing it as a more "country" tune than a "rock" tune, and country tends to have a major key character more than a mixolydian one.
The amusing thing is that the band themselves disagreed about the key in the studio. However, when they played it live, they would end on a very firm G chord, as if they had finally agreed on that.

I always heard D mixolydian myself.

It's an interesting thought that it might centre on G. Actually playing it back in my mind I can kind of make myself hear it that way.

Unresolved G is more of an avoid note on a tonic chord, I have no problem with it on a dominant, so yeah.

There's more than one way to hear something.

[ragman1]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to repeat a lot of what I said before.

My advice - very strong advice - to Robertkoa is not to get lost in theory. Easy to do, hard to undo because it's so much fun writing musical Chinese. But it ain't music and never will be.

Modes are simple in principle but there's far, far too much confusion surrounding them.

********************

It's as easy as this:

Use an FM7 as a backing and play the F maj scale over it. Very nice. Then play the C maj scale over it, in other words, everything the same except the Bb is now a natural B. Something has happened, anybody can tell. It's become a modal piece with modal harmony.

Don't cry 'that's too simplistic', it is as simple as that. It's not the chord which has changed, it's the notes over it. The C maj scale has become F lydian and makes the chord sound like an FM7#11.

********************

And it's also possible to play an FM7#11 chord. There are a hundred ways to play it all over the guitar. But don't call it a 'modal chord' or a 'lydian chord', it's just an M7#11 chord. Not quite the same as a straightforward F maj chord, agreed, just another flavour of chord in common use.

[ragman1]

But this thread is about modal progressions, not chords and modes.

The point is each mode has its own unique flavour. A 'modal' chord progression has to bring out that flavour. So it has to be made of those chords which do that.

For example, Dm7 is the ii of C major. The C maj scale over Dm7 produces the Dorian mode. The flavour that distinguishes it from a Dm7 in the key of F or Bb, or indeed Dm, is the natural B note.

So a Dorian progression would include chords that had the natural B in them. The tune 'Scarborough Fair' is in Dorian. Its chords go:

Dm - % - C - Dm
F - Dm - G - Dm
Dm - % - F - %
C - % - Dm - C
C - Dm - % - %

Note the G maj chord and that the C maj is not a C7.

Likewise the Irish song 'She Moved Through The Fair' is in Mixolydian. It might have a key signature of C major but the tune has no natural B's in it, they're all Bb's, and the chords go from C to Bb and back again.

Jazz-wise, it's more complicated, inevitably. There, the chords can go all over the place and the scales/modes likewise. But they have to fit.

Take a tune like 'Blue In Green'. The chords and possible scales go like this:

BbM7 - F maj (Lydian)
A7 alt - Bb mel (A alt)
Dm7 - C maj (Dorian)
Db7 - Ab mel (Db Lyd Dom)
Cm7 - Bb maj (Dorian)
F13b9 - F H/W diminished

... and so on. Not easy.

How to tell if a progression is modal? Very simple. When the melody isn't in the obvious key and/or neither are the changes. Anyway, most modal tunes sound modal and are well known.

[mr. beaumont]

But this thread is about modal progressions, not chords and modes.

The point is each mode has its own unique flavour. A 'modal' chord progression has to bring out that flavour. So it has to be made of those chords which do that.

For example, Dm7 is the ii of C major. The C maj scale over Dm7 produces the Dorian mode. The flavour that distinguishes it from a Dm7 in the key of F or Bb, or indeed Dm, is the natural B note.

So a Dorian progression would include chords that had the natural B in them. The tune 'Scarborough Fair' is in Dorian. Its chords go:

Dm - % - C - Dm
F - Dm - G - Dm
Dm - % - F - %
C - % - Dm - C
C - Dm - % - %

Note the G maj chord and that the C maj is not a C7.

Likewise the Irish song 'She Moved Through The Fair' is in Mixolydian. It might have a key signature of C major but the tune has no natural B's in it, they're all Bb's, and the chords go from C to Bb and back again.

Jazz-wise, it's more complicated, inevitably. There, the chords can go all over the place and the scales/modes likewise. But they have to fit.

Take a tune like 'Blue In Green'. The chords and appropriate scales go like this:

Bbm7 - F maj (Lydian)
A7 alt - Bb mel (A alt)
Dm7 - C maj (Dorian)
Db7 - Ab mel (Db Lyd Dom)
Cm7 - Bb maj (Dorian)
F7 alt - F H/W diminished

... and so on. Not easy.

How to tell if a progression is modal? Very simple. When the melody isn't in the obvious key and/or neither are the changes. Anyway, most modal tunes sound modal and are well known.

Not sure about those changes for "Blue in Green..."


Modal jazz isn't really about "chord progressions." The mode is the chord, often. Treat the mode like a pool of notes. Grab a cluster.


So take something like So What--classic Dorian tune right? Take the mode...

D E F G A B C

Now...let's get some floaty, quartal voicings...

DGCF x 5 5 5 6 x
EADG x 7 7 7 8 x
FBEA x 8 9 9 10 x
GCFB x 10 10 10 12 x

etc...ah...Move 'em all up a half step for the Ebm chord

If you wanna get fancy, you can superimpose some V's...but that's leaning toward functional harmony, ain't it?

[dasein]

Triads over bass notes are really helpful for creating modal vamps.

For C dorian, you could play:

Eb/C
F/C (which is just F)

For C phrygian you could play:

Db/C
Eb/C

Alternate back and forth and use different triad inversions.

[ragman1]

Not sure about those changes for "Blue in Green..."

They're one version, but it's the principle that matters.

Modal jazz isn't really about "chord progressions."

I wouldn't say that entirely. I mean, they're not established like a 6-2-5-1, for example.The changes of modal tunes are often sparse thereby giving the improviser room to expand. But any progression can become modal if modes are used over it.

So take something like So What--classic Dorian tune right? Take the mode...

D E F G A B C

Now...let's get some floaty, quartal voicings...

DGCF x 5 5 5 6 x
EADG x 7 7 7 8 x
FBEA x 8 9 9 10 x
GCFB x 10 10 10 12 x

etc...ah...Move 'em all up a half step for the Ebm chord

If you wanna get fancy, you can superimpose some V's...but that's leaning toward functional harmony, ain't it?

Sure, it's what you make of them.

[ragman1]

For C phrygian you could play:

Db/C
Eb/C

Well, Eb/C is a Cm7 and C is the M7 note of Db maj so you're really playing a Cm7 - DbM7 vamp... but I agree it sounds a bit different with the C always in the bass. And Ab maj would do for both chords. It might be the only scale that does :-)

[ragman1]

Sure Scarborough Fair is a Dorian tune, but that is supported by the guitar accompaniment which, on the opening Dm (I have it in Em), includes major six as part of it's pattern. If you just played a pure minor triad, there would be no clue until the "y" of "Rosemary".

Dunno, mate, I just play it like a folky would. Rosema-reee is where you play the G chord :-)

[ragman1]

You are presumably not aware of the feverish internet debate over this one from a few years back (probably still bubbling under here and there). I summarise below...

Until I entered the debate, I always heard it, 100%, as V-IV-I in G major. The sequence sounded to me like the last 4 bars of a blues, reduced to 2. I never occurred to me there could be any doubt.
So when I read someone saying it was in D mixolydian, I was foolish enough to "correct" him. (The fool, I thought, he's one of those who believes the first chord is always the key chord...)
I was dumbstruck when I found he - and many others - actually heard D as the key chord. The thread exploded, with most people coming in on the "D" side, but a large minority with me on the "G" side. (A few on the G side were also mistaken in explaining it according to the scale: the chords are from the G major scale, therefore it's in G. That muddied the waters somewhat...)

The remarkable thing was that neither side could understand the other. Everyone thought their ears were correct, so the opposite view was plainly wrong. The infuriating mantra from some - even after they accepted the possibility of a G key centre - was "but it's in D"; as if that was an objective fact. They wouldn't say "I hear it in D". They'd say "it is in D". Almost nobody accepted what was plainly the only objective conclusion: that perception of key is subjective.

Personally, I managed to take a step back and listen with more open ears, and found I could hear the key centre as D. It took a little practice, but was definitely understandable. It still felt more like G to me, but I could flip to D without much effort.
I realised that I'd been basing my perception mainly on the bass line (as well as that resemblance to the blues sequence). The bass drops to a low G, and spends twice as long there as on the D or C.
Listening to the vocal, that was more clearly based on D, but to me that just sounded like the dominant (a common melodic focus). And he did occasionally drop to G on the G chord. In the riff and harmony, a D note is very prominent (the C chord has an add9).

What you call the "blue notes" (I guess the F naturals) would support a bluesy key of G as much as D. (There is an F chord later in the tune too: bVII of G, or bIII of D? Both, of course.)

Your observation of the guitar solo's focus on G is very pertinent. That was Ed King, who wrote the original riff the song is based on. He thought of the song in G. That's why all those who believe the song is in D think his solo sounds "wrong", because G is an avoid note on a D chord, especially if the D is tonic.

My other conclusion was that one's key perception is based on subconscious listening prejudice. If one is used to hearing rock music, with its blues/mixolydian bias, then you are primed to hear SHA as D mixolydian - it fits right in with that tradition. If you have a broader listening experience (maybe starting from classical or jazz), then I'd suggest you're more likely to hear it as a V-IV-I. Personally I think I was classing it as a more "country" tune than a "rock" tune, and country tends to have a major key character more than a mixolydian one.
The amusing thing is that the band themselves disagreed about the key in the studio. However, when they played it live, they would end on a very firm G chord, as if they had finally agreed on that.

Bloody hell, JonR, it's in G!!!! Lord save us!

and I don't even know the song - great song too


Look, these people are not sophisticated. What year was it? Some hippy types in a room passing round a spliff, whacking out some chords, humming a tune with some folky bluesy notes in it - D - C - G - G, D - C - G - G - tap your foot - that's it, man :-)

[ragman1]

And they most likely played the chords like this, with the 3rd finger on the top D the whole time. Everybody did, especially rockers.

[ragman1]

And they did ---- here y'go:

Sorry!

[christianm77]

Blue in Green is pretty functional to my mind, of course there's no reason you couldn't treat it as modal.

Any functional tune can be treated as modal. IMO a tune is non functional or modal when it cannot be treated as functional.

[mr. beaumont]

Blue in Green is pretty functional to my mind, of course there's no reason you couldn't treat it as modal.

Any functional tune can be treated as modal. IMO a tune is non functional or modal when it cannot be treated as functional.

Cue Wayne Shorter.

So...blue in Green.

First of all, the changes--

|Gm6* | A7alt | Dm9 Db7#11| Cm11 F13b9 |

|Bbmaj7#11 | A7alt | Dm6/9 | E7#9#5 |

|Am9 | Dm6/9 |

*Bill Evans almost always played a Gm chord there, but Gary Burton, for example, did a Bbmaj7 idea and that works just fine...

So yeah, there's plenty of stuff there that can be considered functional...but to me, it doesn't sound "blue in Green" if you treat it as such...every chord that gets a full bar is it's own resolution...am I weird or does anybody else hear it that way?

[christianm77]

Cue Wayne Shorter.

So...blue in Green.

First of all, the changes--

|Gm6* | A7alt | Dm9 Db7#11| Cm11 F13b9 |

|Bmaj7#11 | A7alt | Dm6/9 | E7#9#5 |

|Am9 | Dm6/9 |

*Bill Evans almost always played a Gm chord there, but Gary Burton, for example, did a Bbmaj7 idea and that works just fine...

So yeah, there's plenty of stuff there that can be considered functional...but to me, it doesn't sound "blue in Green" if you treat it as such...every chord that gets a full bar is it's own resolution...am I weird or does anybody else hear it that way?

I think plenty hear it that way, and I see your point. In fact I would say that any chord being its own resolution is a neat definition of the difference of what I think of as common practice bop stuff and modern cst stuff (both of which are encapsulated within cst theory fwiw.)

But ballads in general lend themselves to this approach.

I play it basically the same way I'd play Stella by starlight, which to say either way depending on circumstance. Stella also has a fairly slow harmonic rhythm.

Btw, i would regard Gm,Gm6,Bb as close buddies for blowing and in modern contexts comping purposes. For instance minor key family of four?

Gm6 = Em7b5 which relates to C7

C7 gives you on 1 3 5 and b7
C, E dim, Gm, Bb triads

Or
C7, Em7b5, Gm7, Bbmaj7

(Bbmaj7#11 in bar 5 Isn't it? Therefore this relationship is helpful in understanding the tune as essentially conventional backcycling. Extensions in the chart basically give you the melody IIRC, exactly like a standard tune.)

What you do on the A7 chord is a key point for me in terms of distinguishing the modern approach from the bebop approach.

In fact I will closely listen to the original when I get a chance because it may be relevant to the history of the altered scale. Unless anyone can tell me what Bill does here.

To whit - b5, Nat 5 or no 5?

Furthermore the way a scale is used is perhaps more important than what scale or harmony is used in distinguishing earlier and more modern changes playing practices.

[christianm77]

Btw the fact that we have a Am9 in bar 9 and not a A7 of some kind is the most modal thing about this song.

[mr. beaumont]

It's probably a b13 chord, really. I pretty much just don't play a 5th...not b5, for sure. And yes, missed a "b" on the Bbmaj7#11, corrected it.

[christianm77]

It's probably a b13 chord, really. I pretty much just don't play a 5th...not b5, for sure. And yes, missed a "b" on the Bbmaj7#11, corrected it.

Might seem like I'm splitting hairs but it's basically the thing that separates diatonic minor harmony from the modern altered scale practice.

There should be another chord symbol for the alt chord without a b5!

In fact b5 often sounds very dissonant to me in voicings resolving to minor. Not a bad thing at all, but a very strong flavour.

[mr. beaumont]

I don't think it's splitting hairs at all...I write alt out of laziness sometimes...to me the symbol means "use your ears."