Looking for the best book on creating chord movement to use on standards

[guitarplayer007]

I joined his jazz school online, it pretty much just videos going over the book..I made a mistake joining...

[MarkRhodes]

I haven't read Jack's book but way it's been told to me is moving in minor 3rd is diminished sound and many times the chords have a b5, but not always (it's Jazz). Then moving by major 3rds is the augmented sound again many times the chords have a #5. I find the moving in major 3rd harder to pull off, but the moving in minor 3rd I hear mentioned by old school Jazzers all the time. Jazz loves all things symmetric.

A couple examples of minor 3rd movement: when you're going from a major chord to a minor on the same root. (For example, in "All the Things You Are" when the first-eight ends on C major 7 and the second-eight starts on C minor 7,
you can play the same phrase for both chords, just move it up 3 frets---a minor 3rd---for the second one.) You can do this twice in a row to cover a ii-V-I. (A good lick to use for this is the "Cry Me A River" lick.) It's not something you want to do all the time but it is certainly idiomatic without being cheesy.

[A. Kingstone]

I joined his jazz school online, it pretty much just videos going over the book..I made a mistake joining...

Why would you join? According to you on this thread the book is a "waste of paper" and there are no applications to standards. You asked if anyone joined JSO and no one answered; why would you join? My book and perhaps Barry's method is not for you.

Yes the video examples on the guitar harmony section are mostly me demonstrating examples from the book. However as a member of JSO you have access to all of Howard Rees videos on bebop line construction and also Barry's piano based harmony. My contribution may not help you but don't dismiss Howard's deep understanding of Barry's teaching.

I'm sorry if you find The Barry Harris Method For Guitar unsuitable for your means and though I tried to help you out on this site a year ago or so it is clear that it's not the way for you to go Ken.


Alan

[guitarplayer007]

Yes Agree, I didn't realize when I joined that it was you just going though the book, I thought there might be some more examples better then calling Cm7 em6..It still the same chord so it doesn't change anything..Yes I know we can play inversions of it up and down the neck with the associated Diminished Chord.... But I was hoping it would show examples of how to play over a standard ...You know say here we will look at the changes for Misty, this is how we could apply the BH method to Misty, or My Romance!!!
I'm sure the book has helped many people.... and I've experimented with it as well....But I guess I'm looking for something else.

[A. Kingstone]

Yes Agree, I didn't realize when I joined that it was you just going though the book, I thought there might be some more examples better then calling Cm7 em6.........

For the record I never said that.

[guitarplayer007]

Well its something to that effect

[grahambop]

Yes Agree, I didn't realize when I joined that it was you just going though the book, I thought there might be some more examples better then calling Cm7 em6..It still the same chord so it doesn't change anything..Yes I know we can play inversions of it up and down the neck with the associated Diminished Chord.... But I was hoping it would show examples of how to play over a standard ...You know say here we will look at the changes for Misty, this is how we could apply the BH method to Misty, or My Romance!!!
I'm sure the book has helped many people.... and I've experimented with it as well....But I guess I'm looking for something else.

Have a look at my post no. 506 yesterday - some of the examples/rules in the book fit EXACTLY on to the changes in the first few bars of My Romance.

You just have to do a bit of thinking to apply it.

It's not hard. If there's a couple of chord changes per bar in the fakebook, then you can manage to fit one chord onto every beat at a slowish tempo. So that's 4 chords you could fit into each bar. If you start on a major chord, then find a suitable Maj 6 shape and start going up the maj6/dim chord scale. When you hit the next chord in the fakebook, choose the nearest available shape from the relevant chord-scale that suits that chord. (Tip: Easiest way to cover a minor chord to start with, is just use the related MAJOR 6th shape. That's why Cm7 can be replaced with Eb maj6).

Then carry on either up (or down) the relevant maj6/dim chord scale, until you hit the next chord, then change direction/scale again, and so on.

When you reach a dominant 7th chord, you can switch to using the Minor 6 chord scale one semitone up, to get a nice Dominant Altered sound. So on F7 for example, use the Gb min6 chord-scale. Bear in mind, you may be using only a couple of chords from each scale, before it's time to switch direction/scale again. (Because we're only fitting 4 chords into each bar typically). If the fakebook has only one chord change in a bar however, then you can really go to town and motor through 4 chords in the same chord scale, lots of movement when this happens!

Or you can just totally replace the dominant chord with the diminished chord which equates to it (i.e. the one which gives the 7b9 effect). So for F7 this would be Eb dim (or the other 3 dim chords which are the same).

The creativity comes in making cool lines with the chords. Sometimes if you grab a shape very close to the one you just left, at the point you cross from one chord-scale to another, you get some very nice voice-leading and movement of inner voices.

What is hard about that? Just takes a bit of work and application. All this stuff is in the book if you read it properly.

[guitarplayer007]

Have a look at my post no. 506 yesterday - some of the examples/rules in the book fit EXACTLY on to the changes in the first few bars of My Romance.

You just have to do a bit of thinking to apply it.

It's not hard. If there's a couple of chord changes per bar in the fakebook, then you can manage to fit one chord onto every beat at a slowish tempo. So that's 4 chords you could fit into each bar. If you start on a major chord, then find a suitable Maj 6 shape and start going up the maj6/dim chord scale. When you hit the next chord in the fakebook, choose the nearest available shape that suits that chord. (Tip: Easiest way to cover a minor chord to start with, is just use the related MAJOR 6th shape. That's why Cm7 can be replaced with Eb maj6).

Then carry on either up (or down) the relevant maj6/dim chord scale, until you hit the next chord, then change direction/scale again, and so on.

When you reach a dominant 7th chord, you can switch to using the Minor 6 chord scale one semitone up, to get a nice Dominant Altered sound. So on F7 for example, use the Gb min6 chord scale. Bear in mind, you'll tend to be using only a couple of chords from each scale, before it's time to switch direction/scale again. (Because we're only fitting 4 chords into each bar typically).

Or you can just totally replace the dominant chord with the diminished chord which equates to it (i.e. the one which gives the 7b9 effect). So for F7 this would be Eb dim (or the other 3 dim chords which are the same).

The creativity comes in making cool lines with the chords. Sometimes if you grab a shape very close to the one you just left, at the point you cross from one chord-scale to another, you get some very nice voice-leading and movement of inner voices.

What is hard about that? Just takes a bit of work and application. All this stuff is in the book if you read it properly.

I agree, nothing is hard...I just understand though why you would write a book with know real examples of using over tunes...Please don't tell me about the 1 tune in the book where the chords are written out in Notation. That's not easy to figure out unless you've been reading chord notation for a long time. I even read reviews where people said the same thing, no real examples of usage, but I guess others see it differently then me. I claim it could have been an amazing book if he would have dissected a few tunes and should the before and after. That's all I was stating.
Thanks for the info grahambop

[mr. beaumont]

If there's an example over a ii V, then there's an example in the book of about 1,000 standards or so.

[guitarplayer007]

Rick Stone actually has a few very beautiful examples using BH Method over a II V I

[grahambop]

I agree, nothing is hard...I just understand though why you would write a book with know real examples of using over tunes...Please don't tell me about the 1 tune in the book where the chords are written out in Notation. That's not easy to figure out unless you've been reading chord notation for a long time. I even read reviews where people said the same thing, no real examples of usage, but I guess others see it differently then me. I claim it could have been an amazing book if he would have dissected a few tunes and should the before and after. That's all I was stating.
Thanks for the info grahambop

The only problem with that, is if you don't really understand the underlying process that led to those examples, will you really learn very much just from playing through a couple of examples? You would actually learn a lot more by simply applying the principles I stated in my post, to a few bars of an actual tune, for yourself.

But I don't mind sharing some examples I have worked out, if you think it helps. Just very busy at the moment, so it'll take a while.

[guitarplayer007]

The only problem with that, is if you don't really understand the underlying process that led to those examples, will you really learn very much just from playing through a couple of examples? You would actually learn a lot more by simply applying the principles I stated in my post, to a few bars of an actual tune, for yourself.

But I don't mind sharing some examples I have worked out, if you think it helps. Just very busy at the moment, so it'll take a while.

No hurry, I appreciate it...I'll keep watching the Alan Kingstone classes online.
Ken

[docbop]

If there's an example over a ii V, then there's an example in the book of about 1,000 standards or so.

In fact Carol Kaye said in her recent video... No one even says it's a II-V-I, they just say it's the cycle. Now you start digging into this stuff "the cycle" is all about Circle of Fourths and the chord families can and do get changed all the time. Also turn around are the other thing you'll hear mentioned which basically are cycle to a specific diatonic chord and again they will change up chord families and alterations. So learning a Standard off a one lead sheet only feeds you for a day as the old story about the fish goes. You need to work on II-V's, II-V-I's, V-I's and all the variations because on the bandstand they make call a tune a Standard, but the key and changes are totally up in the air. There as some leader that don't call the tune at all, they start playing and band falls in in a bar or two because they know it has to be some cycle.


The other night at the Smalls Jam this young piano player was dying to play and would get up and then they'd call the tune and he'd panic and sit down. So the Jam leader that night who really good about helping noob's and even with a bandstand of young lions will call a Blues so a noob can play. Well the leader goes the help this noob get to play a and they are trying to call a tune, but everything they call a tune the noob grabs his smartphone and start trying to find the changes in he smartphone fake book. The leader gets upset says "put away the phone, what tune do you actually know???". The noob panics, the leader asks can you play the Blues??? The noob starts again with the fakebook, leader tells him get up from the piano let someone else play, you sit and watch them that is your lesson for tonight.

So learning Standard is good for all they can teach if you analyze them, use them as a starting point to experiment with, and learn great melodies. But learning an example standard you learn one way, that you'll try to shoe horn into other tunes and it won't work. Practice II-V's and cycles and applying those to standards that are full of them, that will as Jeff Matzs say will teach you 1000's of tunes.

[plasticpigeon]

I am very much learning so i would never say I have the key to being a great player, but I am learning what is constructive for me to spend my time doing. People learn in different ways. For me learning tunes, and transcribing are the most constructive things I do at this moment in time. I find that I am begining to recognise changes and can hear the whole tune, so I get lost much less easily. One of the worst things I tried was playing by numbers, or playing by algorithm. What I mean by that, is practicing ii V Is and turnarounds, or this phrase over this chord or that progression, or even worse chord scale relationships, and then working them into a song, as this doesn't necessarily take account of the melody or the ebb and flow of a particular tune. Maybe as I get better, these things that I've not found helpful will become much more important, but the important thing is to experiement and concentrate on the activities that allow you to make the most of your practise time.

[A. Kingstone]

No hurry, I appreciate it...I'll keep watching the Alan Kingstone classes online.
Ken

Ken.

Try lesson 15, Monk Moves.

This is not the Sixth Diminished stuff.

A


Also lesson 14 talks about Sisters & Brothers to create II / V / I moves. Start with Intro Video.

[NSJ]

One benefit of the Barry Harris system is that I can create a simple set of changes that enable me to find one simple way of getting through the tune

Here's my changes to the A section of 'Angel Eyes' using my understanding of the BH system

Eb6-Ebdim |C-6-Cdim | C-9-C-6 |Eb7-Ddim

Eb6-Ebdim | C-6-Cdim | Cdim-Bdim | Eb6-Edim

People concoct very complex and elaborate arrangements, me, I just want to get through the song in an uncluttered way such that it's bulletproof in terms of internalization and gives me plenty of options on the fingerboard as well. Maybe ornamentations and elaborate chord subs and whatnot can come later, but first I want to write out an arrangement that's clear and Helps me get through the song in one simple way.

[guitarplayer007]

Ken.

Try lesson 15, Monk Moves.

This is not the Sixth Diminished stuff.

A


Also lesson 14 talks about Sisters & Brothers to create II / V / I moves. Start with Intro Video.

Thanks Alan

[Jonah]

Well we've had much more than 50 years in jazz - Charlie Christian and Django were using the Dorian mode in the late 30's. I'm sure other swing players were too...
The difference is that after the 50s jazz players became self conscious about their use of modes. But the sounds seem to have always been there.

And of course there is the past few hundred years of folk music from the British Isles which is still frequently modal... Playing the lute, it's interesting to see how much continuity there is between some of the continuo parts of 16th century ballads and the harmony of modern Irish and Scottish folk music (and English too) - things such as the Dm-C-Dm or D-C-D progression... Folk music from the British Isles is an important thread in the tapestry of American music, of course, and therefore jazz.

So, if you listen primarily to pop, jazz and/or folk music you will gravitate to the Dorian tonality unconsciously. I believe this is what actually happens - a case in point is Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles. They didn't know what a Dorian mode was on paper (I am pretty certain - I am absolutely sure in the case of CC and Django) but they used the sound...

TBH I'm not convinced most guitar players have a very intuitive grounding in tonal harmony. Pianists tend to get it early on. Guitar players tend not to start with harmonic music.

I understood Bartok long before I could make any sense out of Mozart. I'm sure I'm not alone...

I suspect your background may be substantially different Jonah? Classical music upbringing? Did you play piano?

It's an interesting topic. I've heard some stories about Harrison Birtwistle teaching music to young children who then learned to hear and appreciate atonal music early on...

Hi Christian,

of course background means a lot.. I have very mixed.. I started as a kid with the Beatles and mostly rock music of 50-s,60-s, 70-s and I kept this interest more or less later on... and tha's how I began to play but I quickly got into classical guitar... and since I had a very versatile teacher (it's not often that a guitar teacher can play Rakhmaninov's piano concertos))) I got into classical music in general - symphonic and opera and chamber... I thought much more about composition than of performing. And I never really thought of myself as of a guitar player... add to this typical for Russia musical education system - very intensive involiving lots of theory and solfeggios, history of music and obligatory piano and choire for everyone (all strictly academical classics)...
And also add very special handling of guitar here too as an accompanying instrument for kind of 'city romance' songs (it was very special thing - kind of singing poets - with some really outsanding like Vladimir Vysotsky for example) using mostly Am-Dm-E7- Am, Am - Dm - G7 - C))) and on 7th strings guitar (when I was a kid these guitars were still quite common and some guys re-tuned them to classsical Spanish tuning to play western pop music)...
say.. harmonically it's much more close to French chanson for example than to Anglo-Americam rock and pop music...

But I had very wide interests - I spent a lot of time over early music and keep it always on (now with baroque guitar in focus - real fun by the way)... and modern classics too music...

What I mean I got plenty of different sounds in my ears...

And I agree that modality in this or that way always was a part our musical world even in days when tonality flouriched - as feature (or allusion) of folk music, or early church music ot whatever else...

I can hear for example 'the Dorian sound' ... but I am speaking more about hearing it as a concept - not as just a kind of 'borrowed' sound....

That's how classical guys hear - I mean really musical guys - they indentify the modes but they consider it to be more of exception or borrowing.. either a heritage (like in Baroque period) or a concious semantical element to give e reference to something... (like Classical composers used church modes, or Romantic used ethnics)

and I think in general they are rigth because it is still importan that funcional tonality remained the concept that ruled the main elements of the form... even modal elements had to succumb to functional princeple of cadence and resolution there after all... all they brougth was a 'colour' - not a 'concept'
Even 'Eleanor Rigby' still sounds from this pov like minor with a touch of Dorian...

In classical world a serious shift to modality as a concept was in Debussy's music... his music - especially late - really tries to extablish new general rules... and it's very close to what today we call 'modal tonality' - but still he is mostly in that world on general level. (Though jazz players interest to Debussy seemed to be caused mostly by resultutive lush harmonies).

What I really think is trus is that jazz was odoomed to come to modality... What makes functional tonality so versatile and complex system capable to express every nuances of human beings and univers? It's the realtion between tonalities.. every more or less complex classical form is based on it.. what makes Shcubert's songs so outstanding even in classical world? That he freely operates with different keys and uses theme as a very expressive tool turning a simple song into a real piece of art (Check An der Fluess for example - it's just impossible)... however great the Beatles were none of there song has been even close to it... (whatever Leonard Bersnstein says))))

But jazz originally had to deal with tonally closed music... what are the ways to develope and compose there? Only modal... motivic development in itself which is often mentioned here to is impossible without some comcept to be applied to (either modal or tonal)...

in principle it was already modal... even the way jazz treates ii-v-i... looks like classical cadence but is it a real cadence? In jazz in most cases not... it is actually a real harmonic mode that is applied to different contexts...

So shifting to concious modal approach was inevitable...

What I have difficulties with is that I still feel taht I do not hear these 'new' relations as real realations... when I forst heard to 'Maiden Voyage' it sounds to me like nice music that has no beginning no climax no end... nice shifting harmonies... now it's a bit different I got
but still I think in general people do not hear modality as a concept...

If you stop a song in cadence on V7 chord - most of even uneducated people would say that it's unfinished of interrupted... because they hear these relation as common

Of you stop Maiden Voayage in teh middele they would not proabbly even understand that the piece was interrupted...

That's why I say that modal concepts often need to attract addictional means like harmonic rythm, metric accents to attract our attention... to establish and probably re-orintate our hearing a bit..


PS
It's very complex topic... I think it's not just estableshed realtions what we hear but more of the metality certain picture of the worlds' realtions...
thus though I may have problems with hearing jazz modality as concept I can very clearly hear Morton Feldman's or Luiggi Nono's music as integral concepts... though they are differen from functional tonality
I think it could be connected with the point that they express the mentality, the perception of the world close to that that was represented by the peroid of functional music...
So it is complex cultural issue.. it's how we see the world how we understand it after all...

Sorry to get so much off in this thread but I thought it would not be good just to to leave your thoughtful post unanswered

[Jonah]

I got the copy of Alan's book yesterday... I had a chance only to read and play in mind so far unfortunately... but already find it very interesting and captivating... though it defenitely requires understanding of common theory and basic jazz approaches, many things are given as granted (and I can see myself 15 years ago wondering why is it so or so)))
But I do not see a problem in it... it describes a certain concept not a whole musical theory

As soon as I go through it with an instrument and try some practical application I'll try to give more detailed feed-back

[Reg]

I've posted many times.... many times trying to help be able to play jazz tunes or any tune in a jazz style. Playing in a jazz style isn't playing anything memorized or notated out.

Practice is practice... whether it's II V's etc... Practice is for getting your skills together. Generally technical skills.

Don't get hung up on details... or individual anything.

There are a few approaches to playing.... most get Maj/Min functional harmony... as Jonah references. Whether you understand it or not, most can hear or feel it because that's all you've been exposed to most of your life. Somewhat like what ever your language is... that's your basic reference. If you've never really heard etc... other languages, your not going to understand or feel all that's being said.

Even after you've learned a language, whether memorized or technical understanding of it's usage.... you still need to learn how to speak, and have a conversation. With Jazz that conversation part is like performance.... not greatest analogy but maybe will help some with understanding how to approach learning how to play jazz.

Just as you need technical skills.... and personally the more the better, most musicians don't have near enough technical skills and expect to be able to perform jazz, anyway you also need performance skills. And not traditional performance skills, like reading through a musical or show... etc, or performing a memorized anything. Those require performance skills, but jazz also requires another level of performance skills.... you need to be able to make decisions of what to play at any given moment and be aware of where that moment is spatially in relationship to the beginning, the present and the possibilities of where it may go. It's just like being aware of what note is or could be next in an arpeggio scales etc...

Your aware of the possibilities from either memorizing all the possibilities or understanding concepts and being able to apply them... now here's the part that most lose tract of.... there is always a basic reference. If you get lost in layers of subs, trying to create chord movement, Form, rhythm, harmonic rhythm... whatever, it's usually from losing that basic reference. This can be applied macro to the tune or complete performance and also micro, to every detail.

With Chord movement... it's that simple, the complete tune or macro approach and then the different spatial targets, or tonal targets. Micro targets still need and still use that one basic reference.

When you Take BH approach... tonally it's just I V I's... modally you can somewhat use Dim as a modal concept. Personally it's to symmetrical.... and looses the details of basic reference. Still works great... but generally as I said before... the approach is used in context with other harmonic concepts for creating movement.

The BH approach isn't a method for performing... it's a technique, like practicing arpeggios or inversions or borrowing and modal interchange chords... or like I try and always push... Learning and practicing Chord Patterns.

Being able to perform.... also needs practice. It's difficult to get the six nights a week etc... practice. But it seems that with all the tracts and recorded examples etc... it should be very easy to practice somewhat in a live setting. Just don't teach yourself to memorize what your playing.

Any tune can be performed in almost any tempo and style, different styles imply different harmonic approaches for creating chord movement. And different tempos also imply how many chords or movement you can use.

Take standards and play the related II- and in sub dominant function of every chord. Yes it requires you to make quick analysis... choices of what each chord is to be able to sub the related II-.

Every chord becomes a tonal target with reference to the entire tune. Maybe start with... just approach every chord with related V7 chord... there are also choices of which V7 chord, again with tonal target chord and in relationship to tune.

It's just a way of practicing performance, live performance with possibilities.

Maybe use a chord pattern or short groove that implies a tonal target.... move that groove as need to imply changes fo tunes. In the process your going to develop performance skills, performance technique. Not just memorized play back. There will be choices of what to perform, you'll develop skills of organizing the possibilities of what to perform. You'll really learn from the crashes. But you'll also learn to hear different relationships... maybe even begin to hear and feel how strong different chord(s) create movement. How the same chord in different contexts can have different effects on creating movement.

It's not all rhythm, rhythmical placement feels strong generally from not being aware of harmonic strength.

[destinytot]

Any tune can be performed in almost any tempo and style, different styles imply different harmonic approaches for creating chord movement. And different tempos also imply how many chords or movement you can use.

Take standards and play the related II- and in sub dominant function of every chord. Yes it requires you to make quick analysis... choices of what each chord is to be able to sub the related II-.

Every chord becomes a tonal target with reference to the entire tune. Maybe start with... just approach every chord with related V7 chord... there are also choices of which V7 chord, again with tonal target chord and in relationship to tune.

It's just a way of practicing performance, live performance with possibilities.

Fabulous, Reg - clear and precise. Thank you!

[Irez87]

Whoa,

Back again, for a quick visit.

When the going gets complicated, get simple.

Think on that...

The problem with the fret board is also its benefit, shapes r us.

If you simplify your chords to dyads and triads and practice your ear, than you are on to something.

Barry Harris is all about movement. After going through the book (which is amazing) and going to his workshops (the angry elder statesman with a heart of gold) I have realized that it is just that, movement.

George Van Eps puts it nicely, chords exist as multiple melodies glued together (something like that).

When you play progressions, listen to them. Listen to how each note changes and morphs into another. Listen to the key center. Listen to the rhythm you are creating.

Shapes can work if you let them on the guitar, they can get what's in your ear onto the neck faster. However, ya gotta hear that stuff first as much as you can. Start basic and add color tones, chromatics, suspensions, all the spices to that wonderful gumbo we call harmony.

The guitar is speaking, ya just gotta listen to it. If you practice hearing moves through harmony, you will be able to play those moves as well.

Sounds hippie dippie, but there is science and practice behind it all. Get those sounds into your inner ear first, before you play a shape without a sonic imprint and leave the music up to chance.

[christianm77]

One benefit of the Barry Harris system is that I can create a simple set of changes that enable me to find one simple way of getting through the tune

Here's my changes to the A section of 'Angel Eyes' using my understanding of the BH system

Eb6-Ebdim |C-6-Cdim | C-9-C-6 |Eb7-Ddim

Eb6-Ebdim | C-6-Cdim | Cdim-Bdim | Eb6-Edim

People concoct very complex and elaborate arrangements, me, I just want to get through the song in an uncluttered way such that it's bulletproof in terms of internalization and gives me plenty of options on the fingerboard as well. Maybe ornamentations and elaborate chord subs and whatnot can come later, but first I want to write out an arrangement that's clear and Helps me get through the song in one simple way.

Amen to that.... I like simple. A lot of standards are based around very simple chromatic lines when you get into it...

[christianm77]

Hi Christian,

of course background means a lot.. I have very mixed.. I started as a kid with the Beatles and mostly rock music of 50-s,60-s, 70-s and I kept this interest more or less later on... and tha's how I began to play but I quickly got into classical guitar... and since I had a very versatile teacher (it's not often that a guitar teacher can play Rakhmaninov's piano concertos))) I got into classical music in general - symphonic and opera and chamber... I thought much more about composition than of performing. And I never really thought of myself as of a guitar player... add to this typical for Russia musical education system - very intensive involiving lots of theory and solfeggios, history of music and obligatory piano and choire for everyone (all strictly academical classics)...
And also add very special handling of guitar here too as an accompanying instrument for kind of 'city romance' songs (it was very special thing - kind of singing poets - with some really outsanding like Vladimir Vysotsky for example) using mostly Am-Dm-E7- Am, Am - Dm - G7 - C))) and on 7th strings guitar (when I was a kid these guitars were still quite common and some guys re-tuned them to classsical Spanish tuning to play western pop music)...
say.. harmonically it's much more close to French chanson for example than to Anglo-Americam rock and pop music...

But I had very wide interests - I spent a lot of time over early music and keep it always on (now with baroque guitar in focus - real fun by the way)... and modern classics too music...

What I mean I got plenty of different sounds in my ears...

And I agree that modality in this or that way always was a part our musical world even in days when tonality flouriched - as feature (or allusion) of folk music, or early church music ot whatever else...

I can hear for example 'the Dorian sound' ... but I am speaking more about hearing it as a concept - not as just a kind of 'borrowed' sound....

That's how classical guys hear - I mean really musical guys - they indentify the modes but they consider it to be more of exception or borrowing.. either a heritage (like in Baroque period) or a concious semantical element to give e reference to something... (like Classical composers used church modes, or Romantic used ethnics)

and I think in general they are rigth because it is still importan that funcional tonality remained the concept that ruled the main elements of the form... even modal elements had to succumb to functional princeple of cadence and resolution there after all... all they brougth was a 'colour' - not a 'concept'
Even 'Eleanor Rigby' still sounds from this pov like minor with a touch of Dorian...

In classical world a serious shift to modality as a concept was in Debussy's music... his music - especially late - really tries to extablish new general rules... and it's very close to what today we call 'modal tonality' - but still he is mostly in that world on general level. (Though jazz players interest to Debussy seemed to be caused mostly by resultutive lush harmonies).

What I really think is trus is that jazz was odoomed to come to modality... What makes functional tonality so versatile and complex system capable to express every nuances of human beings and univers? It's the realtion between tonalities.. every more or less complex classical form is based on it.. what makes Shcubert's songs so outstanding even in classical world? That he freely operates with different keys and uses theme as a very expressive tool turning a simple song into a real piece of art (Check An der Fluess for example - it's just impossible)... however great the Beatles were none of there song has been even close to it... (whatever Leonard Bersnstein says))))

But jazz originally had to deal with tonally closed music... what are the ways to develope and compose there? Only modal... motivic development in itself which is often mentioned here to is impossible without some comcept to be applied to (either modal or tonal)...

in principle it was already modal... even the way jazz treates ii-v-i... looks like classical cadence but is it a real cadence? In jazz in most cases not... it is actually a real harmonic mode that is applied to different contexts...

So shifting to concious modal approach was inevitable...

What I have difficulties with is that I still feel taht I do not hear these 'new' relations as real realations... when I forst heard to 'Maiden Voyage' it sounds to me like nice music that has no beginning no climax no end... nice shifting harmonies... now it's a bit different I got
but still I think in general people do not hear modality as a concept...

If you stop a song in cadence on V7 chord - most of even uneducated people would say that it's unfinished of interrupted... because they hear these relation as common

Of you stop Maiden Voayage in teh middele they would not proabbly even understand that the piece was interrupted...

That's why I say that modal concepts often need to attract addictional means like harmonic rythm, metric accents to attract our attention... to establish and probably re-orintate our hearing a bit..


PS
It's very complex topic... I think it's not just estableshed realtions what we hear but more of the metality certain picture of the worlds' realtions...
thus though I may have problems with hearing jazz modality as concept I can very clearly hear Morton Feldman's or Luiggi Nono's music as integral concepts... though they are differen from functional tonality
I think it could be connected with the point that they express the mentality, the perception of the world close to that that was represented by the peroid of functional music...
So it is complex cultural issue.. it's how we see the world how we understand it after all...

Sorry to get so much off in this thread but I thought it would not be good just to to leave your thoughtful post unanswered

Thanks for taking the time! Yes I've heard of the seven string Russian guitar tradition. It's not something you hear much about here.

Reading your comments here carefully, I think I generally agree in so much as I understand them fully (my fault not yours!)

The interplay between modality and tonality is complex. If I get you right, you are bringing up the important point that the jazz treatment of modality is really very different from, say, the folk music one. This is true of recent jazz, but early jazz had more in common with the Western approach.

By this I mean, while we can recognise Django or Charlie Christian using the Dorian mode in melodies, these guys are not going to use these notes as a pool or palette of notes to be used freely - their use of the scale is largely stepwise, or implied by common arpeggios, such as the minor 6.

Later, we might hear Wes Montgomery building the same scale in stacked 3rds.

Nowadays, it is common to use the same scale in all sorts of intervallic combinations.

[Irez87]

The important concept here, if I might chime in again (good pun), is to treat everything that comes out of the guitar and sound and treat that core principle with respect. Whether you are playing folk, metal, reggae, trad, or hard bop cadences (the bVII7 modal cadence seems to come into play in those Blakerific tunes), you gotta hear that sound first.

How do you do that? Listen, listen, and listen to the recordings of the style you want to play. Listen to the bass movement and the chord movement. Also, listen to where the harmonic player (?) places those hits. Reg and I had a conversation not too far back about how rhythm and pulse contribute to what is played on which beat of the harmonic phrase.

Bill Evans plays the phrase very differently than Barry Harris, in terms of hit placement. But both are sensitive enought to the rhythmic harmonic interplay that they know how to create forward motion with harmony and within the phrase.

We want that harmony to move forward. Even modal players like McCoy Tyner, they used rhythmic and harmonic concepts of forward motion to keep the beat moving. A good test of all this is as follows: does the music do what it was meant to do? Does it make you wanna get up, spin around, and dance, dance, dance? Or, does the music move you to tears and transcendence (Miles Davis and Billie Holiday do that). That's all movement.

I am (hopefully) taking a lesson with Harvie S. next week to discuss that very principle, because bassists know best the interplay between harmony and rhythm (it's no coincidence that the drum, piano, and bass are all part of the rhythm section).