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Implying superimposed chord changes in your lines over a static chord is doing more than outlining explicit chords of a standard.
Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
Creating harmonic interest in your comping with 16 bars of a minor chords is doing more than playing rhythm changes with a one or two voices per chord.
More chord changes make it easier to sound good in my experience. Even for those who haven't acquired much language, targeting chord tones and chromatic approaches etc provide jumping off points. Occasional playing "over" the changes also sound good against a more active harmony. It's much harder to not sound like noodling over long static harmony.
Most relative jazz beginners can comp rhythm changes with a couple of voicings per chord. It'll sound OK. But 16 bars of minor? Not sure.Last edited by Tal_175; 05-09-2023 at 12:39 PM.
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05-09-2023 10:43 AM
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A lot of people start with modal jazz but at the end they make them sound like pop songs.
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You mean "in the beginning" Originally Posted by Lionelsax
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No, when they know the tune they still play them like pop songs. Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
They play the chords that are written without thinking about quartal chords and clusters which are quartal chords inversions.
On the other hand when you start playing quartal things some get lost because it is not what it is written.
So, yes, it's simple and difficult, more difficult if you know nothing about harmony.
Modal jazz is instability, the 4ths are the intervals not the 3rds.
Not a lot of tension and release but something that flies above and never lands.
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Modal jazz influenced "traditional" jazz.
Before modal there were more diminished chords or kind of with 7b9 chords.
Now 7+9 are preferred.
For me it's a modal jazz heritage.
C7+9 = C Fb Bb Eb Ab
And so minor11 chords
C-11 = C F Bb Eb
Major7+4
CM7+4 = C F# B E
Well, if you can't understand I can explain but I'm maybe too expensive.
So yes, modal jazz is interesting but not for the thing I wrote above because it's tonal.
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If we are talking about very beginning students, I don't think there are very many jazz educators who start teaching jazz concepts to beginning students using modal tunes as opposed to simple standards like Tune Up, Blue Bossa, Take the A Train etc.
Most students who come to jazz are already masters of noodling with a scale.
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That's the problem, it's not really about scales. Originally Posted by Tal_175
It's a language, a scale is an exercise, a lot of players prefer modal because there are less scales but it's not about scales.
It's about breaking evidence.
The more difficult is how to comp.
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Wow... nice Tal175. I really likes that post. I think I'm begging to see the light... more of your light. No one cares, right. But again thanks. Originally Posted by Tal_175
Lionel... quartal harmony is generally used in modal style harmony to help camouflage the tritone. because of how strong the traditional Functional functional Concepts are. Modal Harmony creates Functional movement with the use of Characteristic Pitch organization. We tend to think of modal concepts of drone or static concepts.... it can actually be very functional, it just uses different harmonic movement designed with different guidelines of pitch movement and reactions to other pitches within harmonic movement.
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It's exactly what I said but you did it without poetry ! Originally Posted by Reg
You said it with objectivity : hidding tritone !
Great !
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They do both. The key (so to speak) is not too many key centers. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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In my view, modal playing is somewhat misunderstood. Obviously for beginners it's easiest to say it's playing over a particular chord with a scale not based on the root, i.e. C maj over Dm7 giving the Dorian mode (as opposed to D harmonic minor).
But one could equally say that all playing is modal, i.e. playing C maj over
CM7 - FM7 - Em7 - Bm7b5
Every chord requires a mode of C maj and technically has a different name so it's not just a question of noodling round the C maj scale. But we probably wouldn't consider that modal playing. However, modes are definitely required when the chords become altered.
It becomes complex with tunes like, say, Wayne Shorter's Iris where there's no specific key centre and it's full of altered chords:
Gm11 - GbM7#11 - AbM7#11 - C7#5
Eb7#11 - BbM7#5 - Dm7 -%
There, one has to know exactly what to play over what. I'd say that was true modal playing.
But there are many folk and pop tunes that are written modally and just the same applies. Scarborough Fair, for example, is in two modes, Dorian and Aeolian.
Because most standard jazz tunes change key centres doesn't make them modal tunes. Modulating into a different key here and there isn't the same as modal playing.
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It's just not that complicated... but I almost agree agree with you Rag.... yes all music can be modal, (and not in chant concepts).
We almost always play and hear in Cmaj. Ionian Mode but with Harmonic Functional organization... I know not all music. But 99.9 of all the music on this forum generally use Maj/Min functional concepts. It's not a bad or wrong thing.
I love it and generally thats how I play and compose, arrange etc...
You can think of Modal... as different tonal centers or harmonic Targets... with or without different functional guidelines. And if your getting into Shorter tunes... he generally still uses M/M functional guidelines but uses longer and more complex changes, and composes in blocks of sound, sections... complex Chord Patterns. Complex being use of relative and parallel relationships with Modal Interchange.
Again with straight Modal music, one would use a different type of harmonic organization for controlling the Functional movement concepts.... not just Ionian etc...
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You're right there, Reg :-) Originally Posted by Reg
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I didn't see anyone here suggesting otherwise. Originally Posted by ragman1
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I should hope not! But this thread was started by a beginner and beginners might think it.
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Still trying to get my head around some of this
rpjazzguitar : thanks for the comping pointers with the quartal chords, have been getting a lot of mileage out of those.
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Thanks, there’s some great tips in this thread. I second listening to South Asian music for ideas, and would also add some West Asian musics to that list, too.
I was listening to Grant Green, and although IIRC it was one of his hard bop numbers he uses a simple device that I think could be ported into modal playing. He seems to be starting a phrase a half step below the target and then continues the line right into a chord (or mode) tone, e.g. in C minor first play a pickup line in B minor a couple beats, then Cm.
Probably super familiar to some but once noticed it was easy to use right away. Of course, that can sound like a gimmick if over used but Grant gets it just right.
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Re hiding the tritone … yes
you can also do this with triads. For example, playing Eb/G instead of G7alt. Even Db/G sounds softer even through technically there’s a tritone between the bass and the triad root (but my ear tends to be drawn to the major triad.)
A seventh chord example might be the classic Bmaj7(#5)/G
In practice with a dominant chord this means omitting the 3rd and 7th, or both.
I’ve often wondered if a lot of the sound of jazz is about weakening functionality. One of the first things I noticed about Prez was his tendency to play IV on V (effectively V7sus4 instead of V7) so weakening that clear V-I cadence.
(Bird also does this a lot. That said bird plays plenty of V-I, but maybe more triads so again not so much V7-I.)
(btw the tritone is not what drives functional V-I harmony in the very traditional sense. but I think these days we tend to think about the tritone resolving to the third.)
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I don't know what the OP wants out of this modal stuff. He ought to play tunes and learn it that way, not sit around playing with sounds. Sound chemistry is fine but when someone says 'Play this' he'll be lost.
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Does anyone here play the blues the right way?
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What is the 'right way'? Originally Posted by kris
Does anyone here play the blues the right way?
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Don’t play a dominant seventh until bar 4 obviously Originally Posted by ragman1
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That depends on the string gauge they use. Originally Posted by kris
Does anyone here play the blues the right way?
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Yea... modal jazz has been dead for decades, you can occasionally play a modal style tune... but generally audiences will suddenly develop headaches ...or need quick refreshments.
What has become more useful is to use Modal sound as an effect. Almost like an embellishment... or what most seem to use the sound as... Subdominant harmonic, (or melodic), Functional type of musical movement.
Part of the difficulty of playing in a modal style is.... most still hear standard functional melodic or harmonic concepts.
Generally just because something isn't played doesn't really mean it's not heard or implied.
If one really wants to use modal sound... just become aware of and how to use the characteristic pitch of Modes.
I'm taking it for granted... we are talking about Jazz.
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