How do you 'think' when playing something in Mixolydian or Dorian?

[jamiehenderson1993]

How do you think when you are playing Dorian or Mixolydian modes?

[ragman1]

how you think about these things

I don't really, thinking's bad for you

[ragman1]

Or, to be more sensible, define vamp. Something funky? Bluesy? Modern swing-type rhythm? Something like So What which has endless bars of Dm7? Do you mean a m7 or a sus chord? Or maybe a m6? Staying on the chord or incorporating various shifts?

Surely it depends on the context, right? Some things you could just use a pentatonic. Other things you could use all the options you listed plus more.

Depends on the speed, the melody, the style. Context, context.

[jamiehenderson1993]

I don't really, thinking's bad for you

Maybe that's where I'm going wrong! haha. I have heard "The more you think, the more you stink" after all.

[alltunes]

Think Dm over G7 or more precisely D melodic minor over G7

G7 is the V of C - play C major ideas over G7 (C Dm Em F etc amps)

Chromatics aka kitchen sink just resolve to chord tones

Barry Greene has a great video about playing over static dominant chords. Plenty of great language tabbed out. Sometimes stealing some licks from cats is the fastest way to improvement.

Most of all just do it:

[Christian Miller]

Yeah I mean it comes down to being able to take the mixolydian scale for instance and being able to play lots of stuff drawn from it. So that includes passing tones, arpeggios of various kinds, intervals and so on and so forth. There’s really no limit to how deep you can go with this, but in my experience it takes a long time to get to know something well enough for it to come out in the moment. Turning scales into music needs a lot of work.

You can find suggestions of what scales to use on a dominant chord in any book or course and yours are perfectly good. However - it takes time to get to know a scale well. And it’s better to get really good at one scale that you can apply in lots of different situations imo than spend time practicing a million scales over each chord type and spread yourself thin. So you can play D mixo on D7, but also Ab mixo. And you can play D7 on F#m7b5 or A-7. Or at least, that’s the way that I did it.

When it comes to vamps I usually feel the need to use some sort of harmonic movement in there. So I might superimpose some other chord progressions on top. For example, if I’m playing on D7 I might use Eb7 to D7.


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[pauln]

A bare seventh chord is at the bottom of "sounds like music"; I count on one hand the number of Jazz tunes where a bare 7th chord is actually the exactly right chord. The whole motivation of the various forms or styles of music is to do what's necessary to fix this, and Jazz is historically highly effective along those lines having done just that applying harmonic development. All this is in the context of the bare seventh chord sounding within a tune's progression. Although not as bad, the minor seventh is also about the bottom of the list.

The vamp context with a "continuous" seventh suggests that one will need to impose different harmonies primarily, along with other things; phrasing, dynamics, etc. That is, you can sound lines that suggest or point to other harmonies. The real skill and technique is to not "show your work", meaning you don't just overlay a diminished phrase in a heavy way that "really sounds diminished", but in a way that interacts with other harmonic departures from the bare seventh sound in a gentle and classy Jazzy way.

That kind of subtle movement among the imposed harmonic variance is the level of abstraction from which you want to be "thinking", and it may not be a verbal mode of thinking, may not be visual, may not feel like thinking at all.

[enalnitram]

playing over a G7 vamp and playing over a Cm vamp.

...

how you think about these things, if indeed you do?

I don't think about any of those things. I did as a young person. Now, if I'm improvising I try to feel more than think. I guess I think three things at once: the harmonic climate, the melodies I'm inventing within that, and the groove and being in that groove. That's all.

Having said that, I use my ear to match the chord tones. All 12 notes melodically work against these chord tones. It's all in how you play them. You can go "out" and have it make sense using melodic sequences. Or you can stay "in" by playing a set of tones that incorporate the arpeggio plus notes a whole step above the triad notes. But when playing, you can just as easily play something chromatic from chord tone to chord tone. Or upper neighbors when descending, or tendency/leading tones when ascending. Or a thousand other possibilities. Melodies can be thought of as melodic architecture, where you are just trying make musical sense. Not everything goes, but from bar to bar, you don't have to be limited by explanations, or preconceived theoretical constructs, either.

I like the quote I heard attributed to Art Farmer (I forget the exact wording), where an improvised jazz line can be thought of like the human body. Arpeggios are the bones or the skeleton. Notes in between the chord tones are like the flesh and other stuff that make up the body. Chord tones "hold it together" or are the jist of the sound but everything else make it melodically and musically interesting.

[GuyBoden]

You need to get yourself an exceptionally good rhythm section to play Modal Jazz. IMO.

[rpjazzguitar]

If I have to play over a lot of G7:

I know the chord tones and extensions. So, I can make up a vanilla melody.

I know that I can sideslip up a half step and suspend some Ab7 against the G7, if I don't lean on it for too long.

I know that I can alter the G7, but if it's supposed to sound like a tonic 7th in a blues, then the #11 sounds best to me, which I might think of as playing Dmelmin.

I know some other approaches, like triad pairs or other superimposed triads, but I can't make them sound very musical, so I don't bother.

Instead, I'm likely to play sparsely at first, adding little melodic ideas as stabs, for want of a better word. Then develop them with attention to the guitar tone, the way the notes speak, using higher notes for drama and things like that. So, there might be palm muting or stinging high notes or an overdriven tone - or whatever else I can use that communicates some feeling.

All that said, I don't sound much like a classic jazz player so my ideas may not be helpful. But, since you asked, there they are.

[Jonah]

If it is really a modal vibe, I just have certain hearing of modal harmony sound and try to cope with what I hear.
I do not think a lot but in most cases I am just in the mode and everything out of it depends on ear and taste.

Also it is often that to my ear the modal sound is very diatonic and whenever there is a chromatism I hear it as a shift towards functional harmony.

On the other hand 'modal' is quite big and vague conception... I often feel the tune is modal but in reality I also hear that there are lots of deviations towards functional tonality.



But overall I think modern modality as it is represented in modern jazz is by nature very diatonic conception as it is very static harmonically.

When it is 'outside' in functional tonality I hear it as creating tension or modulation. When it is 'outside' in modality I often hear it as 'wrong'.
It is a big generalization of course... can be very different in different contexts.

[spencer096]

I think blues scale for each, truthfully. Season by ear.

[Al Haig]

I have a few ways to think to make plain scales sound spicier and more musical. First is I think chordally and extend the chord. Play arpeggios all the way out through the extension, G13 etc. Add chromatics to the chord tones. Next is I think my scales, arps, intervals, and chromatics for the scale for melody shape so lines aren't only scalar. Last is I will use alterations on the scale if I want. Like for mix I will use lydian dominant, mix flat 6, or diminished. Or for dorian you can change it to the other minor scales for embellishment. Melodic minor, harmonic minor, natural minor etc.

[garybaldy]

So, I was speaking to someone the other day about playing over a G7 vamp and playing over a Cm vamp.

For Mixolydian he thinks about:

1. Mixolydian Scale (trying to enclose the 3rd)
2. Dom7 Arpeggios (and adding in the 2, 4 and 6 where desired)
3. Triad Pairs (F and G in this case)
4. And sometimes tries to play something using the Bebop Scale or Half-Whole Dim Scale (but these are both used really sparingly)

For Dorian he thinks about:

1. Minor Pent & Dorian Scale
2. Minor 7 and Minor 6 Arps
3. Occasionally Triad Pairs

What I'm hoping to start is a discussion on how you think about these things, if indeed you do?
Hoping it can be a nice discussion about where your lines start from & what framework you use when playing over Static Dom7 and Static Minor chords

Basically your list but I don't think in terms of the mode names

[mr. beaumont]

[pamosmusic]

Christian just stirred from his slumber …

[mr. beaumont]

I'm good/bad like that.

[ragman1]

Maybe that's where I'm going wrong! haha. I have heard "The more you think, the more you stink" after all.

You haven't answered my point about context.

[kris]

I think when I have the next gig and how much money I will earn.

[fep]

I think like a bluegrass player that doesn't know much theory.

[jamiehenderson1993]

You haven't answered my point about context.

I agree context definitely is the most important thing when defining the devices we might use. When we were disucssing it, it was definitely more in a sort of 'funky/groovy' kind of vibe as opposed to a swing feel or blues feel.

[ragman1]

I agree context definitely is the most important thing when defining the devices we might use.

Okay, so what is your context for these static chords?

[pamosmusic]

Okay, so what is your context for these static chords?

Hasnt he said several times that he’s talking about funk-fusion sort of vamps?

[mr. beaumont]

Possibly right in the very first post.

I'll tell ya one thing i do the SHIT out of on a minor vamp, is superimpose a ii V.

[Christian Miller]

Christian just stirred from his slumber …

The link is broken on a Tapatalk. I sleep.


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