Modes and chord-scales revisited

[Tal_175]

Now I am not an experienced jazz improvisor, but I am an experienced formal abstractionist I'm fairly certain that I can see the purpose (and lack of it thereof) chord-scales and modes very clearly.
It's frustrating that even the people who write jazz theory textbooks seem to lack the clarity about what they are or purposefully staying a bit vague to avoid controversy. Not to mention all the confused articles and videos about modes circulating online. May be I am fooling myself about my understanding so I thought I'd share it with the community here. No one can say I am avoiding controversy, there is that.
Fist of all chord-scale theory as seems to be invented by Berklee is not a theory, it's a pedagogical (over) simplification (see below). Training wheel to be discarded later on (failing to do so may result in fusion) (well, warned you about controversy).
1- Truly modal songs: This is exemplified in the song So What. Here mode is not just a scale but a key center. Song is in D Dorian. There is a lot of afford in that song both harmonically and melodically to prevent audiences' ears from slipping into the extremely familiar C major.
2- Modes as chord tones: Lets take the major scale during a functional progression: Let's say ii V I in C. Chord-scale theory (see Levine) applied simply would suggest D Dorian - G Mixolydian - C Ionian (nonsense. Justification coming). This has nothing to do with key centers of course, the progression is solidly in C. We are not temporarily modulating to D Dorian over ii. Most chord scale people are aware of that (of course Levine too) and do not intend chord scales to be understood this way. Then what's the point of these modes. The point is to avoid saying to the students that they can just play C major over the progression. This will result in ignoring the specifics of the chord of the moment. For example if one just plays the note C over the entire progression, one would be playing the 7th over Dmin (a chord tone, consonant with slight tendency to move to 6th or 1), 4th over G7 (none chord tone, dissonant strong pull to 3rd) and 1 over Cmaj7 (almost boringly restful and consonant). So notes of the scale have different sounds and tendencies over each diatonic chord and the point of modes in this context is having students to take this in to account in their playing. So why it is none sense. Because it solves a none existing problem by complicating it. You can just say students to play chord tones on strong beats, scale notes as passing notes. Of course this is a simplification too but a better one. It's easy to understand and practice correctly. More effective in training ears.
3- Modes as alternative sounds: Lets take modes of the melodic minor scale. Say the same progression but playing 7th mode of melodic minor over V. This is a bit different because we are not playing C major scale any more (not over V). BUT WE ARE NOT PLAYING MELODIC MINOR EITHER.
We are playing altered notes over the functioning dominant (b9, #5 etc). Coincidently that corresponds to the same set of notes as melodic minor (altered scale if seen from the 7th), which helps to remember it. But you can very well not think a scale but just G7 arpeggio with alterations.
4- Modal moments in functional progressions: Here song is temporarily sitting on an out of key chord (generally dominant) without modulating like the 3rd and 4rd bars of Donna Lee. Here typical choice is Lydian dominant. This is a more complex case as there is a may be a little bit of true modal playing (as in 1) implied.

So in summary modal playing really exist only in 1 and 4. The purpose of 2 is emphasizing chord tones (harmonic specificity as some call it). 3 is use of different outside note choices to achieve different sounds. Altered scale will give a you a certain sound, tritone substitution will give you a different (but similar) sound. Another example of 2 would be use of Phygian dominant (a mode of Harmonic minor) over minor ii V.
Please share your comments or criticisms.

[christianm77]

Now I am not an experienced jazz improvisor, but I am an experienced formal abstractionist I'm fairly certain that I can see the purpose (and lack of it thereof) chord-scales and modes very clearly.
It's frustrating that even the people who write jazz theory textbooks seem to lack the clarity about what they are or purposefully staying a bit vague to avoid controversy. Not to mention all the confused articles and videos about modes circulating online. May be I am fooling myself about my understanding so I thought I'd share it with the community here. No one can say I am avoiding controversy, there is that.
Fist of all chord-scale theory as seems to be invented by Berklee is not a theory, it's a pedagogical (over) simplification (see below). Training wheel to be discarded later on (failing to do so may result in fusion) (well, warned you about controversy).

Hahahahaha, chortle... OH MAN!

I found this post a little difficult to parse.

I also feel quite tired talking about theory generally, and I've certainly done a lot of it. Really, you can go a long way with just one scale if you know how to turn it into music and apply it in different contexts.

The best way I've seen to access CST derived upper structure sounds is Jordan Klemons/Stephon Harris's approach. I think chord/scale playing can get a bit congested. This is a nice way to go for the jugular on those sounds. I'm sure it's not the only way.

I'm not sure I would go as far to say as Hal Galper who said 'totally bogus way to teach improvisation, a shortcut' and 'it's a way to make money', but I'm thinking that CST language has turned into this horrendous multi headed creature that is completely messing up people's perceptions of how to play jazz.

The cure for this is simple - listen to music, and come to your own analytical conclusions.

[Tal_175]

I found this post a little difficult to parse.

I know it ended up being longer than I intended.
In short summary, modes and chord scales are used in following ways as I see it:
1- Traditional (in the classical sense) modal songs.
2- Chord tones and extensions seen as scales (Dmin13 = D Dorian)
3- Alternative sounds over certain chords. Altered scale vs diminished scale vs whole tone scale over dominants.
4- Playing over static chords. Lydian dominant over non functioning dominant chord.

[Tal_175]

My point being the items 1 and 4 are modes more in the traditional sense, but items 2 and 3 are where modes are most discussed and applied. In the cases 2 and 3, the term is often used interchangeably with chord-scales. I am of the opinion that these 2 cases are also the cases where chord-scale view is ironically most unnecessary.

[rpjazzguitar]

Often, I find myself frustrated to the point of mild irritation with many statements I've read about the theory.

Most likely, that's because I lack the background of the authors -- who, perhaps, are writing for people who have the Berklee/theoretical background.

What happens is that I often find myself unable to understand the language of the posts -- but, if the writer actually gives a concrete example, it is usually quite familiar.

Warren Nunes taught the ii V I material with reference to modes -- and, in fact, hated the term "modes".

To him, it was tonal center and chord tones. He taught two types of chords, I and II. Type I, to Warren, was tonic. Type II was everything else, apparently. I don't recall how he talked about dim and WT. Chords within a type were interchangeable. So, Cmaj Em Amin and Gmaj7 (his system) could be mixed and matched at will. Same for Dm7 Fmaj7 G7. The vim was seen as both Type I and Type II, so it could used almost anywhere. I don't recall his teaching about m7b5, but, he probably called it Type II.

He freely substituted relative majors and minors, so Fm7 and Abmaj7 were interchangeable.

He used half step approaches.

So, decades later, I learn that he was using modal interchange. He'd have hated that term.

And yet, there wasn't much I read in the Berklee book that Warren didn't cover, in his own way. I do think that Berklee tied it all together in a more organized way.

[christianm77]

I agree with Warren.

Peter Bernstein (CLANG!) said to me that everything is I, or V. Except IV is kind of it's own thing, maybe, not really. But basically it's all I or V. Most of the time.

(That's kind of what I've heard other people say....)

That's the real deal, that's actual jazz theory - a bit of a hustle, rules of thumb, bit of a shrug and not too much attention to the ideas themselves over the importance of the practical playing of music. Certainly nothing that should be taken too seriously as an intellectual free standing structures that can be debated by people (such as yours truly) who have too much time on their hands or are seriously avoiding work.

People put it in fancy books on accredited academic degrees and everyone thinks it's the words of the prophets or something when actually, the real matter of the music is playing and listening.

[Tal_175]

Certainly nothing that should be taken too seriously as an intellectual free standing structures that can be debated by people (such as yours truly) who have too much time on their hands or are seriously avoiding work.

I would respectfully disagree with "theory is just an elitist indulgence it's all about listening" kind of sentiment as appealing as it might sound.
The way I see it is, theory is about ear training. Identifying common musical events and recurring patterns, structures as distinct concepts and giving them names improves "ear resolution". There are many studies showing that engaging the language processing part of your brain by giving concepts names, improves ability to distinguish between them.
Moreover theory informs practice. Everybody is ear player when performing. But when practicing isolating and targeting more abstract core concepts can accelerate learning. Like a professional tennis player "practicing" court coverage and foot work during training and not just playing matches and observing other players.
I like bringing clarity to what I hear in music and what I see on the fretboard.
I remember Emily Remler saying in a video that she couldn't hear Dominants, so she had to think during practice "melodic minor up a 4th" and after a while she didn't have to think anymore she could just pre-hear the chord tones and available notes over these chord tones she could play. Of course you can get there by just listening, but it'd take much longer than targeted practice.

[christianm77]

I would respectfully disagree with "theory is just an elitist indulgence it's all about listening" kind of sentiment as appealing as it might sound.
The way I see it is, theory is about ear training. Identifying common musical events and recurring patterns, structures as distinct concepts and giving them names improves "ear resolution". There are many studies showing that engaging the language processing part of your brain by giving concepts names, improves ability to distinguish between them.
Moreover theory informs practice. Everybody is ear player when performing. But when practicing isolating and targeting more abstract core concepts can accelerate learning. Like a professional tennis player "practicing" court coverage and foot work during training and not just playing matches and observing other players.
I like bringing clarity to what I hear in music and what I see on the fretboard.
I remember Emily Remler saying in a video that she couldn't hear Dominants, so she had to think during practice "melodic minor up a 4th" and after a while she didn't have to think anymore she could just pre-hear the chord tones and available notes over these chord tones she could play. Of course you can get there by just listening, but it'd take much longer than targeted practice.

I don't think you understood my last post or any of the other ones if you think you are actually disagreeing with me.

I think you may actually be replying to a very stupid argument that other people have made somewhere else and mistaken what I was saying for the same thing.

[Tal_175]

That's the real deal, that's actual jazz theory - a bit of a hustle, rules of thumb, bit of a shrug and not too much attention to the ideas themselves over the importance of the practical playing of music. Certainly nothing that should be taken too seriously as an intellectual free standing structures that can be debated by people (such as yours truly) who have too much time on their hands or are seriously avoiding work.

People put it in fancy books on accredited academic degrees and everyone thinks it's the words of the prophets or something when actually, the real matter of the music is playing and listening.

May be I misunderstood what you're trying to say here. I heard, let's stop giving a lot of attention to theory, it's all about listening after all kind of stance. As it's partly in the context of the theoretically loaded OP, I expressed my opinions about theory.

[christianm77]

The difference is - 'you don't need theory' as opposed to 'theory is something we should discuss in the hope that it will make us better musicians.' In the latter case, I would say it might be an interesting thing for its own sake, but after a point it won't help us play actual music. Most good players get on with it as best they can, learning as they go.

The theory they know is toolbox which they can apply and makes sense to them.

(Or you might have to pass a paper in harmony at college or something.)

The Bernstein name drop was just to point out that while the likes of Barry Harris have a system (which is at least in part a collection of rules of thumb, situations and musical ideas), a lot of players don't. They take what works for them and their choices are informed by careful and detailed listening to the music they love, as well as hints and information given to them by teachers, peers and mentors.

That's the real shit for a player.

And - the guitar is a map of a strange country and simple things can take ages to get on the neck. For instance - C major scale from bottom E to the highest note on the guitar, in tempo & without pause for thought. GO!

[Tal_175]

The difference is - 'you don't need theory' as opposed to 'theory is something we should discuss in the hope that it will make us better musicians.'

I can see debating rather esoteric dark corners of music theory, though could be fun, would not make one a better musician. However it's important to make sure one understands clearly the more salient aspects of the theory of the music they are playing. Unfortunately even those salient elements can be left vague and/or treated inconsistently by educational elements. Chord-scales and modes I believe are among those in Jazz. By no means esoteric and difficult to find good use of in practice if understood well.

[christianm77]

I can see debating rather esoteric dark corners of music theory, though could be fun, would not make one a better musician. Though it's important to make sure one understands clearly the more salient aspect of the theory of the music they are playing. Unfortunately even those salient elements can be left vague and/or treated inconsistently by educational elements. Chord-scales and mode I believe is one of those in Jazz. By no means esoteric and difficult to find good use in practice if understood well.

True. I'm not arguing from general principles here. Modal theory was obscure to jazz musicians before Miles used it.

BUT I am arguing from the perspective of teaching and learning to play music. Miles could already play. The musicality is the thing, the ears, the sound, the time etc.

The difference between Miles in 1959 coming to this new approach to jazz having spent ten years playing standards beautifully, and a weekend jazz course summer school attendee about to play their first solo on So What... (But that's an important first step, and I'm not mocking it. I was that attendee.)

Teaching is complicated, real world. Teaching jazz is REALLY REALLY HARD.

Things have to be paced and balanced so the student doesn't become discouraged or complacent. If we knew how much work it was, we might have given up!

And something that might be presented as an immutable absolute at one stage of development might turn out to be just what you needed to be told at that time, and that the actual truth is a lot more complex and contradictory.

I would rather a student came to CST having already gone through more traditional jazz language, but this is not the world we live in.

[Tal_175]

I would rather a student came to CST having already gone through more traditional jazz language, but this is not the world we live in.

That's exactly what my post is arguing. It was long and windy so my 2nd and 3rd posts were meant to state this point more directly. So not sure who is misunderstanding who at this point

[christianm77]

That's exactly what my post is arguing.

Yeah, I know. My aim here is not really to argue a point, let alone 'win' a discussion as to point out my own thoughts and experiences and try and make them clearer.

Anyway, doesn't matter. These discussions aren't of any importance at all to your playing, really. I'm not your teacher.

Do what helps you progress as a player.

I remember when I first started concentrating on chord tones after spending years on CST as a beginner I felt like the world had opened up and my playing improved very rapidly.

There might be a little bit of temptation with some of us to think - 'If only I'd known that 10 years ago.' But I think sometimes you have to encounter the right thing at the right time. Barry Harris made no sense to me at all for 6 or 7 years.

[wolflen]

well as many of us know too well..music "theory" can be as exciting as watching paint dry..far better than sleeping pills..but listening to someone who is playing "to a different drummer" as it were..and it resonates in you to the extent you go on a pilgrimage to find out what/how that player is using as motivation/approach/material and not copy that player..but use that approach..

in my years of playing I have had several euphoric points where I just had to absorb abstract concepts and make them work in my explorations..there were no directions on how to get there,,no concise "follow procedures 1 thru 5" .. much like your asked if you know how to swim..and you say yes..and suddenly your in the middle of an ocean during a storm with 10' waves

frustration to the point of tears..Seal training camp..come on give up..go home..watch a ball game..drink a few cold ones..A Zen Koan that wakes you up at 3:AM and you have to play it in the key of G..

and you struggle for years with analyzing the work of John McLaughlin..and the work of Bill Evans on the Kind of Blue album..and you have ripped apart Blue In Green in every key..

and your inner voice askes: are you close? have some nice hot tea..do you understand now..how it works..why it works

and one Tuesday you discover Ben Monder..and you look at all the books and writings you have collected over the years and realize not one of them will help you

in just a few words he turns your well educated/protected world into perfect chaos and you feel like you cant breath ... you don't know what a scale is..you cant even tune the guitar much less play it..

he says GMA7 = Bb13#5b9 = EbMA 7#5#9...your head fills will endless lines of scales chords melodic patterns that all become clear..its all related..there are no secrets..and it always was right in front of you..you just never looked

[christianm77]

I always feel when talking about players like Monder we've entered a different paradigm societally.

It makes sense to dig into that music in that very heavy intellectual way in order to understand it as a player, because it has massive surface complexity. It's not Lady Be Good.

We have to think - if not directly in CST - then along those sorts of lines for these modern players, because that's how they studied. At college with amazing highly specialised teachers and a music that was already pretty complex. (With Monder, heavy contemporary classical music influence too.)

The environment that produced Wes was very different, dancing and songs were paramount. The standards repertoire was the music on the radio, not lead sheets in the Real Book

That's no dig against either. It's just a historical fact.

So as a teacher... Well it's a challenge if someone drops that stuff on your lap lol.

[rpjazzguitar]

The bad thing about theory is that it's too easy.

I don't mean that the explanations aren't arcane and hard to fathom at times.

What I mean is that you can read the book and practice the scales/modes and juxtapositions for years -- and somehow overlook the harder work of ear training, improving time, learning tunes etc etc etc. Don't ask me how I know this.

Placed in proper perspective, it can be great -- with the proof being that some awesome players used it, at least to some significant degree, to get where they got.

My inclination, were I teaching right now, would be to take the student forward one sound at a time and fill in the theory as we went.

[christianm77]

That's a really good way to put it.

[jordanklemons]

The bad thing about theory is that it's too easy.

I don't mean that the explanations aren't arcane and hard to fathom at times.

What I mean is that you can read the book and practice the scales/modes and juxtapositions for years -- and somehow overlook the harder work of ear training, improving time, learning tunes etc etc etc. Don't ask me how I know this.

Placed in proper perspective, it can be great -- with the proof being that some awesome players used it, at least to some significant degree, to get where they got.

My inclination, were I teaching right now, would be to take the student forward one sound at a time and fill in the theory as we went.

This. This this this.

I think the most dangerous thing to our progress as musicians, artists, people... whatever... is to say the phrase, "I know."

[Tal_175]

There are two sides to theory. Cognitive stuff you can learn from a book. Scales, arpeggios, how they are matched with chords, harmonic devices etc. That can take about a month to learn once all the mud around some of the artificially congested concepts are cleared (which can take a little longer). The other part is internalizing them in your instrument, recognizing them by ear, using them intuitively. That takes years. That's the part of the theory that allows one the train their ears, understand their instruments.
Most people who are intimidated by theory, think theory is the cognitive stuff. They fear they won't understand it. I have a neighbor who thinks that way. I say "understanding" theory is the least of your problems. You can summarize theory involved in bebop and hard bop in a thin 20 page book if that (for someone who knows fundamental music theory).
It's the practicing these in a creative and productive manner, that's the big job.

[matt.guitarteacher]

It's funny. I started basically the same thread , after I had been on the forum for about a year I guess. Actually got a lot of really good input from helpful people, but I didn't get much out of the answers.

Looking back now, I'd say that the main problem was in asking the wrong question in the first place. Something along the lines of , "How's it any easier to think D Dorian G mixolydian C Ionian etc.?". Of course, the answer is that it probably DOESN'T help at ALL , if you can't PLAY anything anyway. The point shouldn't be to get beginners playing jazz quickly. It isn't a shortcut, and most people know that once they get into it.

Of course once you CAN play diatonic over 251, different terminologies don't really get in the WAY either though. It's not really much of a hindrance to call something which you can already PLAY mixolydian or any other made-up term. At that point in the conversation, you're just getting into personal philosophy and the way players actually claim to be thinking etc. But in my opinion, that's a distraction and beside the point as well.

The main question of "what's it all for?", is a little more straightforward than that. As used buy jazz players in talking about music, mode names are simply SHORTHAND for pitch collections or sounds which players can basically already play anyway. Again, not for beginners really.

In terms of jazz players talking, the term "Dorian" basically means "not Aeolian or melodic minor etc.". And again, they're not talking about SCALES. Dorian just means " stuff you play over the II-7". That's kind of a horrible approximation, but it's really not anything more complicated than that. You could do the same thing by describing the accidentals or note names , but in the end it's all just shorthand. They're certainly not necessarily talking about true modal music etc. again, wrong question. The question isn't "Why WOULD you think Dorian over ii?". It's more likely "MIGHT you think Dorian over the vi? In that case it's disambiguation , describing a variation which CAN'T be described by simply saying "play diatonic", because it's not. So we're often justifying a false premise by using the wrong example. Basically backwards.

More than anything, they are casual terms and shorthand. None of it solves a problem for beginners of "what to play?", nor should it, nor does any real player expect it to. It's just confusion of players coming from guitar magazine background just entering jazz. You still have to shed things and learn how to play.

And of course, none of that really touches on basic , traditional approaches like enclosures and other targeting approaches , though you can use harmony and pitch collections to target chord tones.

I would strongly encourage anyone who is at the place I was in being confused about this to get Bert Ligon's theory volumes. It answers the questions . I got them long after I'd come to terms with a lot of this, but they're the books I should've had. He has a tremendous amount of respect for jazz traditions and traditional approaches to learning .

Traditional approaches upfront,and then the "additional colors" material of things like melodic minor enharmonic major etc.much later. You should basically be able to playsome basic beforeyou bogged downin the modal names, chords etc. You still have to learn to PLAY.

Mode names as a shortcut to PLAYING better is a myth. I don't even know where it comes from. I think it's guitar world.

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[Tal_175]

Traditional approaches upfront,and then the "additional colors" material of things like melodic minor enharmonic major etc.much later. You should basically be able to playsome basic beforeyou bogged downin the modal names, chords etc. You still have to learn to PLAY.

Mode names as a shortcut to PLAYING better is a myth. I don't even know where it comes from. I think it's guitar world.

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The irony is in CST, modal names are for beginners to get them to play jazz quickly (and badly) and to be discarded at a more advanced stage.

[rpjazzguitar]

I envision something like this.

I have read posts (mostly on another forum) detailing, for example, triad pairs. Major, minor, dim, aug. Each one paired with another. Then, sus2, sus4. I have a vague memory that each pair was then to be played against all 12 bass notes and the student was to pick out the gems to practice and incorporate them into his/her playing. I think that's about 4000 combinations, all suggested by a single post. Hopefully, I'm remembering it wrong.

When I read such things or even allusions to relationships (without defined limits) I end up here:

You can't go to a big box store of harmonic relationships and buy them by the crate. It doesn't work.

What works, at least for me, is going to the mom and pop store and buying just one -- and paying a high price for it in terms of practice time and ear training.

Then, some time later, going back to mom and pop and buying another.

And, I think that's how jazz was learned back in the day, or whenever. You heard a sound you liked and you figured out how and where to play it. And, when you did that, you copied the feel as well, which is a huge missing piece in getting the same notes out of a book.

[Tal_175]

I envision something like this.

I have read posts (mostly on another forum) detailing, for example, triad pairs. Major, minor, dim, aug. Each one paired with another. Then, sus2, sus4. I have a vague memory that each pair was then to be played against all 12 bass notes and the student was to pick out the gems to practice and incorporate them into his/her playing. I think that's about 4000 combinations, all suggested by a single post. Hopefully, I'm remembering it wrong.

When I read such things or even allusions to relationships (without defined limits) I end up here:

You can't go to a big box store of harmonic relationships and buy them by the crate. It doesn't work.

What works, at least for me, is going to the mom and pop store and buying just one -- and paying a high price for it in terms of practice time and ear training.

Then, some time later, going back to mom and pop and buying another.

And, I think that's how jazz was learned back in the day, or whenever. You heard a sound you liked and you figured out how and where to play it. And, when you did that, you copied the feel as well, which is a huge missing piece in getting the same notes out of a book.

That's very true. The difficult part of learning jazz is really the initial take off. Where you kind of make sense of the whole thing and start improvising with some purpose. You are acquiring the most basic skills, you can play chord tones lines over the songs you know with embellishments, have some language vocabulary you can use etc. Then rest of your life if you're developing you're adding new sounds, ideas on top of that base. But you do have to start flying on your own a bit, then you learn to fly better in the air. I've been studying jazz intensely for the past two years, I feel like I am just starting to take off.
That's my interpretation anyway.

[matt.guitarteacher]

The irony is in CST, modal names are for beginners to get them to play jazz quickly (and badly) and to be discarded at a more advanced stage.

Where are you getting this idea from?

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