Why not relate to the standard major scale?

[Shadow of the Sun]

Ed Byrne advocates a major scale based approach to improvisation when you can't stick with his linear jazz improvisation.

Not my kind of thing, but interesting none the less.

[gersdal]

I like you post and Bert's statement is simple and lucid ...

Thanks.

I think we must remember that Theory is "Theory"... one can analyze and demonstrate one's conclusions in a linear fashion, and by following intellectual 'theory', the mind moves along a linear path ... however, the nature of music is 'aural' and depending upon the mind of the listener, may or may not travel along a linear path .. good musicians hear things and live within the realm of tonal relationships, but, often, don't relate to these in a linear fashion ... great musicians introduce new and sometimes wild or vivid tonal relationships depending upon how they hear them in their mind..

I'm not sure I get what you're saying, but...
I think improvising can be made easy and it can be made difficult . If GuitarRoland prefer to relate it all to major scales, that would imho be a relatively easy option. It can be made to easy if he's planning on relating it all to the major scale of the tonal center of the progression at all time... ah, but could be boring.

If he relates it to the major scale of the tonal center of the progression and add inn the appropriate chromatic passing tones and tension tones etc (as he in fact suggest), I would say he has a sound and workable approach to improvising.

There's a lot of other approaches to improvising that he's not taking onto himself by this approach, and he may have interesting opportunities that he misses.

For me it is important that things are not made more complicated than what the receiver can digest, tho Maybe I do give players info that let then follow a linear path, but I do think that small steps are good

[Jas..]

Thanks.
I'm not sure I get what you're saying, but...
I think improvising can be made easy and it can be made difficult . If GuitarRoland prefer to relate it all to major scales, that would imho be a relatively easy option. It can be made to easy if he's planning on relating it all to the major scale of the tonal center of the progression at all time... ah, but could be boring.

If he relates it to the major scale of the tonal center of the progression and add inn the appropriate chromatic passing tones and tension tones etc (as he in fact suggest), I would say he has a sound and workable approach to improvising.

There's a lot of other approaches to improvising that he's not taking onto himself by this approach, and he may have interesting opportunities that he misses.

For me it is important that things are not made more complicated than what the receiver can digest, tho Maybe I do give players info that let then follow a linear path, but I do think that small steps are good

Hey...

I find that I basically agree with you ... I guess what I was trying to say is that it is good to have some foundational 'understanding' or 'reference' upon which to build understanding .. the major scale is the foundation .. it can be broken down very simply, as I demonstrated in the post regarding the simple chords developed from the natural major scale ... jazz adheres to this basic form, although it is extremely colorful in variety of chords, and progressions, tempos, timbres, etc.. What I was trying to offer up is a very basic reference point that is 'understandable' to a beginner .. in my mind when I think of the major scale, I think in terms of scale degrees, and of course I 'see' the chromatic tones and intervals too, but for the sake of brevity and 'understanding' I didn't throw all of that out ... I'll give you a personal reference...

When I was in the military, I was studying electronics.. I had a theory class and the professor was a very geeky, engineer, a career military man who was widely regarded as 'very smart' .. problem was he had difficulty delivering knowledge in a simple, understandable way .. he would lecture us on circuitry and demonstrate with trigonometry and probably calculus, then after filling up all the blackboard space with formulas he would say "see?" ... and even the most geeky among us (which wasn't me, thankfully) would just gape at him in stricken silence... he got so frustrated that his eyes were bulging and he was almost shouting "can't you understand that?" in a very frustrated tone.. I'll never forget it.. he had trouble communicating from his perspective to the novice. None of us doubted his 'understanding' but we had trouble ascending to his level and he had trouble descending to our level to give us a clear understanding..

I think he was just giving us too much and we would get lost along the way..

So, to me, 'understanding' is one thing, and 'teaching' is another .. my understanding has been developed over a period of decades, but I cannot easily convey that unless there is a foundation for reference .. the greatest challenge of a teacher is to simplify knowledge so the student makes steady progress, retains the knowledge and develops perspective and acuity..

A few years ago when I was selling computer technology in silicon valley I worked for a British firm, they brought a team of people over from the UK and we spent a day in classes discussing brain maps.. this is a non-linear perspective .. its a high level view that starts at a point and then branches out in differing directions, and branches out from the branches, like a lightning strike, it's probably the natural way that most of us think, but it is easy for the non initiate to get lost if there is no point of reference, when you are trying to convey a complex concept .. this is the problem with trying to communicate 'understanding' to the novice .. it's hard to depart from our natural way of thinking, in order to impart 'understandable' perspective.

That's all I was trying to do ... and that's why I started out with the simple linear concept of the major scale and the chords which are developed from the natural intervals .. it's a digestible bite of perspective.. a basic reference, and once that is understood, a student will find it easier to build on that with chord variations, scales, modes, etc.

Kind of like an airplane, once you are in the air you can do barrel rolls, loops, fly upside down, etc., but you have to do all of this in reference to the ground, or you will get lost and crash.. we both know that most musicians learn a few chords and songs, then focus on 'grooving' with the little knowledge they have, and don't develop a logical approach to 'learning' so they don't accomplish very much..

It is painful to me to listen to most pop music .. you have myriads of 'musicians' (pun intended) who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, can't tune their instruments and can't sing worth a damn... and people rave about them because they crank it up with distortion and amplitude and attitude, and everybody gets high and drunk and revels in nonsense... I avoid that chaos.

When it comes to theory, I think a basic reference is needed to develop logical progression, once one has a basic reference, form can be discarded and free association and improvisation can blossom .. I was just trying to keep it simple for reference...

Does that make sense?

Jas..

[GuitaRoland]

I think improvising can be made easy and it can be made difficult . If GuitarRoland prefer to relate it all to major scales, that would IMHO be a relatively easy option. It can be made to easy if he's planning on relating it all to the major scale of the tonal centre of the progression at all time... ah, but could be boring.

If he relates it to the major scale of the tonal centre of the progression and add inn the appropriate chromatic passing tones and tension tones etc. (as he in fact suggest), I would say he has a sound and workable approach to improvising.

For me it is important that things are not made more complicated than what the receiver can digest.

Thanks Gersdal, I like your point of view here, I guess you understand my way of thinking on this issue even if your theoretical knowledge is on a much higher level than mine.
It's about finding a way to understand and manage a musical situation at the level where you actually are. We can't all be professionals but we can all give our best and see that sometimes that is good enough.

Very good Gersdal!

/R

[Gramps]

Guitaroland,

I tend to use the major scale as the foundation to learning new things too. After a while I don't think about the major scale when the chord is minor but I first learned minor scales by modifying the major scale.

I'm not sure how this approach will bite me later.

Any input from anyone?

[GuitaRoland]

Guitaroland,

I tend to use the major scale as the foundation to learning new things too. After a while I don't think about the major scale when the chord is minor but I first learned minor scales by modifying the major scale.

I'm not sure how this approach will bite me later.

Any input from anyone?

I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone thinking this way - than it can't be absolutely wrong or...?! What do BDLH have to say?

/R

[Gramps]

"than it can't be absolutely wrong or...?!"

That last statement is dangerous but I hope we're not heading into a musical dead end. Maybe someone more advanced will chime in.

[musicjohnny]

There's definitely no right or wrong approach, music is subjective, whatever it is you hear, you play.

Personally, after I learned all my major scales and it's corresponding modes, I worked extensively on applying each mode 'flavor' over it's corresponding chord. Not just thinking Bb major over a Cm7, it just sounds too stale. Why stop there though? Utilize different flavors over different chords, some might sound terrible to your ears, and others better.
Like Goofsus suggests alot, practice vamping over one chord different ideas, you'll be surprised the cool stuff you come up with. (You'll also be surprised how much of it your forget! haha)

More recently, I've been using these same conepts with the Jazz Mel Minor, because it's such a beautiful scale. But anyways, there's nothing wrong with what you're doing, but I would suggest getting more personal with each chord. Soloing is all about bringing the melody OUT of the chords.

Namaste, John.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone thinking this way - than it can't be absolutely wrong or...?! What do BDLH have to say?

I would say this thread is too abstract for me (bloody Debussy!). Why not start with a concrete example and make everyone in the discussion avoid buzzwords?

[Meggy]

This is an interesting thread for me. I'm aware of Pat Martino's convert/transpose everything to minor approach (I have some of his books) but have found that for me I'm better off starting by keeping different modes as seperate entities in my head. So while I do know that major (ionian), dorian, myxolydian, locrian etc. are all modes from the major scale for example, I try to learn each one as if it's totally a fresh concept. Of course, you can't help but notice that you are using the same fingering patterns for the different modes, and I think that later on in the learning process, I can then start thinking in the alternative way - so I can take a specific fingering pattern, and can see where the different roots and derived arpeggios/chords for each mode are within it. But this has to come later for me, and I don't really like to think in a transposing way when improvising.

But that's just me!

[Reg]

When you start on the road to becoming proficient in the field of music as well as on your instrument... you start near the beginning, and usually with collections of notes it's the MAJOR scale. It your backdrop or your reference for learning new material. As you approach that goal of being a proficient musician you no longer need to reference every thing you learn to MAJOR. Musical information stands up on it's own, with it's own characteristics, tendencies, and on and on ...When you play a G-7b5 chord do you first think of Cmaj. then Cmin then C-7b5 then transpose, I hope not. As I said ... Major is the usual starting point of reference in music but it's not the end. Reg