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Originally Posted by Paultergeist
Yes, but its "tonic", not "root". root is for chords.
the first note of a key is the tonic. the first note of a mode is called a "final", although you won't here that in jazz circles.
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09-04-2014 12:41 AM
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Really? Final? Cool. I learned something. Thanks.
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Interesting discussion, though I think modal influences are more important than adopting modal practices as compositional tools. Reg, I also like Leon Dallin's Techniques of Twentieth Century Composition (2nd edition -1964), which is on my desk now. He was affiliated with California State College in Long Beach. I like his treatment of modes in terms of specific examples from composers like Bartok, Ravel, et al.
I would have to wonder at classifying Miles' All Blues as a modal composition. Just to be sure I listened first to the Kind of Blue Miles' cut and then to the great Kenny Burrell version on YT. Sounds like blues to me.
I intellectually understand modes, but I rarely would organize my solo along such principles of scalar thinking unless specifically called for in a piece. Because I find musical thought to be much faster and effective than intellectualizing, I would prefer that a composer or band leader say "this is the key signature, and we want to hear a modal influence on the solo", proceeding to sit down at the piano and play the mode on the white keys in the key of C to indicate which "mode" he or she is in the mood for. (Still waiting for Diane Krall or Elaine Elias to give me a call.
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Apart from wishful thinking, I do recognize modal influences in music but have little desire to stuff them categorically into my cranium. In other words, like Joe Pass, I don't 'think about' modes much. Apart from Ionian, Dorian, Mixolydian, ...can't remember the rest by name and specific flat or sharp. But just play it once or twice for me at the piano or tell me which interval in the key of C it starts on.
The only thing I truly cannot stand, however, is a composer writing without a notation key related to the specific mode(s). I hate reading music notation that is a jumble of sharps and flats without reference to a specific key signature.
I cannot think of too many current popular songs in country or rock that use modal influences much. The only one that jumps to mind is that nice Middle Eastern opening measures of the Eagles' Long Road Out Of Eden - the title of the homonymous CD. How's that for a segue back to current realities....
Jay
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Yes. In the old days (we're talking middle ages here... Originally Posted by henryrobinett
), it was "finalis".
Meaning - literally - the note that a melody would finish on. It's analogous to "tonic", which only applies to "keys", which evolved out of the modal system, but were (are) a very different way of making music.
The other significant note in the modal system was the "dominant", aka "tenor", "cofinal" or "reciting tone". This wasn't always the 5th note of the scale. In the four "authentic" modes it was, but in the "plagal" modes (where the finalis was in the middle of the scale) the dominant was either the 3rd or 4th.
But - as with "finalis" - "dominant" had a literal meaning, as the note that dominated most of the melody, as a secondary rest point or focus, before descending to the finalis at the end. (The word "tenor" derives from "tenere" = "to hold". In later harmonised music, the tenor would "hold" the melody.)
Needless to say (I hope), medieval modal practice was vastly different from the way modes are used in popular music today. For a start, there was no "harmony" (as we know it) in the old modal system. Definitely no "chords". The development of harmony - culminating in "tonality" ("major and minor keys") - was surprisingly slow, only getting really established around 400 years ago. (And only in Europe, of course.) It flowered in the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras, before composers felt it was exhausted (over 100 years ago), and looked for other kinds of musical organisation. Hence Debussy, Ravel and others and so-called "impressionism", which drew some inspiration from modes and other cultures, but also from new "non-tonal" ideas such as wholetone scales; and ultimately atonality (Schoenberg etc).
It's that late 19thC "impressionist" take on modes that fed through to Bill Evans and a few other jazz musicians around 50 years later.
IOW, jazz was over 50 years late in looking for alternatives to keys. The classical dudes had been there, done that, generations before. That's largely because jazz - in its beginnings - was popular music. Pop audiences are conservative, they like tunes, they like tonality: the kinds of sounds that traditional major and minor keys produce (and they still do...). Jazz was dance music too, so rhythm (swing) was paramount, alongside the commercially singable melodies.
Once jazz retreated from the dance floor to the jam session and small club, with musicians largely playing for each other - or small cliques of cognoscenti - then they started stretching out, looking for new sounds...
[crude history lesson ends]
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Yes - it's a 12-bar head, and bars 9-10 at least are classic minor key V-bVI-V sequence; but the significant difference is the avoidance of the IV chord. Originally Posted by targuit
Miles was quite insistent that the bass held the same riff for the first 8 bars of the head, while the riffs simply changed from mixolydian to dorian - i.e., just flattening the 3rd of the scale.
Also, Miles's melody held the major 3rd for most of the first 4 bars - not flattening it into a "blue 3rd" at all.
So the idea, clearly, is to distance the tune - in those respects at least - from a traditional blues. Old blues blurs those modal distinctions; "All Blues" carefully separates them.
It's also in 6/8 time, of course, which is non-traditional in blues terms.
Kenny Burrell was loyal to that modal concept - the bass not moving to IV - but many lesser bands covering the tune are lazier, reverting to a traditional blues format, abandoning Miles's original notion.
Right, me too. Originally Posted by targuit
The use of modal concepts or terminology is not about "scalar thinking" relating to improvisation. It's about how tunes are composed in the first place.
Well, there's no alternative with some music, if the "jumble of sharps and flats" doesn't equate to a key, or the piece actually has no overall tonal centre - ie it isn't in one key (or mode) at all. Originally Posted by targuit
That's pretty unusual in jazz, of course, and the more common issue is whether a mode should be notated according to the nature of its "tonic" ("final"?) chord, or to the pitch collection it employs.
E.g., should D dorian be notated with a blank key sig (to represent the notes it contains), or with 1 flat (to indicate "D minor", but requiring accidentals for all the B's)? That really depends on who's reading it. Are they going to be thrown by a blank key sig - thinking it must mean C major or A minor - or thrown by a D-minor key sig, wondering where the A7 and Gm chords are?
Well, it depends how you define "modal influence" Originally Posted by targuit
. There is indeed very little rock music that consciously employs modal practices, knowing what they are.
Joe Satriani is one who definitely knows what Lydian (at least) is, and frequently composes in lydian mode.
Back in the 1960s, Ray Manzarek of the Doors knew what Dorian mode was, and played around with it quite consciously on Light My Fire and Riders on the Storm (among others).
But they are erudite exceptions.
Otherwise, rock music is full of what might loosely be termed modal sounds or practices, in the sense of deviations from traditional key concepts towards what sound something like modes. (Country music much less so.) Sometimes it ends up as pure mixolydian (the most common mode in rock), sometimes dorian, but mostly it's just an instinctive flattening of the 7th scale degree, derived from blues.
More commonly, the concept of "mode mixture" can be applied to rock practices, because a major key rock song typically borrows at least one chord from the parallel minor key. That one chord is the bVII, but other common borrowings are the bIII, bVI and minor IV.
You also find occasional switches from a major to a parallel minor tonic, indicating quite clearly how rock recognises no essential boundary between the major and minor key.
Rock musicians clearly appreciate the different major and minor effects. But they see no reason not to play around with the contrasts within the same song.
Whether we use modal terms to help describe what's going on is a matter of taste really. Do we say a piece is "in key of G major, but with an F chord in place of D" - or "C major scale but with G as key chord" - or do we say it's "in G mixolydian mode"? All are correct. The musicians themselves might go for either of the first two, but the third is shorter.
Examining the music of the Beatles - eg - reveals a whole ton of practices for which modal terms are very useful. It's neither here nor there that they knew nothing of the terminology or the classical (or jazz) traditions of those concepts. Like all rock musicians, they heard (or found) the sounds they liked and used them.
Some Beatles tunes with modal content:
Pure mixolydian mode: She Said She Said, Tomorrow Never Knows
Almost entirely in mixolydian: Within You Without You
Pure dorian mode: Love You To
Combining mixolydian, dorian and major key: Norwegian Wood (same mixolydian-dorian transition, and triple meter, as "All Blues")
Combining aeolian and dorian: Eleanor Rigby
Lydian hints: Blue Jay Way
Combining mixolydian verse grooves with major key choruses/bridges: countless examples.
The interesting thing about the mixolydian content of Beatles tunes (largely Lennon's or Harrison's) is that it's very unlike blues; the major 3rds are usually firm, not flattened, and they picked up on its "Indian drone" vibe more than any blues connotations.Last edited by JonR; 09-04-2014 at 06:24 AM.
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Jon R. - I appreciate your insight, but disagree on a few points. First, the recording by Kenny Burrell of All Blue at least implies the IV if not explicitly stating it. And even Miles' recording sounds like the blues. Frankly, I don't hear anything terribly deviant from the blues or anything remotely 'revolutionary' in that tune.
May I ask your musical background? I ask not to probe or question your opinions so much as to frame where you are coming from in your approach to composition. Although I don' t have a formal degree from Julliard or anything, I do compose a bit and I am classically trained, including playing contemporary composers like Britten, Duarte, and Walton and others. I cannot recall reading modern classical guitar music that dispensed with key signatures. My impression even with Debussy or Ravel is that the modes are influences, not keys to the essence of the music. Of course, one does not have all of Ravel's music reduced for guitar, but again keyless notation is unusual. Then again, there is not a lot of Anton Webern for guitar. Or George Crumb for that matter.
But I fail to understand the motivation to analyze in exquisite (or is it excruciating) detail the harmonic analysis of songs which are, in the final analysis, rather pedestrian. Or at least not revolutionary in terms of their musical composition. Each to his or her own, of course, but why bother? As I assume you may have, I learned how to play Norwegian Wood within days after it was released - yes, I am that old. And I must have been around thirteen or so, though don't hold me to the release date. To be honest, I find such an in-depth analysis to be of dubious intellectual or musical value at least in my eyes. But then again, I rely not uniquely on my theoretical knowledge but predominantly on my ears.
Jay
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All Blues is not so revolutionary in structure, but in how it's played on that original recording...no blues cliches in those solos!
Plus, little things do matter...the bass staying on G over the "IV"...the slip up to the Eb in the turnaround...listen to the head on the original, last two bars...nobody ever plays the tune like that...
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Maybe, Jeff, but the tone feeling of All Blues to me seems more like "cool jazz". So an Eb7#9 preceding the D7 is unusual in the turnaround for the blues? Not the blues I play....And the G bass through the implied C7 seems more akin to a pedal to me.
JayLast edited by targuit; 09-04-2014 at 12:06 PM.
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Well, the G bass is exactly that, a pedal (or i guess more appropriately, an ostinato). But for me it changes things...it's a much more "suspended" sound...Most blues you feel in your butt...but "All Blues" floats. Brought the jazz blues into the modern era, paved the way for "Footprints," "Big Blues," etc...
Go back and transcribe some lines...like I said, it's not the structure that was revolutionary.
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Simple Theoretical Ideas:
Tonal Center: melodies and harmonies orbiting around a central note and or chord.
Modal Version: Each mode has intervals that are unique and has chords that resolve back to the tonic
within the modal character
Major Tonality: Uses the major scale as a starting reference and incorporates a dominant V chord
as the strongest path back to the tonic
Minor Tonality: Material is drawn from one or more minor scales and modes and incorporates a dominant V chord
as the strongest path back to the tonic
Modulation: The establishment of an additional tonal center that temporarily or permanently assumes the role of the original tonal center.
Transient Modulations Within A Primary Tonal Center Context: Freely borrowing individual chords and chord sequences from other keys but used simply as an augmentation of the harmonic language available within a tonal center.
Multiple Tonal Centers: Egalitarian sharing of a centric tonal role. Where a composition begins and ends can often influence our perception towards a prime tonality especially if beginning and ending are the same.
Ambiguous Tonality: Movements too rapid to easily codify, or driven by voice leading, counterpoint, unique textures or
perhaps by conscious avoidance of common tonal gestures.
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No doubt I left things out and there are other ways to organize these ideas. Let me know your thoughts.
These tonal viewpoints can combine freely or occur as stand alone concepts.Last edited by bako; 09-04-2014 at 01:43 PM.
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Yes, and so does Miles' original. But that's kind of the point. The difference from standard blues is minimal and subtle, but significant. Originally Posted by targuit
It's like Miles realised you could "imply the IV without explicitly stating it", simply by changing one note of the mode.
IOW, we bring our listening prejudices to it, and we only need that one-note hint to recognise "blues" - the last 4 bars just confirm it.
At the same time, the other deviations from blues practice - 6/8 time, holding the major 3rd without flattening it - help to inform us that "this is blues but not as we know it". The sense of groove is quite different from a blues groove - it "floats" as Jeff puts it.
BW, the other modal thing about it (IMO) is that nobody actually plays a G7 chord. Bill Evans trills a kind of rootless G69, while the other instruments outline the mode melodically. "G7" - or rather "G mixolydian" emerges as the sum of the parts.
"Revolutionary" would be putting it too strongly, certainly. (Other tracks on Kind of Blue suit that adjective a little better.) Originally Posted by targuit
But - as a blues - it could hardly be further from the 2-chords-per-bar cycling of a Parker blues. It's even significantly different from Freddie Freeloader, which is essentially a traditional blues (bar that bVII chord at the end of every other chorus, a cute little acknowledgement of an alternative function for the IV7).
I hear it as Miles attempting to remove as much traditional harmonic content from the blues as possible - with the obvious exception of the D7-Eb7-D7 part (as you say, that's totally traditional, at least in a minor key blues - which this is not). To see how it feels to reduce the first 8 bars to the least possible variation in scale, and still signify "blues".
You may... Originally Posted by targuit
Well, this isn't about my approach to composition, it's only about identifying what (if anything) is "modal" about All Blues. Originally Posted by targuit
OK, FWIW, I've been an amateur musician for nearly 50 years, playing most kinds of popular music - beginning with folk and blues, moving to rock, some classical guitar, hot club jazz, soul, finally taking up jazz studies (part time) in the late 1980s: just weekly workshops and summer schools, for around 15 years. Originally Posted by targuit
Never taken a full-time music course. I do have a fairly low level qualification in Jazz Performance (bass) - Associate Trinity College, London.
Also took a music teaching course around 10 years ago, and have been professional since then - as a teacher that is; I've been gigging since 1966.
I compose a fair amount, in various rock and jazz styles.
I've read a lot of theory, musicology, music history, etc, over the years, out of curiosity.
I have no real interest in classical music (outside a handful of classical guitar pieces). I do quite like the odd piece of Satie, Ravel, Stravinsky, Reich, but have no appreciation or understanding of Mozart, Beethoven and that period. (Thanks to guitar transcriptions, some Bach has filtered through to my primtive musical consciousness, and pushed a few buttons....)
Me neither. Originally Posted by targuit
Mine too - given my extremely limited knowledge of their work. Originally Posted by targuit
Well, you brought up the issue of music written without key signatures. I can't recall seeing any myself, but I believe it exists, and I can understand why it might make sense. That's all. Originally Posted by targuit
That's OK, you don't have to. Personally I quite enjoy it - that's my nerdy side. Originally Posted by targuit
Matter of taste, of course, which music one finds "pedestrian". I realise there's an issue about attaching all kinds of fancy theoretical concepts to music made by people who were totally ignorant of those concepts. But then we give Latin names to plants and animals that have no understanding of them...
Me too! Originally Posted by targuit
1965, and I was 16 Originally Posted by targuit
And I must have been around thirteen or so, though don't hold me to the release date.
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OK, matter of opinion. I'd say the value was intellectual, but probably not musical. Originally Posted by targuit
I've come to that sort of interest in popular music rather late. Like you, I was playing it decades before any notion of its theoretical ramifications were of any interest to me.
Personally, I think the value of the Beatles' music is in exposing the limitations of theory. Ironically, it's susceptible to honest, detailed analysis (at least its harmony is), but that teaches us nothing about how they produced it. The deeper you look into it, the more marvellous it seems; but in the same way that analysing how a cat moves - the interaction of muscles, balance, etc - can be fascinating. IOW, it's inquiry for its own sake, and I see nothing wrong in that.
I assume you won't be reading this website:
Alan W. Pollack's Notes on ... Series
Me too. I've never been under any illusion that theoretical knowledge makes one a better player (or composer). It doesn't. Ears and practice do that; listening, copying, experimenting. Originally Posted by targuit
Theory can fill in some holes and open up some connections - make one a more rounded "musician". But in both composing and playing, I try to forget about theory.Last edited by JonR; 09-04-2014 at 01:55 PM.
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I love how on the original version, the last 2 bars, the bass goes back to the G figure, but the horns suggest something much more hip. going to those G and F triads, again, suggesting that modality...but it sounds so fresh to me still.
It's funny, I can't really think of any other versions that play those 2 bars like that. It doesn't effect the form, but man, what a cool chart.
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JonR - I know the basic history and teach it to a degree, playing Gregorian and early religious music for students. I just never knew the "tonic" was called Final.
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Hey, JonR! We have much in common, in that I was around 14 when Norwegian Wood came out (on Rubber Soul?). I still vividly remember coming home and throwing that record on the turntable. Pulling out my guitar and discovering the song structures. It would be really interesting to know more about how the Beatles and John and Paul in particular approached composing songs. As you noted, they seem to have touched a lot of theoretical bases, but was it instinct or by design? Though I am not a Beatle specialist, beyond having bought every album back in the day and listening intently and playing along. It is funny that I still remember lyrics to Beatle songs better than most any others. Ahhh, youth!
Don't take my "dubious intellectual value...." too seriously. In speaking of what I find useful or not, I sometimes overstate my opinions of what value they have to my music quest. In plain English, I rarely devote much intellectual or musical thought to modes. I just play what I hear, as I am fundamentally a bit lazy in regards to modes. I do analyze music and am quite capable of the analysis, but I rarely need to these days. I pursued the theoretical education on my own for the most part and that does have great value. Modes....not so much in my opinion. Worth about 2 cents....
So who likes to play And I Love Her as a jazzy thing, like Pat Metheny? Currently the only Beatles tune I play now and again.
JayLast edited by targuit; 09-04-2014 at 05:19 PM.
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