diatonic harmony in modes

[bulletstrat]

so i was wondering in the major scale every scale degree has a function so the I is tonic and IV is subdominant and so on, now when your playing a harmony of a mode say Dorian rather than the major scale the I in Dorian is actually the II in the major scale, so i was wondering how do you apply harmonic function in the harmony of modes like Dorian, because the V of Dorian is actually the VI of the major scale and its function in the major scale is of a subdominant and it doesn't sound to me like it is a V chord in a Dorian situation, so how does this whole functional harmony thing work outside of the major scale?

[bako]

If the progression for the whole song or a segment of the song is centered around a dorian sound then the VIm is heard in reference to Im which is moving between a dorian collection of chords.

It's been said many times but the contemporary usage of the word modes also refers to possible pitch collections to apply to different chord types. Each viable pitch collection offers a variation on the theme of useable notes
for the chord in question. Each one also provides a family of possible auxiliary harmonies to draw from as passing/approach/sub chords. Generally this branch of "modal" as opposed to the one more closely connected
to the more historical sense of the word, becomes useful when we want to expand the pitch content beyond one scale.

[GuyBoden]

so i was wondering in the major scale every scale degree has a function so the I is tonic and IV is subdominant and so on, now when your playing a harmony of a mode say Dorian rather than the major scale the I in Dorian is actually the II in the major scale, so i was wondering how do you apply harmonic function in the harmony of modes like Dorian, because the V of Dorian is actually the VI of the major scale and its function in the major scale is of a subdominant and it doesn't sound to me like it is a V chord in a Dorian situation, so how does this whole functional harmony thing work outside of the major scale?

Theoretically, when using Modal harmony, each mode has a character note. The Dorian mode has a character note (6th, 13th) and chords that contain this note have more or less tension, depending if the note is the root, third, fifth seventh etc. But, saying all that, I find that the Dorian's character note doesn't really add that much tension.

I hope this was useful..............

[medblues]

Weren't Harmonic and Melodic minor derived to address this in the context of the Aeolian mode ? First raise the 7th pitch to make the Vth chord more major-like ? Then raise the 6th to make the scale less "jarring" ? I am not knowledgable enough to point to similar maneuvers for dorian and lydian harmonies but I am pretty sure they exist. For instance, is the diatonic Am7 in dorian mode harmonization often substituted with A7 ?

[docbop]

Was talking about modes recently with a Jazz teacher and some horn players. Main point they made is modes are all about harmony not scales. Play a C major scale and play a Dmi chord notes haven't changed what is making the Dorian sound is the harmony and the harmony has a mi7 with a 6th sound. Change the chord to FMa and still same C major scale but the FMa chord is now making those note sound Lydian. Modes are all about harmony, but guitarist want to look at them as scales. That's why making the changes in your solo is important so your Dorian mode doesn't sound like a C major scale.

As to harmony it's about how a chord is functioning and that comes from what preceded it and what follows it. You can look at the harmony of a mode, but to sound like a mode you need to use the chord sound unique to that mode. Chick Corea likes the Spanish sound of Phrygian so you'll hear him vamp with a minor chord then major 1/2 up and another whole step above that. Let's say were in E Phrygian so playing Emi7 and adding F and G major for phrygian sounding vamp. Also notice E phrygian's parent scale is C major, the IV and V of C major. Listen to a D Dorian vamp most keyboard player are using F and G major triad for D Dorian vamp once again the IV and V of the parent scale C Major. It's the IV and V of the parent against with the bass playing the Mode root is giving you your modal sound.

I know the traditional harmony guys will have pages to say on this, but I keep things simple to make them easier for me to use.

[GuyBoden]

Was talking about modes recently with a Jazz teacher and some horn players. Main point they made is modes are all about harmony not scales. Play a C major scale and play a Dmi chord notes haven't changed what is making the Dorian sound is the harmony and the harmony has a mi7 with a 6th sound. Change the chord to FMa and still same C major scale but the FMa chord is now making those note sound Lydian. Modes are all about harmony, but guitarist want to look at them as scales. That's why making the changes in your solo is important so your Dorian mode doesn't sound like a C major scale.

As to harmony it's about how a chord is functioning and that comes from what preceded it and what follows it. You can look at the harmony of a mode, but to sound like a mode you need to use the chord sound unique to that mode. Chick Corea likes the Spanish sound of Phrygian so you'll hear him vamp with a minor chord then major 1/2 up and another whole step above that. Let's say were in E Phrygian so playing Emi7 and adding F and G major for phrygian sounding vamp. Also notice E phrygian's parent scale is C major, the IV and V of C major. Listen to a D Dorian vamp most keyboard player are using F and G major triad for D Dorian vamp once again the IV and V of the parent scale C Major. It's the IV and V of the parent against with the bass playing the Mode root is giving you your modal sound.

I know the traditional harmony guys will have pages to say on this, but I keep things simple to make them easier for me to use.

Yes, it's about the tension in the harmony created by the character notes, no character note in the chord no tension, and you can vary the amount of tension in a chord by the placement of the character note.

[docbop]

Yes, it's about the tension in the harmony created by the character notes, no character note in the chord no tension, and you can vary the amount of tension in a chord by the placement of the character note.

Yes. rhythm is key to chords or notes, but reading most books and forums it something talked about very little.

[wolflen]

bullet--the key here is to sound dorian...(key of A = Bminor) now the main problem most have with this is getting the SOUND of the minor to be the target..the cadence of A major needs to be avoided..we want the root to be B..

play the B dorian scale a few times - decending also..to get the B sound as a target..

try these..

Bm D A Bm | Bm D E Bm |

play the scale over the chords..until you feel Bm as the root

look up other ways to establish modal "feel"

hope this helps

[douglas]

I agree with Wolflen and everyone else,but maybe not for the same reasons. I think of modes as creating a tonal center as well as a modal feel of major ,minor or dominant. That sounds like what you said Wolflen. Is it?

[wolflen]

I agree with Wolflen and everyone else,but maybe not for the same reasons. I think of modes as creating a tonal center as well as a modal feel of major ,minor or dominant. That sounds like what you said Wolflen. Is it?

In essence yes..but again the term mode has different meanings to people...in using just DIATONIC chords from any degree of the major scale..to me..is not playing "modal" - as it still has tonal restraints..diatonic movement..if one were to play modal..there would be no NEED for a tonal progression...is could just be a series of unrelated chords that support a melody or its own harmonic framework and the melody is the moving voices..it could just be an improvisation using random voicings..and the musician is creating a melody with the voicings - it does not need to resolve to any tonal root..ie ii7 V7 IMA7..even the need to name chords at this point is in question..as the "logic" of the progression is absent..the flip side of this could be just one static chord..E7..and melodic lines that have nothing to do with E7 played over it...or just E7 lines..but no other harmonic movement..(listen to miles davis "bitches brew")

so playing a mode of the major scale..dorian etc can be very different from playing modal...when I play fusion..the chord structures are more backround/support sounds to play over than harmonic direction..iii7 vi7 etc..now I could be playing scales ( G Lydian dominate for example) that have no relation to the chords..they could be just random or melodic fragments from exercises..or established tunes..and the piece could end on a "major triad" that had nothing to do with the direction or resolution of the piece..that does not establish a "key" ..


hope this is clear..

[Pocket Player]

let me see if this is right ???? to play modal ? one need to make a progression based on 1min7,2min7,biiim7,iv7,v min7,vi min7b5,viim7 like a 1,4,5 and then play dorian scales. vs, imposing the sound of dorian over one's groove a 1,2,6,5 in normal major harmony ?

[GuyBoden]

let me see if this is right ???? to play modal ? one need to make a progression based on 1min7,2min7,biiim7,iv7,v min7,vi min7b5,viim7 like a 1,4,5 and then play dorian scales. vs, imposing the sound of dorian over one's groove a 1,2,6,5 in normal major harmony ?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Basic Simple Modal Harmony
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Each Mode has a Character note.

Dorian's 6th, Phrygian's 2nd, Lydian's 4th, Mixolydian's 7th, Aeolian's 6th, Locrian's 5th and 2nd (not popular).

Tension chords contain the Mode's character note.

Non-Tension chords don't contain the Mode's character note.

When the character note is the Root of the chord it has the most tension, then it's the 5th, then the 3rd and the 7th has the weakest tension.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Wolfen states:

"just DIATONIC chords from any degree of the major scale..to me..is not playing "modal" - as it still has tonal restraints..diatonic movement."

[douglas]

What can I add to that.Thanks! I'm going to hit the books with a new(revisited) study project.

[JonR]

let me see if this is right ???? to play modal ? one need to make a progression based on 1min7,2min7,biiim7,iv7,v min7,vi min7b5,viim7 like a 1,4,5 and then play dorian scales. vs, imposing the sound of dorian over one's groove a 1,2,6,5 in normal major harmony ?

To begin with, try seeing "major harmony" as simply using one mode, namely Ionian.
The "Major key" is really a result of exploiting all the harmonic potential of Ionian mode. Eg, the fact that the tritone dissonance in the diatonic scale resolves naturally (by half-step movement) to a major 3rd, whose root is the root of Ionian. (The tritone also resolves to a minor 6th, but that's only an inverted major 3rd; the root is the same.)

The trick with other modes, then - at least as employed in so-called "modal jazz" - is to try and remove all traces of major key harmonic practices, if possible. We (or rather they, then) needed to get out of those old habits, clear the decks and train everyone's ears to hear the notes and harmonies differently.

So there were no "progressions", in the old sense, in early modal jazz, and very few tertian chord forms (built in 3rds) either. Any chord voicings used would focus on 4ths, 2nds, 5ths in the main.
So a tune in "D dorian mode" would not be based on a recognisable Dm7 chord. And it would contain no other normal chords either. Instead you'd get almost random voicings from the scale, but clearly based on a D centre (maybe only in the bass).
The idea was to try to hear the mode as a "kind of minor key" in its own right, rather than "ii in key of C". An obvious Dm7 chord might have just sounded (to ears used to traditional functional jazz standard harmony) like a mild dissonance, waiting to go to G7 and then home to C.

In addition, focussing on one chord(mode) for a long time (8 bars, 16 bars, a whole tune?) helped to accentuate a fundamental difference in mood from major and minor key harmony. The latter is marked by constant movement, through various degrees of dissonance to resolve on to the stable tonic. (Call it an "emotional roller coaster" if you like.) "Modal jazz" harmony, by contrast, was static. Instead of racing around from chord to chord, it sat on one chord and just contemplated it. That was the "coolness" Miles Davis was after, as a respite from the frantic tail-chasing of bebop progressions.
IOW, the fact that each mode can be said to have a different mood is secondary to the idea that all modal harmony itself is essentially different in mood from key harmony.
In a sense, functional harmony conscripts all 7 modal moods, and enslaves them in the production of the "major key", ruled by the Ionian tonic; the other modes have no identity of their own in that context. Modal music, from that angle, "liberates" the other modes, enabling them to have their own identities, outside the Ionian "factory". But to allow those subtle identities to flourish, we have to banish all hints of their role in major keys. We have to severely limit "chord progressions" (at least those with root movements down in 5ths or up in 4ths), and maybe even exclude chords built in 3rds.

Arguably, nowadays - 55 years later! - our ears are more accustomed to modal sounds, and to the sounds of keys modified by modal alterations. Modes have been "free" for some time now (and used liberally in rock and blues as well as jazz) so their identities are a little stronger, and better appreciated as different from keys.

Still, to really appreciate a "dorian" modal sound, it's useful to get back to those first principles, the way Miles Davis (et al) used them on tracks like "So What".
For D dorian, you don't need to avoid a plain Dm7, however - but it is best to avoid any other chords (except possibly a G7 or Em7, as long as you go straight back to Dm7). Even a D bass drone will do.
You don't need to use any specific "dorian scale" to improvise with, just any pattern of the C major scale. Just make sure you know where all the D notes in the patterns are, because they are your roots. You can underline the modal root (tonal centre) by ending phrases on D. And you can highlight the difference from the D minor key by going for that major 6th, B natural.

A further difference:
In functional harmony (keys), dissonance has a meaning; it's a sign of approaching consonance. Dissonance is experienced like a question, to which we will (sooner or later) be provided with an answer. Dissonance always has to be resolved; we experience a kind of discomfort - or at least confused surprise - if it isn't. (It can of course be resolved in surprising or different ways, which is attractive.)
In modal harmony, dissonance has no such meaning. It's merely "colour". We don't expect it to resolve and can just enjoy it for its own sake. (Eg, we can hear those 7sus4 chords in "Maiden Voyage" without being bothered that they don't resolve in classical fashion. We can just enjoy that sense of excited anticipation they create; as if we're really about to embark on a mystery "voyage"; we don't need a destination; the journey, through new territory, will be enough)
Admittedly, that's a slightly artificial distinction - especially in modern jazz, which often combines key and mode principles. You can still have "tendency" and "voice-leading" in modal harmony, but it operates at the purely melodic level, not the harmonic level.

[Pocket Player]

Thank you so much for the time you took to respond guys. WOW my understanding on this topic,is a lot less confusing. and has been a battle of many years. to get right, in my Artists head !(painter) and make them come to life,over the years. Thankyou ! JonR amazing words written.

[eddy b.]

I would like to add an execercise that helped me a lot. Play each mode from one root, group the modes by major( ionian,lydian, mixolydian) and minor (dorian , phrygian, aeolian, locrian). Compare the sound of each scale and create chords based on the available tensions 6,7,9,11,13 etc. The main point is do this with one root for example C. I found this to be of great value.

[JonR]

I would like to add an execercise that helped me a lot. Play each mode from one root, group the modes by major( ionian,lydian, mixolydian) and minor (dorian , phrygian, aeolian, locrian). Compare the sound of each scale and create chords based on the available tensions 6,7,9,11,13 etc. The main point is do this with one root for example C. I found this to be of great value.

Yes - "parallel" modes (same root note) is the best way to hear the differences.
I think it also helps to list them in bright-dark order:

MAJOR MODES
Lydian = major #4
Ionian = major
Mixolydian = major b7

MINOR MODES
Dorian = minor maj6
Aeolian = minor
Phrygian = minor b2

HALF-DIMINISHED MODE
Locrian = minor b5 b2

Increasing "darkness" is caused by one note being flattened each time, in a kind of stepped pattern:

       HALF STEPS:    |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
       LYDIAN         1  .  2  .  3  . #4  5  .  6  .  7  1
       IONIAN         1  .  2  .  3  4  .  5  .  6  .  7  1 (MAJOR)
       MIXOLYDIAN     1  .  2  .  3  4  .  5  .  6 b7  .  1
       DORIAN         1  .  2 b3  .  4  .  5  .  6 b7  .  1
       AEOLIAN        1  .  2 b3  .  4  .  5 b6  . b7  .  1 (NATURAL MINOR)
       PHRYGIAN       1 b2  . b3  .  4  .  5 b6  . b7  .  1
       LOCRIAN        1 b2  . b3  .  4 b5  . b6  . b7  .  1

(Next step in the same series would be to flatten the root of locrian, giving you a lydian mode a half-step down. Eg, C locrian becomes B lydian.)

When practising, the 3 major modes should be compared with each other, and the 3 minor modes with each other.
Assuming one is used to hearing music in major and minor keys, that's the best way to appreciate the subtle differences.
Locrian is a special case, and is vanishingly rare as a basis for composition, because its root chord (dim triad) is unstable.

[GuyBoden]

I blame Bach, he made Major/minor functional harmony sound so enchanting and beguiling, that all the other modes were virtually ignored for centuries.

[Pocket Player]

That's exactly where i'm at guys !! Thanks eddy b,and JonR and now leading my 1,4,5's with 2,5's and minor grooves as well.If that make sense ! I'm not a gig'n musician , more of a jam guy at this point. and now getting my altered scale under my belt,and playing. and really diving into my first group of Standards.
Blue bossa,Misty,​Autumn leaves,Girl from Ipanema,Black orpheus


Where my little brain is starting to Freeze up is ! and my next level ! is listening to REG talk about sub's
now coming from melodic minor. (disclaimer) as of now ! my only Contact with this scale scale,has been through
my altered scale. and why i need it. With the knowledge that 1/2 down is my melodic minor. i do know Harm min !.
But as the Song's and harmony's start getting more complex,Or i'm becoming more aware of, There is harmony !

I do have to make more intelligent choices. I love where my ability is at right now ! and making huge leaps,all the time,for years now. and feel i can, wail away great lol For me ! music is all about.... now matter what your playing...any genre . i can jump in. Tell me the key. and off i go.....and for the most part i can do that ! and not suck. But if i were to play with a player ,that could comp like a mother FU.... Like a REG or others id have to sit down.... Even now as i open this JAZZ can of worms.... or Latin box. and i love the Latin Groove's!!! I'm being advised,by Very high level Professional musician friend's of mine To hold the course of where i'm going.
i guess you'd call it more of a Fusion direction. I honestly don't really think of things, as a style . just more of the natural way i've developed. And to me it sound's like i'm playing is Jazz. Because when i first was told to listen to Jazz !,many years ago now, i was a 12 years old. I was told to go buy a john Scofield album. I did ! and it was the worst sounds i heard in my life.... lol took me many years to recover from that bad taste. Now at 43 i'm in there !!! lol Funny !! and look to him,big Al,Paco and other's as influences more so now, then say Stevie.

But im being reminded weekly !!!! we live in a Ionian world !

i'm not sure what to make of that statement yet.


But in the month i've been here at this site. I've listen to soooooooo much amazing music !!! Hidden in the pages of the forum, WoW is all i can really say !!!! and it's all the best of everything !!! While most of you were out earning great pay check for the month 1000$-10,000 + I've spend hundreds of hours, Sleepless, Obsessed !!!
with just absorbing, everything my ears have heard!. and eyes have read. Comfortable Numb ! and over stimulated. so many great people here ! all so friendly and helpful !

[JonR]

That's exactly where i'm at guys !! Thanks eddy b,and JonR and now leading my 1,4,5's with 2,5's and minor grooves as well.If that make sense ! I'm not a gig'n musician , more of a jam guy at this point. and now getting my altered scale under my belt,and playing. and really diving into my first group of Standards.
Blue bossa,Misty,​Autumn leaves,Girl from Ipanema,Black orpheus


Where my little brain is starting to Freeze up is ! and my next level ! is listening to REG talk about sub's
now coming from melodic minor.

Hey, Reg is up in the stratosphere! From where I am, I have to crane my neck to see him....
Don't feel inadequate if you can't follow him...

(disclaimer) as of now ! my only Contact with this scale scale,has been through my altered scale. and why i need it. With the knowledge that 1/2 down is my melodic minor. i do know Harm min !.

I wouldn't dare disagree with Reg on anything, but I think the importance of melodic minor harmony can be exaggerated. It can seem, once you start to get into it, that it explains a lot of jazz scale choices. But that's coincidence. To see everything as deriving from melodic minor is reverse engineering.
IOW, the altered scale is not derived from the melodic minor scale (7th mode). It's derived by altering the 5th and 9th of a dom7 chord - or by extrapolating from the tritone sub (bII7 of the key). The resulting set of notes just happens to match a mode of melodic minor. That can be useful to know (assuming you know your melodic minor scales), but it's not any kind of explanation of anything.
You "need" the altered scale, only to provide lots of chromatic half-step moves on to the tonic (while keeping the R-3-7 of the V7 chord).
Same as lydian dominant (the tritone sub of altered).

Take G7 going to C (Cmaj7, C6, Cadd9, etc).
Keep the G, B and F. (B and F already provide classic half-step moves to C and E.)
Alter the A to either Ab or A#, in order to move from the A of the previous chord (Dm7?) to either G, A or B on the C chord.
Alter the D to either Db or D#, in order to move from D to either C, D or E on the C chord.
Add all those notes up: G Ab A# B Db D# F... respell them so you have one of each letter... G Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F... whaddya know, the Ab melodic minor scale!
IOW, you arrive at Ab melodic minor via that process - not vice versa!

Alternatively, take the tritone sub of G7 (still going to C): Db7.
Keep all 4 chord tones (Db F Ab Cb(B))
Keep the G (to remind you of the V you started from).
That leaves two notes to find. Eb makes sense, between Db and F, right? And between Ab and Cb it has to be Bb, right? (IOW, you're taking Db mixolydian, but replacing the Gb with G, to retain something of the C major key.)
Add all those notes up: Db Eb F G Ab Bb Cb. ("Db lydian dominant".)
Compare with G altered: same notes right?

IMO, this is a kind of chicken-and-egg thing. Did the idea of the tritone sub (with its chromatic potential) come from the altered V7? Or vice versa? Or is the tritone sub an adaptation of the classical augmented 6th chord?
One thing's for sure: neither the "altered" V7 or the "lydian dominant" bII7 came from the melodic minor of a different key. That's just a handy resemblance. (Or it is if you're the kind of player who likes scales.... )

It's true that melodic minor does have a certain charm. On a tonic minor chord, it gives the best set of consonant extensions: 6, maj7, 9.
And other harmonisations of it (aside from modes IV and VII) can provide interesting results. It's no surprise it has a lot of appeal to jazz musicians, as a region to explore. It's just unfortunate that it can appear to be a foundational scale, in places where it really isn't.
It's possible to play a lot of great jazz with no awareness whatsoever of melodic minor. (With the possible exception of the tonic minor chord.)

But as the Song's and harmony's start getting more complex,Or i'm becoming more aware of, There is harmony !

I do have to make more intelligent choices. I love where my ability is at right now ! and making huge leaps,all the time,for years now. and feel i can, wail away great lol For me ! music is all about.... now matter what your playing...any genre . i can jump in. Tell me the key. and off i go.....and for the most part i can do that ! and not suck.

Fantastic! Great place to be...
I guess I'm in a similar place - and was even before I really studied jazz properly, because I was improvising right from the start. You take a tune and you mess around with it (in the same style as you hear on records). What could be simpler? It never seemed like rocket science. (Or didn't until I started reading about chord scale theory....)

But if i were to play with a player ,that could comp like a mother FU.... Like a REG or others id have to sit down....
Even now as i open this JAZZ can of worms.... or Latin box. and i love the Latin Groove's!!! I'm being advised,by Very high level Professional musician friend's of mine To hold the course of where i'm going.

Sounds reasonable...

i guess you'd call it more of a Fusion direction. I honestly don't really think of things, as a style . just more of the natural way i've developed. And to me it sound's like i'm playing is Jazz. Because when i first was told to listen to Jazz !,many years ago now, i was a 12 years old. I was told to go buy a john Scofield album. I did ! and it was the worst sounds i heard in my life.... lol took me many years to recover from that bad taste.

Well I wouldn't say John Scofield was a "bad taste" - but you're quite right you have to go with what appeals to you. Don't pay any attention to what jazz experts tell you is important. Give it a listen by all means - it might click, it might not. If not, no big deal. Maybe you'll come to appreciate it in time, but meanwhile you have plenty you do enjoy, and that's the path to follow.

But im being reminded weekly !!!! we live in a Ionian world !

i'm not sure what to make of that statement yet.

Well, all it means is that we still tend to refer everything to that "do re mi fa so la ti do". It feels like the most natural scale (even though it isn't natural at all).
At least the modern musical world is not as "Ionian" as it used to be. Rock, for example, is mostly a mixolydian world. (Apart from Joe Satriani, who's fluent in Lydian; I suspect he even has a Lydian passport....) And jazz has been attempting to promote non-Ionian modes - and other sounds - for some 55 years now. But it seems that old major key just won't die!
(Classical composers thought it was dead from exhaustion well over 100 years ago. But popular music keeps injecting the corpse with life....)

But in the month i've been here at this site. I've listen to soooooooo much amazing music !!! Hidden in the pages of the forum, WoW is all i can really say !!!! and it's all the best of everything !!! While most of you were out earning great pay check for the month 1000$-10,000 + I've spend hundreds of hours, Sleepless, Obsessed !!!
with just absorbing, everything my ears have heard!. and eyes have read. Comfortable Numb ! and over stimulated. so many great people here ! all so friendly and helpful !

Glad to hear it.

The key is always listening. Listening and copying. In this amazing jazz world you're exploring, the theory is just a map you can keep in your back pocket. You may not understand all the symbols on the map, and most of the time you needn't consult it at all. Follow your ears, find your own paths. Absorb the scenery and language by ear. A few years down the road, you might pull out the map and say "oh, now I see what that means...."

[Pocket Player]

Thank you soooo much !!! made 100% sense !!! clarification on the Scofield bad taste comment. at 12 years old it sounded like space music... and all wrong notes ,at the time. so there always been that connection to sounding outside to jazz. good to know i'm heading in the right direction...

[Pocket Player]

P.S JonR

" Alternatively, take the tritone sub of G7 (still going to C): Db7.
Keep all 4 chord tones (Db F Ab Cb(B))
Keep the G (to remind you of the V you started from).
That leaves two notes to find. Eb makes sense, between Db and F, right? And between Ab and Cb it has to be Bb, right? (IOW, you're taking Db mixolydian, but replacing the Gb with G, to retain something of the C major key.)
Add all those notes up: Db Eb F G Ab Bb Cb. ("Db lydian dominant".)
Compare with G altered: same notes right? "

Funny you said this !!! my whole post was based on the observation i made yesterday practicing, i was playing
my 5th string root alt scale. and noticed !!! the same fingering i use in my mixo #4 overlapping. and i went mmmmmmmm... and my brain froze lol till you wrote that artical ! and it was exactly what i needed to hear. and the same way i'm seeing thing's on the guitar.

A question The more i play and become more chromatic ! and as i work on my chromatic scales everyday! am left wondering ! If i wouldn't be further along ! had i not just wrapped my head around that 1 scale...instead of all the other scales if learned over the years. after all! all the notes are right there ! and just seems it would be easyier to get everything into the brain,EAR'S and hands. and would really leave a open door to be creative...instantly. or as soon as a person could strum a chord. Anyone else feel this way?

[wolflen]

PP--"..A question The more i play and become more chromatic ! and as i work on my chromatic scales everyday! am left wondering ! If i wouldn't be further along ! had i not just wrapped my head around that 1 scale...instead of all the other scales if learned over the years. after all! all the notes are right there ! and just seems it would be easyier to get everything into the brain,EAR'S and hands. and would really leave a open door to be creative...instantly. or as soon as a person could strum a chord. Anyone else feel this way?"


If you have not looked at diminished and augmented scale theory yet, I suggest you take a look

Augmented Scale Theory ? Javier Arau

For me this opened many doors into playing "anything anytime anywhere" .. its work..I wont sugar coat it..but worth the time and effort to explore if you have felt intuitively that you could "wonder off the reservation" of diatonic harmony and NOT get lost..this could be a place to start looking..

my take..in a nutshell..it combines symmetric harmony with the chromatic scale..so I see a group of chords in symmetric harmony as ONE chord ( G7 Bb7 Db7 E7) - now include the implied ii7 chords with them (Dmi7 Fmi7 etc) now go back further in the cycle and include the iii7 vi7 ..now include the substitute chords for these chords tritons etc ..so when you see a G7 you can use this vast new supply of harmonic knowledge..and all the known devices held within..so at one point the cycle disappears and you are just left with .. well freedom to play anything without that feeling of " oh I played a mi7 chords now I HAVE to go here.." and of course-this comes with the knowledge that you can do this at every turn..so to speak

[Pocket Player]

Thanks Wolflen ! i will look at this . sounds like a very interesting approach.

[Reg]

Wow... I just read through this thread... Man I was impressed, really. great info...

What a difference a few years makes...