Why are guitarists obsessed with modes?

koneguitarist

The more complex songs with 3 or more chords I admit I do struggle with, but there is a lot of good 2 chord songs in my set! " You never can tell, " "lover please" "rockin' pneumonia" etc.

thomasross20

If I wanted to approach the fretboard from a more chordal/arp perspective.... is there a recommended book/dvd? 

Clarky

jpfamps said:

So why is there such fetish amongst guitarists with modes?

so that those that think they understand them can inflict their great wisdom on everyone else that think they don't

then they can bask in a universe of smug, warmed by the afterglow of feeling clever as everyone else wades through their vastly extensive modal thesis thinking "WTF was that all about?"

GuyBoden

What about using the Modes of other scales, Harmonic Major, Melodic Minor?

Then, what about creating chords (harmony) built on stacking every fourth note or second note or fifth note with these scales?

MatthewShreddery

I don't find modes of the Harmonic minor scale all that useful.

Modes of melodic minor is where all the juicy stuff is.

viz

Both those scales have many useful modes, particularly the melodic minor, all of whose modes are useful in many contexts, and there's quite a lot of music written in these keys (eg the simpsons) with all the chords you'd expect. Harmonic major less so, but try it! It's quite inspirational, I find.

MatthewShreddery

I find modes of any scale more useful for playing over chord progressions, rather than for playing in a static mode, like a 'Lydian Jam' or stuff like that.

Hey, it's all good.

I also like to just play over a static bass of no particular tonality and just meander from mode to mode as I please.

It's all good stuff.

GuyBoden

What about Harmony (chords) based on other scales and not using stacked thirds?

MatthewShreddery

What about them?

They're fascinating.

I love messing about with them.

Quartal harmony is a great place to start as it sounds instantly hip and modern, without being particularly difficult.

Harmonising harmonic/melodic minor can be tricky as some of the shapes, especially in Hminor are hard.

You can spend forever messing with this aspect of guitar playing - I find it tiresome after a while so don;t do it much, but it is fascinating and fun.

GuyBoden

MatthewShreddery said:

What about them?

They're fascinating.

I love messing about with them.

Quartal harmony is a great place to start as it sounds instantly hip and modern, without being particularly difficult.

Harmonising harmonic/melodic minor can be tricky as some of the shapes, especially in Hminor are hard.

You can spend forever messing with this aspect of guitar playing - I find it tiresome after a while so don;t do it much, but it is fascinating and fun.

Yes, it's easy to spend a lifetime getting lost in harmony, I've been creating stuff with secundal harmony for the last year or so, I still dabble in Quartal/Quintal (4ths/5ths), but it can be overused, especially in Modal Jazz, some Quartal chord voicings sound very old hat, especially "So What" type voicings.

IMHO, Melodic minor Quartal harmony doesn't really work because of the interval between the 7th and b3rd notes of the scale, example the B and Eb in C Melodic minor. It's technically called a diminished 4th, but obviously it sounds like a Major third, so IMHO it ruins the whole sound of Melodic Minor Quartal voicings/harmony, but it sounds ok if you just skip any chords with these two notes.

But, it's all good, enjoyable stuff.
Guy

frankus

If you watch any Ted Greene - there is a man who spent his life getting lost in Harmony, amazing people, being humble and picking himself up to get lost in harmony again. But he did all his "talking" through music, much of his experimentation and discovery in front of an audience and shared his humility with his students to encourage them.

What about harmonizing harmonic modes - answer: you get several of Django Reinhardt's tunes, the reason you probably didn't notice is because you were too busy tapping your feet - rhythm trumps note selection every time.

What about quartal harmony? Well you get lots of sus, 9th,11th and 13th notes - quartal harmony doesn't work on guitars because most of the chord voicings we play are fragmented already.

My beef with some music teachers and guitar mags is they seem to think part of their job is scaring the bejeezers out of guitarists by making a lot of noise about the less pragmatic ways of systemising music - they're great to write and orate about, a f***ing pain to learn (hence the need for advertising) and the returns aren't as marked as timing, repertoire, chord and lick vocab.

And before anyone says it's not scaring, it's not, it's shaming (it's just that most people are scared of shaming - none more so than people prone to use it regularly): "whaaat?!! you don't know..." someone using that mentality even covertly has no place in education of any sort.

 

GuyBoden

frankus said:

If you watch any Ted Greene - there is a man who spent his life getting lost in Harmony, amazing people, being humble and picking himself up to get lost in harmony again. But he did all his "talking" through music, much of his experimentation and discovery in front of an audience and shared his humility with his students to encourage them.

What about harmonizing harmonic modes - answer: you get several of Django Reinhardt's tunes, the reason you probably didn't notice is because you were too busy tapping your feet - rhythm trumps note selection every time.

What about quartal harmony? Well you get lots of sus, 9th,11th and 13th notes - quartal harmony doesn't work on guitars because most of the chord voicings we play are fragmented already.

My beef with some music teachers and guitar mags is they seem to think part of their job is scaring the bejeezers out of guitarists by making a lot of noise about the less pragmatic ways of systemising music - they're great to write and orate about, a f***ing pain to learn (hence the need for advertising) and the returns aren't as marked as timing, repertoire, chord and lick vocab.

And before anyone says it's not scaring, it's not, it's shaming (it's just that most people are scared of shaming - none more so than people prone to use it regularly): "whaaat?!! you don't know..." someone using that mentality even covertly has no place in education of any sort.

 

It's all an interesting musical voyage of discovery, Ted Greene's book is a masterpiece, he built high performance engines too.

Quartal voicings based on diatonic Major modes definitely work on the guitar.

frankus

they work on the guitar, but due to the tuning they aren't radically different from normal voices people use was my point.

 

I don't so much like Chord Chemistry or Ted's Single Note Soloing books but Modern Chord Progressions is one of my favourites as it's experiential, either way I like Chord Chemistry for it mostly being a drilling rather than essays.

thomasross20

viz;652998" said:

Both those scales have many useful modes, particularly the melodic minor, all of whose modes are useful in many contexts, and there's quite a lot of music written in these keys (eg the simpsons) with all the chords you'd expect. Harmonic major less so, but try it! It's quite inspirational, I find.

I never knew that!
I learned them at one point but I've enough to remember with the major scale modes!

thomasross20

I need to read through chord chemistry and also check those others frankus mentioned (good post, BTW).

thomasross20

Wow, Ted Greene's site is full of free info!

frankus

Yup he died a few years back, there's some great stuff there - I liked the interviews between him and George Van Eps lots to listen through but something new jumps out each time.

thomasross20 said:

viz;652998" said:

Both those scales have many useful modes, particularly the melodic minor, all of whose modes are useful in many contexts, and there's quite a lot of music written in these keys (eg the simpsons) with all the chords you'd expect. Harmonic major less so, but try it! It's quite inspirational, I find.

I never knew that!
I learned them at one point but I've enough to remember with the major scale modes!

I like to think of the melodic minor modes as a mashup of two major modes.

for instance:

melodic minor has a flat third like dorian but a major 7th like Ionian..

Phrygian nat 6th is the Phrygian but with the 6th of dorian.

Lydian Dominant is the important bits of Lydian and Mixolydian.

when you lay the modes out in this way (as is often done)

Lydian (#4)

Ionian

Mixolydian (b7)

Dorian (b3)

Aeolian (b6)

Phrygian (b2)

Locrian (b5)

All the melodic minor modes are there.

I was working on a piece of paper you could wrap into a telescope and look down, it'd show a cycle of fifths, the major modes, the melodic minor modes offset and the harmonic minor modes offset.

It doesn't give a sense of equivalence or use in substitution, but it's a quick way to organise them in your head.

GuyBoden

frankus said:

when you lay the modes out in this way (as is often done)

Lydian (#4)

Ionian

Mixolydian (b7)

Dorian (b3)

Aeolian (b6)

Phrygian (b2)

Locrian (b5)

All the melodic minor modes are there.

Frankus, that's interesting, because I too used to think of Melodic minor modes as just altering one note of the Major Modes I already knew.

Example:

Major | Melodic Minor
Ionian = Ionian b3
Dorian = Dorian b2
Phrygian = Phrygian b1
Lydian = Lydian b7
Mixolydian = Mixolydian b6
Aeolian =Aeolian b5
Locrian = Locrian b4

PolarityMan

I like to take my approach to modes from Optimus Prime. I can either play big and heavy but not too nimble, like an articulated lorry or make weird spacey noises like some kind of giant robot.

frankus

GuyBoden;654366" said:

frankus said:

when you lay the modes out in this way (as is often done) Lydian (#4)Ionian Mixolydian (b7)Dorian (b3)Aeolian (b6)Phrygian (b2)Locrian (b5)All the melodic minor modes are there.

Frankus, that's interesting, because I too used to think of Melodic minor modes as just altering one note of the Major Modes I already knew.



Example:



Major | Melodic Minor

Ionian = Ionian b3

Dorian = Dorian b2

Phrygian = Phrygian b1

Lydian = Lydian b7

Mixolydian = Mixolydian b6

Aeolian =Aeolian b5

Locrian = Locrian b4

I'd be interested to know what your thinking moved on to