Modal Harmony vid series

[jancivil]

- E Phrygian: This one lets you use not only 1, but 2 different dominants! [...]
B7b5 [= F7b5]
I think the reason why it's not used in classical music that much at all is just that it doesn't fit stylistically (and is intrinsically somewhat dissonant).

F to D# is an augmented sixth. Bach did German sixth at least. Notorious Tristan chord, F B D# with appoggiatura G# into A, shocking #9 there (or sounds like Fm7b5, ie., Ab then the A into A#, #11 on E7 before finally coming) except Chopin done it 20 yrs earlier (1839, op.28 no.2).
The reason, though, that it's thought of as 'French 6th', F A B D#, is to do with voice-leading. F-D# (s'posed to go) to E-E (but goes E-D, so people find the proto V7b5 substitute herein):


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_chord

Focusing on building harmony horizontally through voice leading rather than applying chords to a melody is also more likely to maintain the illusion of a mode rather than tonality.

Nota Bene^

I'm starting to think that the best way [...] is to call them what they are when doing that: scales.

When talking about soloing over a chord, this is pretty much what happens. It's a scale derived from a mode – I don't think most people are making stronger claims than this unless they are going for a modal feel over the entire song.

[...] you get "I played over this chord in the G Mix mode" and not "I played over this chord using notes from the scale derived from the G Mix mode".

I don't know what happened over 'this chord' as appears in these sentences.

I call myself a modal player soloing as I'm not interested much in chords (which does not seem all that extraordinary to me).

I did Bb to Ab vamp in Stranger 'n' [5] and that's certainment Bb Mixolydian soloing/melody. That's all I got, except:
I would say that Satie Gnossienne #1 - C harmonic minor over F tonic, F minor key sig - is modal. 4th mode of C harmonic minor: F G Ab B C D Eb. (It goes to iv and comes back.) 2nd part he does 4th mode of C melodic minor, yer jazz minor rightchere.
(I would even say that's prophetic like his planed mixed quartal stacks in Le fils etoiles act I is.)

But I'm following ICM, it's melody instrument + drums... it's static, it don't go nowhere.
I'll decide on eg., 1 #2 3 #4 5 -7 and go to town. And I did do 'independent bass lines' with that one, as well as unison on the main motif.
I did my take on Marwa and I bet ya I lived in that world for a minute.

I think modes on the for real side are more 'modern' than a whole buncha chords (and do confer Miles you don't want to end up a hip cornball). But that's an Aesthetics discussion, isn't it.

[jancivil]

Aha, I just found somebody writing - here it is, one Arnold Schering - that the Tristan Chord starts off conceptually from the Phrygian half-cadence.

Which is just iv6 to V. If Tristan Chord is a French Sixth, F B D# A (that's how it's spelled, ultimately) then that's clearly true. I can't tell you when "Phrygian half-cadence" was first pooted forth but Schering died in 1941. So it cain't be Miles nor George Russell that's ta blame, 'chord/scale theory' notwithstanding.

[zethus909]

https://vid.me/qcZa
this is modal, i feel, but it is using passing modal harmony, but it's not "modal harmony" in the way I was explaining it before. not in that sense, I am not consciously playing any "stacks" or "chords".

i just composed it, but, what it really is, is me just letting my hands play the notes they want without any thought, and then naturally, it modulates to wherever, the music leads itself, based on the atmosphere of the room, except on some of the modulations, I "react", in that I hear and see, "ok, that just collapsed into G ionian, etc. and then I "move" with the music, so I let the music lead itself.

[stringtapper]

Sounds more "noodle" than "modal" to me.

[fmr]

https://vid.me/qcZa
this is modal, i feel, but it is using passing modal harmony, but it's not "modal harmony" in the way I was explaining it before. not in that sense, I am not consciously playing any "stacks" or "chords".

In which world is this modal? How and why?

[jancivil]

"without any thought" seems evident enough. some pandiatonic aimless noodling is supposed to do what towards the discussion now?

But you've put us in a terrible spot now. I mean I truly hate to say this but it couldn't be a better illustration of you as a complete neophyte. We're expected to be gentle with the mentals, you know. Damn. I mean there's something to be said for remaining childlike in our creativity, but not literally like a child. (And I don't mean the child Mozart or such.).

Note Well: If you presented this by itself instead of after pages and pages of telling us how it is, I would never remark on it. This is not a composition, at any rate. Where do you think you are exactly?

Strike the above. I'm in the terrible spot of, need to speak the truth but I have to recognize the socially unacceptableness of it all. If this were Facebook I'd have you blocked, no worries. I don't know you, but you present a nightmare to me by what you post.

If you would ask for guidance... is this a question? For once you seem unsure.
The reason this isn't *modal* is that there is no sense of home, or One. It's just wandering around, pandiatonically.
Fernando asked for your thoughts (perhaps these are rhetorical questions, I mean at this point, sheesh): HOW is this modal?

[stringtapper]

Yeah tread lightly here.

Because you know the response to any criticism is going to be something like "well at least *I* can do something like this. I don't see any of you posting anything so I can't even be sure that any of you are musicians at all!"

Mark my words…

[jancivil]

lol, but don't I know it.

I can post some my modal improv then, as a firewall.
ONE MORE AGAIN!
six notes: 1 #2 3 #4 5 b7 then 1 2 3 #4 5 b7 (which is very different), DIG IT.



and fuggit:


SATIE Gnossiennes #1. I forgot to state the tune after the first gesture in part 2 but WTF, I was happy. NSFW!

[zethus909]

how is what i played not modal.

i probably changed modes like 50 times in that performance. and I dont think i played a single chord.

i think if you want to be strictly "modal", it's safe to say you can't play any chords. that's just a backdoor perspectual aspect of what modal means. and so, for it be "harmonically" modal, it is just passing harmony. but it's still harmony

the importance is placed on the fact that in "modal" "harmony", the harmony is never OVERT, and it's never intentional, the playing of tones in linear succession is the most important aspect. and with two hands you can clearly demonstrate this aspect of "passing" modal harmony. (even though the harmony is residual, it is still present, AND substantial)

the harmonic "subtance" of this piece I did, is still very relevant and essential to the piece itself, the textures of harmony that occur are pleasing, even though they are not overtly implied.

i find this notion of "modal harmony" to be very relevant, even though it's not technically proper to say it.

but yea, i would love to see some of your music, like i said even before this thread. it's not a competition, i just like sharing music with other musicians. to see what your actual musical output is rather than just "talking" about music. it brings a realness into the discussion, so you can see that the very subjects that we are discussing in this thread, have a real life application. as opposed to denouncing things based purely on some intangible abstract arbritrary framework.
ie. "there is no such things as MODAL harmony, because...bla bla, insert abstract arbritray textbook definition here"

so yes, I would like to see some of your music, considering you all talk on such a high pedestal about the virtues of theory, it's a irrelevant unless you put it into practice

but...if you dont want share, thats cool, some of you might be really high profile artists or writers i have no clue, I am not, i am complete unknown artist living in obscurity.

[nineofkings]

how is what i played not modal.

i probably changed modes like 50 times in that performance.
...
i find this notion of "modal harmony" to be very relevant, even though it's not technically proper to say it.

Ok, so what this amounts to is: you know the definition of the word "modal," but you don't like it, so you continue to use your own definition - even when it gets in the way of communication - and decide that that means you're being "objective."

I've given the idea of modal harmony a pass in this thread, cause it speeds up communication and helps people with jazz improvisation. But to say this is a "modal piece" doesn't help communication at all, cause that's not what that phrase means. Constant modulation is not a feature of truly modal pieces; only the appropriation of modes by jazz, which, as has been beaten to death, is not "truly" modal.

Your whole musical objectivism thing is fundamentally flawed. Nobody is wholly objective. And in the end it just leads to words losing all meaning.

I appreciate you sharing your music, though. Eventually it's better to show not tell, especially in the heady world of theory.

[jancivil]

For me at this point (for a good while) discourse with zethus909 is basically as good as discourse with the most obtuse, ignorant right wing troll. They reside firmly ensconced under an impermeable bubble and we will only ever against that. So the only point is to shine a hard light on what they're doing for the undecided.

There isn't really a movement as such but a couple of things have accrued some heft. Here, ChandlerHimself has found a handle by which to self-promote, a gimmick as a book jacket for some notions of chords over scales. So now we have this Modal Harmony, which isn't really a thing. You'll give it a pass because 'jazz' people find a convenient handle? FOR f**ks SAKE they already have Chord/Scale theory.

Zethus909 is not doing anything like modal. "I probably (see, you don't have any actual idea) changed modes 50 times there." Exactly why it isn't modal. There is never any sense of home, there is no ONE in terms of notes and in terms of rhythm. It's rhythmless, and not in a good way, it's just meandering, senseless noodling. No problem except this is supposed to shore up his obtuse abuse of language justifying his notion that, apparently, aimless 'let your fingers do the talking' is a better way because it's so PURE. It's pure nonsense. I'd just typed "rubbish" but I don't want to give it that much due.

This is bullshit.

[jancivil]

I've known real jazz people (rather than strawmen), and it weren't really serious people that go on about chord/scale theory. There are a couple of notable (and excellent) guitarists that came to jazz from a blues/rock type of ideology that do this, but appeal to their authority is fallacious, it doesn't matter who says 'E Mixolydian over the dominant 7th of A', it's exactly wrong.

[jancivil]

Speakin' o' strawmen, George Russell as responsible for the confusion of language regarding modes which ain't modes, just because of the word "Lydian" in his concept? That's so glib.

At the outset, LYDIAN SCALE, dig. The concept is tonal gravity owing to perfect fifths as they go on out to form the 12 tones. 7 TONE ORDER: F C G D A E B. 9 TONE ORDER, out to C#, G#, etc.
And he forms scales from 7 Tone, 9 Tone, 10, 11, 12 Tone Orders.
SO, the basic scale naturally is LYDIAN. We may note that the preferred 11th (in modern jazz) on chords with a major third is a #11. That's kind of the natural state. So his "Parent Scales" and all of it proceeds from Lydian Scale, not major.

Then 7-note scales are justified to include certain of the higher orders results.

After this is established, he says CHORDMODE (Don't trip.). Which just means chord, except they are seven notes per Lydian as a Principal vertical construct with Sub-Principle constructs.
This is odd in that his ordering (established at the outset) is I II VI III +IV V VII. I dunno.

Then he builds that out, to their logical conclusion from these. This is internally completely consistent! There are certain things I never got in his First Principles... hey, I'm not much of a follower as a person anyway. Also he is at pains to reconcile his results with stuff people already do, even as this CHORDMODE carries certain results that you wouldn't do otherwise.

But what this is NOT is your typical Chord/Scale theory out of the everyday 7 modes. It's much crazier. And I wouldn't lump him in with ignorants, it's just too deep. I think he was basically nuts, but in the good way. It's stimulating to me even as I don't fully buy it.

[jancivil]

The sort of bullshit "Chord/Scale Theory" derives from such as Mark Levine "Major-scale harmony", ii = dorian, ad naus. It strikes me as people that didn't get Lydian Chromatic Concept and presented a superficial, stupid distortion of teh Parent Scales. From there it got stupider and we have parrots squawking 'on ii7 you do Dorian mode'...

[jancivil]

Actually Levine's notions rather illustrate 'theory' which was an observation (through a faulty lens here, if it s'posed to be 'After Russell') which is supposed to be prescriptive. And we get shite like E Phrygian = Esusb9 (in C Major o' course). Modal Harmony reinvents a wheel that don't roll.