Modal Harmony vid series

[MadBrain]

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.

I think you're misreading Levine at least a little. In C major he doesn't imply that you should play the III chord as Esus b9... I read it as saying that you should consider trying E dorian if you play a fully extended Em13, or maybe try E minor (for Em9) or just leaving the C major scale as is (if you're playing Em7).

The way I've read Levine's part about the Esus b9 was that it was simply suggestion for when you want to have the color of E phrygian in the form of a chord... then you can break out that chord and get the phrygian color (in addition to presumably playing a melody in E phrygian over it).

[jancivil]

I'll take your word on that. I just saw Esusb9 in a summary, Michael McClimon and after a sort of detailed primer of Russell 'Chord/Scale Theory after Russell'.
Part One Chapter 3 of Levine's book is called Chord/Scale Theory, then Major Scale Harmony is the first subheading.

My bad, I assumed McClimon was pasting from the actual text. It hardly matters which iii chord he likes (I don't like that one!), the point is this is kinda the Bible of this theory.
All of Major Scale Harmony is MAJOR SCALE THE FVCK HARMONY, iii chord does not take us to Phrygiantown. So this text is authoritative to, one supposes a lot of people, although nobody I know, I tell you what.

BUT, here's what I'm really on about talking about Russell's concept vis a vis this other thing: Levine has to advise us on the Avoid Note for C^7 (F) and for G7 (C).
So, Levine takes the major scale as the parent to everything, same as it ever was.
Lydian Chromatic Concept takes the Lydian Scale as the most sensible (most natural, and the true cosmic) basis. So, C^7#11, no avoid, and G7#11 (if b5 is not already true), no avoid.

I think this is quite right and I suppose it's educated, the organization thru proceeding by P5ths starting with F IS the ancient basis for modal thought (closely resembling the Ecclesiastical development I'd suppose) in India, for instance. Its application will be about stuff to do in the climate of harmonic movement so it's not modal music and I would guess that Russell would not have it confused. Levine's book, I don't know about it.

[jancivil]

Esus b9 for when you want to have the color of E phrygian in the form of a chord... then you can break out that chord and get the phrygian color (in addition to presumably playing a melody in E phrygian over it).

Well, that statement is precisely where the objection lies. The thing of modes is you do_not_need_any_chord to get 'the phrygian color', it's already there. The vertical aspect, well if it's really E Phrygian, fine, do that or what-have-you.
I see this in Levine under Major Scale Harmony, which term as a fact obviates anything of phrygian color. It's one or the other.

If I wanted to change the C majorness of it all to E phrygian I would rely on the line rather than a magical E7sus4b9. Izzat what you mean?
(The second solo in Habituo actually resolves to 5 finally, effectively modulating, which I apparently wanted due to the strength of the tabla sounding C (the 5th) all this time.)

But (apart from Levine's context), if you can pull that off, great. I'm still hammering on ''Phrygian in Major' is nonsense'', tho'; you've left C major (or even C ionian) for to have any modal feel.

[MadBrain]

Esus b9 for when you want to have the color of E phrygian in the form of a chord... then you can break out that chord and get the phrygian color (in addition to presumably playing a melody in E phrygian over it).

Well, that statement is precisely where the objection lies. The thing of modes is you do_not_need_any_chord to get 'the phrygian color', it's already there. The vertical aspect, well if it's really E Phrygian, fine, do that or what-have-you.

He's not implying that you MUST have this or any particular chord to get the Phrygian color. He's not even implying that this the most common device to do it (it's not). He just means that you CAN use the chord that he's suggesting (Esus b9) as a tool for that aim, IN ADDITION TO all the other ways of getting the Phrygian color (most of which are melodic and/or modal, as you say).

I see this in Levine under Major Scale Harmony, which term as a fact obviates anything of phrygian color. It's one or the other.

What "major scale harmony" means here in this section is not that it's meant to harmonize the major scale (although you can certainly do that). What "major scale harmony" means is that it's just a grouping of the chord-scale associations where the scale can be said to be a permutation of the major scale (ie you can obtain the E F G A B C D scale by starting C major on E), IN OPPOSITION TO chord-scale associations where, to get the scale, you must start with the ascending minor melodic (7 tones) or diminished scale (8 tones) or the whole tone scale (6 tones).

If I wanted to change the C majorness of it all to E phrygian I would rely on the line rather than a magical E7sus4b9. Izzat what you mean?
(The second solo in Habituo actually resolves to 5 finally, effectively modulating, which I apparently wanted due to the strength of the tabla sounding C (the 5th) all this time.)

But (apart from Levine's context), if you can pull that off, great. I'm still hammering on ''Phrygian in Major' is nonsense'', tho'; you've left C major (or even C ionian) for to have any modal feel.

Yes, if you want to have some E phrygian, normally you start by doing it in the melody line. He doesn't imply in any way that you can write a line in C major, then throw in a Esus b9 over it and magically turn it into E Phrygian. The intention is that your melody etc are already in E Phrygian, and you can additionally throw in this chord (OR other harmonically compatible chords) over the top to get more of that Phrygian feel (OR use any non-chord based device that you want).

[fmr]

For those interested, here is a small exercize I did over the Mode of E (Phrygian). I am a little rusty on these techniques (it's been decades since I last did this) but I tried to respewct all the contrapuntal styule restriction, as well as the mode restrictions (no "musica ficta", therefore, no lead tones). It was done in the motet style.

In any way do I want to be pretentious. This is a very humble exercize I did this afternoon in Finale, between other things I was doing, just to try to see if I was still able to do it stylistically. I'm not certain, but I think I cheated a little every now and then, but nothing too serious, I hope. Of course, in a composition "for real", I would do this differently. This is just to show how "harmony" works (or don't work functionally) in a truly modal piece. Consider it like practicing scales (and apparently, I should have done this more often).

Here is the Music: Exercize in the Mode of E

And here is the score: Exercize in the Mode of E score

If you are not interested, please ignore.

[fmr]

Yes, if you want to have some E phrygian, normally you start by doing it in the melody line. He doesn't imply in any way that you can write a line in C major, then throw in a Esus b9 over it and magically turn it into E Phrygian. The intention is that your melody etc are already in E Phrygian, and you can additionally throw in this chord (OR other harmonically compatible chords) over the top to get more of that Phrygian feel (OR use any non-chord based device that you want).

5 (E root)
6 (C# 6th)
7 (A 4th)
8 (F b9)

Is this your Esus b9? If it is, care to explain how this fits in the mode of E? I even don't get why E is the root of the chord, anyway, and what note is that F b9? F flat?

I looked for this, and found a site where there are "treasures" like this: "for years they told me to improvise on the 3th chord of a modal major harmony with the third mode of the major scale on the min.7 chord. (I was lost after the "modal major harmony")

"these are from the 'other' derivation of the b9sus--as the second mode of the melodic minor...and then following the assumption that any chord from a particular mm scale can function for any other. these are third mode chords, maj7#5, lydian augmented, of the same underlying mm which gives the second mode b9sus." DOUBLE (this one is particularly scary)

"Yes, this is exactly how I theoretically think about susb9, the second mode of the mm scale and therefore any mode from the mm parent scale" TRIPLE

WOW. This is dark science After this, my head simply exploded

[MadBrain]

Yes, if you want to have some E phrygian, normally you start by doing it in the melody line. He doesn't imply in any way that you can write a line in C major, then throw in a Esus b9 over it and magically turn it into E Phrygian. The intention is that your melody etc are already in E Phrygian, and you can additionally throw in this chord (OR other harmonically compatible chords) over the top to get more of that Phrygian feel (OR use any non-chord based device that you want).

5 (E root)
6 (C# 6th)
7 (A 4th)
8 (F b9)

Is this your Esus b9? If it is, care to explain how this fits in the mode of E? I even don't get why E is the root of the chord, anyway, and what note is that F b9? F flat?

The complete chord symbol would be E7sus4b9 (Mark Levine uses an abbreviated symbol for whatever reason). In pop notation, all extended chord notes start by default as notes from the dominant 7th chord (ex: E13 = E G# B D F# (A) C#), and then are altered from there. So E7 is E G# B D, sus4 takes out the G# and adds in an A (4th), and b9 turns F# into F (or adds it if missing), which makes the complete chord E A B D F:
E (root)
A (4th)
B (5th, optional)
D (7th - the 7th defaults as minor)
F (b9th)

It's an E chord because E is played in the bass (with another note in the bass, you'd get something like Dmin69 for instance) and it's not an inversion (it's in root position). It fits 'E Phrygian' (note: NOT the Gregorian mode, but rather the modern "scale"/""""tonality""""/whatever that Metal guitarists play) because it has 5 of the 7 notes: E F G A B C D.

This kind of chord is often written as a slash chord. In my 'Real Book' it shows up using a variety of symbols like "G7b9sus4" in Ana Maria, "F-6/G" in April in Paris, "G-7b5/C" in Beauty and the Beast" (Wayne Shorter), "Bbmaj7b5/A" in Bright Size Life, "F-(maj7)/G" in Captain Marvel (Chick Corea), "D7sus4(b9)" in Crescent (John Coltrane), etc...

I looked for this, and found a site where there are "treasures" like this: "for years they told me to improvise on the 3th chord of a modal major harmony with the third mode of the major scale on the min.7 chord. (I was lost after the "modal major harmony")

"these are from the 'other' derivation of the b9sus--as the second mode of the melodic minor...and then following the assumption that any chord from a particular mm scale can function for any other. these are third mode chords, maj7#5, lydian augmented, of the same underlying mm which gives the second mode b9sus." DOUBLE (this one is particularly scary)

"Yes, this is exactly how I theoretically think about susb9, the second mode of the mm scale and therefore any mode from the mm parent scale" TRIPLE

WOW. This is dark science After this, my head simply exploded

What that guy is referring to is the idea that the following series of chords can sometimes be somewhat interchangeable due to having more or less the same notes with a different bass:

Cminmaj7 (completely extended version: Cminmaj13: C Eb G B D A)
D7sus4b9(13) (completely extended version: D13susb9: D G A C Eb B)
Ebmaj7#5 (completely extended version: Ebmaj13#5#11, probably voiced something like Eb F A C D G B)
F7#11 (completely extended version: F13#11: F A C Eb G D E)
Amin9b5 (completely extended version: Amin11b5: A C Eb G B D)
Balt7 (shorthand for B7#9#5, completely extended version: B7#5#9b9#11: B D# G A C D F)

[jancivil]

Esus b9 for when you want to have the color of E phrygian in the form of a chord... then you can break out that chord and get the phrygian color.

Well, that statement is precisely where the objection lies. The thing of modes is you do_not_need_any_chord to get 'the phrygian color', it's already there.

He just means that you CAN use the chord that he's suggesting (Esus b9) as a tool for that aim, IN ADDITION TO all the other ways of getting the Phrygian color (most of which are melodic and/or modal, as you say).

You're missing the essential idea: there is no need for "ways", Phrygian is there for you, in itself.

I see this in Levine under Major Scale Harmony, which term as a fact obviates anything of phrygian color. It's one or the other.

What "major scale harmony" means here in this section is...

Boy howdy, modes out of C major.
OK. In the book it literally lists the 7 modes and assigns a chord for each. The basis is that any tertial chord can wind up extended to 7 tones therefore "The scale and the chord are two forms of the same thing.".

Think of modes this way: The C major scale has seven different notes, and you can play the scale starting on any one of its seven notes. This means that there are really seven different C major scales - one that starts on C, one on D, one on E, one on F, and so on through B.

.

... IN OPPOSITION TO chord-scale associations where, to get the scale, you must start with the ascending minor melodic (7 tones) or diminished scale (8 tones) or the whole tone scale (6 tones).

Russell reconciles those with the Tone Order constructs. I guess I prefer the Unified Field theory of Russell. There is no "avoid tone" in his basic scale, there is no "in opposition to" mode of jazz minor, mode of harmonic major, octatonic, whole tone...

But one more again, here's that bogus lingo, the modes are properties of the major scale. Worse than that, this is exactly a source for believing that all Phrygian is is C major scale starting on E. That's idiotic, sorry.

And again, I object to this because such as "The color of E Phrygian" can be so rich. The hegemony of this concept is a stone drag. People be seeing this term 'mode' and it's reduced to a property of C major. And that sentence by Levine is so dull-minded. E Phrygian is reduced to nothing in that sentence. This is like this Mike Douglas Show vid I just saw, Buddy Rich on C&W music, we move backwards thru being incurious and dull with that type behavior.

[jancivil]

Esus b9

5 (E root)
6 (C# 6th)
7 (A 4th)
8 (F b9)
Is this your Esus b9? If it is, care to explain how this fits in the mode of E? I even don't get why E is the root of the chord, anyway, and what note is that F b9? F flat?

The complete chord symbol would be E7sus4b9 (Mark Levine uses an abbreviated symbol for whatever reason). In pop notation, all extended chord notes start by default as notes from the dominant 7th chord (ex: E13 = E G# B D F# (A) C#), and then are altered from there. So E7 is E G# B D, sus4 takes out the G# and adds in an A (4th), and b9 turns F# into F (or adds it if missing), which makes the complete chord E A B D F:

THAT is a horrible explanation.
Finally after bouncing it around in my head a bit, I realized what you mean.
The 7 in pop music lead sheets, fake books and what-not is by default a minor 7th. "dominant 7th" contains a minor 7th, so everything that isn't going to result in major 7th just got tied to 'dominant 7'.

The extensions are not about any dominant 7th unless it is the dominant 7th chord. In fact, this is a confusion of the term dominant 7th chord. Even the major/minor seventh (major triad, minor seventh) is not "dominant 7th" per se: Dominant 7th chord is a DOMINANT to a TONIC. It is V of something. In a key, in diatonic music there is exactly ONE Dominant 7th. In major, ii naturally has a minor 7th, goes out to major 9th, perfect 11th, major 13th; iii naturally has a minor 7th, minor 9th, perfect 11th, minor 13th.

This is a nightmare. Below I'm going to limit myself to one example.

This kind of chord is often written as a slash chord. In my 'Real Book' it shows up using a variety of symbols like ...

"F-(maj7)/G" in Captain Marvel (Chick Corea),

What is "it" in that sentence. The only "it" heretofore was the E A D F thing.
That was tied to E Phrygian and iii as far as I know. Surely G in the bass is a completely different thing than E in the bass here.

At this point it's getting to be a real clusterfuck.

I looked for this, and found a site where there are "treasures" like this: "for years they told me to improvise on the chord of a modal major harmony with the third mode of the major scale on the min.7 chord. (I was lost after the "modal major harmony")
[...]
WOW. This is dark science After this, my head simply exploded

What that guy is referring to is the idea that the following series of chords can sometimes be somewhat interchangeable due to having more or less the same notes with a different bass: (nightmare clusterfuck of symbols)

OMFG. No, please no. I will assure the world that the above Phrygian chord cannot possibly be interchangeable with the Chick Corea Fm^7 G bass unless all semblance of function is out the window, and I don't know what music there is where one would go to all the trouble of all of this tertial extension ad absurdum in order to arrive at nihilism.

fmr illustrates the problem of these theories. (beyond the insane notion that all of this is interchangeable so long as the notes are kinda sorta the same) I could sort out most of that out of familiarity with Russell (most of that relies on that concept), and I find 'second mode of melodic minor' just as simple as 'second mode of ionian'... but "modal major harmony with the third mode of the major scale, the minor seventh blah blah" is another matter. YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT SIMPLE MAJOR, complicated as all of this through SHEER BULLSHIT. All that sentence does is say (do E Phrygian over) "Em7". The bit in parentheses is USELESS NOISE to pollute yer brain.

[MadBrain]

[...]
THAT is a horrible explanation.
Finally after bouncing it around in my head a bit, I realized what you mean.
The 7 in pop music lead sheets, fake books and what-not is by default a minor 7th. "dominant 7th" contains a minor 7th, so everything that isn't going to result in major 7th just got tied to 'dominant 7'.

The extensions are not about any dominant 7th unless it is the dominant 7th chord. In fact, this is a confusion of the term dominant 7th chord. Even the major/minor seventh (major triad, minor seventh) is not "dominant 7th" per se: Dominant 7th chord is a DOMINANT to a TONIC. It is V of something. In a key, in diatonic music there is exactly ONE Dominant 7th. In major, ii naturally has a minor 7th, goes out to major 9th, perfect 11th, major 13th; iii naturally has a minor 7th, minor 9th, perfect 11th, minor 13th.

This is a nightmare. Below I'm going to limit myself to one example.

Dude, chill out. I was just using the term "dominant 7th" to refer to the major chord with a minor 7th as some people occasionally do, simply to disambiguate this from the minor 7th or major 7th chord, and to avoid the term "notes from E mixolydian" to avoid any more people flipping out over terminology (something we've already had way too much of). I was not referring to the dominant of a key or the harmonic role of any chord. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

This kind of chord is often written as a slash chord. In my 'Real Book' it shows up using a variety of symbols like ...

"F-(maj7)/G" in Captain Marvel (Chick Corea),

What is "it" in that sentence. The only "it" heretofore was the E A D F thing.
That was tied to E Phrygian and iii as far as I know. Surely G in the bass is a completely different thing than E in the bass here.

It's a transposed version. In E it would be "D-(maj7)/E", of course. Ok, I guess with the major 7th of D, that would be a C#, which means that this one particular chord is based on a modified scale (E F G A B C# D) rather than the 'straight' version.

At this point it's getting to be a real clusterfuck.

I looked for this, and found a site where there are "treasures" like this: "for years they told me to improvise on the chord of a modal major harmony with the third mode of the major scale on the min.7 chord. (I was lost after the "modal major harmony")
[...]
WOW. This is dark science After this, my head simply exploded

What that guy is referring to is the idea that the following series of chords can sometimes be somewhat interchangeable due to having more or less the same notes with a different bass: (nightmare clusterfuck of symbols)

OMFG. No, please no. I will assure the world that the above Phrygian chord cannot possibly be interchangeable with the Chick Corea Fm^7 G bass unless all semblance of function is out the window, and I don't know what music there is where one would go to all the trouble of all of this tertial extension ad absurdum in order to arrive at nihilism.

fmr illustrates the problem of these theories. (beyond the insane notion that all of this is interchangeable so long as the notes are kinda sorta the same) I could sort out most of that out of familiarity with Russell (most of that relies on that concept), and I find 'second mode of melodic minor' just as simple as 'second mode of ionian'... but "modal major harmony with the third mode of the major scale, the minor seventh blah blah" is another matter. YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT SIMPLE MAJOR, complicated as all of this through SHEER BULLSHIT. All that sentence does is say (do E Phrygian over) "Em7". The bit in parentheses is USELESS NOISE to pollute yer brain.

Ah, sorry, I was referring to the 2nd and 3rd part of the quote, not the 1st (which I kinda skipped over, tbh), which refers to the idea that you can take the minor melodic scale (in C in my example - C D Eb F G A B) and shake a bunch of fancy chords out of it, and I simply listed those chords (and the most extended voicings simply to show that they all contain the same notes but with a different bass). There are many other ways to explain this kind of chords, I was just explaining the one that's in Mark Levine's book and used by those "chord-scale people".

[fmr]

The complete chord symbol would be E7sus4b9 (Mark Levine uses an abbreviated symbol for whatever reason). In pop notation, all extended chord notes start by default as notes from the dominant 7th chord (ex: E13 = E G# B D F# (A) C#), and then are altered from there. So E7 is E G# B D, sus4 takes out the G# and adds in an A (4th), and b9 turns F# into F (or adds it if missing), which makes the complete chord E A B D F:
E (root)
A (4th)
B (5th, optional)
D (7th - the 7th defaults as minor)
F (b9th)

I was suspecting that Fb wasn't really Fb, because it wouldn't make sense, but I wasn't understanding why he would say it's Fb when it wasn't. For a musician this is just a mess - either it is Fb or it is F. Whatever. OK, in my land, this is a minor seventh with diminished fifth (B, D, F, A) which is a typical chord of C Major, constructed over the lead tone (the seventh note of the tonality) and therefore "calls" C Major. I was taught to call it "leading-tone seventh". Only difference is that this chord has in the bass a note that doesn't belong to it. What is that note, only the music context can explain it, but it could be a note from the previous chord, for example. Problem is, since thing are not written, people just "guess", and therefore, feel the need to put names on everything. Sometimes, the explanation could be much simpler, and much more musically meaningful.

It's an E chord because E is played in the bass (with another note in the bass, you'd get something like Dmin69 for instance) and it's not an inversion (it's in root position). It fits 'E Phrygian' (note: NOT the Gregorian mode, but rather the modern "scale"/""""tonality""""/whatever that Metal guitarists play) because it has 5 of the 7 notes: E F G A B C D.

First, IMO, it's not an E chord, as I explained above. I may be wrong, but only in front of real musical examples could I make my mind about what is really happening musically. But my experiences tells me that usually things are much simpler than this. My goodness, if I was trying to explain Chopin or Liszt this way, I would have a new chord every half note, and way more complicated.

Regarding that fact that the chord has five notes of a certain mode, well, it happens those five notes also belong to ANY of the other modes, and also to C Major, and A minor. Why E and not anything else. The bass? But what if the bass doesn't even belong to the chord, as I said?

This kind of chord is often written as a slash chord. In my 'Real Book' it shows up using a variety of symbols like "G7b9sus4" in Ana Maria, "F-6/G" in April in Paris, "G-7b5/C" in Beauty and the Beast" (Wayne Shorter), "Bbmaj7b5/A" in Bright Size Life, "F-(maj7)/G" in Captain Marvel (Chick Corea), "D7sus4(b9)" in Crescent (John Coltrane), etc...

If by slash chord you mean a chord that is written over a bass that's not from that chord, then this comes to an interpretation closer to mine.

I looked for this, and found a site where there are "treasures" like this: "for years they told me to improvise on the 3th chord of a modal major harmony with the third mode of the major scale on the min.7 chord. (I was lost after the "modal major harmony")

"these are from the 'other' derivation of the b9sus--as the second mode of the melodic minor...and then following the assumption that any chord from a particular mm scale can function for any other. these are third mode chords, maj7#5, lydian augmented, of the same underlying mm which gives the second mode b9sus." DOUBLE (this one is particularly scary)

"Yes, this is exactly how I theoretically think about susb9, the second mode of the mm scale and therefore any mode from the mm parent scale" TRIPLE

WOW. This is dark science After this, my head simply exploded

What that guy is referring to is the idea that the following series of chords can sometimes be somewhat interchangeable due to having more or less the same notes with a different bass:

Cminmaj7 (completely extended version: Cminmaj13: C Eb G B D A)
D7sus4b9(13) (completely extended version: D13susb9: D G A C Eb B)
Ebmaj7#5 (completely extended version: Ebmaj13#5#11, probably voiced something like Eb F A C D G B)
F7#11 (completely extended version: F13#11: F A C Eb G D E)
Amin9b5 (completely extended version: Amin11b5: A C Eb G B D)
Balt7 (shorthand for B7#9#5, completely extended version: B7#5#9b9#11: B D# G A C D F)

These "chords" are beyond what I was taught as chords. Beyond the ninth (five notes - and even that is just foir some special chords as the dominant ninth), I was taught that explaining that as a chord would be difficult, because it would be a chord over another chord (a triad over another triad) and that may pose other questions, namely in what universe we are moving (still tonal? polytonal?). So, giving names to chords in abstract, without a meaningful music context, has that danger. Are really all those notes belonging to the same chord? Are not some of them explainable by other reasons, and therefore not belonging to the harmony? Again, just piling notes and giving names to the result conducts to chaos, the chaos that this is, IMO. And what is worse, you are losing contact with another very important dimension of the music - the notes that do not belong to harmony, that are strange, and therefore are there to embelish, to create moods/tension, and require a different interpretation and treatment. Explaining everything as chords may be interesting when you have to play and all you have a melody with figures, but it is too simplistic, and when you have to "think" the music, you lose perspective. And it conducts to standardization, the worst thing that can happen to music.

[zethus909]

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.

haters going to hate. i didnt say it was completely modal. i asked "how is it not modal", parts of it, ARE modal. it's a free jazz performance, there is no rules. you are obsessed with rules, that are meaningless without any music. you are basically slowing down the music, into this sledge of complex notations that serves no real purpose other than to describe. this is all explanation and not action. action creates music. attempting to explain the action after the fact does not create music. i agree that it is noodling, but its still was mainly a performance. but more just practicsing, but practicsing without thoughts. The entire point of it is to not have it be in some order of anything.

[fmr]

Perhaps my favourite melody in the Mode of E is the famous "Pange Lingua Gloriosi". This hymn became famous throughout the centuries, and was the base for many famous pieces, namely Masses by Josquin des Prez, Palestrina and Victoria. Here is a link to the score of the hymn (it has several stanzes always sunged with the same melodic phrases): http://www.cengage.com/music/book_conte ... sprez.html

And here is a link where you can listen to Josquin Mass while following the score: https://musescore.com/user/15603/scores/1236271

This is a good example of the beauty of this Mode, and how it was treated polyphonically. Will try to find an example of Palestrina work.

[fmr]

i didnt say it was completely modal. i asked "how is it not modal", parts of it, ARE modal. it's a free jazz performance, there is no rules.

The problem is that it's not modal AT ALL. It's nothing, for that matters, It's just a chaotic succession of sounds, without any organization. Therefore, it's not music.

you are obsessed with rules, that are meaningless without any music. you are basically slowing down the music, into this sledge of complex notations that serves no real purpose other than to describe. this is all explanation and not action. action creates music. attempting to explain the action after the fact does not create music. i agree that it is noodling, but its still was mainly a performance. but more just practicsing, but practicsing without thoughts.

Music is an intelectual achievement, as much as an artistic achievement. That's why we spend years trying to dominate it's techniques. Because, like all forms of art, it's as much creation as it is craftmanship. You showed no craftmanship at all, no intrinsic musical thought behind, no conducting line of thinking. What you still didn't understand is that a mode is NOT just a succession of notes. It has an inner organization without which it will not exist. This is where our intelect, our mind, and also our technical craftmanship comes into call. I'm not saying that I can do that without any fail, but I understand the principles, and at least I try to come out with something meaningful, as I showed.

And rules are not meaningless. Rules are what differentiates music from any chaotic succession of sounds. It's what you fail to understand, and that's probably why you cannot listen to someone like Ligeti - because you apparently are incapable of recognize these simple principles.

[jancivil]

Dude, chill out. I was just using the term "dominant 7th" to refer to the major chord with a minor 7th as some people occasionally do, simply to disambiguate this from the minor 7th or major 7th chord, and to avoid the term "notes from E mixolydian" to avoid any more people flipping out over terminology (something we've already had way too much of). I was not referring to the dominant of a key or the harmonic role of any chord. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

You said: "In pop notation, all extended chord notes start by default as notes from the dominant 7th chord (ex: E13 = E G# B D F# (A) C#), and then are altered from there."

No, and as the context was iii, a so-called Phrygian chord, it was not clear at all that *all* extended chord notes start by default as notes from the dominant 7th chord. I'm not sure (please don't explain, life's too short) where iii became dominant 7th anyway. If "flipping out" discouraged you from adding the further pollution of "notes from Mixolydian", I'm really truly Glad of it. I stand by 'HORRIBLE' explanation.

fmr illustrates the problem of these theories.
(beyond the insane notion that all of this is interchangeable so long as the notes are kinda sorta the same) I could sort out most of that out of familiarity with Russell[...]
'second mode of melodic minor'...

the idea that you can take the minor melodic scale (in C in my example - C D Eb F G A B) and shake a bunch of fancy chords out of it, and I simply listed those chords (and the most extended voicings simply to show that they all contain the same notes but with a different bass). There are many other ways to explain this kind of chords, I was just explaining the one that's in Mark Levine's book and used by those "chord-scale people".

Actually I know that's what you did, except we find the word 'interchangeable', following this E A D F which seemed like it coulda been interchangeable with all sorts of things, the way you wrote it up. My whole point for the world is, change of bass note tends to be meaningful in functional harmony type music.

This is a lot like knowing what someone is saying that doesn't quite speak english, I'm fairly good at guessing, I think, but I have to ask.

Also, I have to flip out some and point out that 'melodic minor' in jazz terms is bastardized. Melodic minor descending is the same notes as 'natural' minor.

...but "modal major harmony with the third mode of the major scale, the minor seventh blah blah" is another matter. YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT SIMPLE MAJOR, complicated as all of this through SHEER BULLSHIT. All that sentence does is say (do E Phrygian over) "Em7". The bit in parentheses is USELESS NOISE to pollute yer brain.

^I want to be clear that the YOU'RE is for whoever spouted that sentence fmr quoted, I'm not attributing those sentences to you or anything.