Theory of Musical Sounds

[ijustwannastrat]

I once saw Paul Gilbert in a guitar lesson DVD, and shortly after his comment I quit guitar for about 2 months. He said, and I quote,

"If you can't figure out your modes, and scales don't make sense, it's all right. I used to have the same troubles! Then I turned 8."*

after such a demoralizing experience, one can feel the shame leaking from their every pores.

To attempt to keep your attention, I have finally had my break-through with modes, and am learning how to apply them to simple songs.

I would love to hear about how you guys learned ( or have yet to learn) music theory, and if you have any practice tips for remembering them. I am currently just getting used to them in the key of G, but at next weeks lessons I am supposed to start playing any mode in any key.

*It was a while ago that I saw this video, so I could be off on the quote. I'm pretty sure that this is what he said, though.

[sumgai]

stratty,

It goes like this:

Chords are, at heart, three notes interspersed in a pleasing way. You can base the chord on a root note that is the tonic of your current "key" - tonic meaing root note in this case.

You can also base your chord on the third note of the scale, the fifth note, or the seventh note. Pay attention here: these are the chordal inversions, named in the same order; the first inversion, the second inversion and the third inversion. Know them, love them, use them with abandon.


Now, in that same vein, think of a scale as an expanded chord for a moment..... Instead of inversions, we can start playing the scale on any tone we like, and we call those "positions". In the key of G, if I start the G major scale on the A note (and continue to the octave above, another A), then I've played the Gmaj scale in the second position. Got that so far? Good.

That's good, because modes are nothing more than Greek names for..... positions. !!! Yes, that's all they are. The trick to using them though, is knowing when you're going to change modes in order to improvise over the top of a accompanying chord. And the trick to that has another basis we need to discuss first.

Like chords, scales are intervals. In western music, we consider the major scale to be tonic (or root), 1 step, 1 step, 1/2 step, 1 step, 1 step, 1 step, 1/2 step (another tonic). By knowing this (either intuitively or by dint of mindless practice, practice, practice), you can form a scale in your head that will properly accompany a chord (IOW, no sour notes). For a guitarist, it's absurdly easy to form a pattern with one's fingers that can be moved up and down the fretboard, thus enabling the scale to be played in any of the 12 keys.

But what happens if the accompanyist plays another chord? Do you move your pattern, or do you "adjust" to accomodate this new chord? Of course you adjust, you do that instinctively. But what scale fits over this new chord?

Obviously, you can't go wrong if you use the same scale as the new chord, which for our example is Gmaj. But where do you "start" this new scale, that's the magic question... and the magic answer is, you use your "positional" fingering to implement the proper scale over the new chord by starting on some other note than the root (of that new chord).

Now, it happens that both chords will probably share at least a few notes, if not several, so your "adjustment" should be minimal, and fairly easy. After all, it lets you remain in the same fingerboard region, which is good. So by merely implementing another scale "position", you've now begun to play in a different mode. And that's where it's all at, when we get down to basics.

Yes, whenever you are playing, you are technically playing in several modes. Actually, you're playing in all seven modes at once, but the overriding tonality of the accomanyment is what determines how it sounds to you and any other listeners. For the most part, it's a first position scale, or the Ionian mode.

You'll learn other modes as your instructor drags you through Mode Hell (major is easy, wait until you get to minors and sevenths ), but in the end, you'll find that you never, ever, have to move your whole hand to another fretboard region just to keep up with the accomanying chords. Unless you want to, of course.

HTH




sumgai

[ijustwannastrat]

I know all seven modes.

And I think I know what you mean by your last line. Since the actual notes you are playing don't change, and neither does the order of the notes (only what note you begin with), you don't need to change modes during a chord change (within correct key).

The way I understand the modes, it's just a way to remember what notes you can hit, so you can go up the neck, down the neck, sideways, diagonally, leftways, rightways, upside-down, and theoretically still be playing in key. Is this assumption wrong?

[gs790]

Pretty sure that Paul was intending to kick your butt not insult you.

I have trouble imagining that Paul was doing anything other than trying to kick your butt. Keys and modes are simple, you just have to give the effort and take the time to learn them. In elementary school, algebra looked strange and impossible, until you found out that is was a redirection of the arithmetic that you already knew very well.


Maybe it is meant as a dig. You know plenty of jerks that say they can play guitar, but all they really know are the shapes. It sounds terrible, but nobody really knows the difference anyway. That's how I was taught trumpet. This is the dot, these are the buttons you press. (you'd be surprised how angry that band director got when I didn't know how to change keys, and inadvertently explained to everyone that it was his fault). It's how I began to learn guitar, and was fortunately partially corrected. At least now I have enough knowledge about keys and scales to know that I'm lost instead of having that quizzical, "Say what?" look on my face.

[ijustwannastrat]

Oh yea, I know Paul ment no harm, but it's like when you get feeling really good about your playing, and then you watch SRV at the mocambo, or eric johnson play cliffs of dover live. It's like you know you will NEVER reach that level of wicked.

*El Mocambo

[sumgai]

Dec 14, 2009 15:53:14 GMT -5 ijustwannastrat said:

Since the actual notes you are playing don't change, and neither does the order of the notes (only what note you begin with), you don't need to change modes during a chord change (within correct key).

You're spot on. Different people see modes in different ways, and that's the beauty of sharing our knowledge. It happens that your instructor (or other influencing factor) showed you how he/she thinks of it, and my influences came at it from a different angle. Still, we both get the job done, eh? ;D

No, you don't need to change modes when playing. But as it happens, if there's a chord change in the accompanyment, and you keep up with it, then you are indeed changing modes, even if you didn't realize it, or consciously made the decision to stay in the same mode, you still changed to accomodate the accompanyment. If you hadn't, you'd've been out of key, and sounding sour notes.

Remember, modes, like scales, are all relative to the tonic of our tune. Actually, many master composers of yestercentury wrote lots of key changes (modulations) over the course of their symphonies, etc, but for most of today's music, we start and end with the same key. Which presupposes that one needs to adjust one's playing to "keep up", even if one chooses to think about that adjustment in ways that differ from the next musician's thought patterns.

The way I understand the modes, it's just a way to remember what notes you can hit, so you can go up the neck, down the neck, sideways, diagonally, leftways, rightways, upside-down, and theoretically still be playing in key. Is this assumption wrong?

No, nothing wrong with that at all. As I just said above, it's all in how you were first exposed to the concept, and for my money, if it works for you (and your listening audience), then you've 'made the grade', and there's no point in trying to perceive the whole thing in some other fashion. Better to be an excellent player in some few ways, than a mediocre player in many things, I always say.

HTH



sumgai

[gs790]

Sorry to continue the bunny trail, but reasonably germane...

Totally get the feeling. I can play a reasonably solid Goodnight Kiss, but just listening to Universal Mind makes me pee my pants a little. (A bit less after I found out it was hybrid picking, but still scary) Being able to play a Petrucci song, even if it's the rhythm piece from Solitary Shell is victory, period.


One of my bigger guitar epiphanies was realizing that guys like Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, etc... are professional musicians. They practice and play at least as much, if not more, than I spend at work every day. They will easily spend more time in focused and structured practice in one month, than I will all year.

It's not so much excuse as it is understanding: my progress will be damn slow in comparison. However, what I have found very useful, much like dieting and working out, is to journal practice. Exercises, tempos, 1 to 10 rating. It really helps to be able to document that I'm playing arpeggio x, at temp y, playing z notes a beat; two weeks ago it was a sloppy 2, not it is a pretty sharp 6.

[ijustwannastrat]

Wow. You have that mapped out pretty accurately. I just pick up my guitar, play my modes, then get on to whatever I feel like. Lately it's been attempts at blues licks. If I figure something out that I like, I tab it out as fast as possible. I'm up to about 10 pages (front only) of licks I like. I probably heard all of them on the radio at one point, and simply stumbled across them, but nobody needs to know....

[gs790]

Preaching to the choir here. Getting better requires focused practice. Focused practice requires a plan. Plans require accountability in order to be effective. You can have no plan and just get better by accident, but that tends to be the exception that proves the rule.

Keeping a journal is just one way. I know that if I don't have some kind of regimen and don't keep tract of it, I'll just sit down and play couple of familiar rhythm passages, a simple lead melody, and then I'll mess around playing random chords variations until I'm bored.



It sounds like you have a pretty clear plan of attack when you pick up the guitar to practice. That's one of the huge differences between the guys that are good and the jerks that sit out in the quad playing brutally mediocre folk for everyone to hear.

[ijustwannastrat]

I didn't think I had a clear practice plan after I read your method....

I simply tab out everything I like now because I have 2 years of metallica solo's, that I can't seem to forget, blocking out all new info.

Oh well, if I'm playing with metal guys, I can copypasta all the licks into whatever I'm playing, and guys seem to think I actually know how to play for real. lol

[ashcatlt]

Dec 16, 2009 23:59:26 GMT -5 ijustwannastrat said:

Oh well, if I'm playing with metal guys, I can copypasta all the licks into whatever I'm playing, and guys seem to think I actually know how to play for real. lol

That's really about all anybody does. Eric Clapton? Angus Young? Jimmy Page? They all just strung together little licks and riffs they had ripped off from their heroes. I don't know if they do it any more, but Guitar World magazine used to dedicate articles to picking apart famous solos and basically pointing out the influences: "This part is a BB King type thing, followed by a Chuck Berry riff..."

I have nearly the opposite problem, I have a pretty good idea of how chords and scales are built and relate to one another, even where to find them on the fretboard, but I've never bothered to learn any "licks". So every time I try to play lead I'm completely winging it, making something up on the fly, and I have trouble playing anything anybody else recognizes as music.

[FireBall]

Whats a mode? Just pick up the guitar and play it!!