Theory Questions…
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STRINGLESS.
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I just wanted to invite all our new members to join in here and ask any questions you may have. Understanding music theory can be a daunting endeavor to undertake on your own. So feel free to share your concerns and one of the Doctors will be with you in no time.
Mike.
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Hey Mike, I just signed up. I know Sean from another forum we frequent. What I’d like to see explained isn’t necessarily for my benefit, but for the benefit of those new to theory. It’s something that I understand but have a hard time explaining (I’ve never been a good instructor). The topic I’d like to start is that of modal theory.
I see so many people try to explain modes but never really show how to use them. Knowing how to play them on the fretboard is one thing. Knowing how to use them effectively within the context of a song to change the tonal structure is a completely different ballgame, one that takes quite a while to master. So I’d like to see some posts about modal theory and how to use modes effectively. I think it’s a great topic for discussion.
@InternetH3ro 737 wrote:
Hey Mike, I just signed up. I know Sean from another forum we frequent. What I’d like to see explained isn’t necessarily for my benefit, but for the benefit of those new to theory. It’s something that I understand but have a hard time explaining (I’ve never been a good instructor). The topic I’d like to start is that of modal theory.
I see so many people try to explain modes but never really show how to use them. Knowing how to play them on the fretboard is one thing. Knowing how to use them effectively within the context of a song to change the tonal structure is a completely different ballgame, one that takes quite a while to master. So I’d like to see some posts about modal theory and how to use modes effectively. I think it’s a great topic for discussion.
I agree with you on that and it is always a subject that is shrouded in mystery for some reason when in fact the concept is very simple. What I tend to try to do is teach modes from a harmonic point of view rather than a ‘play this series of notes over these chords’ type of thing. Nothing wrong with that at all provided the student understands the underlying principles of the correlation between chords and scales.
I’ll be doing a series of videos explaining my approach to this subject very soon.Rick
When I attempt to teach modal theory, I like to use chord progressions, as I think that usually helps to get the point across. Case in point:
A friend of mine has a song that has the following chord progression:
C – G – Em – D (resolving back to C)
Now, at first glance, one would guess that the song is in the key of C major, since it starts and resolves to C major. However, if we look at the D chord, we know it’s comprised of D – F# – A. Well, F# doesn’t belong to the C major scale. In fact, if we break down each chord, we see that F# is the only accidental. That means that the actual key of the song is G.
But we resolve to C? Thus the power of modes. C Lydian would be the mode, but the actual key is G major.
I think examples like these, of breaking down chord progressions, really helps to at least get the student understanding the concept of modes.
James
Indeed its an interesting concept and often misguided.
I tend to think of modes only in context to modal music. So for example, take a simple ii-V-I progression in C.
Dm7 – G7 – Cmaj7
Some people would relate this to modes by saying ‘ Dm is dorian mode, G7 is myxolydian mode and Cmaj is Ionian ‘ Thats a bit overcomplicating things though if you ask me. To make it easier on yourself just acknowledge that the chords all fall in the key of C and hence you can play C Ionian (C major) over the whole thing.
However, lets not assume that you should forget that there ARE actual chord changes involved. So since we have established it is all built from the same scale, all we need to do is shift our attention to different areas of the scale. For example, when the Dm chord is playing we want to build lines that have some refference to D F G and C.. when we hit G7 our strong chord tones are G B D and F… and so forth for Cmaj.
Technically speaking if you want to think of it as 3 different scales/modes thats fine but the point im getting as is that this is NOT modal music.
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Modal music is often very simple such as ‘So What’ by Miles Davis, or Wayne Shorter’s ‘Footprints’. The progressions in these songs often have as few as 2 or 3 chords. On top of that the progressions will have no obvious key or tonal center.
Take ‘So What’ for arguments sake. We have an entire tune built on a chord progression consisting of Dm7 and Ebm7. There is no clear resolution between the chords and no real implication of how to approach soloing over the tune, asside from the fact that we now know it is a modal tune.
How to approach this type of tune?
Well there are many ways and I will do it injustice to try and explain everything now. The basic principle though, is that we understand that Dm7 is home to 3 obvious modes. Dorian, Phrygian and Aeoloan.
Modal music provokes the use of these modes in an open setting. By that I mean that the simplicity of the chord changes leaves alot of space for harmonic possiblities, those possibilities begin with the three modes mentioned (there are more but I wont go into them now)
So rather than saying ok I have a Dm chord.. Im going to play a D relative minor scale/Aeolian (Fmajor)
We can approach it from a D Dorian perspective (the scale is now Cmajor) or D Phrygian (Bb major)Each of these scales still involve the Dm7 chord but there are subtle differences.
Take D Dorian- D E F G A B C.
Now look at D Phrygian- D Eb F G A Bb C. We have two accidentals now, Eb would translate to the b9 of Dm and Bb would be the b6 of the chord.
Lastly the Natural minor (Aeoloan) – D E F G A Bb C- This is a mixture of the previous two. we have a natural 9 and a b6.
Now, as you mentioned Internet H3ro. Knowing this stuff on paper or simply knowing the scales up and down on the fretboard is one thing. Using them and making nice music with it is a whole other game. Unfortunately we cant take anyone down that path with a simple forum response, you really need to hear them at work to understand fully. All these topics will be covered in depth for the premium members though.
I keep coming back to the question “Is it possible to play in 7/3” or the like of that?
We got the answer (again) some weeks ago on the Petrucci forum. If I recall correctly it goes something like this: “You would have a bar consisting of 7 triplets.” Is that correct? And if it is so, wouldn’t it just feel like 7/8, but be with another name?So my question as much as: “Is it possible?” is also: “wouldn’t it just sound like another time signature?”
I was asked a simmilar question some time ago, I think the sig was 4/3 though. In any case.
My first response to the quesion is, that is not a valid time signature.
Time signatures are defined by two factors. Number of beat’s/value of beat’s.
So 4/4 for example, would mean that each bar contains 4 beats and each of those beats are one crotchet/quarter note in duration.
5/4 would be 5 beats each beat being one crotchet in duration. Or 5/8, 5 beats… each being one quaver/8th note in duration.
More to the point. 3 does not accurately represent any of the generally accepted durations of musical notes. 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 and so forth, are the numbers we want to be using at the end of a time signature.
7/3 seems to me to be more of an unclear representation of some kind of polyrhythm. I honestly find it hard to even comprehend writing something in this time signature. Although, im sure it would be possible to give the impression of such a signature by mixing seperate rhythms in seperate time signatures. Aka polyrhytms.
So to answer the second part of your question. It may sound like 7/3 in some way but odds are there is a more logical way of explaining it. Such as one rhythm in 5/4 and another in 4/4 with some clever accenting.
Mike.
My interpretation too would be polyrythmics, however I seem to have read something about it being possible. I will see if I can find the theory behind it in a minute.
I have heard people try and justify these things with complicated explanations, I keenly await another perspective.
I myself will probably never approach song writing with writing in 7/3 or 4/3 or the likes of that. Well, maybe, but as I said, to be having a bar consisting of 4 triplets would just sound like 4/4, with 4 quarter notes. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I can’t really find anything besides this, from the Petrucciforum – might be some of you guys, I don’t really know:
Xaem wrote:suspended_discipline wrote:I dont understand this.If you were playing say using 4/2(four half-notes per bar), changing it to 4/3, what would that do to the value of the bar? whats between a quarter note and a half note?
That would just mean 4 quarter triplets each bar. 4/7 would be 4 septuplets in each bar.If we’re not talking strict time signatures, we’re going into polyrythmics, which would just be x:z and and not x/2^n. Polyrythmics would just be x notes in time of z. That could easily be 10:6, which eg. could just mean 10 eight-notes in time of 6 eight-notes.
Steve Vai has some very interesting notes on this subject: http://www.vai.com/LittleBlackDots/tempomental.html
Quoting wikipedia on the matter:
Wikipedia wrote:“Irrational” meters
These are time signatures which have a denominator which is not a power of two (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.). These are used to express the division of a whole note (semibreve) into equal parts just as ordinary signatures do. For example, where 4/4 implies a bar construction of four quarter-parts of a whole note (i.e., four quarter notes), 4/3 implies a bar construction of four third-parts of it. These signatures are only of utility when juxtaposed with other signatures with varying denominators; a piece written entirely in 4/3, say, could be more legibly written out in 4/4.It is arguable whether the use of these signatures makes metric relationships clearer or more obscure to the musician; it is always possible to write a passage using non-“irrational” signatures by specifying a relationship between some note length in the previous bar and some other in the succeeding one. Sometimes, successive metric relationships between bars are so convoluted that the pure use of irrational signatures would quickly render the notation extremely hard to penetrate. Good examples, written entirely in conventional signatures with the aid of between-bar specified metric relationships, occur a number of times in John Adams’ opera Nixon in China (1987), where the sole use of “irrational” signatures would quickly produce massive numerators and denominators.
Historically, this device has been prefigured wherever composers have written tuplets; for example, a 2/4 bar consisting of 3 triplet crotchets could arguably more sensibly be written as a bar of 3/6. Henry Cowell’s piano piece “Fabric” (1920) throughout employs separate divisions of the bar (anything from 1 to 9) for the three contrapuntal parts, using a scheme of shaped noteheads to make the differences visually clear, but the pioneering of these signatures is largely due to Brian Ferneyhough. Thomas Adès has also made extensive use of them, for example in his piano work “Traced Overhead” (1996), the second movement of which contains, among more conventional meters, bars in such signatures as 2/6, 9/14 and 5/24. A gradual process of diffusion into less rarefied musical circles seems to be underway, hence for example, John Pickard’s work “Eden”, commissioned for the 2006 finals of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain, which contains bars of 3/10.
Notationally, rather than using Cowell’s elaborate series of notehead shapes, the same convention has been invoked as when normal tuplets are written; for example, one beat in 4/5 is written as a normal quarter note, four quarter notes complete the bar, but the whole bar lasts only 4/5 of a reference whole note, and a beat 1/5 of one (or 4/5 of a normal quarter note). This is notated in exactly the same way that one would write if one were writing the first four quarter notes of five quintuplet quarter notes.
The term “irrational” is not being used here in its mathematical sense: an irrational number is one that cannot be written as a ratio of whole numbers, which all these signatures obviously are. Nevertheless, the term appears to be established now, although at least one such piece with a truly irrational signature already exists: one of Conlon Nancarrow’s “Studies for Player Piano” contains a canon where one part is augmented in the ratio √42:1
@Caelumamittendum 873 wrote:
I myself will probably never approach song writing with writing in 7/3 or 4/3 or the likes of that. Well, maybe, but as I said, to be having a bar consisting of 4 triplets would just sound like 4/4, with 4 quarter notes. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I can’t really find anything besides this, from the Petrucciforum – might be some of you guys, I don’t really know:
If we’re not talking strict time signatures, we’re going into polyrythmics, which would just be x:z and and not x/2^n. Polyrythmics would just be x notes in time of z. That could easily be 10:6, which eg. could just mean 10 eight-notes in time of 6 eight-notes.
Steve Vai has some very interesting notes on this subject: http://www.vai.com/LittleBlackDots/tempomental.html
Quoting wikipedia on the matter:
It is arguable whether the use of these signatures makes metric relationships clearer or more obscure to the musician; it is always possible to write a passage using non-“irrational” signatures by specifying a relationship between some note length in the previous bar and some other in the succeeding one. Sometimes, successive metric relationships between bars are so convoluted that the pure use of irrational signatures would quickly render the notation extremely hard to penetrate. Good examples, written entirely in conventional signatures with the aid of between-bar specified metric relationships, occur a number of times in John Adams’ opera Nixon in China (1987), where the sole use of “irrational” signatures would quickly produce massive numerators and denominators.Historically, this device has been prefigured wherever composers have written tuplets; for example, a 2/4 bar consisting of 3 triplet crotchets could arguably more sensibly be written as a bar of 3/6. Henry Cowell’s piano piece “Fabric” (1920) throughout employs separate divisions of the bar (anything from 1 to 9) for the three contrapuntal parts, using a scheme of shaped noteheads to make the differences visually clear, but the pioneering of these signatures is largely due to Brian Ferneyhough. Thomas Adès has also made extensive use of them, for example in his piano work “Traced Overhead” (1996), the second movement of which contains, among more conventional meters, bars in such signatures as 2/6, 9/14 and 5/24. A gradual process of diffusion into less rarefied musical circles seems to be underway, hence for example, John Pickard’s work “Eden”, commissioned for the 2006 finals of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain, which contains bars of 3/10.
Notationally, rather than using Cowell’s elaborate series of notehead shapes, the same convention has been invoked as when normal tuplets are written; for example, one beat in 4/5 is written as a normal quarter note, four quarter notes complete the bar, but the whole bar lasts only 4/5 of a reference whole note, and a beat 1/5 of one (or 4/5 of a normal quarter note). This is notated in exactly the same way that one would write if one were writing the first four quarter notes of five quintuplet quarter notes.
The term “irrational” is not being used here in its mathematical sense: an irrational number is one that cannot be written as a ratio of whole numbers, which all these signatures obviously are. Nevertheless, the term appears to be established now, although at least one such piece with a truly irrational signature already exists: one of Conlon Nancarrow’s “Studies for Player Piano” contains a canon where one part is augmented in the ratio √42:1
Me thinks this is yet another complicated explanation 😛
Thanks for the info Caelumamittendum. When I have more time ill read through Steve Vai’s article.
The explanation with ratios I have heard before although that wiki article is new to me. It seems clear that using ‘irrational’ signatures is not something most muscians,even experienced readers, would be used to seeing on paper.
Do you by any chance have a copy of anything notated in this way?
As said, it is just taken from whatever I’ve read through the internet. There was a discussion some time ago at another forum I’m at. I can’t seem to find the discussion now though.
I do not have anything written in such. The discussion on the Petrucci forum had a link to a piece written with “irrational meters”, I seem to recall. However, the yousendit-link is broken by now, since it was a long time ago. I’ll try and PM the guy who uploaded the file.
EDIT:
Made a little google search and found this on a forum:
Couch wrote:The effect of an irrational meter is, in effect, more or less the same as a tempo change, albeit a precise/rhythmically relative one. Thus you could, in order to get 4/3, I THINK you would need to divide your primary tempo by 3.33333… and subtract the result– IE 150-45=105=a movement from 4/4 to 4/3. (turning your quarter note into the relative 1/2note triplet of the master tempo).EDIT 2:
On this matter as a whole, I myself am not too sure whether such as 4/3 actually EXISTS out there or if it has merely found its way into this world by someone confusing 4:3 with 4/3. In other words by someone confusing polyrhythmic with regular/irregular (x/2^n) time signatures. I recall from previous discussion on other forums, people were confusing ratios with time signatures. Steve Vai had a number of examples notated with ratios such as a quintuplet with 5:2 above it. These things are an acceptable form of notation, however, In my experience at least, trying to impose this concept into an actual time signature is just a pointless endeavour.
Some people might do it for the sake of being a hip wild musician. If you asked someone else to transcribe it though, 9 times out of ten. The transcription would be in a more coherent signature.
I dont know everything there is to know about music, so even though im sticking with my guns on this. I will continue to keep an open mind to anyone who presents evidence of its worth.
You asked for actual examples of someone using these time signatures “in the wild” – here is a piece on youtube by Thomas Adès – Traced Overhead – shows a score you can follow as the piece is played – it’s one of the pieces mentioned above, uses time signatures such as 2/5.
Back to modes one more time. I teach in France and the structure in schools and consevatories is pretty conservative – loads of sight reading BEFORE playing the instrument, etc. So this guy comes to see me for a private lesson an,d asks me about Major scales and their chord prgoressions and then what notes fit the best and where. So I start him off on modes (or Moods as I consider it). I noticed that Modes TEND (not all the time) to stand out best when there are few chords in the background – space matters – , i.e. I agree with Mike. So i played the old CMaj7- dmin7 and the student got it immediately (even though there are various modal possibilities). The snag is, he got badmouthed at the Conservatory – they said he was too dissonant !!!. ?????
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