THE POWER OF 3
“The premise that one should "throw out" the fundamentals of music as one has learned it doesn't really work for me – my personal tendency would be to ADD to all of the information that one has acquired through the conventional by trying to understand things from as many different angles as possible.“ Pat Metheny--Guitarist/Composer
THE SERMON
I hated music theory when I was a kid. The idea that learning all these rules will make me a better player seemed outrageous. . . Jimi Hendrix never answered to any "RULE". . . or so I thought. But then it hit me . . . without a basic understanding of "what's goin' on" musically, you can ONLY rely on "by-the-seat-of-your-pants," which is unpredictable, which often leads to embarrassing situations. The "theory" helps you hear better and understand context. . . and helps to make near-perfect sense out of the "random accidents." In the end, music should redeem, not embarrass.
THREE???
So far as theory and improvisation goes, I don't participate in any mental musical exercise that would call for more thinking than playing AND creating . . . in other words. . . . I KEEP IT REALLY EASY. So far as chords go . . . there are only THREE kinds of chords I think about when improvising: 1) MAJOR; 2) MINOR; & 3) DOMINANT. So far as overall melodic approaches go, THREE again is the magic number: 1) SCALULAR APPROACH; 2) CHORAL APPROACH; & 3) CHROMATIC APPROACH . . . and often a mixture of the three in a given phrase.
All of the examples in this lesson make use of the Dorian Scale. The Dorian Scale is popular in a lot of today's music. . . think of it as a Natural Minor Scale with a major sixth interval (raise the sixth note of the Natural Minor Scale UP ½ step--from Eb to E in the key of G Minor).
Approach One--Scalar Approach
The SCALE is the mother the everything melodic. From the SCALE we build chords from notes within a scale (as we will see later in this lesson), and we judge the act of chromaticism by those notes present which are normally within the motherscale. The following examples makes of the G Dorian Scale, using it to get from Gmi7 to C7 and back.
Approach Two--Chordal Approach
CHORD TONES come the scale as well, they can be constructed from any third interval within the scale. The Gmi7 chord, for example is made up of all the odd notes with the G Dorian Scale---G, Bb, D, & F.
Lines that showcase any kind of third interval movement are said to be CHORDAL lines. The following example makes use of them.
Approach Three--Chromatic Approach
The words chromatic and chromaticism are fancy terms for lines which apply lots of half step motion. . . lots of neighboring tones, lots of "out-of-key" notes. A common and easy way to apply chromaticism is to approach each new chord by a half--above or below. This is know as half-step resolution.
Another way to apply Chromaticism is to simply apply a lot of half movement, sculpting lines of half-steps, as the following example shows.
Mixing Approaches
In the end, you (as one who improvises) will use everything you have at yor disposal. Your lines will tend not to be any one of the above approaches I outlined, rather a combination of all three, like I've done with the following example.
Finale
In this process of learning, you have do the homework, check out the concepts, hear the sounds. . . . . let all this "STUFF" germinate and grow within you, then in time, you'll begin to musically speak with these sounds, and they'll be as natural to you as words within a conversion. Until then, KEEP PRACTICING!!
Copyright 2000, Rodney M. Goelz