Reviewing Modes (2)

In Lush Life, the fine biography of Billy Strayhorn by David Hajdu, he describes Strayhorn, still in high school, if I remember right, listening to broadcasts of jazz from New York and then writing down the chords so that his band in a club in Pittsburgh could play them.
Not many of us have such retentive ears. If we did, there would be no need for fakebooks.
But most ordinary mortals do need what are known as charts or lead-sheets. We need to play the melody from written notes and be told what the chord patterns are.
In courses on jazz that I've attended, I was taught how to look at the changes (chords) of a tune and analyze them, so that I'd know what scales to improvise in. You learn, for example, that if you see the following symbol, "C7#5," you know that the chord notes are C-E-G#-Bb, and you can play on a whole-tone scale in the measure where that chord appears. For each chord symbol, you are supposed to learn which modes or other scales can be played over it.
I have very strong resistance to this rather mechanical method of figuring out what notes to play when you're trying to improvise, though I understand its didactic value.
In part my resistance is simple laziness, refusal to spend time at the keyboard with a chart and learn how the chords relate to each other and to the melody. But it's also connected to the aesthetic of jazz, as I understand it. The point of improvising is not to play the right notes but to play expressively what you hear, even if you hear the wrong notes. Arnie Lawrence used to say that a mistake is a gift from God. In the great documentary movie about Blue Note Records, Herbie Hancock mentions a performance of his, when he was accompanying Miles Davis, and he played an absolutely wrong chord. Miles heard it and took the wrong notes that Hancock had played and used them in his improvisation.
When we speak, we don't think: a singular verb in the present tense in English ends in 's.' We just say "ends" and not "end" or "ended" or "ending." Similarly, I can't believe that an improvising musician, in real time, looks at the symbol, "A-7," and thinks, "I can play either in the Dorian or Aeolian mode over that chord." He or she hears what notes work well in that part of the piece and plays them. The explicit thinking comes earlier, when one is learning a piece.
It's definitely useful to practice the modes and to improvise in them. It sharpens the ears. But the real challenge is using those sharper ears.
Incidentally, knowledge of the modes is also relevant to classical music. I've been reading through Haendel's flute sonatas, and I find that knowing about modes helps me understand the harmony underlying Haendel's melodies as I play them.

An Interesting Feature of the Modes

Instead of thinking of the modes as beginning on different degrees of a single scale, it's more challenging to play all the seven modes on a single base note.
For example, using C for convenience, you have:
Ionian: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C.
Dorian: C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb-C (the second degree of Bb major).
Phrygian: C-Db-Eb-F-G-Ab-B-C (the third degree of Ab major).
Lydian: C-D-E-F#-G-A-B-C (the fourth degree of G major).
Mixolydian: C-D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C (the fifth degree of F major).
Aeolian: C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C (the sixth degree of Eb major, the relative minor).
Locrian: C-Db-E-F-Gb-A-B-C (the seventh degree of Db major).

An interesting routine that helps you think modally is to start in the Lydian mode and modify the modes one after the other. An interesting thing happens when you do this.

Starting on C Lydian one has: C-D-E-F#-G-A-B-C.
Flatting the fourth, you have C major (or C Ionian): C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C.
Flatting the seventh, you have C Mixolydian: C-D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C.
Flatting the third, you have C Dorian: C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb-C.
Flatting the sixth, you have C Aeolian: C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C.
Flatting the second you have C Phrygian: C-Db-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C.
Flatting the fifth you have C Locrian: C-Db-Eb-F-Gb-Ab-Bb-C.

Then, what 's left to flat? The tonic. If you lower C to Cb (enharmonically, B natural), you find yourself in the B Lydian mode:
Cb-Db-Eb-F-Gb-Ab-Bb-Cb, which is equivalent to B-C#-D#-E#-F#-G#-A#B.

If you go on, playing B Lydian, B Ionian, etc., you end up with B Locrian (B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B), and when you flat the B, you are in Bb Lydian (Bb-C-D-E natural-F-G-A-Bb.

If you look at the key-signatures of the modes as you cycle through them this way, you see that they follow the circle of fifths (G-C-F-Bb-Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-Cb).

The inner logic the relations among the modes is wonderful.

Reviewing Modes (1)

This year I've been attending a jazz workshop. A lot of the material is familiar to me, but I haven't been playing much jazz in the past few years. The topic of the modes came up, a topic that I find fascinating. I'm explaining this more or less to myself, so that I can get a better grasp of it.
The modes were developed in Western medieval music theory, more or less forgotten after the baroque period, and revived in late nineteenth century classical music and in jazz, as a way of conceptualizing what we play.
Essentially, the modes are very simple. They are all based on the ordinary diatonic scale, as in C major: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. This is the model for all major scales: base note (C) -major second up (D) - major second up (E) - minor second up (F) - major second up (G) - major second up (A) - major second up (B) - minor second back up to the base note an octave up (C).
In the major scale, which is also called the Ionian mode (the Greek names for the modes are entirely artificial, but that's what they are), the first five notes (CDEFG) have the same structure as the five notes ascending from the fifth (GABCD). The strong notes in the scale are the first, the fifth, and the fourth. The fifth, known as the dominant, gravitates toward the first, the tonic, and the fourth, the sub-dominant, can gravitate toward the fifth. When people improvise in jazz in the Ionic mode, they tend to avoid the fourth.
In Western harmonic theory, every major scale has a relative minor, the natural minor, which begins on the sixth degree of the scale. In C major it is: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A (the two variants, the harmonic and melodic minor, which I'll ignore for the moment). The natural minor scale is also known as the Aeolian mode.
There are two ways of thinking about the other modes. The easy way is to remain with the white notes on the piano and conceptualize the modes as beginning on various degrees of the C major scale. Thus, the Dorian mode, another minor scale, begins on the second degree of the scale: D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D. When I improvise in the Dorian mode (in fact, in all the modes) I find it difficult not to gravitate toward what would be the tonic (C) in the major scale that it's based on. This creates an inherent tension in the use of this scale. In jazz harmony (to jump ahead a bit), the Dorian mode is related to the II chord, in the basic chord progression of II-V-I.
The third mode is the Phrygian, and it begins on the third degree of the scale (E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E). This is a common mode in a lot of folk music, but the minor second between E and F sounds very odd to Western ears, so it's an interesting mode.
The next mode is the Lydian mode, starting on the fourth degree of the scale: F-G-A-B-C-D-E-F. It's a lot like the F major scale, but the fourth degree, the B, which would be a Bb in F major, is raised. The Lydian mode sounds strange and wrong to me when I improvise in it.
The mode that starts on the fifth degree of the scale is the Mixolydian, a major scale with the seventh degree flatted (G-A-B-C-D-E-F natural -G), as in the dominant seventh chord, which resolves to the tonic (G7-C).
I've already mentioned the Aeolian mode. The final mode, called the Locrian, is the weirdest  mode, because it begins with a minor second (B-C) and the fifth is flatted (F natural): B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B. In jazz harmony it is associated with the half-diminished chord (B-D-F-A) and resolves to the tonic.

Warm-Ups and Changes

I am always surprised when very good amateur classical musicians (not guitarists, of course) tell me they don't know anything about harmony. Why weren't they ever taught? Weren't they curious enough to learn?
You can know how to play a classical piece very well without analyzing its harmonic structure, though you can play it a lot better if you do hear and understand the way it moves from tonality to tonality. But knowing just the melody of a jazz standard is barely knowing it at all.
Typically, a written piece of classical music tells you exactly what note to play, how fast to play it, how to articulate it, and how loud it should be. All these precise directives still leave a lot of room for interpretation. The classical musician is not a robot producing sounds dictated by the marks on the page in front of her. But the ideal remains of playing the piece the way the composer wanted it to be played.
Typically when a jazz musician has sheet music in front of her, all she sees is a melody line and some chords written as letters (e.g. C7, G-7b5). The harmonic instruments - piano, bass, and guitar - have to figure out how to play those chords, and the melodic instruments have to improvise in a way that fits over them. No two jazz pianists, given the same series of letters representing chords, would play them exactly the same way. Not only that, they have freedom to substitute chords that can have a similar harmonic function.  I found a good article on this stuff in Wikipedia.
When I was working on jazz, I got to the stage where I could look at letters standing for chords and play stuff that fit, and I could also transpose to the right key for the kind of saxophone I was playing (C major concert is D major on a tenor sax, for example). I also got to the stage where I had learned the melodies of a good number of songs by heart. However, I never pushed myself past that stage, to memorizing (and hearing) the underlying harmonies of a song.
Recently I found way of doing that by combining that exercise with another musical goal: improving my sound. I'm gradually learning the harmonies of the great jazz standard, All the Things You Are, by Jerome Kern. I'm using the notes of the harmonies as long tones to warm up on the flute, first playing the bass notes (F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, G, C... etc.).  I've almost learned the progression well enough that I can go through it without stopping to think. Then I build on it by playing the first two notes in the chord (F-Ab, Bb-Db, Ab-C ... etc.), then the triad, then the seventh, etc. etc.
I'm doing something very similar with rhythm changes, the chord progression underlying Gershwin's I Got Rhythm.
Warming up on the flute or another melodic instrument this way makes more sense than just playing a series of long tones, because the notes you play have musical meaning as a sequence. For the same reason, sometimes I take a piece by Bach or Telemann and play it very slowly, concentrating on the quality of my sound, but still brought forward by musical logic and not anything mechanical.

Plotting an Old Course in a New Way (Maybe)

On a recent, rainy Saturday night a quartet of young jazz musicians played a concert in our living room to an absolutely packed house - there wasn't an empty chair left in our house. The musicians are Jerusalemites who have known each other since high school and been playing with each other for something like twelve years. They call themselves "Friendy," and I hope they'll have a bright and successful future together. The pianist is Noam Borns, the bassist is Daniel Ashkenazi, the drummer is Shai Yuval, and the tenor sax player is Zohar Mokadi Amar. They played all original music of their own. Everyone loved it. At the end, after they were officially finished playing,  they were soaring and couldn't stop. I asked Zohar to try my tenor, and he confirmed what I thought: it's a good instrument. Then they invited me to play a blues, "Tenor Madness," with them. What a kick to play with such great musicians! I held my own, almost, and that inspired me and gave me confidence.
On Friday mornings I've been going to a class in blues and jazz given by Yaki Levi, a great drummer and pianist, at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Yaki is inspiring. Last week we were playing solos of "Freedom Jazz Dance," a quirky tune by Eddie Harris that is all on a single chord, so you don't have to think about changes when you play. At a certain point in my solo (we go around the room, and everyone gets a chance to play), I was inspired. That's the only way I can put it. Suddenly I was playing the way I always wished I could play, finding notes that I hadn't thought of and that didn't come automatically in a pattern that I always fall into.
A few days before that, my flute teacher told me that he couldn't teach me any longer, and I realized that it was probably a good time to strike out on my own. I'm never going to be a fine classical flautist, and I don't even want to be a fine classical flautist. I want to have fun playing whatever instrument I play and to be free and creative if possible.
For years I played standards with a pianist and improvised, but it didn't work, partly because the pianist never learned how to accompany and support soloists - that bored him. But also because I find it very difficult to memorize songs, to learn them by ear, to hear and remember the changes. Up to now I've been too lazy to work on what didn't come relatively easily. But in the past week I decided to learn the changes for "All the Things You Are" once and for all, slowly and patiently. I'm going to give that what it takes, and once I can do that fluently, I'll try to improvise on those chords. If I can muster the patience to get that song down, maybe it will be easier for me to learn other songs.
If I had begun doing this kind of music work when I was a teenager, I wouldn't have to struggle now, when my memory isn't as retentive as it was.

Music Lessons: pros and cons

My second flute teacher fired me.
Not because I wasn't practicing and making (slow) progress, but because of a change in his circumstances.
Now I have to decide whether to continue taking classical flute lessons from a fine teacher, who's been recommended to me, or whether I should work on my own. After all, I've been playing wind instruments for decades, and I've received the fundamentals of flute playing from two excellent teachers. Maybe I know enough to step out on my own.
With my teacher, I mainly played baroque music with occasional forays into the classical and romantic realms, and I love that music. I've learned a lot by struggling to master the Bach flute sonatas, and that learning has been valuable.
But I also love listening to jazz, and I especially enjoy playing standards, what people call the American Song Book.
I have no trouble playing blues, but I do have trouble sticking to the changes when I play standards. I'm generally too impatient to learn the chords of the pieces I play. I can read a chart and follow the written changes, and I can memorize melodies pretty well, but I've been too lazy to memorize the harmony up to now.
Today I decided to work on that. I worked on the chord progression of "All The Things You Are" and II-V-I patterns.
I think I can combine technical work on the flute - improving my tone and vibrato, for example - with work in music theory: examining the connection between chords and melody. I haven't decided against continuing lessons with a classical flutist, but I'm leaning that way.