Originally Posted By: Mac


Quit looking for others to do your homework for you.



Hey, I realize that for me to learn this, it is for me to learn it. I'm much farther down the road through the effort that the Berklee course required. It was not easy for this guy who has 30+ years of bad habits to unlearn.

I was asking about your comment in a couple posts above where it sounded like there may be songs where a single mode method dominates. This quote right here:

Originally Posted By: Mac
My advice as to approach is to take it one mode at a time in daily practice. Find a tune in which working that one mode is apropos, and work it. Then find another tune and do it again.


We didn't have that in the standards that were used in the course, in my opinion. The individual songs had many instances of 1 mode per bar and in my opinion, 1 bar is not enough to get a flow going in the mode. So, I thought your quote meant that there are songs where even though there might be chord changes, a single mode dominates. I'm not skilled enough, yet, to see that outright. I had to work, measure by measure, writing out my solos, after I had figured out which mode matched a measure (and I didn't always get this right) etc.

The course and it's forums, and the comments in this thread are all of the jazz instruction I've had. The forum is basically dead for the course. So, I'm back asking questions here because I continue to work on what little I learned even though the course has been done for a month now. I have the Aebersold chord lexicon laminated and keep it in my backpack and haul it out for study. Time at the axe/keyboard is often spent learning what I'm required to play for the band at church; 4-5 new songs every 2 weeks, and we strive to match radio cuts of the songs so that it's not distracting to the congregation and gets them singing.

If there might be songs in that big list of over 100 where certain modes dominate, I would appreciate knowing what those are if they simply jump to mind. That's all. I would like to avoid those that have too many change-ups of modal approach. I have Dorian and Aeolian down from years of rock playing and not knowing that's what they were called.