Thank you for the replies.

PGboeMike : Yes that video is a real help. I am a big fan of Willie and have worked through dozens of his videos, presently I am working on Georgia, and am about half way through his lessons. I have seen this video before but it did not sink in.

For me, there are four basic modal chord types, major minor and dominant, plus locrian. Each has its place in modal tunes. Minors, come in many flavours, there are dorians, phrygians, naturals, and at a stretch the locrian can be a minor, then there are the melodic and harmonic minors that can bring new tonalities. We also have diminished.

Anyway that's the basis of my thinking, I can play these chords on piano above fairly rapidly, if required. However, in between the sounds of the root, third, fifth and sevenths, for me there are only major ninths and sixths. Currently, (enharmonically) b9, #9 (except in blues), #4 and b5 are 'outside of my vocabulary' so to speak - I am working on including them. I notice things like the #5 is often used on the final dominant before returning to the chorus, and I think the b9 is part of a minor type sound - sort of..

The video above definitely helps, I will watch it a number of times until it really beds in. Its a better way of thinking, than the scale/mode approach I learnt for sax using Aebersold.


Last edited by ZeroZero; 06/07/14 01:23 PM.
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