PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Strong non modal changes

Warning: Theory Geek

Okj so the title caught your attention, and I confess its not strictly true, but I am having quite a bit of success with this, so.....

It all started with getting bored with "textbook" work. I know my scales and modes well enough and trotting them out became boring. Boriong boring boring.

I wanted to merge the exercise work with my improvising. When I learnt my first piece of Bach I noticed that even though I played in G the phrases used in the Minuet, never seemed to come out in other settings. Somehow they were lost in a miscateregorisation of the mind.

So, I decided to strip things back. I took simply folk tunes and Played them through all keys (on keyboard). After a while I could not remember what key was the "base" key anymore, and my playing started to incorporate all those strong changes into the fingers.

The thing is, as I see it, folk tunes get to be folk tunes because they exploit changes that have strong character.

Whilst doing this I began to discover a different set of changes at work than the modes- a sort of sub species of modes, using only the strongest.

Let me explain.

Take a major scale (C) starting from the octave.

Supply a melody note C. What is the strongest chord you can put under that note? Obviously it's C - right?

Next note down is B. What is the strongest chord you can put under this note? Well that would be a G7 chord. Note: the Locrian mode would be the first inversion of this chord. So, we have two melody notes, a C and a B, and we have a V,I.
Next step What would be the strongest chord you can put under an A. Modally, this would be an a minor, but we could put a F major here. This would be the four chord which chord again would be stronger than the relative/aolian minor.

Next note is G. Obviuosly we go back to G7 here.

F comes next step down melodically, Here we use the F major (Lydian) chord.

Next is E. Instead of using the weak minor (Phrygian), we again go for the strongest chord possible and play a C major.
Aftr this we have the melody note D. Instead of playing the relatively weak D minor (dorian) we play a G7 - which includes the D as it's fifth.


So, for each melody note of the scale we have a chord. Each chord is the strongest possible and is either a 1 chord a 4 chord, or a five chord.



I will call this the "strong chord progression".


I found that most of the folk tunes (85% ish) used these ideas, or were often closely related to them.

At the end of the day this "strong progression" selection - chord for melody note, is just another tool, but I am currently finding it very useful. It often indicated the harmony better than using all the modes. You can use these changes in many ways, ascending and descending. Triadic notes from the partner chord, tend to fall in strong positions. This provides good starting blocks, good foundations.

Here are the melody notes/chords in ascending order;

C(melody note) +C major (chord) - melody note is root
D+G7 - melody note is fifth
E+C major - melody note is third
F+F major - melody note is root
G+G7 - melody note is root
A+F major - melody note is third
B+G7 - melody note is third


Note: you can invert the chords if you wish. I find sometimes using second inversion chords ghelps these strong voicings - depending on key (muddiness)

Z

Yes, the title got me intrigued. It's great to explore all of the variations and inversions. And I remember my music teacher once making an amazing statement: all music is created from 7 notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G). You can sharpen and flatten them, change octaves and positions where they are played, but there's still only 7 notes...

Interesting! My trumpet and French horn teacher said there are only 12 notes in the western scale. Learn the chromatic scale and you will have all those notes under your fingers.

Hi Mario
Yes, I agree that there are 12 notes in the equal tempered scale, where the interval is the 12th root of 2, but in this case I was only paraphrasing my piano teacher's comment. (I don't think she understood the math behind it. )
Trev

I kind of agree with both... 7 notes or 12...

There are 12 semitones, but 7 "names". An "A#", an "A" and an "Ab" are all A's. When spelling chords or scales one uses the correct name.

E.G. a "C" triad is C, E and G. One could spell it C, Fb and G but then, even though it's still the same notes, it is no longer considered a 1, 3, 5 triad, it's a 1, b4, 5 triad...

Seems silly I know, but then consider a diminished 7 chord:
1, b3, b5, bb7
This equates to:
1, b3, b5, 6 but technically that would be a half dim6 chord rather than a full diminshed 7 chord...

Confused yet?

"Correct" spelling is why you will see ## and bb notes in orchestral scores. I've often seen things like an A folowed by a Bbb - keeps the chord spelling right even though it's the same note.

Technically correct, but it doesn't help when playing - sometimes it's just plain confusing until you see the relationship.

Another example: I'm currently in rehearsals for Mary Poppins. there is one point in the score where there is an attaca segue from the end of one song into the next. My part has a series of 3 tied semibreves (whole notes). The first two are Ab's in the last 2 bars of the first song, tied together and also tied to the first note of the second song which is in a different key, and written as a G#.

Yes, double flats and double sharp notes are dependent on the key signature, and written as accidentals so that they don't alter the notes used by the key signature (and we are never allowed to do that, are we!)

A classic example that comes to mind is Moonlight Sonata, Opus 27 by Beethoven. Several bars have notes such a F double-sharp and B sharp because it is incorrect to change the notes of the key signature (C#min)
Trev

Hmm, not quite sure I agree with you
I would suggest instead that it is less the key signature in control here and more the current chord.

In your example, the left hand is playing octave G#'s. This suggests that either a G#m chord, or much more likely a C#m/G# chord is being played.
Now, despite the key sig, a G nat. cannot exist in either a G#m or C#m chord because you can't have a G AND a G# - the chord ends up being mispelled, so you hve an F## instead because you CAN have an F in the chord.
Then there's the A#, the G#m and C#m chords have a B nat. in them, they can't have a Bb too, so an A# must be used.

In the second bar, it looks to me like the chord is definitely a C#m on a G# bass, so the chord spellings still need to follow the same rules, Can't have a C AND a C#, so we have a B# instead, and the A nat. is fine.

Of course, because those 2 bars are both likely in C#m and thus match the key sig, it looks like we're trying to preserve key sig spellings, when it's actually the chord spelling that we're maintaining.

You see this a little more clearly in jazz numbers where the key centre can change every couple of bars without a corresponding key signature change.

In that case you keep an eye out for V7 chords 'cos they help identify the current key centre. Then you can end up with V of V chords...

Getting far too complex for this reply and there are better theorists on this forum than me anyhow.

Hi Trev,
I was only trying to point out that our teachers were actually saying the same thing, just different ways.

This thread also underscores the need to support B#, Cb, E# and Fb. It's in the Wishlist.

Yes, good point Matt. I forgot about that. I think this has been asked for quite a few times...

Hi Mario
Sorry, I missed your reply. Yes, all good. We're both working from the same page (sheet music page, that is)!
Trev