Best way to follow changes? Why not key instead of modes?

[trumpeter]

Hi

Am I right in thinking most people follow changes by learning all the modes in all keys? So, for example when you see an C7 you move to the C mixolydian?

I dont do much jazz, but would like to take more gigs. I learned the mixolydian and dorian pretty well years ago and I already know all the major scales, so when I'm following a fairly basic chart that doesn't change chord too often (say 1 change per bar) and the tempo is not too quick, I am fine finding the mode. For other chords like dim and half, I just noodle around the chord tones.

However, my problem comes when (a) tempos are faster and/or (b) changes are more frequent. My mind is too slow and I struggle to figure which mode I am on in time. The result: (i) I hit a note that sounds wrong (ii) I just play thirds, roots and fifths which sounds too basic.

How can I improve???

One short cut I've found is to simply write the key under the chords. So for example, in the B section of Have You Met Miss Jones, I just write Gb, D, Gb, F and then I don't get lost!... I find that thinking key (and chord) makes life much easier.

So, follow up question: why not think key in jazz rather than mode?

[jazz oud]

Think in chord more than key or mode, especially in fast-moving harmony.

roots, 3rds 5ths and 7ths are fine, but you have to get a handle on how to connect them with various devices and embellishments.

As an exercise, take a tune with 2 chords per bar (like rhythm changes) and try to invent a line that connects the 3rd of each chord at the point of the chord change. Work on improvising like this very slowly.

If the you are playing a chord tone on one and three, then with an 8th-note line you have three notes to get from one chord tone to the next. Experiment with various ways to do this.

[kingfisher]

I'm no expert (a beginner, actually), but it seems to me that there are situations in which you can think in keys.

For example, say you have a ii V I that ends up on Gmaj7 (as the I chord). You could use the notes of the G major scale over the entire ii V I.

[engelbach]

Originally Posted by trumpeter

Hi

Am I right in thinking most people follow changes by learning all the modes in all keys? So, for example when you see an C7 you move to the C mixolydian?

I dont do much jazz, but would like to take more gigs. I learned the mixolydian and dorian pretty well years ago and I already know all the major scales, so when I'm following a fairly basic chart that doesn't change chord too often (say 1 change per bar) and the tempo is not too quick, I am fine finding the mode. For other chords like dim and half, I just noodle around the chord tones.

However, my problem comes when (a) tempos are faster and/or (b) changes are more frequent. My mind is too slow and I struggle to figure which mode I am on in time. The result: (i) I hit a note that sounds wrong (ii) I just play thirds, roots and fifths which sounds too basic.

How can I improve???

One short cut I've found is to simply write the key under the chords. So for example, in the B section of Have You Met Miss Jones, I just write Gb, D, Gb, F and then I don't get lost!... I find that thinking key (and chord) makes life much easier.

So, follow up question: why not think key in jazz rather than mode?

Exactly. You're not playing in a different mode over each chord as long as you're still in the key.

It's true that in a fast-moving tune it can be more advantageous at first to think about connecting chords above all. But with experience you can create more linear lines guided by the key as well as the chords.

[Mariotte]

I have a question related to this topic. I'm practicing "bebop changes" over Blues for Alice (Charlie Parker). The thing is, I heard his recording of the tune. I didn't analyse what he was playing, but I had a feeling about his playing that I wanted to share, so maybe you can tell me what you think about it.

I felt like he was playing more over the key than over the changes. Maybe changing a note when he felt the chord ask for it, but the changes where running just subtly bellow. I don't know what it was.

Probably he was far beyond the matter of the changes (that thing, "learn the changes, then forget about them"). I fellt that he didn't need to implied the changes, but make a simple and good melodie. Probably he was doing both, but was centered more in the beauty of the melodie.

Also I felt like his melodie was floating over, not as tight to the beat as other jazzist.

Another hypothesis I made was something like this: he didn't think in terms of chords, but in terms of available notes in the key, as I felt he was still playing "songs", not mind blowing combinations of notes. He just know what notes to hit over the following chords, so far away from chord to chord practice.

When I firts started to play, I found that in certain songs you could play a set of seven notes in some part of it, and in another, there was a note that you have to change. So I play over it and make a good acquaintance of that fact. I was still playing over "the key", but thinking in the available notes at the time.

I wonder if some jazz people started that way, just expanding that idea in more complex songs. Maybe is a more primitive aproach, but aswell I think it can be something that can easily get in your head. It's like... a more "instintive" aproach. He stayed "in place" but saw the available notes changing.

[raymb1]

Bird was playing the changes pure and simple. Nothing exotic or esoteric and no modes, unless you call blues licks a mode. Later, Ray

[duane massey]

At some point you should stop thinking and play what you hear. As long as you are basing your improvising on mechanics you will play mechanically. "Hear" the changes and you will become a much better jazz player.

[jazzman1945]

When you improvise in slow tempo - the focus will be on every note. The faster the tempo, the less details in focus: chords, melodic patterns, scales, inflection, accented and corner notes.

[edrowland]

An argument against keys, and for modes:

It's all very well to play in keys; but how do you then deal with chord function? You don't play that same over a IV chord of Eb, and a V chord of Eb. As soon as you bring in chord function, you ARE playing in modes. You play an A in the key of C. Not very informative. You play the 9th of V7 in C (or the 2nd note of the 5th mode of C -- the same thing) -- now you're thinking in terms of function. D#, over a G in C major. That's GAlt (G Alt same thing). Ab and Bb are quite naturally in play. And they should be. Almost 50% of the time.. Ab Bb and D# in key of C major? I can't. imagine how you deal with that. Ab Bb D# in a modal framework?

The sins of modal players are many, and well know. The corresponding sins of by-key players are only one: really boring. The weakness of by-key playing (I think) is that it makes it difficult to come to terms with melodic minor modes. Which are the bread and butter of jazz harmony. Modal playing provides a natural framework for melodic minor modes. I'm not sure by-key players totally get it. Sure they learn eventually to drop in those "special notes": +4 on a IMaj7, or a ma7 in a ii or vi (for example), or any note on the keyboard over V. But every single "any note" has sense and function, and a set of other "special notes" that go with it in a modal framework. As do the +4, and ma7. All those "outside" notes? Totally accountable for in a modal framework.

It just seems to me that by-key thinking is a shortcut. But you're going to have learn all the concepts in a modal framework by some other handle sooner or later. So it isn't really easier.

[jazz oud]

Originally Posted by edrowland

An argument against keys, and for modes:

It's all very well to play in keys; but how do you then deal with chord function? You don't play that same over a IV chord of Eb, and a V chord of Eb. As soon as you bring in chord function, you ARE playing in modes.

No, you're not. You're playing in the key. If you were playing modes, every chord would be a I chord.

If we restrict ourselves to the most simplistic sense, "Playing keys" doesn't work (if one means to ignore the function of the chord), but then neither does "playing modes" (if one means to assign a mode to each chord).

If one is to describe in the simplest terms how one improvises over standard functional chord changes, it would be to reference chords in keys.

If you're not restricting yourself to simplistic definitions, then "playing keys" makes at least as much sense as "playing modes", because either definition can be expanded to include the relevant aspects of the other.

[alez]

I've become convinced that key awareness and chord awareness are both paramount and equally important when improvising over TONAL chord sequences. Of course, some sequences make it natural to emphasize the key (example: 3-4 chords only in a loop, one chord per measure, all in the same key), and other sequences make it natural to emphasize the chord as an entity of its own (example: songs that change tonal center every 3-4 chords such as All the Things You Are). But in the end, all tonal chord sequences fall somewhere between the two extremes described, and being aware that their chords are related to one another via a key is good for you and your audience

[alez]

Originally Posted by edrowland

It's all very well to play in keys; but how do you then deal with chord function? You don't play that same over a IV chord of Eb, and a V chord of Eb.

I can't see how it would be possible to use the concept of function without establishing the concept of key first.

Like you say, a IV chord of Eb is different from a V chord of Eb. But it's fact too that the function of the chord Eb is different in a Bb key context that it is in a Abm key context. An improvisor is likely (or typically) to play Eb lydian stuff over the former, and perhaps Eb alt or whatever dominant stuff over the latter.

[engelbach]

Originally Posted by edrowland

The weakness of by-key playing (I think) is that it makes it difficult to come to terms with melodic minor modes. Which are the bread and butter of jazz harmony.

Whether I agree or not that melodic minor is a "bread and butter" issue doesn't matter.

Using melodic minor is a case of thinking in keys, not modes. You're flatting the third of a major key to create a minor key.

But that's just in relation to the tonic.

It's unlikely that a tune or solo is going to be played in melodic minor. The main chords are going to be formed from the harmonic minor, reserving the melodic minor for special chords and a m6 tonic.

I don't know who finds playing over the chords from the harmonic minor boring; I don't. And it's those same chords that are adopted by jazz players for use in the parallel major keys, that add flavor to vanilla diatonic playing in a major key.

I don't know what the terminology is for such playing, but I know it's not modal.

[jazz oud]

Originally Posted by edrowland

You play an A in the key of C. Not very informative. You play the 9th of V7 in C (or the 2nd note of the 5th mode of C -- the same thing) -- now you're thinking in terms of function. D#, over a G in C major. That's GAlt (G Alt same thing). Ab and Bb are quite naturally in play. And they should be. Almost 50% of the time.. Ab Bb and D# in key of C major? I can't. imagine how you deal with that. Ab Bb D# in a modal framework?

The sins of modal players are many, and well know. The corresponding sins of by-key players are only one: really boring. The weakness of by-key playing (I think) is that it makes it difficult to come to terms with melodic minor modes. Which are the bread and butter of jazz harmony. Modal playing provides a natural framework for melodic minor modes. I'm not sure by-key players totally get it. Sure they learn eventually to drop in those "special notes": +4 on a IMaj7, or a ma7 in a ii or vi (for example), or any note on the keyboard over V. But every single "any note" has sense and function, and a set of other "special notes" that go with it in a modal framework. As do the +4, and ma7. All those "outside" notes? Totally accountable for in a modal framework.

It just seems to me that by-key thinking is a shortcut. But you're going to have learn all the concepts in a modal framework by some other handle sooner or later. So it isn't really easier.

Ed, if you are going to substantially change a post, it is considered better forum procedure to do so in a second post rather than editing your initial post (which obscures the thread of discussion).

I don't mean to sound harsh, but frankly, I think your understanding of this topic is narrow and misguided. Your assertion that key-based playing is "boring" demonstrates that you don't really get what key-based playing is or who is using it.
"Mode playing" is just as much, or more of a shortcut than "key playing".
In a sense, you are correct: "key playing" as described by the OP is a shortcut, and an undesirable one at that. If one means to ignore the chords and just play randomly from the notes diatonic to the key, then yes: that is not a meaningful approach. But that is not what "key playing" is about.

The absolute fact of the matter is that 99% of jazz music happens in keys. It is key-based music. All of the jazz standards are key-based. Any approach to improvising that doesn't give primary respect to the role of keys is suspect. Ordinarily speaking, "key playing" of course incorporates the function of the chords involved, even non-diatonic chords.

"Key playing" is not optional if you want to be a competent improviser. "Modal playing" in the sense that you are using it, is. Since "key playing" is based on the acoustical realities of our harmonic system, it is possible to become an advanced improviser that way with only your ears as a guide (I know people who have done this: no theory, only ears. And they are exceptional improvisers, definitely not boring). Modal playing, based on conceptual constructs, is useful as an extension of a solid understanding of key-based playing, but is in no way an acceptable substitute.

I'm not one of those people who discounts modal approaches entirely. I have been playing jazz for over 20 years. I understand modal approaches very well, and it is this long experience that has clarified the roles of different approaches. They serve a purpose, and have a limited but important role in pedagogy, particularly with regard to keyless or truly modal tunes. Since I understand both key-based and modal approaches, I have to say it is those who insist on modal approaches who "don't get it". Your comments display a set of assumptions that are very limiting. All twelve notes are "in play" at all times.

Every tone has a particular role at a particular moment in time in a particular relationship with the harmony (including the current chord, previous chord, subsequent chord, and overall key). This is what we want to get to, as improvisers--ultimately hearing complex chromatic music in our heads and executing it in real time. Modes, as an intellectual construct, are often (initially) an obstacle to developing an intimate knowledge of their constituent parts.

The "altered" scale is a good example. Thinking of this scale as a mode of melodic minor is a useful construct, but it is in fact not any such thing from an aural standpoint. It is only true from a physical, technical standpoint (you use the same fingerings). The harmony underlying the seventh mode of melodic minor is a m7(b5) chord leading to the tonic a half-step above. The altered scale fits over a dominant 7 b9b10b5b13 leading to the tonic a fifth below. Acoustically and functionally, these are completely different events.
In order to truly use the altered scale as an improviser, you have to understand it in relation to the key that it is in, not as an artificial relationship to a melodic minor scale.
It comprises the following events in a key: 5(root) b6, b7, 7, b2, b3, 4.
The shortcut of thinking of this as a subset of an unrelated (to the key) MM scale is very helpful from a technical standpoint, but does nothing for our musical understanding. What is "boring" is mechanical application of conceptual approaches without a deep underlying appreciation for the meaning of the harmonic and melodic events involved.
The event of b6 (for example) in a key is the same, regardless of the chord happening at that point time. However, it is necessary as an improviser to understand (aurally) how that even interacts both with the key and the chord. The ability to simultaneously comprehend both aspects is far more challenging than the shortcut of a modal approach.

you said:

Ab Bb and D# in key of C major? I can't. imagine how you deal with that.

That is the problem exactly.
They are simply b6, b7 and b3. I know what those sound like in a major key, and what they can do over every diatonic chord, secondary dominant, and common chromatic chord (bIIIm7 for example).
If you don't know how to deal with Ab Bb and Eb (it actually is Eb, not D#) in the key of C major, then any attempt to circumvent that lack of knowledge by using modal concepts is a shortcut that does you no good in the end.

/rant