I know modes, basic theory...but a bit stuck

So, I know my modes.  I can focus in on basic chord tones when playing lead and understand chord construction.

What next to help me play more freely over non-diatonic progressions?  I tried to go down a jazz path but I don't listen to it enough to get it under my skin to any meaningful level.  As somebody more into shred, I am a bit lost in terms of how to understand what I can play over what, when it gets out of basic diatonic stuff.

It might sound like a silly question but do most guitarists playing this stuff analyse the underlying progressions before taking on the lead?  I manage to play by feel/ear on some things but sound like a twit when it's anything more complex.

Any book/online course you might recommend?

So there are a few things you can do:

• Use your ear and just try out notes until stuff sounds good because as you further into music theory you get closer to "If it sounds good it is good"
• Try and hit the chord tones, or things that aren't chord tones, but work with the chord. Rick Beato is great at explaining this. For example if you have an Am chord and you play a G then it's not in the chord, but it's going to make it sound like Am7 so it's still cool. 
• Find out what the "not safe notes are" For example I'm playing about with the "Lay Lady Lay" chord sequence at the moment. It's a bit ambiguous between A Major and A Mixolydian so basically you are fine as long as you are careful around the 7th degree
• Remember that if you are shredding then you can play loads of chromatic and outside notes as long as you hit strong notes like the tonic or the fifth at the end of the phrase especially if you are playing a repeating pattern
• Find the notes from the melody and use those

Thanks, @monquixote 

Beato on YouTube?

imalrightjack said:

Thanks, @monquixote 

Beato on YouTube?

Yeah Rick Beato is awesome. 

Also David Bennet is a Piano YT, but he does loads on chords and why they work which has helped me a lot.

Also: Adam Neally is amazing for understanding why music doesn't have to be locked into the Western Classical tradition to sound good.
Weirdly also 8 bit music theory is brilliant at analysing how notes go together, but it's all through the lens of retro computer game music. His videos on modes are superb.

These are all about composition rather than improvisation, but in reality that's what you need to understand.

I found Rick Beato's analysis videos super helpful. Like Alice in Chains might be playing powerchords, but a lead line or vocal harmony is creating upper chord extensions which make it sound really cool and sophisticated. I kind of think of melodic lead as adding notes to the chords.

Thanks again, @monquixote 

If you fancy linking any videos in particular, please do!

imalrightjack said:

...
It might sound like a silly question but do most guitarists playing this stuff analyse the underlying progressions before taking on the lead?
...

I think, probably, the answer is 'yes'...at least until they reach 'Zen master' level.

Transcribe & analyse might be a good way forward. If you get stuck and run out of internet, post a topic here...I've seen some great info.

Why don't you start with an easy one...

(solo at 3:26)

;)

I just realised I had a go at a transcription a while back (link in my sig...caveat emptor, etc).

digitalkettle said:

imalrightjack said:

...
It might sound like a silly question but do most guitarists playing this stuff analyse the underlying progressions before taking on the lead?
...

I think, probably, the answer is 'yes'...at least until they reach 'Zen master' level.

Roland said:

digitalkettle said:

imalrightjack said:

...
It might sound like a silly question but do most guitarists playing this stuff analyse the underlying progressions before taking on the lead?
...

I think, probably, the answer is 'yes'...at least until they reach 'Zen master' level.

monquixote said: Use your ear and just try out notes until stuff sounds good because as you further into music theory you get closer to "If it sounds good it is good"

Using your ears, and finding the notes which sound right, isn’t as hard as many people think. It’s well below Zen Master level. Particularly if you’re focusing on 5th and 3rds. 

That's not really what I meant. I understood the question to be along the lines of: you need to play a solo over 16 bars of interesting chords...shall we hit record first time or do you want a pencil & paper and we'll see you back here in fifteen minutes?

Short answer is learn about chord tones and voice leading, the longer answer is depending on where you want to take it, it can take a lifetime but with most things, it gets much easier the more you do it.  

The humble triad is an awesome tool for highlighting moving harmony.  Esp when you use triad pairs to get some very juicy hexatonic sounds that can be fairly out but sound good as they are part of a very familiar triad.  Used by lots of jazz player and also a fair amount of Steely Dan session players.  

imalrightjack said:

What next to help me play more freely over non-diatonic progressions?

Play over non-diatonic progressions

Sounds obvious but we have to do (or at least try and fail) things in order to improve at them. It doesn't happen out of thin air unfortunately... or until Elon Musk makes it possible....

You know how chords are constructed, modes and chord/scale relationships so you're most of the way there. The issue now is probably one of repertoire (or lack of). Learning songs and/or having a number of specific sets of changes will give you a framework to operate in and material to transcribe/analyse as @digitalkettle alludes to. The more you work in this way, the easier it becomes and it starts to be instinctive, unless the changes are particularly nasty, then it's a case of just having to put the yards in anyway.

Start off simple with two chords - G to Bb. You'll like this, as these are the chords for Marty Friedman's first main solo in Holy Wars at 03:27. Moving a chord up a minor 3rd is common enough to be acceptable to the ear, yet different enough to get you into non-diatonic playing. During this first solo, Marty is outlining each chord with it's major arpeggio, going though different inversions. Very cool.

Taking the same two chords (well, G∆ and Bb∆ to be pedantic), Pat Metheny takes a different, modal approach, using G and Bb Lydian over these chords in Bright Size Life. Also very cool.

Don't discount the humble pentatonic scale for navigating non-diatonic changes either.

What if we added another chord a m3 above the Bb, so our progression would now be G∆, Bb∆ and Db∆? Etc, etc...

How would you approach it if we make all this minor - Gm7 to Bbm7? What pool of notes jump out at you when looking at these chords? Which scales share any notes between them? Or throw things even further and vamp G∆7 - Bbm7? Two root notes a m3 apart can throw up a host of possibilities to work on and it's only barely scratching the surface.

Ultimately, it boils down to how well one knows the fretboard in the heat of the moment in relation to the harmony presented to them, and most importantly of all... phrasing. Learning tunes, analysing solos, working out your own improvisations in any given context is the key to it. 

For me there is Playing across chords,playing around chords and playing before chords...
I earned to play across chords first,,like A minor to G to F all using a A Aeolian..Then I took a 12 Bar Blues and Started playing around Chords..
Targeting the chord tones..Playing full modes etc I found didn't sound natural..I still often use chord arpeggios at times laced with Chromatics below the target notes....You can do so much to dress up a target note enclosures etc..

The Idea of Lydian Dominant for a non Diatonic Dominant 7th and a Lydian for a non diatonic Major 7th works great but even better with Arpeggios and target notes..I think 7th Arpeggios Minor,Major,Dominant and Min 7 flat 5 are underrated,,I find them really useful,,then there is inverting them Minor 7th flat 5 to Minor 6..Major 6 to Minor 7..Or superimposition.. Major 7 to minor 9th..

I also think in terms of grids on top of a map on an overhead projector..The grids could be drawn in different colours overlaid on the map...
I think about the Modes / Arpeggios available to me on the same part of the fingerboard this way..Also the chords and arpeggios connected with the scales..

Also even things like changing to a Harmonic Minor from a Natural Minor / Aeolian if the V Chord of the i minor is a Dominant 7th..Only one note different..Suddenly you have Diminished Seventh and Augmented arpeggios to play with..It doesn't have to sound like Yngwie..Just this 1 note difference you can change from Aeolian to Harmonic or a Dorian to Melodic Minor..You start to hear it by ear..So the Grid can have just one note difference...Dorian to Melodic Minor,,Dorian to Mixolydian..The like knowing a root 6 and root 5 major bar chord say..If you look at a Root 6 Aeolian Mode,,if you start on the fifth string instead you get Dorian..These are how I navigate,but as you play these changes,,your ear starts to navigate..I in many cases not know the chords coming up but know,,it's time to go to Harmonic Minor or indeed Melodic..Often it is Melodic as the Altered / Super Locrian and Harmonic Minor as the Phrygian Dominant..I guess this method evolved in me by itself..So it may not work for others..

^ spot on, that last paragraph

KevS said:

…as you play these changes,,your ear starts to navigate....I guess this method evolved in me by itself..So it may not work for others..

You are not alone. They are just notes which have a sound and feel in relation to other notes. Let your ear navigate. Scales and modes are a way of categorising them after the event.

Roland said:

KevS said:

…as you play these changes,,your ear starts to navigate....I guess this method evolved in me by itself..So it may not work for others..

You are not alone. They are just notes which have a sound and feel in relation to other notes. Let your ear navigate. Scales and modes are a way of categorising them after the event.

I like to target the chord tones so mostly 3rd's/7th's and resolving on roots. Note choice is more important than doing the scale correctly. 

The Sweet Child O Mine solos are a good example. It's not a massive run of notes its the note placement against the chords that make it work. There's not many notes particularly in the first 2 solos. But they have push/pull, tension/release etc. That's what makes it so great for the song.

monquixote said:

Roland said:

KevS said:

…as you play these changes,,your ear starts to navigate....I guess this method evolved in me by itself..So it may not work for others..

You are not alone. They are just notes which have a sound and feel in relation to other notes. Let your ear navigate. Scales and modes are a way of categorising them after the event.

This is great advice.

People think music theory is this rule book that tells you what sounds good but it's actually a way of explaining stuff.

Sounding good wins.

Or to look at it another way, music theory is just a way of informing stuff before a note has been played. It puzzles me, this attitude, that seems to reduce theory almost to an inconvenience, only useful for retrospective thinking. Imagine saying knowing the alphabet was only useful after you'd written your New York Times Best Seller? :wink:
Granted, knowing a lot of theory doesn't equate to playing well at all but... 

What if our ear isn't good enough to hear the things we want to play?

What if we can't execute what our ear hears because we don't have the required knowledge and/or technique?

What if we get a chart on a gig/session and have been asked to take a solo over a host of tricky, non-diatonic changes?   

I could name plenty of improvisors that it's been claimed know/knew very little in the way of music theory, but music makes sense to these people in a way it doesn't for the rest of us. Their formative years, hard work, technique/phrasing, knowledge of the instrument, aural perception and musical intuition is just more readily accessible to them, particularly in real time.

For the rest of us mortals theory helps bridge that gap much sooner. It's not about rules per se, but just to be able to look at a chord progression and have a fighting chance of getting through it by knowing a bit of theory is a powerful thing.

I sit with guitar most of the time running through scales ..arps ..triad pairs ..ect ....IV found what really does help is put a backing track on and just start playing over it
Another way that is brilliant for ear training is sitting watching TV and any music that comes up iff adverts or film music start on any note anywhere on the neck and play not by finding the scale that fits and playing in a particular area just move about and go all over the neck ...iff you make mistakes it's ok things will get better ....also film music uses lots of different modes

A book maybe worth looking at is pentatonic Khancepts by Steve Khan ....we all know pentatonics but a lot more ways to use them rather than just over the root 

Brad said:

monquixote said:

Roland said:

KevS said:

…as you play these changes,,your ear starts to navigate....I guess this method evolved in me by itself..So it may not work for others..

You are not alone. They are just notes which have a sound and feel in relation to other notes. Let your ear navigate. Scales and modes are a way of categorising them after the event.

This is great advice.

People think music theory is this rule book that tells you what sounds good but it's actually a way of explaining stuff.

Sounding good wins.

Or to look at it another way, music theory is just a way of informing stuff before a note has been played. It puzzles me, this attitude, that seems to reduce theory almost to an inconvenience, only useful for retrospective thinking. Imagine saying knowing the alphabet was only useful after you'd written your New York Times Best Seller? :wink:
Granted, knowing a lot of theory doesn't equate to playing well at all but... 

What if our ear isn't good enough to hear the things we want to play?

What if we can't execute what our ear hears because we don't have the required knowledge and/or technique?

What if we get a chart on a gig/session and have been asked to take a solo over a host of tricky, non-diatonic changes?   

I could name plenty of improvisors that it's been claimed know/knew very little in the way of music theory, but music makes sense to these people in a way it doesn't for the rest of us. Their formative years, hard work, technique/phrasing, knowledge of the instrument, aural perception and musical intuition is just more readily accessible to them, particularly in real time.

For the rest of us mortals theory helps bridge that gap much sooner. It's not about rules per se, but just to be able to look at a chord progression and have a fighting chance of getting through it by knowing a bit of theory is a powerful thing.

monquixote said:

I think my best way of expressing it might be that theory can point you at things that might be right but it can’t tell you that something is wrong.

Yep. Looked at another way: theory tells you which notes could work, but it doesn’t tell you which ones work really well in a context. It also stumbles a bit once you go into micro-tonal bends because you have to start layering on extra theory.

monquixote said:

Brad said:

monquixote said:

Roland said:

KevS said:

…as you play these changes,,your ear starts to navigate....I guess this method evolved in me by itself..So it may not work for others..

You are not alone. They are just notes which have a sound and feel in relation to other notes. Let your ear navigate. Scales and modes are a way of categorising them after the event.

This is great advice.

People think music theory is this rule book that tells you what sounds good but it's actually a way of explaining stuff.

Sounding good wins.

Or to look at it another way, music theory is just a way of informing stuff before a note has been played. It puzzles me, this attitude, that seems to reduce theory almost to an inconvenience, only useful for retrospective thinking. Imagine saying knowing the alphabet was only useful after you'd written your New York Times Best Seller? :wink:
Granted, knowing a lot of theory doesn't equate to playing well at all but... 

What if our ear isn't good enough to hear the things we want to play?

What if we can't execute what our ear hears because we don't have the required knowledge and/or technique?

What if we get a chart on a gig/session and have been asked to take a solo over a host of tricky, non-diatonic changes?   

I could name plenty of improvisors that it's been claimed know/knew very little in the way of music theory, but music makes sense to these people in a way it doesn't for the rest of us. Their formative years, hard work, technique/phrasing, knowledge of the instrument, aural perception and musical intuition is just more readily accessible to them, particularly in real time.

For the rest of us mortals theory helps bridge that gap much sooner. It's not about rules per se, but just to be able to look at a chord progression and have a fighting chance of getting through it by knowing a bit of theory is a powerful thing.

I think you are misunderstanding what I’m saying.

Hmmm really? I've no doubt you have a more fluid relationship with theory than what has been written so far in that case, but I merely responded to the overall notion quoted, to which you seem in agreement to the suggestion that theory only serves as a post purpose experience. But it does indeed explain stuff and should be used for analysis of course.

monquixote said:

Lots of guitarists seem to say “I don’t want to learn theory because it will restrict me” which makes no sense.

Which is very true, but slightly contradicts the original points I quoted no? I say that as someone that is a walking contradiction mind :wink:

monquixote said:

You can look at something like Stepping Stone which is IIRC E major, G Major, A Major, C Major and be like “That’s wrong they should have used minors on the A and the E” 

Firstly, it can’t be wrong because it sounds good and secondly it’s just not diatonic. If you have sufficient knowledge you can analyse it perfectly well.

To which you've illustrated my point.
 
We're in agreement that "if it sounds good, it is good", we don't need to theory to tell us that and people too hung up on theory can and do, get hamstrung by it.

My argument is that in my opinion, people look at the use of theory from the wrong perspective. 

My point is I don't look at those chords for Stepping Stone and think "it should be Em and Am instead because that's what theory says". I take those chords and deal with them for what they are and I know instinctively what I can use over them, then it's down to me to succeed or fail in playing something worthwhile. I'm using theory to my advantage ahead of the situation. Where it seems the school of thought here is that knowing theory/scales is only useful for explaining what I might have played after the fact. I just think that is wrong.

monquixote said:

I think my best way of expressing it might be that theory can point you at things that might be right but it can’t tell you that something is wrong.

For me? I get where you're coming from but it's a yes/no situation...

Banging on the note F over a C major chord, whilst theoretically "correct" (in so much as it's in the key of C) can/will sound dreadful. Hitting a Db over a C major chord is theoretically "incorrect", yet can sound wonderful in the right hands. Of course and one point I could only hear it. But I know why theoretically I have to be careful with either of those two tones over a C major chord, despite on the surface level one should be fair game whist the other shouldn't.  

Victor Wooten demonstrates this in a lovely way. He takes a solo using all the right notes, but with poor phrasing. Then another solo using all the wrong notes with good phrasing, with the second solo being by far better than the first. But again, that's Wooten and that level of musicianship takes awful lot of work. Simply knowing what notes one "should" or "shouldn't"  play isn't the whole story, but can certainly get us there quicker and get us to where we can start to break any rules. There's a Charlie Parker quote somewhere...   

Don't get me wrong, ears are everything. But theory shouldn't be a cage in which we are imprisoned, thought of only from a particular angle or disassociated from the playing experience . Is it a framework? Yes. Can it help guide and inform us to where we need to go? Yes. Does it cover every eventuality and should be slavishly adhered to? No. Does it equate to good music/playing? That's in the ear of the beholder of course, but for me it does and doesn't in equal measure.

Theory is never the issue, it's how we deal it that is and that's down to us as individuals. Those that are happy without it, or a very limited application for it? Crack on and be merry :smile:

Roland said:

monquixote said:

I think my best way of expressing it might be that theory can point you at things that might be right but it can’t tell you that something is wrong.

Yep. Looked at another way: theory tells you which notes could work, but it doesn’t tell you which ones work really well in a context. It also stumbles a bit once you go into micro-tonal bends because you have to start layering on extra theory.

On the surface it doesn't. But get deeper into it and it does.

If the OP was asking about the finer points of Indian Improvisation, the conversation would be very different. 

Brad said:

Roland said:

monquixote said:

I think my best way of expressing it might be that theory can point you at things that might be right but it can’t tell you that something is wrong.

Yep. Looked at another way: theory tells you which notes could work, but it doesn’t tell you which ones work really well in a context. It also stumbles a bit once you go into micro-tonal bends because you have to start layering on extra theory.

On the surface it doesn't. But get deeper into it and it does …

We’re edging towards semantics here, but I still maintain that at what ever level theory can only tell you notes that you could play or, in retrospect, how the notes you did play can be understood. You’ve still got to choose which note or phrase to play. You could make that choice based on finger patterns, on knowledge of modes, or on what your ear/brain suggests (remembering that your ear/brain has been trained by what you have listened to and played). None of that is telling you what you should play. Taken towards the extreme, which is a useful way of testing ideas, you end up with lounge music with no interesting melodies or harmonies. Accepted principles of the time would have considered Greensleeves to be dissonant, or that a vocal chorus had no place in Beethoven’s 9th symphony, Tri-tones, blue notes, poly-rhythms, they’ve all come in from the cold, with theories developed to categories them. Yet breaking rules is the role of an artist. It’s what moves artistic boundaries forward. That’s why I maintain that theory only shows you what’s safe. Theory can follow, but can’t lead.

I think it works both ways...I knew the Harmonic Minor Scale,but realised I heard the Phrygian Dominant Mode so much stronger than the parent scale..Then after using it for a while..I started to hear where I should change the when I heard a Chord change..So the sound was in my ear..Real time music if I'm improvising,I can now hear where to play it without a chord chart in front of me..

There are many ways for different situations that have developed in me..Not one solid all round method..
This all may be confusing to the OP..But this is genuinely how I do it.. 

The Melodic Minor ( Ascendening ) for any pedants..lol...I first learned as the parent scale and couldn't get much out of it at first..Then I learned about the Super Locrian / Altered..On a dominant V chord,,I could hear it..It was as the Lydian Flat 7 on a flat II chord I really heard it..It kind of slapped me in the face.."That is what that is"..Lightbulb Moment..Specifically on a Dominant 7 flat 5 chord..So a sub V tritone substitution.This chord change was so strong,,I was listening to old Decca Phase 4 Stereo Ted Heath Big Band records a lot at the time...I later heard Melodic Minor as a I chord on a minor 6 or Minor 6/9 chord..It was Brooding and very John Barry sounding..or playing it over i borrowed iv Minor chord..Lydian Flat 7 is so much easier for my ear than Melodic Minor though..You just hear stuff..Sometimes you have known the parent scale forever,,but you hear the mode much stronger..

Also if Phrygian Dominant doesn't work..Super Locrian / Altered often does as the other option....This is when playing a V Dominant chord to a i Minor..Again based on the Major Third interval of the Dominant V7 chord..

Although just this morning I realised Brian Setzer uses a Whole tone Scale on the V chord in Stray Cat Strut..,it isn't just an Augmented Arpeggio..I know there are many options on a Dominant V chord as the more dissonant..The more it wants to resolve..This is sort of my thinking when I say playing before chords..

The thing is after using this stuff,,you absorb it and hear it..I heard the Lydian Flat 7 flat II Tritone sub thing,before I learned about it..I also never really could find a place Dominant 7 flat 5 chords sounded good before that..

Thinking about it..I tend to play both a 6 and flat 6 note if I've found Pentatonic Minor to find if I'm in Dorian or Aeolian..
I look at Pentatonic Minor and Major Shapes..The more vertical forms as picture Frames..You can hang the 3 minor modes in the Root 6 Minor shape and the 3 Major Modes in the Root 6 Major shapes..

Targeting thirds of non diatonic chords too.. I'll sometimes do the Bluesy Minor to Major third Move..Or The thirds move then root or Seventh..Or alternating between both..

I do a whole load of stuff...But only realise while I am writing it out because it has been absorbed and became instinctive..So as I have said to the point of boredom..lol..I hear the tonality change as the chord changes..

I guess it is a mixture of things and ways that have came together to enable me to negotiate things..
Some of it may not be by the traditional way of teaching things,but it works much more strongly my way..
You know like Phrygian Dominant may come up more than Harmonic Minor..
To me it sounds better playing from Aeolian to Phrygian Dominant than playing Harmonic Minor over both..
Or using yer lovely Diminished 7th and Augmented or Augmented 7th arpeggio on the V chord from the Phrygian Dominant..

Again though,,you internalise it and start to hear where it goes by instinct..Almost like correcting your mistakes when Improvising... 

Hope I haven't went around in circles here...

Oh!! and E minor Pentatonic over E G A B C D all as Major Chords to me are basically the sound of Classic Rock/Blues Rock..
So to my cherry picking opinionated ears it is actually the sound of a style..Although I would still play the minor to Major Third move on a few chords..I also I guess from the glorious art of Fucking Around / Exploration would view all chords as possible Dominant 7th forms..Something else I seem to have internalised..Licks based on chords can be used to fit those chord forms in a non diatonic way..

Brad said:

monquixote said:

Brad said:

monquixote said:

Roland said:

KevS said:

…as you play these changes,,your ear starts to navigate....I guess this method evolved in me by itself..So it may not work for others..

You are not alone. They are just notes which have a sound and feel in relation to other notes. Let your ear navigate. Scales and modes are a way of categorising them after the event.

This is great advice.

People think music theory is this rule book that tells you what sounds good but it's actually a way of explaining stuff.

Sounding good wins.

Or to look at it another way, music theory is just a way of informing stuff before a note has been played. It puzzles me, this attitude, that seems to reduce theory almost to an inconvenience, only useful for retrospective thinking. Imagine saying knowing the alphabet was only useful after you'd written your New York Times Best Seller? :wink:
Granted, knowing a lot of theory doesn't equate to playing well at all but... 

What if our ear isn't good enough to hear the things we want to play?

What if we can't execute what our ear hears because we don't have the required knowledge and/or technique?

What if we get a chart on a gig/session and have been asked to take a solo over a host of tricky, non-diatonic changes?   

I could name plenty of improvisors that it's been claimed know/knew very little in the way of music theory, but music makes sense to these people in a way it doesn't for the rest of us. Their formative years, hard work, technique/phrasing, knowledge of the instrument, aural perception and musical intuition is just more readily accessible to them, particularly in real time.

For the rest of us mortals theory helps bridge that gap much sooner. It's not about rules per se, but just to be able to look at a chord progression and have a fighting chance of getting through it by knowing a bit of theory is a powerful thing.

I think you are misunderstanding what I’m saying.

Hmmm really? I've no doubt you have a more fluid relationship with theory than what has been written so far in that case, but I merely responded to the overall notion quoted, to which you seem in agreement to the suggestion that theory only serves as a post purpose experience. But it does indeed explain stuff and should be used for analysis of course.

monquixote said:

Lots of guitarists seem to say “I don’t want to learn theory because it will restrict me” which makes no sense.

Which is very true, but slightly contradicts the original points I quoted no? I say that as someone that is a walking contradiction mind :wink:

monquixote said:

You can look at something like Stepping Stone which is IIRC E major, G Major, A Major, C Major and be like “That’s wrong they should have used minors on the A and the E” 

Firstly, it can’t be wrong because it sounds good and secondly it’s just not diatonic. If you have sufficient knowledge you can analyse it perfectly well.

To which you've illustrated my point.
 
We're in agreement that "if it sounds good, it is good", we don't need to theory to tell us that and people too hung up on theory can and do, get hamstrung by it.

My argument is that in my opinion, people look at the use of theory from the wrong perspective. 

My point is I don't look at those chords for Stepping Stone and think "it should be Em and Am instead because that's what theory says". I take those chords and deal with them for what they are and I know instinctively what I can use over them, then it's down to me to succeed or fail in playing something worthwhile. I'm using theory to my advantage ahead of the situation. Where it seems the school of thought here is that knowing theory/scales is only useful for explaining what I might have played after the fact. I just think that is wrong.

monquixote said:

I think my best way of expressing it might be that theory can point you at things that might be right but it can’t tell you that something is wrong.

For me? I get where you're coming from but it's a yes/no situation...

Banging on the note F over a C major chord, whilst theoretically "correct" (in so much as it's in the key of C) can/will sound dreadful. Hitting a Db over a C major chord is theoretically "incorrect", yet can sound wonderful in the right hands. Of course and one point I could only hear it. But I know why theoretically I have to be careful with either of those two tones over a C major chord, despite on the surface level one should be fair game whist the other shouldn't.  

Victor Wooten demonstrates this in a lovely way. He takes a solo using all the right notes, but with poor phrasing. Then another solo using all the wrong notes with good phrasing, with the second solo being by far better than the first. But again, that's Wooten and that level of musicianship takes awful lot of work. Simply knowing what notes one "should" or "shouldn't"  play isn't the whole story, but can certainly get us there quicker and get us to where we can start to break any rules. There's a Charlie Parker quote somewhere...   

Don't get me wrong, ears are everything. But theory shouldn't be a cage in which we are imprisoned, thought of only from a particular angle or disassociated from the playing experience . Is it a framework? Yes. Can it help guide and inform us to where we need to go? Yes. Does it cover every eventuality and should be slavishly adhered to? No. Does it equate to good music/playing? That's in the ear of the beholder of course, but for me it does and doesn't in equal measure.

Theory is never the issue, it's how we deal it that is and that's down to us as individuals. Those that are happy without it, or a very limited application for it? Crack on and be merry :smile:

I don't think all this analysis of a point I wasn't making is especially helpful to the OP.

Roland said:

Brad said:

Roland said:

monquixote said:

I think my best way of expressing it might be that theory can point you at things that might be right but it can’t tell you that something is wrong.

Yep. Looked at another way: theory tells you which notes could work, but it doesn’t tell you which ones work really well in a context. It also stumbles a bit once you go into micro-tonal bends because you have to start layering on extra theory.

On the surface it doesn't. But get deeper into it and it does …

We’re edging towards semantics here, but I still maintain that at what ever level theory can only tell you notes that you could play or, in retrospect, how the notes you did play can be understood. You’ve still got to choose which note or phrase to play. You could make that choice based on finger patterns, on knowledge of modes, or on what your ear/brain suggests (remembering that your ear/brain has been trained by what you have listened to and played). None of that is telling you what you should play. 

All very true, and despite it seeming like the goalpost are ever so slightly moving, your default position appears to be that theory is a retrospective thing (which is cool by the way) but that's the thing I'm challenging. Earlier in the thread, you talk about focusing on 3rds and 5ths. Like it or not, that is you, using theory. You may do it as instinctively as writing, we don't think too hard about the individual spellings of each word or sentence construction as they just flow. But us being able to have this debate in this way, is underpinned by our knowledge of a shared spoken and written language. Knowledge that we have learnt over years. I couldn't do this in Japanese, I'd have to learn the a whole new language for that. 

Taken towards the extreme, which is a useful way of testing ideas, you end up with lounge music with no interesting melodies or harmonies. Accepted principles of the time would have considered Greensleeves to be dissonant, or that a vocal chorus had no place in Beethoven’s 9th symphony, Tri-tones, blue notes, poly-rhythms, they’ve all come in from the cold, with theories developed to categories them. Yet breaking rules is the role of an artist.

Lol, you don't end up with lounge music because of theory. The OP has a blind spot when it comes to playing non-diatonic changes, not how he can break the chains of music theory so he can usher in a new music order. Knowing some actual stuff and how to apply it will help him get there.

That’s why I maintain that theory only shows you what’s safe. Theory can follow, but can’t lead.

I'm sorry, but I think that is absolute nonsense.

monquixote said:

I don't think all this analysis of a point I wasn't making is especially helpful to the OP.

Well, one of two things has happened. My comprehension skills leave a lot to be desired, or you didn't articulate your position clearly enough and it was open to misinterpretation.

I'll leave it to @imalrightjack to decide if any of this has been worthwhile for him. Other than that, I'm gonna bow out of this one. Been a pleasure. 

@Brad - there's certainly useful content in here, from yourself and others, but at the moment I have laryngitis and working out what I should pay attention to is a task for when I am on a good ADHD day!  Tad overwhelming today...

Thanks, all!

imalrightjack said:

@Brad - there's certainly useful content in here, from yourself and others, but at the moment I have laryngitis and working out what I should pay attention to is a task for when I am on a good ADHD day!  Tad overwhelming today...

Thanks, all!

Ouch, get well soon!

Knowing theory gives you choices you never knew you had.
If all you ever learnt where the Major and Natural minor and standard diatonic harmonisation you limit yourself. Only by playing bum notes (to you) can you find alternative, but that can be a bit hit and miss.
Even if you branch out into the major scale modes, you can get a bit limited as to scale/note choices as soon as chords get a little more complex.
Take a C Major chord. You have 3 scale choices C Ionion, C Lydian, and C Mixolydian.
Now if you suddenly make this a C7 chord your choices become limited (logically Mixolydian would be the logical choice)
But if you start looking further into the harmonic/melodic scales, suddenly you care given more choices than will "work". E.g. You could play the C Phrygian Dominant scale for a nice Spanish flavour.
Alas a lot of the online tuition, concentrates on the modes of the major scale and doesn't go any further. But the second you move out of the basic modes a whole new universe opens up.
When moving between chords diatonic or not (especially an academic exercise) I like to take the underlying chord, consider all "scales" that have those notes and see what notes are common between the previous scale I've used the new Chord tones. So if I was soloing over a CM7 and was using C Lydian, and the next chord was Ebm, you could target the F# (#4 if C Lydian and b3 of Em) then look at modes that have the notes of the Em especially those that have notes 1/2 step up from the notes of the C Lydian scale. This is just one approach that theory allows you to do that you'd never think about. It may sound terrible to your ears. Eventually after a lot of experimentation you come up with approaches you like the sound of and they become your signature sound.