You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Getting a Modal Sound on Standards - #67

Episode Date: November 27, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam discuss some techniques to get a modal sound over tunes with more traditional changes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You know, Pete, what's up? If you had just one chord to play for the rest of your life, what would it be? G. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you are listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you in the key of G. In the key of G, apparently, for the rest of our lives.

Yes. Today we are talking about some modal things, which is why I brought up that just one chord. We got an email just the other day from a listener in England, I think. Yeah, yeah, the UK. University of Essex, Professor Emeritus. My friend, you just made a full pot. The UK is not necessarily England. Yeah, but it's Essex, so it's probably assuming.

Got it, got it. So this is from our listener, Peter. We have a lot of Peter is actually around here. He says, hi, Adam and Peter. I'm recently retired and can now spend a bit more time developing my jazz piano. Big fan of your podcast, especially as a pianist, the more technical episodes. I've been experimenting with making my own arrangements. of standards, but we'd really appreciate some advice

on what I've referred to as modalizing a standard jazz tune. How do you go about doing that? Could you do a podcast on that? Keep up the great work. And yes, we can, Peter. We're doing one right now. That's right. Now, can we do it with effective advice? We'll see.

We'll hear it. We'll hear it. verdict still out. So I have some ideas here that I jotted down because there are ways that you can do this. I do this all the time. I hear you do this all the time. Yeah. The great thing about this sort of technique of modalizing a standard is that it doesn't have to be the whole tune you're playing.

It could just be one part or it could be the whole tune. I mean, it's however much of it you want to do, it's really a stylistic thing. And for those of you who don't know, I think what he's referring to is getting a modal sound on like a great American song book kind of jazz standard. Right. Like all the things you are or, you know, there will never be another you or something. and getting a modal sound out of that. Yeah.

I mean, I think sometimes, I mean, there's many different ways interested to hear what your other, your ways of doing it. But I'm just thinking now, you know, sometimes it's a matter of just putting a different mode in than is typically heard at that place, which kind of, you know, it gives it that sound. And I think that tunes that sit on course for a little bit longer would make that easier.

It's just one way to do it. But like if you think of like on Green Dolphin Street, so you've got that big E-flat major section. And so, you know, at the beginning for what, two, for two bars, and, you know, which isn't that long of a time, but for a standard tune, it's a little bit of sitting there, especially at the beginning of a tune maybe. Yep. But typically, you know, major scale over that chord, which technically is modal, but it really doesn't have the modal sound, right? Yeah. Because like, what is that? Ionian is the major. Well, yeah. Actually, that first eight bars of Green Dolphin Street has a bit of a modal sound, the way it works

through on the pedal. Right. You know what I mean? And actually that was one of my ideas of this. No, no, this is number one is reharms. And peddling is one of those things that you can do. Right. And Green Dauphin Street sort of naturally does that for you.

But you could do, like I think you were alluding to, you could do even more. Well, yeah, because even if you just switch it, like, say over those first bars, if you go, like Lyddi-da-da-do-de-de-de-de-de. Like Lydian, because that's sort of the normal alteration. It's not alterning it too much from the major, but gives it that kind of. modal sound. Either way, when you switch certainly to the, you know, to the third bar, if you go to that Dorian kind of sound, which is really what it is in any case coming off in the major or the Lydian, that immediately gives it that kind of modal sound. And then it's something you can return to at any point, even on different chords and stuff. Because really like the real modal

sound, you're sitting somewhere for a while and you're like exploring in a very, usually interesting melodic and rhythmic way, these specific kind of tones in that modal scale. That's right. And then on this same kind of reharm kick, I do think that, and this kind of goes away, goes with another point that I was gonna make. Tritone subs are especially effective to get a modal sound or any kind of substituting the five chord.

Yeah. Like what you really wanna do, Peter, is take away any kind of trope of the standard, right? Any kind of cliche of the standard, a 251 is, like 2516, that doesn't have a modal sound at all. Right, it pulls you out. Pulls you out. It's a very grounded sound.

So what you can do, say like a, and E flat is go F minor, maybe E minor. Yeah. You know, like keep that Dorian sound. Transitional area there. Down a half step and then to the E flat major or even F minor, D minor, E flat major. You know, just whatever the five is, taking that out of the equation.

And you can really almost do anything in that spot. Right. And it's going to sound more modal. And you could even use, I think, because like when you talked about from that F minor, I guess that would be like the ninth bar or whatever, which is the first time when in that particular, tune, you're kind of leaving the built-in modal area. So I think it is important then not to, because it can sound a little bit, you know,

cliched if you jump back and forth from that real stand. I mean, maybe sometimes you want that, that's fine. But if you want to stay into that modal thing, you actually need to find something at these times. And I think that you really hit on it as far as on the five chords or a dominant chord is always a good place to substitute or to put a lot of different things like the unexpected thing, E minor, seven or whatever, because you're already, there's already some drama built into those chords and you can get away with more. I mean, you can do it anywhere.

You can do it anywhere, but maybe at the beginning of the tune, it's better to stay within those parameters. But it's almost, it's almost as important that you're taking away that 5-1 than it is you're putting in something that sounds modal. Right. The modal sound comes because there's no, you know, obvious Western Harmony cadence happening. You know what I'm saying?

Like, where it's just like, 5-1. Yeah. If you take that away, then you get more of a modal sound. I would start with, like I said, the tritone sub, like, you know, an E7. If you really want to get a modal sign, you could do like an E7 suss to get more of an ambiguous sound. Right. Or do, you know, borrow from the four minor so you can go up to A flat minor instead of. You know what I mean?

It's a little more inside than maybe a modal sound you want, but it's a way to start to get out of there. That's good. Now, I'm just thinking of some other things, and this is certainly in no particular order, just sort of riffing on this idea of modality. I think in general, like if you both solo and comping, if you start to think, you know, in terms of the mode, and look, modes are already, you know, diatonically all the same, or at least we talk about modes of the major scale, then we, you know, probably won't have time to go beyond that. But the modes are all diatonic. So if you think about your comping and you shift into like some fourth voices, which would basically just be three-note voices in the left hand, separated by a perfect four. to start and then you move up diatonically you're going to get you're not going to be moving parallel or chromatically so the intervals are going to change they're still going to be fourth but sometimes it's going to be you know diminished augmented fourth flat four yeah so once you start moving things

around and this is this kind of sound you're moving with those fourth voicings over i mean that could be dorian that could be major could be you know any of the different modes that immediately gets you into that that that modal sound like if you don't want to actually go to a substitute or whatever that's a super important point and something, Peter, that you should consider working on, like, immediately to get that sound. I mean, not you, Peter. Peter. Peter here in the UK. I do need to work on it, though. But if you can get those three-note, chordal voicings in your hand, built-in-forth in all the keys, anywhere on their diatonic scale, you don't even have to substitute anything. Like you said, you just start getting that sound. Now you throw in another

idea I had with that, some pentatonic patterns, you know, which is very, easy to do as a pianist because it really fits our five fingers just perfectly. It feels great. It feels great. You can immediately get that on just about any tune. You know what I mean? I mean, there's always a place to find it. Some pentatonic stuff or even just, it doesn't even have to be pentatonic, but just shapes in your hand. You know, that starts getting into getting that sound, I think, that you're looking for. Yeah. And I think both those things, the fourth in the left hand and the pentatonic in the right, those shapes, they can, if you actually learn them in both hands, it can be.

very helpful melodically and also corridor-wise because a lot of times we're taking the same shapes that we use for voicings and using them as melodic shapes. Yeah, pianists, do not sleep on your left-hand voicings. Practice them in your right hand. I promise you, you will thank us for this advice

because all of a sudden you have, first of all, you can comp up there which you might not realize and it sounds pretty good, but you can play some pretty damn good, like melodic content with those shapes. The other thing is do not actually sleep on your left I did that the other night,

an awkward way, and I kind of woke up with a little wrist pain to say that you. Well, Peter in Essex, hope this, no, you're in Wivenhoe Park. Sorry, I'm getting a little too specific. You have a zip code?

937. Longitude. Peter, thanks for the question. This is a great question, and something I don't know if we've actually touched on this specifically, so I hope this helps. That's good, good stuff.

And good thing for, you know, all you horn players, vocalists, drummers, or whatever, to sit down at the piano or the guitar and play some of these voicing, play some of these things in a way that, I mean, of course you can work on modality on your instrument, but it can really open things up if you get a little bit of, you know, harmonic vertical understanding as well.

Totally true. Until next time. You'll hear it.