On 6/8/12 8:43 PM, Ed Durbrow wrote:
Either or … ?
Use common tones to modulate. For example take the A in an F chord and use it as the 7th in a B chord to modulate to E.
Thanks for the advice, but let me make sure I understand what you are suggesting.
In the particular example that you use, does this just mean that if I were to play an F chord as, say, the IV chord in
Cmajor that I could then follow it with B major (and not a B diminished which would keep me in C major) just because it shares the pitch, A from the original chord progression?
Not sure if this is correct, but if it is, do I only need to have one common pitch in two chords that are in different
key centers?
A trick my friend Paul Wagner just showed me is instead of using a vii (diminished) chord that if you drop the
7 down a half step, the diminished chord becomes a Major chord whose 3rd and 5th degress are still in the original
key signature........in this case your forced substitution of the a flatted 7th, suddenly means that what was a C major
is now a G major and the scale you are now using only differs from the original key by one single F#.
This is done beautifully in One Hand, One Heart by Leonard Bernstein in West Side Story.
That trick is a beautiful one and I've been trying to look at different ways to make the same thing happen with
other chords in a standard progression (largely, making something major, minor and vice versa)
To get away from model writing, try counterpoint, particularly chromatic.
So how could you do any of this with a looper?
I think I don't understand the term counterpoint, especially chromatic counter point.
Can you give me a simple definition of what I can actually try or at least steer me to a good
book on the subject.
Is counterpoint used in modern songwriting, out of curiosity? I, of course, have heard it
in J.S. Bach's music, though I"m not sure I understand what he's doing harmonically speaking.
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and the way I use this in looping is just the songs I'm trying to figure out how to produce live
with my very limited instrumental skills on several several different chordally based instruments.
The only other way I've been using some of these concepts in real time is by using a trick that my brother taught
me, which is to eliminate the use of a 3rd or 7th, so that the scale one is playing in can be determined
by the soloing musician as opposed to the chordalist (the entire philosophical approach used by
Bill Evans on "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis.
Additionally, I've been using altered four note tunings on tenor banjo, tenor guitar, baritone ukulele and
fretless bass that purposefully avoid 3rds and 7ths so that I can be modulating with impunity, knowing
that all four open strings have several modes in common.
As an example, I'm in love with a tuning that goes I, 5, 6, 9, lately.
From this tuning (and on the fly) I can play a I ionian, I dorian, I lydian, I mixolydian scale
and I can play a major triad, a minor triad, a sus2 or a sus4 chord which alters the key signature of the piece
I'm in.
It's a beautiful tuning that has so many possibilities. I'm just discovering them as I speak.
