HeyI just chanced to see some stuff discussing jazz, blues and eventually modality in the Music thread ...Any modes god here?Now I am tired of hearing that the mixo is for rock and the this is for that ... I need some practical musical guidance in guitar soloing a la mode(s)so anybody help me out with a book or online stuff that can get me playing the stuff w/o the theory (I appreciate theory after the practiclals in music)?Also, I'm not necessarily talking speed -- in fact I do not have time to practise speed, something soulful like zappa's watermelon is coolSo I have 3-4 yrs of playing exp and interested in the blues, rock and the medium-speed art of guitaringthanks

My least favourite, and also my most downloaded song has been Summer Snow. (It's a song making fun of hot ecstasy sluts who turn 30 and disappear.)If you listen, you will notice it has a guitar-type solo. To write the solo, I first had to pick a sound. To listen to different sounds, I had to have some notes to play in those sounds. So I just put some random high notes and some low notes, and some high and low notes at the same time, some close some far, and some short notes and some long notes, into a sequence. I figured once I had picked the sound to play it in, I would start composing the notes I actually wanted to play.The random notes ended up sounding cooler than anything I could have written. Unfortunately, they only ran about half as long as I wanted the solo to go. If you listen to the song, you will hear where the non-random part begins. It is the part where it starts sucking.Another song, Make it Spin, has only one cool part - the rhythm guitar riff. It was created completely by accident. I picked some random notes to hear what a chord sounded like. I then accidentally pasted them into the sequence at an odd time - like 779/128ths - on top of a kick drum. And I pasted them into a track that had a delay effect, and it sounded pretty cool. I then tried to write a song around it, and the song sucks (luckily it only took a few hours).My conclusion, is that the main enemy of good music is too much pre-conceived structure. Ditch the pentatonics, or the circle of fifths, or whatever. Roll through some random notes until you hear something that sounds cool. Then repeat it a couple times, and you've got a sweet riff. Think of the Hendrix solo in "Fire."If you don't feel it, you have to find it by trial and error. You can't produce it with a formula.Anyway, I don't know what a "mode" is, so I hope this was useful! MP

MP,wonder how a pinch-harmonic effect before the non-random stuff starts would've sounded... its a good run before that tho'I've tried making solos and recorded them and some turn out fine but most stale. My inspiration for innovation and freshness comes from the black blues and the Jimmy page types and the occasional Zappa and Robben Ford and Petrucci. And ALL of them (and ALL rockers that I know) ARE actually using atleast some theory (mostly the pentatonic and the mixolydian) tho' they hardly mentioned it in their interviews. But they don't go much beyond the basics. I'm actually asking for some tips for solos (with the theory in the back of my head and the front of my tips) something like what Charlie Parker said "Master the instrument, learn the changes, then forget all that shit and just play" -- I'm done with the first two (in a way) and am struggling with the third which is a tad too hard with so less time. Maybe it really is true what they say about musical talent, no amount of dedication and practise can yield it -- i guess that's what happens with the 90% of speed metal artists poring out technically proficient yet tasteless music (and I think they realize it too but after 10 yrs of 8hr practising, I guess its too late to turn back now)As for modes, most people have the Parker attitude to them, they're in the back of the head and nothng more about them. In a way they're a very successful way to approach a given set of notes in various ways.ps: Fire's solo is in pentatonic too, thats why the original and Woodstock version sound so same and so different -- he's jamming over the same structure -- it's definitely NOT random, considering Hendrix was such a Buddy Guy fan. In fact the more random sounding Dazed and Confused solo is on the E pentatonic (which as you'll know is a simple 5 note structure and their octaves.) The point is, the *timing* (and the weird note bends in Fire) is random but the *notes* certainly follow a definite structure.

hi pusher,check out Frank Gambale's modes video.rpfeynman

QuoteOriginally posted by: pusherFire's solo is in pentatonic too, thats why the original and Woodstock version sound so same and so different -- he's jamming over the same structure -- it's definitely NOT random, considering Hendrix was such a Buddy Guy fan. In fact the more random sounding Dazed and Confused solo is on the E pentatonic (which as you'll know is a simple 5 note structure and their octaves.) The point is, the *timing* (and the weird note bends in Fire) is random but the *notes* certainly follow a definite structure.The trick to Hendrix is that he mimicked the melodic patterns of human speech. The trick to Paige is that he hammered the attacks on his Les Paul with those ridiculous fingers. I think what you are missing, is that the pentatonic scale is used to avoid playing any notes. It is neither major nor minor nor in any key, right? Between the two of them, the only song I can think of where the notes are important, is "Since I Been Loving You."It's like they wrote these huge novels using only R, S, T, L, N, and E. When you write a word, nobody notices the letters. But just because you only use unnoticeable letters, and leave out the Z's and J's, does not make what you have written a word.MP

QuoteOriginally posted by: abumazenQuoteOriginally posted by: pusherFire's solo is in pentatonic too, thats why the original and Woodstock version sound so same and so different -- he's jamming over the same structure -- it's definitely NOT random, considering Hendrix was such a Buddy Guy fan. In fact the more random sounding Dazed and Confused solo is on the E pentatonic (which as you'll know is a simple 5 note structure and their octaves.) The point is, the *timing* (and the weird note bends in Fire) is random but the *notes* certainly follow a definite structure.The trick to Hendrix is that he mimicked the melodic patterns of human speech. The trick to Paige is that he hammered the attacks on his Les Paul with those ridiculous fingers. I think what you are missing, is that the pentatonic scale is used to avoid playing any notes. It is neither major nor minor nor in any key, right? Between the two of them, the only song I can think of where the notes are important, is "Since I Been Loving You."It's like they wrote these huge novels using only R, S, T, L, N, and E. When you write a word, nobody notices the letters. But just because you only use unnoticeable letters, and leave out the Z's and J's, does not make what you have written a word.MPer, I didnt say *notes* are the only important thing in music, there'a a good deal of tritones played in the early blues that these rockers totally unimaginatively ripped off and made minor changes to and totally passed on as their own. Nor is the *efficiency* of using 5/7ths of notes important (to me.) There are 2 pentatonics, the minor one is the one I'm referring to. So you usually play over the Am structure for solos and over that you strum the corresponding major scale chords (which has other notes than those in the soloing structure) So the minor thing is damn well important too. What is important is using this *structure*, songs and the solos DO sound good (to most people) -- altho' they do sound a bit same (like you can recognize an AC/DC signature within 2 seconds into their songs.) I wouldn't mind using all the notes and their mid-bends and quarter and 7/8 bends if only the music turned out to be really amazing -- but unfortunately no one has found such a guiding structure and the pentatonic still rules. The efficiency and use of a few notes part is just a nice bonus package that comes along with the pentatonic / rock genre, i.e. songs sound good with the effect of a few notes and good timing but an equal number use quite a few notes (effectively change scales.)Now in my opinion the music theories are just ways to justify this structure but cannot explain the best of things in music -- like grace notes or out of time playing, and I'm no theory buff. But still following them atleast as guidelines sure beats playing randomly.