NOTICE: FROM THIS MESSAGE FORWARD, CONTROVERSY BETWEEN JESSE AND I BETWEEN HIS CHARLIE PARKER EXAMPLE OF WORKING OFF OF MAJOR TRIAD UP A WHOLE STEP FROM TONIC ... AND MY COMPARING THAT TO PLAYING DORIAN OVER IONIAN, ... WAS AN ERROR ON MY PART. As you will see in discussions of that item, my point of view is based upon triads built upon the Parent mode step sequence span ... which is erroneous to Jesse's example.
THE REGULAR POSTED MESSAGE FOLLOWS:
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AHA... YOU CAUGHT ME JESS. I owe you a quart of Thunderbird! My statement was dead wrong in mis-stating the correct modes I intended to state. Here's what I originally said:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>25 May 2003 03:43 AM
Seems allot easier to me ... mentally and by experience ... and more accurate ... to Play "I"Aeolean or bVIIMixolydian around a "I"Maj6 Ionian armature than having to compute that upper end of "I"Major6 Ionian ... expecially if adding harmonies. And actually, if I use my cowboy / country licks in bVIIMixolydian (where I have allot more licks to work around than for Aolean in the same box), my ears will drive the hick stuff in that box congruent to correct line and harmony intervals for a IMaj6 theme ...and sound allot more trick than it really is by simply subbing a mode / box.</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I went and corrected the message to reference the correct modes; It now reads:
<SMALL>Seems allot easier to me ... mentally and by experience ... and more accurate ... to think / play "VI"Aeolean or "V"Mixolydian by root around a "I"Maj6 Ionian armature than having to compute that upper end of "I"Major6 Ionian ... especially if adding harmonies. And actually, if I use my cowboy / country licks in "V"Mixolydian (where I have allot more licks to work around than for Aolean in the same box), my ears will drive the hick stuff in that box congruent to correct line and harmony intervals for a IMaj6 theme ...and sound allot more trick than it really is by simply subbing a mode / box thinking and licks.</SMALL>
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SIDENOTE: Now for everyone's benefit, ... deeper discussions into modes can make pyrometers go up because it is rather difficult to find those points that make infinitely different concepts meld into the treasure doing so affords and the treasures that drop out of the rafters in the process. The pyrometers of discussing music theory (steel geetars, ukuleles and hula girls) is what Mai-Tai's were invented for!
With that said:
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The crux of that point in our discussions quoted above was your preference to work modes off of root. Now if you notice in my corrected paragraph quote above, ...my "VI"Aolean triad would set up quite similarly what you just said Parker would do with Aolean triads (and further melody built around it) over a Mixolydian mode; Which is using a different mode in substitution for another to exentuate a particular quality of the original mode's voicing theme; The only difference being you used the words "triads as his important melody notes when soloing", and I used the word "mode":
<SMALL>"Charlie Parker would play a "A major triad over G7" and a "D# major triad over Db7". The triads are the upper partials of the dom7 chord they fit over. Bird used the triads as his important melody notes when soloing."</SMALL>
It seems to me that in the example you are giving about Parker, he is indeed excentuating the extensions of Mixolydian by thinking / playing Aolean over it. NOW, if he is going to think / excentuate / play off of a root like that, a whole step higher than the original theme mode root, then he would most likely play Dorian over Ionian to get the same effect with an Ionian theme ... ESPECIALLY using Dorian if the theme were announced as Ionian Maj9 (the example I used in that previous discussion).
Now, for the sake of reconciling words of different concepts:
In my way of thinking and playing:
In a lab situation where musicians are studying the meanings of building triads and extensions and scale voicings etc off of a theme-mode root ... OR if a musician is playing with the intent of excentuating that theme-mode root, THEN your statement about a working musician "never" playing Dorian over Ionian would be correct, but;
As you pointed out in the Parker example; A musician that knows modes and intending to excentuate note or interval qualities that are not root or root triad, could and likely would think and play another substitution mode that makes his/her management of the triads, chords and scales in such excentuations a heck of allot easier to manage than interpolating off of a note that wasn't root; Because by substituting the/a correct mode, all that math falls right back into place relative to the substituted mode root: (Ionian 2,4,6,7 = Dorian 1,3,5,6).
Help me out here. Are you saying Parker would play Aeolean over Mixolydian? And if so why would he not similarly play Dorian over Ionian?
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BACK TO THE STEEL MODE BOXES:
On the steel, the primary importance of mode boxes to me is: (1) the chord substitutions afforded for each root in different boxes which is the way we play different quality chords, and; (2) Which box will work with the types of licks I want to or can use at a given time, or; (3) which box remains in theme-mode for a certain tone or tone movement I hear or want to play around, or; (4) which box do I feel brave enough to try a certain lick in.
It is GOOD to realize that each of our known licks plays off of a different tone in each box, ... and after getting real lost and sounding like it in searching for those licks that will work in boxes we usually don't use them in, ...we start to be able to find the right places for the ones that do work and relate our licks differently as though each one of them become several new ones in their new boxes' tone relationships. A decent simple example to illustrate this is the song Summertime. Key of Amin. Boxes: VERSE: Am7(b6) / G6(7), Dm7 / G6(7), E(7), --- "INTERLUDE": CMaj(7) / C6(7) (signature chord of "A" Dorian in substitution), Am(7) / C6(7), Dmin(7) / G6(7), G(7) / G6(7), Amin7(b6) / G6(7). Summertimes's melody and harmonies in the "A" Aeolean box (G6/7 box) are simple 6(7) Dom7 box patterns; So Summertime can easily be played by even beginner Steelers playing in the Amin7b6 Aolean box (G6/7 box). BUT LOOK: (Amin7b6 box = G6/7/9/11 box = Dmin7 box = CMaj7 box)! So when a more experienced Steeler starts working that box with 6th box licks, or those Dorian slide licks, or with Maj7 licks, many of them are going going to work in there once he/she learns how to modify them to work with the tone they work around ... which is usually just a matter of listening and resolving at a good spot.
NEW INFO I'VE BEEN HOLDING SO AS NOT TO CONFUSE THINGS UNTIL IT SEEMED THE RIGHT TIME, LIKE NOW: The Dorian box signature chord is a much better voicing for an Aolean chord than in the Aeolean box (but the Dorian extensions will NOT work for Aolean). The Dorian box signature min7 chord is MUCH BETTER voiced b3,5,b7,1,b3,5 than the Aeolean box signature chord voiced b6,1,b3,4,b6,1
. So using Dorian chord in place of Aolean chord is better. A bit of tinkering with it will reveal that the Aolean scale and harmonies are on either side of the Dorian signature chord fret. So with some woodshedding you can move from the Aolean box into the Dorian box below or above the Aeolean for lower or higner notes and have allot of room to play Aolean stuff there with an adjusted pattern. Using Summertime as an example again, the notes in the "Hush little baby" and it's last word "cry" can be played on the open C6 chord ("A" Aolean).
An illustration of voicings that occur in susbtitution inversions can be heard in an ending embellishment for Summertime ... by experimenting with different strings ( using 3 or 4 string chords) on these chords as a last final V chord embellishment (4 quarter notes of the last 2 beats of the last 4/2 measure being continually slowed way down for the end): G6, F6, GMaj7, GMaj7, then slowly strum across CMaj6 chord. You will find there is a myriad of ways to play that passage ... which is why I used that one.
[tab]
CMaj6 (The bar tip holds the 2nd fret notes to sustain / decay together).
]------------0---
]----------0-----
]--------2-------
]------2---------
]----0-----------
]--0-------------
[tab]
PILIALOHA,
DT~
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Denny Turner on 31 May 2003 at 07:06 AM.]</p></FONT><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Denny Turner on 02 June 2003 at 01:19 AM.]</p></FONT>
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Rick Aiello on 29 May 2003 at 10:33 AM.]</p></FONT>
)
... too much may sound like you are lost.
.....But YIKES! ....Today I find that since Jesse's entry 28 May 2003 04:40 PM, things have been led back to EXACTLY what I had intended and had hoped could be recovered.
that the discussions have come full circle and seems to understand what I intended quite well, and have a very good grasp of the examples that make the SIMPLICITY of the mode / substitution template the rather profound stand-alone axiom and musical grounding chassis it is separate from the infinite complicated abstract and confusion that can be added to it just like can be added to the stand-alone simplicty of scales and triads (which is all modes are anyway, just with less recognized names that are easier to say than "that minor seven flat six / flat nine scale and chords that make that mid-eastern sound").