jenorma1 - Posted - 05/10/2015:  13:44:16

Hey everyone,

  I spent a chunk of my Sunday recording Coleman's March (one of my favorite fiddle tunes!) transposed into all seven modes that can be built from the major scale.  The purpose of this exercise was just to familiarize myself with playing in the more bizarre modes and to try to drill their different sounds/personalities into my head.  While many fiddle tunes are written in ionian (major), aeolian (minor), mixolydian (major with a flat 7 - Old joe clark, Sandy Boys, etc) and sometimes dorian (minor with a raised 6th - Scarborough fair, Sally in the Garden), I rarely get to hear fiddle tunes in phrygian, lydian, or locrian....so I thought I'd record some!

  If you're unfamiliar with modes, the wikipedia article on them is actually pretty solid and theres plenty of good info about them here on the hangout as well...the recordings are meant to be listened to in the order they're presented (which corresponds to the order in which the modes are normally discussed based around starting with a major scale then shifting up one note etc.): Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian.

  The playing is not perfect (but really wasnt meant to be) and this is my first go at using my new Yeti mic, which I think I had running a little hot.  I recorded this on my 12" Pisgah Rambler in Garage Band with a little bit of compression and reverb.  I purposefully avoided brushes to leave chords out of the equation.  The first 6 recordings are in double D (aDADE), while the last one is in a modified tuning (g#DG#DE) since locrian mode has a flattened 5th (the scale has a G# where an A "should" be).  Technically I could have shifted the E down to a D# as well but, as there were no brushes, I never used that note.

  Hope you enjoy!

Jeff

Edited by - jenorma1 on 05/14/2015 07:22:24

Coleman's March - D Ionian (Major)	Coleman's March - D Dorian	Coleman's March - D Phrygian	Coleman's March - D Lydian
Coleman's March - D Mixolydian	Coleman's March - D Aeolian (Natural Minor)	Coleman's March - D Locrian

Paul Roberts - Posted - 05/10/2015:  21:00:32

The extraterrestrials made a good try with the D Locrian. Man, this is fascinating! Thanks for doing this. Your rock-solid playing really brings out the different versions. Now, for your next assignment: one track with each version played once. Then (we're not done yet) each part - of the four in each round - played in a different mode, at random.

Have you tried Indian ragas?

This is one of the most meaningful banjo offerings I have ever heard. Great work.

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/10/2015:  21:12:01

Wow Paul - to say I'm flattered by your comment doesn't begin to cover it - and I've been a fan of your youtube videos for years (especially love your fingerpicking on tenor banjos and all your clawhammer banjola stuff!)  Thanks so much for the kind words!  

I'd be glad to put together a single track version - I thought about doing that in the beginning but decided it may be a little onerous to listen to!  Give me a few days and I'll post it!

I've heard of Indian Ragas but must admit I'm a little intimidated - dont they go into *gasp*....microtones?  I have a fretless but I'm afraid my ears arent equipped to tell when I'm hitting the correct note between notes...

Thanks again for your reply!

Paul Roberts - Posted - 05/10/2015:  21:33:20

Microtones are more in Middle Eastern and Persian. In Indian music you have the spectrum between the notes to play in, but the tones are the same as in our chromatic scale. They have a lot of gorgeous modes. Traditionally, some of them have different ascending and descending scales, but you don't have to get that far into it to find many beautiful scales. Anyway, I think what you've done is admirable.

JanetB - Posted - 05/15/2015:  06:14:13

A clever way to learn, as well as challenging and intense.  Some of that is pretty spooky.  I must admit that Ionian is still my fave!

Bill - Posted - 05/15/2015:  07:14:04

Now that was cool!

ZEPP - Posted - 05/15/2015:  08:50:07

What a great idea, and expertly done!  Thanks--I shall be using this as a teaching tool!

Cheers,

ZEPP

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/15/2015:  08:56:46

Thanks guys!

Janet - The ionian version's got a special place in my heart because my wife and I hired an outrageously good fiddler to play it at our wedding - however, there is something kind of cool about the dorian one to my ears....

I crossposted these recordings in the "music theory" forum as well (in a post called "moods of the modes") and gave a little more detail about my thoughts of each one if you're interested in hopping in on that discussion:

banjohangout.org/topic/303585

Thanks again for listening!!

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/15/2015:  09:04:23

Whoa Zepp weighs in - freaking awesome!!  Please share away and thanks so much for the kind words!

PS - When I was living in VA a couple years back, my buddy and I drove down to your shop and (he) bought an amazing Brooks banjo from you guys!  One of the greatest afternoons ever - I was sorry to see you close down but I'm glad I got to make it in at least once!

jkacur - Posted - 05/18/2015:  11:47:03

What a terrific experiment, I loved it!

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/18/2015:  18:25:34

Thanks John - glad you enjoyed it!

mworden - Posted - 05/18/2015:  18:48:01

That was extremely cool.  I found the Locrian strangely unsettling and had to go back to the Ionian once more to cleanse the palate.  

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/19/2015:  09:55:11

Thanks so much!  

I'm completely with you on the Locrian mode - its strange how much my brain seems to need a perfect 5th in a scale, whatever the other notes may be!  I could see going it briefly to unsettle (or wake up) the listener during a composition but ending a song in that tonality would just be cruel!  Hearing a whole tune in Locrian just feels incomplete somehow.

Sweet looking Romero by the way (snooped your profile...)!!

Tom Berghan - Posted - 05/20/2015:  06:31:17

Nice version and performance Jeff. Good clawhammer!  Very interesting - locrian was mind bender!  😜

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/20/2015:  09:20:33

Thanks Tom!  Love your post on how to think of the modes as well (below for anyone who hasn't read it):

banjohangout.org/topic/287412

Looks like you're a Lutenist to boot - super cool!!  I made my way to banjo via the Cello (though I leave Cello playing to the experts these days).

Tom Hanway - Posted - 05/20/2015:  14:05:55

Hey, Jeff, that's cool, and I admire your doggedness and imagination here.  It's a fascinating approach to exploring the modes, and nice playing.  One can do this sort of thing with lots of tunes, not necessarily using a tune in Major (Ionian) mode.  

Without doing a "note frequency analysis" about which notes are getting played the most (and where), 'Coleman's March' (related to 'The Bonnie Blue Flag' and 'The Irish Jaunting Car') was composed in Ionian mode, so it's top-heavy with Major tonality, but especially the V chord (A7), also the IV chord (G), and so, it's probably not the best tune for hearing how some of the other modes sound at their best!  You're taking the melody out of its element, in other words, making it fit scale patterns. The melody will at times sound forced (some times more than at other times), and the scale patterns (mode used) will sound unmusical (to varying extents).  But that's not to knock your playing or your idea. It's a great idea, and extremely well executed.

I love the way you're thinking, and it's an interesting experiment.  Again, you can do this for other tunes, say 'Uncle Joe' (Miss McLeod's), or tunes originating in the Dorian, Mixolydian or Aeolian modes, not necessarily starting with a Major mode tune.  I wish I had more time to elaborate.

Here's my point: I would suggest that the results are necessarily skewed by the tune choice, and in a way that cannot possibly do justice to the beauty of the other modes. Now, I do like how 'Phrygian' turned out, and I did get a chuckle out of that! 

Now, I have to hustle out the door to a mad Trad session with uilleann piper Noel Carberry in Lanesboro, Co. Longford.  I have new tunes under my fingers: I'm going to lay 'Music for a Found Harmonium', 'Greenfields of America' and 'Take Five' on the lads, and see what happens, see who digs it, who gets pissed off, for the craic!  

I must learn 'Coleman's March' ... staring at a Phillips transcription of Pete Sutherland's version, and Don B. posted his version here, so thanks for the great tune, in all its eerie modes.  

Nice playing, and thank you for posting!  (Now, I'm still early to the session, which begins at 10:45 pm, when it does!)

All the best ~ Tom

Edited by - Tom Hanway on 05/20/2015 14:15:44

Tom Berghan - Posted - 05/20/2015:  14:42:00

Slightly off topic . . . sorry Jeff . . . but I think you will like it . . . George Harrison's song "Within You Without You" is in the mixolydian mode . . . pretty cool.  Listen to the melody he sings . . . don't get lost in the sitars.  OK, so there is a challenge:  You could take that song and play it in ionian and I bet it would be totally weird on our ears!

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/20/2015:  15:14:19

Hey Tom (Hanway) - thanks so much for your insight!  

I think you're entirely right about tune choice - starting with a melody so decidedly major as Coleman's march does indeed skew the sounds of the other modes (some of them come off as sounding odd just due to the fact that I'm forcing them into a melody for which they were not intended).  

As a related example - I've tried playing mixolydian tunes in standard major scales (basically I just raise the 7th note again) and they really don't sound great.  For anyone who wants to hear this effect try playing Red haired boy (assuming you play it in A tuning/G capoed up) and substitute the 4th fret any time you would normally play the 3rd fret on the 1st or 4th string - it ends up sounding kind of saccharine/ridiculous....

(To my ears, by the example above) Red haired boy just works well in A mixolydian but not A major - however, (as you've said Tom) that's specific to the melody and shouldn't really reflect poorly on the major scale, which can be used to produce gorgeous melodies like Coleman's March....

However, my reasoning in picking Coleman's March for this experiment was the following: unlike many of the old time tunes out there (Angeline the baker for example), it actually hits every scale degree at some point, allowing me to actually play it in every mode.  If a tune has a major third but never hits the seventh note in the scale, who's to say whether its actually a major tune or a mixolydian one (I guess that allows the noodler in all of us to go either way with it...).  As an aside, its actually the seventh note that doesnt really appear often enough for my liking in Coleman's (very informal "note frequency analysis") - you can't actually tell the mixolydian version is anything but major until almost the end of the A part.

Another tune I thought about using that hits all the scale degrees is whiskey before breakfast, which (the way I play it) has the added benefit of simply going down the scale to end the B part.  However...that one is usually played pretty quickly and some of these modes cause me to stretch quite a bit on the fretboard - Coleman's, which sounds great slow, was a little more forgiving in that respect : )

I've got to admit I'm jealous of your evening - I wish I could be there to pick (or just listen!!!).  I've worked out a version of "music for a found harmonium" myself (who wouldnt love that tune?!?!) but it certainly taxes the limits of my Clawhammer abilities!  Maybe I can try to post that one sometime...though it would be a tall order to get through it a couple of times without screwing up!

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/20/2015:  15:18:35

Tom (Berghan) - love the tune - thanks so much!  People also always mention the doors "light my fire" whenever mixolydian comes up - I'll say I like this one better (though I am indeed getting lost in the sitars!....but its a lovely journey because they're gorgeous).  I'll have to pull out the banjo and pick out the melody to get myself right on this one...

Tom Hanway - Posted - 05/20/2015:  20:59:53

I like Tom Berghan's idea about 'Within You Without You', and while it was playing I tried it in my head (voice), and I think, if I recall, the Greeks thought that mode was unmasculine, haha.  I won't waste my time with that notion, but it occurs to me that one could also flat other pitches.

As for 'Red Haired Boy', it was common practice even in the 20th century to flat the third, or even play a microtonal third, and other pitches can be flatted and raised again, depending on which way the melody is going and at the discretion of the musician.  'Gilderoy' is the same melodic contour (same tune) as 'Red Haired Boy', but if memory serves, it's in a different mode.  Now, I'm toast, and I'm listening to The Beatles, but I'll come back later when I can mess with it without waking up Denise (my missuz) and Mr. Hunter, a Sibe, a very tired husky.  

Blessings to you all from scurrilous Ireland ~ Tom

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/21/2015:  07:57:29

Wow - I had heard of Red Haired Boy being called "the little beggarman" but I had never heard of Gilderoy!  As you've said, it indeed sounds like a modal shift of Red Haired boy - this version seems to be in a minor scale or maybe dorian?  

youtube.com/watch?v=FzT-rO48t6c

The Beginning of the B part sounds majorish (making me think this isn't just a standard minor scale).  Still need an instrument in front of me to figure out a tunes modality - I'd like to get to the point where I can "hear it" better, which was kind of the impetus for doing this whole thing!  

Love Gilderoy!! Going to have to add this version to my repitoire - I'd probably have to play it in a modal (aEADE) or a minor (aEACE) to avoid having a major third creeping in there...ever heard a clawhammer version?

Tom Berghan - Posted - 05/21/2015:  11:21:49

I second that "Wow"  I don't think we ever hear "Gilderoy" in the USA.

Gilderoy . . . it takes on a very elegant quality compared to Red Haired Boy.  Red Haired boy has a "sod buster" quality to it . . . Gilderoy sounds refined and elegant.  Very interesting.  Thank you.

OM45GE - Posted - 05/22/2015:  05:46:00

Fantastic. Nice playing and creative approach.

OM45GE - Posted - 05/22/2015:  05:56:51

I was just thinking what a great theory teaching tool these audio clips would make.

jenorma1 - Posted - 05/22/2015:  12:19:57

Thanks so much for listening - I did this as a tool for teaching myself but I'd love for anyone else to benefit who can - please pass these recordings around broadly for any instructional purposes you like!

OM45GE - Posted - 05/22/2015:  19:16:34

Thanks Jeff.