Brown Out, Light Bulb Comes On

Music accomplishments seem to come from nowhere.  Tonight (Tuesday night) I was sitting at my church waiting for the ukulele jam I host to start.  I was early, no one was around, and a brownout hits the church.  Dark, holding my uke, Mary (Kala Tenor), in the basement and I can't see.  After a minute of fumbling my way towards the light, I end up sitting on the steps in front of a door waiting a few minutes for the lights to decide to come back on.

Screw it, I'm here by myself, let's do something weird to practice.  I start playing "Exactly Like You", one of my favorite tunes, and working out a solo.  I've long noticed how I can sub in notes not in the regular key (I play ELY in C major) to create some cool tension in the solo.  However, some of the talk about modal improvisation was really lost on me.  I'd taken a couple workshops and woodshedded modes for hours, but I just never got it to click.

The lights came on...  About that time, I decided to play a solo over the A section using all seven of the modes of C one at a time.  This is going to sound abstract if you aren't familiar with the modal system, so here is a quick overview:

Modes are just the major scale starting in different places:

C	Major/Ionian	C D E F G A B
D	Dorian	D E F G A B C
E	Phrygian	E F G A B C D
F	Lydian	F G A B C D E
G	Mixolydian	G A B C D E F
A	Aeolian	A B C D E F G
B	Locrian	B C D E F G A

You can also keep them all with the relative same starting note (they'll just be in a different major key):

C	Major/Ionian	C D E F G A B
C	Dorian	C D Eb F G A Bb
C	Phrygian	C Db Eb F G Ab Bb
C	Lydian	C D E F# G A B
C	Mixolydian	C D E F G A Bb
C	Aeolian	C D Eb F G Ab Bb
C	Locrian	C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb

That is the theory anyway, I have trouble thinking all of that nonsense, though when I play.  I learned long ago to think about it instead in terms of the numbers.  Basically, 1 is major, 2 is dorian, 3 is Phrygian, etc.  That and look at it on the fretboard in a certain way.  Let me show you what I mean:

If you are really paying attention, you will notice that there are only five different shapes/fingerings here.  That is the part of the point, you can go a long way only using those five shapes for soloing.

Now, back to the light coming on...

I played "ELY" while using each of these shapes (one at a time).  So, I only used notes from these shapes.  Some sounded great, others sounded good occasionally, some I just couldn't make it sound good.  But, the effect was tremendous to me.  Each of the different modes had it's own flavor and each left me feeling a different way about the mood of the tune (even when that wasn't the most pleasant sound throughout).

A next step for me was trying to play different shapes over different chords, but still thinking about it being a mode of C.

For instance, the A section of "ELY" is:

| C / / /

| C / / /

| D7 / / /

| D7 / / /

| G7 / / /

| G7 / / /

| C / / /

| C / / / |

(You could add a turn around at the end if you wanted...)

Over the C major chords, I played either a major/ionian shape or a dorian.  Over the D7 I played lydian and over the G7 I played mixolydian.  This is by no means a set in stone approach, but it gave me a new way of toying with the solos I was developing.

In swing, solos have to hint or reflect the melody.  If we get to far off of that, the listeners (and in many cases, the dancers) get lost and we don't want to loose them.  The idea I'm playing with above is a little departed from the basic melody, but when you look at the melody of "ELY", you find that in many points along the tune it follows much of the same ideas.  In fact, I kept finding myself resolving to melody notes as I worked through my newly crafted solos.

Now, I want to fast forward to around 8:00 as we were doing our jam.  My ukulele group is light on soloists.  Most of the players are strummers and they like to sing along if they know the words.  (And let me be absolutely clear that there is nothing wrong with that.)  So, I am often the one who gets called to take a solo when it comes around.  And when we played the great Hank Williams tune "You're Cheatin' Heart", I was chompin' at the bit to get my solo in.

It was rough at first as I started straight in on the new idea and didn't let the melody in.  Once I did, I started jumping off for just little fills on long holds.  Before I knew it, I was in and out of modes quick, using all of my fretboard, and generally playing one of the funnest solos I've improvised in a long time.  All in the key of A (which I hadn't tackled yet; remember "ELY" is in C)!

So here is the conclusion: Melodies are the hardy soup base for solos.  But the spices and hardy stuff comes from knowing how to use those scales.  So, practice both and do things that seem weird at first.  It will eventually turn on the light.