Thinking In Dorian To Improvise Over A Blues

[koneguitarist]

It either sounds right or wrong, whether its Dorian,vivian or whoever playing !
Why get so hung up over scales on a blues sequence, surely it's missing the point. Hum a melody in your head and see where that takes you, don't confine yourself to which pattern of notes is technically correct.

[Bingefeller]

It either sounds right or wrong, whether its Dorian,vivian or whoever playing !
Why get so hung up over scales on a blues sequence, surely it's missing the point. Hum a melody in your head and see where that takes you, don't confine yourself to which pattern of notes is technically correct.

Not sure if anyone's getting hung up. I just thought that it'd be an interesting discussion about approaches.

[barney.]

Not sure if anyone's getting hung up. I just thought that it'd be an interesting discussion about approaches.

i think it can be a good thing because it gives us ideas of what to play that we mabe wouldnt have thought about doing.,,,i dont think there is anything wrong with a bit of theory as long as it dosnt get in the way of the music...

[Bingefeller]

i think it can be a good thing because it gives us ideas of what to play that we mabe wouldnt have thought about doing.,,,i dont think there is anything wrong with a bit of theory as long as it dosnt get in the way of the music...

Exactly. I mean, and Tim Miller did this, if you ask someone to explain something it's better they say it's a Dorian line or an arpeggio instead of saying it's intuition - that doesn't help in explaining something. Everything can be intuition but these lines are coming from somewhere that can be explained in a theoretical sense.

[rdmf48]

i agree with the above. Personally I find Theory interesting and like it. Also if you're thinking about Scalar Approach as part of your improvisation, you can get different "colours" from the different scales, and get some interesting moments as you change from one Scale to another. In recent lessons with my guitar teacher I've been doing a bit of work with Hybrid Scales, for example combining Blues Scale with Dorian, or Blues with Mixolydian.

[koneguitarist]

My only worry is that too much knowledge stops people thinking as opposed to allow them to think of more things to play.
For example some of the best songs have been created due to musicians pushing the boundaries of their knowledge, rather than knowing when to stop as theory dictates.
At the end of the day isn't the only major differences between the modes, where you actually start as opposed to what notes you actually play ? So if you know where to start, you will generally start at that point as opposed to hitting a note then bending or releasing that note to a direction you feel the song needs to go to. (I hope that makes sense)
Maybe theory woul be better understood( for me anyway) if it were used in a discussion of how a particular song or solo stands out due to choice of notes? Sorry to hijack the thread.

[uncle_psychosis]

My only worry is that too much knowledge stops people thinking as opposed to allow them to think of more things to play.

If anyone actually learns music theory like that then they're doing it wrong. The whole point is to absorb enough knowledge and learning that you don't need to think about it---I don't need to think about where to put commas and apostrophes into sentences but knowing grammar doesn't restrict my writing in any way.

[mellowsun]

I'm not sure about 'thinking' in dorian, but I've been analysing some jazz licks recently and it can be useful to be able to link them back to their parent scale.

But, most often, I find the best licks are based on arpeggios. I've been analysing some Martin Taylor licks recently (I should really sign up to his site) and there's some lovely little things he does using arps based on lydian dominant, super locrian or simple min/maj7 arps (actually the super locrian arp-based licks are often just the straight min/maj7 approached from a semitone below).

You can also create some nice jazz licks from dorian simply by playing a dorian arpeggio approached from a semitone below, e.g. over a 2 5 1. I think I learnt this from a Jimmy Bruno dvd a while back.

[Bingefeller]

Maybe theory woul be better understood( for me anyway) if it were used in a discussion of how a particular song or solo stands out due to choice of notes? Sorry to hijack the thread.

I like this idea a lot. You should start a thread about it, and choose a solo that has been transcribed and has POwertabs or Guitar Pro files available, and people could try to analyse it and understand where the note selection is coming from and how it relates to the chords and why certain notes grab the ear more than others.

[monquixote]

I like this idea a lot. You should start a thread about it, and choose a solo that has been transcribed and has POwertabs or Guitar Pro files available, and people could try to analyse it and understand where the note selection is coming from and how it relates to the chords and why certain notes grab the ear more than others.

I think that would be a really good thread.