Month: August 2022

dorkin in the dorian in c

| guitarbeau
the sonique spiderweb

what else is there to say?

And then some me thinks.
Yes there is more to say somehow despite the plethora of what has already been said.
Do you find an inane distractability in just about everything there is to do?
Maybe during practice, reaching for a beverage instead of maintaining focus on the difficulties of what we’re trying to learn!?
What I’m asking is, is it really thirst?
Does dehydration occur sitting at the keyboard learning to read music?
Enough berating of my anxious concerns about managing to get things done for the moment.

I’ve berated B flat Major in a previous post and as this is something of my paradigm to go through all the modes in all the keys as a project.

We come to Dorian in C.

A natural minor scale comprising all the notes of a Major scale but the root pitch begins from the Major 2nd interval.
In the case of B flat Major, the Major 2nd interval is C.
What makes it a minor is the 3rd note from this starting pitch which is E flat.
The 6th interval in Dorian in C is an A, this is a half step higher than would be in a natural minor scale where the 6th would be A flat.

I know, fascinating right.

All so we can find and play the right note on demand.

So knowing what we know about Major scales and B flat in particular, see if we can parse out or deduce the other pitches in C Dorian.

Fill in the blanks, in your head, on your instrument or on a separate sheet of paper if you like.
The pitches previously mentioned are filled in. The intervals are relative to the root C.

Root C, major 2nd___ , minor 3rd E flat, perfect 4th___, perfect 5th___ , major 6th A, minor 7th___ .

Keep in mind it should be alphabetic. So if there is a C and there is an E flat there must be a..?

Now go and find them on your instrument.

the dorian mode in various positions on the fret board in tablature

When to use the Dorian in C.

What chords are available given the pitches we’ve deduced above?
Find one or 7 and strum and then improvise using the scale over the lingering memory of the chord you played.
The obvious choice is of course C minor as a jumping off point.
Let us find some of the other possible chords that can be built from the sequence of notes we find in the mode.

Here is one way to find chords in a scale/mode

As is my custom, here is my take on mixing up the playing of the scale to challenge our fingers.

inverting the mode/scale to make it interesting to play

Merci

Counting time

| guitarbeau
Intro to Hopelessly Devoted by John Farrar

6/8 time

Why make this harder than it has to be?
Because sometimes a thing is hard to do?
Reading music is hard to do.
I thought I knew music and I do but there is always more to consider.
As far as reading it, eventually I found the note symbol names easy to commit to memory. I have been rather presumptuous in marching to the beat of my own drummer when trying to learn a new piece of music. The timing of the notes requires another level of consideration I have not been giving them. This I must now understand better especially in the context of timing.

Knowing how the song is supposed to sound but translating that to my fingers has proven to be difficult.
So changing the perspective of my inner drummer, (it wants to go faster than it is able presently), requires a mental shift into a more patient mind set.
Hence the numbering of the timing under the notes and rests, must not forget the rests!
It is really easy to miss an 8th note rest symbol, and what a difference acknowledging its there does to make the piece play properly.
I have also found it useful to name arpeggios (chords where each note gets played individually) when they occur to aid in memorizing the piece.
So writing these out on the music I am learning helps.
As well as the fingering sometimes.
Playing slowly and in time can be a chore, but does help to focus the mind.

beginning JUMP keyboard solo by Van Halen

Those 16th notes can be a challenge to count. But the eye opener for me was that tiny little rest at the beginning of the measure (hi-lighted). Ignoring that little 8th note rest the whole piece gets out of sync!

And those dots between the 1 . & . 2 . & . can be counted thusly 1 e & a 2 e & a etc.. Not easy to do at first or even the 70th time but will make a difference in a performance.

Interesting how the chord begins at the end of each measure

What to practice

Which reminds me of another point of consideration.
I can play various portions or parts of a piece just fine, but putting them together as a whole is where hesitations can occur.
The changes from one part to the next.
Or one chord to the next.
This is the place to focus attention and energy.
Not on what is already committed to memory and understood well.
Though that is a necessary part of the context.
To be able to make it through the entire piece without a hesitation.
So reading music is not only acknowledging the pitches on the page and where they are on our instrument but also the length and time between their occurrence needs to be understood.

A sort of musical punctuation.

Merci