Chords V Modes

Running Bing

Just a couple of newbie questions here that I am sure a lot will find very silly but:

1. What exactly is a chord and what is a mode as it relates to Jazz? Now I can play a few songs on the guitar and Ill use chords to play them i.e. a number of notes played together but whats the difference between modal jazz and jazz using chord progressions?

2. This is a really silly one but I have listened to a fair bit of jazz (Miles Davies, John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker Herbie Hancock etc.) and the thought just crossed my mind the other day...how exactly is a jazz album made or how is it performed live?

I mean you always hear of improvisation but how much of it is improvised and how much is planned out beforehand. For example Kind of Blue (my favourite album;)) would they just have had a general idea beforehand and gone in and just had a go or was it all planned out and written down beforehand?



I know there not the most deep questions but if you dont ask.....

Setun

Babybing wrote: »

Just a couple of newbie questions here that I am sure a lot will find very silly but:

1. What exactly is a chord and what is a mode as it relates to Jazz? Now I can play a few songs on the guitar and Ill use chords to play them i.e. a number of notes played together but whats the difference between modal jazz and jazz using chord progressions?

2. This is a really silly one but I have listened to a fair bit of jazz (Miles Davies, John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker Herbie Hancock etc.) and the thought just crossed my mind the other day...how exactly is a jazz album made or how is it performed live?

I mean you always hear of improvisation but how much of it is improvised and how much is planned out beforehand. For example Kind of Blue (my favourite album;)) would they just have had a general idea beforehand and gone in and just had a go or was it all planned out and written down beforehand?



I know there not the most deep questions but if you dont ask.....

Well they're both really important questions in terms of jazz performance, so in that sense they certainly don't lack depth. And welcome to the forum btw

A chord is a cluster of tones played in unison to form a harmony - in its most basic form. But of course chords can define a melody, or can be formed by different instruments playing together in harmony. Pre-modal jazz used these chords (often 2 per bar) as a guide for improvisation - what they played would be based on scales which the chords could be derived from. Modal jazz opens this up - chords become sparse. Essentially the key signature becomes the basis for improvisation, although again soloists may use many harmonic tricks over a given key sig. If you want to hear the difference listen what the rhythm section is playing on Impressions, then play Yardbird suite or some other Parker tune and listen out again.

In general, a recording in jazz is usually fairly ad-hoc. Most musicians probably haven't seen the music before unless it's a standard, and in many cases the composer has barely seen the music before - a lot of tunes have been written in the recording studio. So to answer your second question - it depends on the musicians. Gill Evans probably rehearsed his arrangements, but A Love Supreme was played (pretty much) for the first time and recorded on the same night.

Hope that's of use.

leon45

Thats good stuff up there^^

I'd just add that generally a small ensemble would play the piece a few times and pick the best take

Desmo

Babybing wrote: »

.how exactly is a jazz album made or how is it performed live?

I mean you always hear of improvisation but how much of it is improvised and how much is planned out beforehand. For example Kind of Blue (my favourite album;)) would they just have had a general idea beforehand and gone in and just had a go or was it all planned out and written down beforehand?

...

Usually, Jazz is performed over tunes with pre-planned chord progressions and melodies. The commonest way to have a jazz jam is to play "standards" which are commonly played jazz tunes. These used to be "songs" from musicals or films or one off songs from the 30s-50s, played without singing. The tunes come written out on lead sheets which give the melody and chords. Well known standards are so well known, that most jazz musicians simply know them by heart and/or can play them by ear. It can get complicated with some tunes where there are lots of different variations and sometimes, it has to be spelled out which variation is being used.

Then, the band plays through the entire chord progression some number of times. The first one or two times, one or more soloist instruments play the melody (the "head") and the rest play the chords as accompaniment. Then the soloists take it in turn to improvise new melodies over the same chord progression, in turn. FInally, everyone plays the melody again and you finish.

With newer material, it usually follows a similar format except, the musicians will not know the tunes and they follow new lead sheets which are supplied in advance or on the day. Pro musicians, just sight read these. The improvisations is teh same as before though; the rhythm and chord instruments play the chords and the soloists improvise new melodies over them.

So, it is all pretty organised and pre-meditated.

Running Bing

Thanks fella's, thats helped a lot.

equivariant

Nice post from Daddio. Just to add my two cents, the term "modal" as applied to jazz seems to be a bit confusing. I have heard Jimmy Bruno say that there is no such thing as modal jazz. I think that he means that what we call modal jazz is not really modal music in the strict sense. Any thoughts on this?

Desmo

equivariant wrote: »

Nice post from Daddio. Just to add my two cents, the term "modal" as applied to jazz seems to be a bit confusing. I have heard Jimmy Bruno say that there is no such thing as modal jazz. I think that he means that what we call modal jazz is not really modal music in the strict sense. Any thoughts on this?

I have never liked the standard explanation of what "modal jazz" is supposed to be because whenever I have tried to explain it to anyone, I realised, I could not. That is either because the explanation was good but I simply could not remember it OR the explanation was crap. I used to assume the former because I am a newbie but now I am suspicious that it is the latter.
I wonder is it just that So what was played with lots of notes from D Dorian and that somehow this got turned into a deep theory. In practice, all it seems to mean is long passages in one key.

Modes were important in old church choral music?

Desmo