theory - breaking the rules and not sounding shit

[jimmyc84]

so i was practicing sight reading last night, learning blue monk by thelonius monk. this has occured to me a fair bit but just thought i'd bring it up.

 

the song is in B flat, and the first two bars (for example) go:

 

D-Eb-E-F / G-Ab-A-Bb

 

with the chords being Bb and then (i think) Eb7.

 

clearly in B flat the E and the Ab shouldn't be there, but they are, and it works.

 

my question is - why is it that when i play a wrong note it sounds crap but when mr monk (deliberately) plays a wrong note it just sounds 'jazzy'???

 

 

(i appreciate this is an example of many instances of chromatic runs and the theory to explain them is probably fairly in depth but i just feel in my composition i never know how to play 'outside the box' without it just sounding wrong...)

 

[sonaboy]

.

well, as Jimmy Page once said, "Play the wrong notes once and it's a mistake. Play the wrong notes over and over and it's a riff."

[alteredsounds]

May sound condesending but get it out of your head that their is 'Wrong Notes'.

[YourHerodDGC]

I was having this discussion last night. It's hard to know how to play the wrong notes. We were also talking about how to play sloppy and noisily, but in a good, shoegaze-esque way. It's hard to unlearn theory and tecnique.

[jimmyc84]

Originally posted by alteredsounds May sound condesending but get it out of your head that their is 'Wrong Notes'.

 

 

yeah, fair play, but the point i'm making is that if i play based around - for example B flat major - and then play a note that doesn't belong in the scale it sounds out of place, whereas here it fits and there must be a reason why...

[Wilbo26]

Originally posted by alteredsounds May sound condesending but get it out of your head that their is 'Wrong Notes'.

 

 

+1

 

Sometimes when I'm playing, I'll make a mistake, and that mistake will actually end up being a part of the song. I believe the rule is that there are no rules.

[Daeveed]

When you say E and Ab don't belong to Bb, I assume you are talking about the Major Scale.
The Key of Bb minor does include Ab, and even though E does not belong to it, it does belong to the Lydian mode...
there are also many other reasons why Ab and E can be there.

[BanjoKeith]

Originally posted by jimmyc84 yeah, fair play, but the point i'm making is that if i play based around - for example B flat major - and then play a note that doesn't belong in the scale it sounds out of place, whereas here it fits and there must be a reason why...

 

 

Keep in mind that you're only talking about the major scale. Every note is part of some kind of Bb scale, it just might be an unusual mode, etc. Jazz and classical music are full of accidentals that disobey the key signature. Music that doesn't sounds boring (think of a guitarist only playing pentatonic blues licks).

 

I like to think in terms of a 12-note scale. Given a root note (Bb in this case), every single tone will have a different effect (i.e., #4 will be very dissonant, maj3rd will be happy-ish and country-sounding). If you know what effect each note has, you can use this to convey whatever mood you want at any given time. Just a thought.

[mumford]

In your example, those are passing tones that resolve to the 5th of the chord. For me, generally speaking, play whatever you want, then land on a chord tone and you're fine.

[alteredsounds]

Originally posted by jimmyc84 yeah, fair play, but the point i'm making is that if i play based around - for example B flat major - and then play a note that doesn't belong in the scale it sounds out of place, whereas here it fits and there must be a reason why...

 

 

It may not work because the emphisis was on that 'wrong' note at the wrong time but more likely, it's not something your ears are used to hearing and to you sounds 'out'.

[BloodTypeBlue]

I think it's all in the context. If you define a chord progression or scale well enough, the listener expects to hear certain notes. If you then play something out of the scale, it creates tension, but whether that tension works for or against you depends on how you build it up and how you resolve it. If you play D-Eb-E-F within a Eb context, when you hit the E, the listener will sort of "expect" to hear the F instead, because the two are close together. Then you resolve the tension by playing the note the listener expects to hear. And the net effect is not that dissimilar from if you just played a progression of ascending notes in the scale, but it has that extra kick because you built tension with that one note. I guess that's the simplest way to treat not-in-the-scale notes, as high tension substitutes of notes that are in the scale.

You could probably also look at it in terms of intervals. If you're playing in a major scale, you could hit the flatted 2nd, but follow it up with the 7th, which creates a minor 7th interval, which typically has a very placid mood, but it's coming out of the flatted 2nd, so it's a weird juxtaposition of tension and relaxation. Of course, how you use that effect is entirely up to you.

And finally, if you just play one very dissonant thing but repeat it a lot of times, it will become a theme of sorts and define that entire piece, so you'll probably end up with a very dissonant song...

I don't even know if any of that made any sense

Either way though, I think the point is when you're playing or composing, you have to do more than listen to what you're playing, and even more than think about what you're playing, you have to feel what you're playing. Sometimes you just don't know until the notes come out. Of course, how you pull off that kind of thing in an improvisation is something different entirely...

[BloodTypeBlue]

Originally posted by BanjoKeith Keep in mind that you're only talking about the major scale. Every note is part of some kind of Bb scale, it just might be an unusual mode, etc. Jazz and classical music are full of accidentals that disobey the key signature. Music that doesn't sounds boring (think of a guitarist only playing pentatonic blues licks). I like to think in terms of a 12-note scale. Given a root note (Bb in this case), every single tone will have a different effect (i.e., #4 will be very dissonant, maj3rd will be happy-ish and country-sounding). If you know what effect each note has, you can use this to convey whatever mood you want at any given time. Just a thought.

 

 

Actually this is better than anything I could ever pull out of my ass. Yeah, forget me...

[KillingAllJoy]

Sometimes the note does not fall right in the scale but fit the mood. Hard to explain. Unfortunately you have to a firm grasp of the rules to know how to break them. Timing and feel is more important then the right notes sometimes.

[gil1]

Originally posted by jimmyc84 so i was practicing sight reading last night, learning blue monk by thelonius monk. this has occured to me a fair bit but just thought i'd bring it up. the song is in B flat, and the first two bars (for example) go: D-Eb-E-F / G-Ab-A-Bb with the chords being Bb and then (i think) Eb7. clearly in B flat the E and the Ab shouldn't be there, but they are, and it works. my question is - why is it that when i play a wrong note it sounds crap but when mr monk (deliberately) plays a wrong note it just sounds 'jazzy'??? (i appreciate this is an example of many instances of chromatic runs and the theory to explain them is probably fairly in depth but i just feel in my composition i never know how to play 'outside the box' without it just sounding wrong...)

Timing and intention, IMHO.

And when I'm really in practice, I don't think you even need intention as much, because your sense of timeing wil give you a grasp of how to handle slips.

But, another thought is, if you combine the Major or Minor grid over the neck with panatonics and passing tones, you get every note on the neck - chromatic.

So do scales and keys even exist or is it ALL just intention and timeing?

[GrooveMerchant]

They are just passing tones. Just a little added chromatacism. The Ab or flat 5 is commonly used, and the play between the E and Eb is just to make the distinction between major and minor a little more ambiguous.

[angus_old]

Originally posted by gil1 So do scales and keys even exist or is it ALL just intention and timeing?

 

 

ultimately, it's all moving air

[varialbender]

Knowing how to play against theory is only a way of looking at it with a limited knowledge of theory. As you learn more, the things that used to be errors are classified and explained.

It's like when you're young, and you're told to colour in the lines, and then you see some great artist colouring outside them, and you wonder how to break the colour-in-the-lines rule so nicely, but really, if you take some higher art courses, they teach you how.

[L6Sguy]

Originally posted by onbongos ultimately, it's all moving air

 

 

* insert Mighty Wind joke *

[Roy Brooks]

Tension and resolution.

[Johnny Fandango]

I think he raises an interesting point;

Its said that in non-western music with 1/4 tones that if the audience doesnt realise whats going on and the artist doesnt intend to play a 1/4 tone then it just sounds out of tune...but those brought up or used to 1/4 tones and artists who have intension...it sounds right. Dissonance is inportant in music...if there was no tension (or wrong notes that clash with the chord) then it would be just a was of pleasentness with no meaning or feeling.

Pre-baroque period , music was written in modes as in there was no key signature and if a composer wanted to make it sound majory or minory he would sharpen or flatten each note as he went along...during the baroque period they changed to the key signatures (diatonal- meaning major and minor that are shown in key sigs) because the same notes would always get flattened as everyone wanted minor or major ...so it was easier for musicians to read the music...but that doesnt mean that all music now has to conform to diatonic keysignatures because that would put a serious hole in musical expression. A good example of this is the natural and melodic minor scales. The A natural minor scale is no sharps or flats starting on A...but sometimes you want a nicer sounding minor scale starting on A...so you have to sharpen the 6th and 7th to make it a melodic minor sound. So now we have a G sharp and F sharp but these notes arent wrong...its just more people want the natural minor than melodic so the key signature shows the natural and you make the corrections.

Whatever Monk was going for he was proably just making corrections by ear to the key signature standard set down in the 1600's. Whatever sounds good is right...I think of the key sig as a guide but never a limitation. When you play the wrong notes...they ARE wrong...but thats becasue you are playing a song in, for example, A natural minor but are playing notes from the melodic minor scale....so they sound wrong but its not always that simple...for example the pentatonic minor sounds great over a major chord with the same root note.....


errr anyway


TO SOME UP!

D-Eb-E-F / G-Ab-A-Bb are the notes that are played...Bb is the key where he used the least accidentals...the keysignature is used to make performance easier not to tell you what key to play in. the tune probably isnt meant to sound like its in Bb its just easier to write it down that way

Play it by ear or play in modes (but learn the theory first)

[jimmyc84]

all interesting. yeah, rules are definitely there to be broken, but only tastefully of course...

[Onswah]

Counterpoint.


The reason the lines work is because they are lines, not scales, not chords, but lines. The line moves chromatically up. By raising the note a half step it creates a leading tone feel that wants to resolve up. (Try singing solfege or just playing a major scale and stop a "Ti" or the 7th scale step, you'll see this).

[Gary Ladd]

Originally posted by jimmyc84 so i was practicing sight reading last night, learning blue monk by thelonius monk. this has occured to me a fair bit but just thought i'd bring it up. the song is in B flat, and the first two bars (for example) go: D-Eb-E-F / G-Ab-A-Bb with the chords being Bb and then (i think) Eb7. clearly in B flat the E and the Ab shouldn't be there, but they are, and it works. my question is - why is it that when i play a wrong note it sounds crap but when mr monk (deliberately) plays a wrong note it just sounds 'jazzy'??? (i appreciate this is an example of many instances of chromatic runs and the theory to explain them is probably fairly in depth but i just feel in my composition i never know how to play 'outside the box' without it just sounding wrong...)

Ever heard of a flatted V?

[Johnny Fandango]

Ahh! but you see they arent rules! Its just about writing it out comprehensibly...the intention was not to encourage people to compose in major or minor only it was to encourage the composer to write so musicians could read it.

Calling major and minor scales rules is like saying using your hand in football (american football) is breaking the rules.

[Gary Ladd]

Originally posted by Onswah Counterpoint. The reason the lines work is because they are lines, not scales, not chords, but lines. The line moves chromatically up. By raising the note a half step it creates a leading tone feel that wants to resolve up. (Try singing solfege or just playing a major scale and stop a "Ti" or the 7th scale step, you'll see this).

I love counterpoint bass lines against guitar riffs - tension/dissonance/release/resolution and shake well!