Modes

 

In a previous post I attemted to explain and clear up confusion about minor scales. Here I will explain what people refer to as "modes."

The so-called modes are simply other scales whose construction is similar to the scales you are already familiar with -- major and minor. They also have 7 tones and have mostly whole steps with half steps in two places in the scale. No two scales have the same exact construction (if they did they would sound identical!).

The modes are: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, and Lochrian. What many people don't know is that our major scale used to be called Ionian, and our minor scale was called Aeolian. In the Western world there are these seven basic scales, upon which most of our music is based (although I personally know of no music which is based on the Lochrian scale.)

As you can tell from the names, all these scales came to us from the ancient Greeks. No one "invented" them; we have to assume that people started singing, or playing simple instruments, and someone (it is attributed to Pythagoras -- yes, the math guy) codified and wrote down what he heard people singing.  As far as we know, he identified the seven scales listed above. We don't know if some were predominant and others less so. We know that at least several of these scales continued to be used through the Middle Ages. When people hear the chants and other music from the Middle Ages they will often say it sounds "modal," and that is because many are based on the non-major and non-minor scales.

Sometime later, certain scales began to be used more and other less. I am fairly certain that this is because of the growth of the importance and complexity of harmony. Certain scales seem to work better with harmony. The Ionian scale became known as Major, and the Aeolian as Minor. In the centers of the growth of Classical music -- Germany, Austria, France and Italy -- the major and minor scales became the favored scales. However, the other five scales hung around, especially on the "fringes" of Europe such as Eastern Europe and the British Isles. 

Even into our modern age you will hear composers such as Bartok (Hungarian) using Dorian and other older scales, because he heard these in the folk music where he grew up. Even Chopin (Polish) used some, such as Lydian, for parts of his pieces (never the whole piece, however). In Celtic music you will hear Dorian. Debussy was searching for new sounds and he turned to using the modes, which, at his time and place, would have sounded very unusual and exotic.  This is just a partial list. Even the Beatles have some elements of the modes. There is a hint of Dorian in Eleanor Rigby and I think that Norwegian Wood is in Mixolydian. 

When students learn about these other scales, they are often shown them on the piano. All of you reading this know that if you play from C to C on the white keys you get C major. If you play from A to A on the white keys you get A minor. Following along with this idea, if you play from D to D on white keys you get Dorian; E to E is Phrygian, F to F is Lydian, G to G is Mixolydian, B to B is Lochrian. However, you must remember that ALL of these scales came into being hundreds of year before the first keyboard instrument, so they were in no way influenced by the idea of "white keys." (See my post titled "Do you have a white key mentality?") Any and all of the scales/modes can begin on any key, white or black. The scale is determined by where the whole and half steps fall, as mentioned above. I have found people to be confused and locked in to the idea of these modes being all white keys.

As mentioned, many composers have used the modes in their compositions. Jazz improvisors use them (but I caution you about asking a jazz musician to explain modes to you; it may be very confusing!). If you enjoy improvising, I would encourage you to try improvising in, let's say, Dorian. You may find yourself drifting to minor (since Dorian and minor are similar). Our ears are so conditioned to hear just major and minor that is is challenging to really hear the others. You can do it on white keys the first few times to make it easier, but then challenge yourself to play them starting on other keys. Most people will experience the modes as a new and "refreshing" sound. As with some other areas of life, what's old is new again.

Let's Just Play it by Ear

 

Here in the Pacific Northwest we are snowed in, with freezing temperatures -- very unusual for us. Since I'm confined at home I thought I would take the opportunity to write a light-hearted post I've been thinking about for a while.

When people are making plans to go somewhere or do something and the plans can't be finalized, they often say "let's just play it by ear." What they mean is that they are going to keep things flexible, see how the situation develops in the moment and be able to respond.

I love that a phrase about music and playing an instrument have become a part of our mainstream language and idioms. When people hear the phrase "let's just play it by ear," they know exactly what is meant, even if they have never actually played anything by ear.

However, playing by ear is not exactly the right analogy for this situation. When you play music by ear, you are attempting to reproduce the actual song or instrumental piece as closely as possible to the written music. If you are playing a melody by ear, you want to get it exactly right; otherwise, it won't be the actual song, but something similar. If you are going to harmonize the songs, you want to get the harmonies exactly right, or very close, though you may have to do it in a simplified way. For example, if the song was from a movie score and it was accompanied by an orchestra, and you are attempting to reproduce it by ear on piano, you can get the harmonies exactly right, depending on your abilities, of course, but, needless to say, it won't sound exactly like an orchestra. You may be making your own arrangement of the song, but you are still attempting to have the song sound very close the actual song, so that your listeners will recognize it.

When you improvise, you are truly making it up as you go along. The best improvisors may never play the song or piece the same way twice. You may be using a previously-written song as the basis for your improvisation, but, depending on your skills, you may embellish the song's melody and harmonies to such a large degree that is almost becomes something else entirely. And, of course, you can do free-form improv, that is, not based on anything except your own musical ideas at the moment.

So when people say "let's just play it by ear," what they actually mean is "let's improvise." Making it up as you go along is more akin to improvisation than it is to playing by ear. And sometimes people do say "we'll just have to improvise" when they realize they can't predict or plan the future.

Either way, playing by ear and improvising are great skills to have, and, as you know if you've been reading this blog, I highly recommend both!

Keep it Simple

 

Everyone who listens to music (I'm speaking here in particular of classical music) has their own preferences when it comes to performances and interpretation. One person will love a particular performance of a piece and another will not like it much at all. There is no one right or wrong way to play a piece of music; it's really all a matter of taste. So it is not for me to tell someone what to like or not like. That being said, I'm going to share one of the attributes of playing that I feel contributes to the beauty and power of a musical performance. It is this: keep it simple.

Some musicians feel they must "do something" to a piece they are playing in order to put their personal "stamp" on it, to make it different that other people's playing of the piece. They would call this their "interpretation." It would be almost impossible for two people to play identically, so you are already going to play it differently than anyone else due to the way your body moves, the way you hear things, and all the other influences throughout your life that will affect how you play. I've heard pianists say they want to "decide" on their interpretation of the piece, as if it were an intellectual decision. Personally, I'm completely mystified as to how one would "decide" that. Rather than impose my ideas on the piece, I would prefer to let the music flow through me, unemcumbered. I'm not exactly saying I would be "channeling" Beethoven, for example, but I am getting out of the way so the music can speak to the listener without a filter, so to speak.

When I listen to someone play who is trying to "interpret" the piece, I usually experience it as "fussy," that is, too oriented to small details. Their performance misses the forest for the trees. Their playing gets bogged down in details and lacks the sweep and emotional power that I want to hear.

I recall a performance of a Chopin Nocturne by someone I know. From the very first measure she was doing all sorts of extreme rubato (nuances in the timing) and fluctuations of dynamics, and then piling on more and more of that type of thing as the piece went on. The performance was, to my ears, almost a jumble of unrelated phrases. She seemed incapable of just making a simple statement, letting the beauty of the music speak for itself. Someone I knew years ago said "You don't have to try to make the music beautiful; it is already beautiful." I believe that the work we do in our practice, improving our technique and strengthening our ear, is in order to have the mastery to let the music come through. 

When you start working on a new piece, just see if you can play it simply, without trying to "do too much." It would be analogous to a sentence with a straightforward message, without a lot of flowery language. I'm not saying to play it without emotional involvement -- quite the contrary. You must be emotionally engaged, but as the listener. Just listen to the music you are producing and you may, over the course of learning the piece, instinctively add the nuances that your ear is searching for.

I realize this goes against come of the conventional "wisdom" about playing and performance in classical music. I believe that too much emphasis is placed on the performer. They become celebrities. When you hear a really great performance, in my opinion, you get carried away by the beauty of the music to the extent that you become almost unaware of the performer. I believe that we, as performers, need to get our egos out of it.

Please ready my earlier post entitled Interpretation (2/13/15) for more in-depth discussion.

As with many areas of life, it would benefit us to keep it simple.

Favorite Quotes from my Teacher, Part II

 

It's best if you read my previous post, Part I, before reading this one.

If you can reach the interval, you don't need to stretch; if you can't reach it, no amount of stretching will help you.

This seems counterintuitive at first. Don't you have to stretch to reach, say, a tenth on the piano, if your hand is not very large? Wouldn't that be the only way to manage it? Actually, the correct way to reach an interval that is just at the limits of your hand is to relax into it. Stretching actually tightens the muscles. When you stretch in yoga, for example, you don't force the body into the pose, you relax into it. That is the way to become more limber. My hands are small to normal, yet I reach a tenth, because I have learned to let the hand relax into it. Try this: close your hand in a relaxed (not tight) fist. Gradually open your hand, as if you were watching slow motion photography of a flower blooming. Then just float onto the interval you want to play. You will notice it feels much easier and reachable now, as long as your hand didn't tense up at the last second. Keep practicing this and you will train your hand to stay relaxed for the larger intervals. Since I can't reach any more than a tenth, no amount of stretching will make it happen.

How you hear will be how you play, and how you play will be how you hear.

This is actually a very profound concept. Other than my teacher, Joseph Prostakoff, I have never heard anyone else propose this idea. If you move in a stiff or choppy way when you play, your ear will become used to this sound and will not only accept it, but prefer it. It will sound normal to your ear. Because your ear expects that sound, it will continually drive you to play in that way. If you play in a very smooth, connected way, with long lines and phrases, your ear will accept and prefer this sound, and will continue to compel you to play that way. In other words, there is a feedback loop between your ear and the physical, actually your motor cortex, which sends the impulses to the hands and fingers. Think of a young child playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star; it will be quite choppy -- what I call "note-wise" -- which is basically the hallmark of a beginner's sound. To the child, this sounds perfectly fine, and the child would not be at all aware that there is a better sound to strive for. If the child receives no instruction in how to use their hands and arms differently, they would most likely continue to play in this way. They might, however, as they grow up, hear recorded or live music played in a more connected and fluid way, and could possibly try to achieve that sound. In that case, their ear would be directing their body to do something differently. 

For the teacher, this presents a singular challenge: how to get the student to play and hear differently. Which one do you start with? I start with the physical, which is easier for me to work on with them in the allotted lesson time. Through various means, including, but not limited to, having their hands lightly on mine as I play, or my manipulating their hands as they play, they get a sensation of a new way to move. When they can start moving this way, the ear gets a chance to hear the improved lines and phrases, and will, as explained above, start to seek out this sound. It's a long process. This process may go extremely quickly in a student with more natural ability, and go slowly in a student with less. Some people say you can't teach "talent," but you can teach the student how to move more beautifully, and therefore play more beautifully.

All we have to fear is fear itself.

Of course you will recognize this is actually a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from a speech about World War II. It applies to many areas of life, including playing an instrument. If you've read my posts entitled "Fear," you'll see that I strongly believe that our fears -- fear of mistakes (wrong notes), fear of not measuring up to expectations, fear of "putting ourselves out there," and many others -- govern a great deal of how we play, and how well we play. Some fears you may be aware of and others not so much. It doesn't matter how many hours you practice; if your playing is encumbered by fear, it will never be truly great. An insightful teacher can help address these fears at the piano. Mr. Prostakoff was an amazingly insightful teacher. He would often quote this FDR phrase at our lessons. It certainly bears repeating.

Favorite Quotes from my Teacher, Part I

 

If you've read my first post, you will know that after I received my degree in Piano from Manhattan School of Music, I was not happy with my playing, and sought out another teacher. By a chance conversation with an acquaintance, I learned about a teacher who seemed to have a completely different approach to playing -- especially technique -- and it sounded like he could help with some of my more significant problems, such as pain and fatigue when playing. His name was Joseph Prostakoff. I studied with him for 6 years, until his death in 1980.

He was a masterful teacher. His insights and understanding of our bodies -- our playing mechanism -- and how it interacts with the piano, were incredible. It's not as if he was all about technique, however. He enabled me to vastly improve my ear (even though I already had perfect pitch) and my expression and interpretation. Because without a masterful technique and a superb ear, you can't really "say what you want to say" at the piano.

On top of that, he was a kind and generous human being, who devoted himself without reserve to his students. I think it would be fair to say that I wouldn't be playing and teaching today had it not been for him.

He also had a great sense of humor. He had lots of little quips and sayings that he would use in our lessons. Here are some of my favorites, with explantions.

If you can really hear the rhythm, you don't need to count; if you can't hear it, no amount of counting will help you. 

If you've read my posts on rhythm, you'll see that I don't teach "counting." Instead, I employ methods which teach you to really hear units of time, and then to be able to divide those units in two or in three. All our basic rhythms boil down to that. People think of ear training as only pertaining to hearing notes (or, more precisely, intervals), but hearing intervals of time is absolutley just as critical, if not more so. Because people rely on crude tools such as counting and metronomes, they may never really learn to hear units of time with precision. The idea that counting, or assigning numbers or syllables to the beats or parts of the beat will guarantee accurate rhythm is ludicrous. Every teacher has heard their students "counting" but saying the numbers completely out of rhythm! I like to point out that the people who play the most complex rhythms (e.g. Latin or African drummers), didn't learn to play using counting. Counting might work for the absolute simplest of rhythms, but then if it's that simple, you don't need it. We all have a pulse within our bodies 24/7, so I believe we can all hear a steady beat without counting. And since counting doesn't work at all for the most complex situations, such as poly-rhythms, it's not a very good tool. 

A nuance isn't a nuance if you do it every time.

We all want to play expressively, or musically (hopefully). What does that mean? Although in Classical music, we play the notes and rhythms as the composer has notated, we still have tremendouse freedom within that to be expressive and to play the piece in a way which will be different from any other person playing it. This expression takes the form of nuances of touch, dynamics, and timing. For example, we don't play the rhythm robotically, but rather, we have an elastic feel to the rhythm; there is something of an ebb and flow. In an expert player, the listener isn't aware of these nuances per se, but the overall effect of the performance is one of great musicality. However, if these nuances become too extreme, or too frequent, they lose their expressive power and just begin to sound like distortions. I remember hearing a woman play the Chopin Nocturne in D-flat Major. The left hand has a pattern which starts on a low bass note and then plays an arpeggiated chord. Before every bass note, she had the slightest of hesitations, not enough to destroy the rhythm, but nevertheless it was noticeable. Had she done it just in certain places, to heighten the drama or the tenderness of the passage, it might have been lovely. But she did it every single time. It became tiresome and even a little annoying, to my ear. She may have thought she was being expressive, but it lost all expressive value because it became expected. A nuance isn't a nuance if you do it every time!

If the auditory image is strong enough, the body finds a way to get there.

This might sound a little confusing but you'll see why it's true. In my teaching I emphasize training the ear, and, when learning a new piece of music, I use methods of getting the student to really absorb how the piece sounds. (Of course I do this in my own practicing as well.) You might think, "well of course I'm absorbing how it sounds," but in fact you probably aren't, not at a deep enough level. I call this "forming an auditory image." The beginning and intermediate students are so absorbed in the physical aspects and just "finding the notes" that the ear is not really working hard to absorb the music. Think of it this way; if your ear absolutely knows how it sounds, you could play it by memory, at least slowly, anyway. Most approaches mostly emphasize gaining muscle memory of the piece, and, to that end, there is a lot of emphasis on fingering. If you do the same fingering every time, muscle memory should work, right? But what happens when you accidentally land on a different finger? If you have only muscle memory, you could get completely scrambled and the whole phrase (or more!) could fall apart. (You've probably already experienced this.) But if you have a strong auditory image, you know what comes next and you can recover. Think about improvisors: if they are truly improvising (playing it differently than any previous time), then they don't actually have the muscle memory for that exact passage or riff. But their ear knows the sound they want, and the body follows.

There are more great quotes to come. Stay tuned for Part II.

 

Minor Scales

 

Most people who play classical or popular music are aware of two types of scales: major and minor. Before continuing, I'd like to point out that, once again, the terms major and minor lead to a lot of misconceptions. Major scales are not more "important" than minor scales. These terms refer to something else, specifically, interval size. These scales were originally called Ionian and Aeolian, respectively, as they came down to us from the ancient Greeks. There are actually several other scales, which people now call "modes," and they are used with some frequency in various types of music. More on that in a future post.

The major and minor scales sound different from each other because of the interval relationships between their scale tones. A student once said to me, "Oh, A minor is just like C major but it starts on a different note." This is a complete misunderstanding of what the scale is all about, and by extension, what our music is all about. Music based on minor scales sounds very different than music based on major scales. They don't sound the same except "starting on a different note!"

There is a LOT of confusion about minor scales and I find that confusion is still being propagated today, even though the correct information is available if you really look. I hope to clear up that confusion for you here.

You will probably have heard there are three types of minor scales: natural or "true" minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor. Why would we need three minors? What is their purpose? Teachers and music books tell you the "rules" for each and teachers have you practice each kind, but they almost never explain why.

There is really only one minor scale, the true or natural minor. This is what is reflected in the key signature. So, for the example of A minor, there are no sharps or flats and that is what you see in the key signature. No exceptions, ever.

Then along comes the so-called "harmonic" minor, where the 7th degree of scale is raised a half step, giving us G# in our A minor example. The reason the 7th degree is raised is because of harmonic reasons (thus the name of the "scale"). In A minor, the V (five) chord would be E minor. Chords which fall naturally in the scale would be refered to a diatonic chords. If you listen to music written before the mid 1600s (Renaissance music, for example) you would notice that if a piece or song uses the V chord, it is likely to be the E minor, or the diatonic chord. In the 1600s, people began to prefer the sound of a major V chord resolving to the I (one) chord. The resolution of G# to A -- a half step -- feels stronger and more final than the resolution of G natural to A -- a whole step. Let's say your final two chords of the piece were V to I, and the third, or middle note, of the V chord was on top (in the melody); you'd have a much stronger feeling of finality going G# to A than G to A. Remember, this really was just a matter of taste. Prior to this, Renaissance listeners were perfectly happy with their gentler resolution of the G to the A. 

So the diatonic E minor chord has been replaced with the non-diatonic E major chord. It could happen everywhere in the piece, or just in some places. Is the G sharp in the key signature? No, never. Although just about everyone will tell you the harmonic minor is a separate scale, I believe that is a backwards way of looking at it. The scale is the scale. This is just the substitution of a non-diatonic chord for a diatonic one, for expressive purposes.

Now here is where people get REALLY confused. They learn there is a so-called "melodic" minor. This involves raising the 6th and 7th degree of the scale a half step. In our A minor example, that would mean we'd have F# and G#. Why? If you play the harmonic minor, and you hear the interval of a third from the F natural to the G#, you might think it sounds a bit exotic, maybe Middle Eastern. Composers at the time (and even now) would probably not want a melody containing that sound, at least in many cases. The solution? Raise the 6th degree too and you get a smooth run up with all intervals of a second, no thirds. So if you have a passage where the chords being used are the I and the major V, your melody isn't going to be in natural minor, because the G naturals would clash with the G#s in the chords, and you're avoiding that exotic-sounding third in the harmonic minor, so you'll end up with the melody using the raised 6th and 7th, the so-called melodic minor. Once again, the reason for it is in the name: it's to make the melody more pleasing and not clash with the harmony.

You might notice that what you now have is the first half of the scale being true minor and second half being identical to major. A hybrid, if you will.

So for the past few hundred years, piano teachers have been assigning students the practice of all three types of minor. Every book of scales will include all three. I don't believe students should be spending so much time on scales in the first place. But when you play them, do them 100% from your own understanding of them, not reading them from books. I've met people who've spend hundreds of hours playing these scales but can't answer the basic question of why they exist. 

It is a complete waste of time to practice all these separate scales. If you can play an A minor scale and an A major scale, you can play the so-called melodic minor, which, as we've seen, is kind of a combination of both. It's a colossal waste of time to practice them all.

Would the melodic minor be used only in an ascending melody but not in a descending? Of course not. If the melody is going to avoid clashing with the chords and also avoid the exotic-sounding third, then it would happen in either direction. Yet for some strange reason, there evolved a convention of practicing the melodic minor, with the raised 6th and 7th, on the way up, but then for some reason coming down the scale in the natural minor. It's completely arbitrary, and is another example of the stodgy and pedantic nature of a lot of what is taught for piano technique and theory. It really irks me that we are still using these 300-year-old ideas.

Long Term Success vs. Immediate Gratification

 

Reading the title of this post, you can probably relate to it several areas of life. You may decide to pass up the pleasure of the rich dessert to achieve your weight and fitness goals, for instance. But how does it apply to learning to play the piano?

When someone is new to learning the piano -- or even if they have been at it for quite a while -- they are often surprised at how difficult it is just to play "all the right notes." It seems like every time you play you have some small -- or not so small -- slip-ups (I prefer to avoid the word "mistakes"). It can be very frustrating. The temptation is to try to practice in such as way as to "cure" those mishaps. You might decide to play the particular passage 50 times, and/or play it very slowly. Or, the one that many people think will work is to immediately "correct" the wrong note and then play the right one as you are playing. You'll find that rarely works. Instead, you'll develop a phobia about that particular passage in the piece, and every time you play you will be anxious about it, causing it to have more problems. Sound familiar?

Playing all the right notes all the time with no mishaps is a very high bar. In baseball, you are a star if you hit the ball even one out of three times. But pianists are expected to have a 100% success rate. And, sorry sports fans, but there is a LOT more complexity in piano than in baseball. Of course, even the very top tier pianists have the occasional slip, but you probably don't notice it because they are able to just go on without even a ripple.

For the beginning and intermediate student, making the demand of yourself to have "no mistakes" is likely to backfire and potentially cause you to dislike practicing. Trying the play the piece with zero wrong notes at any cost is not the best goal, in my opinion. It does give some immediate gratification. But if you had to practice that piece for hours and hours, to the exclusion of other music, you may be sacrificing long-term development. A student once told me that, as a child, his teacher had him practice the same piece for the entire year, so that it would be perfect for the recital. Of course he hated that, and quit piano as soon as the year was over. That teacher was not interested in the long-term development of the student; she was interested in how her students' performance would reflect upon her as a teacher. If they played well, people might assume she was a great teacher. But little did they know that the child learned nothing else all year and came to hate the piano. This is an extreme example of wanting immediate gratification over long-term success.

With my students, I emphasize just letting the small errors go. In some pieces we simply omit a few notes to make it a little less difficult. I'm sure the composer would forgive us! We continually work to build our technique to eventually master those tricky passages, but that takes time to acquire; so in the meantime, you need to learn to let the small things go. Choose your battles, so to speak. You'd think everyone would love this, but I find some people are reluctant to "let things go." Being a perfectionist in the early stages will work against you. Instead, try to keep the big picture in mind. I have my students play a wide range of different music so they are exposed to variety of technical and musical demands. As long as I see they are steadily acquiring new skills -- and enjoying it along the way -- I know that I am setting them up for long-term success. If I demanded -- or they demanded of themselves -- a perfect "performance," I know from long experience in teaching that they won't stay with it.