Tuesday 8 January 2008

Modes, modes and more modes.

I have been off work this week with a bad cold. So, I made good use of the time with studying jazz. My head is full of dorian modes and dominant 7ths and augmented 4ths I have big headache and it is nothing to do with my illness. However, I did get a chance to play for a couple of hours and all my reading has helped. The chord symbols at the top of the music did not look so daunting and I felt that with the extra knowledge I was able to simplify some of it and concentrate on playing. I have got prior experience of the simple chords like the major's and minor's but what frightened me was those that were altered and had extra bits like +9 or b7. I knew what they mean I just did not grasp how to play them. I am not sure what my music sounded like but on the whole I just ignored them and if my fingers got close I would put the note in and see whether it sounded out of place or not. I did feel very happy after my practice. I am sure it was not up to performance standard but I had great fun playing 'Call me Irresponsible' and 'Impressions' although the latter a lot slower that Coltrane.

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