Cookin' with LydAug

[bobappleton]

...!

[chespernevins]

ML, nice to see you too. Sorry to hear about your friend Festus. We've been hearing about him for a while and know he was important to you.

Pretty interesting melody from an analysis standpoint.

The first 4 bars could be straight A LA except for that Bb at the end of measure 3. The melody seems like more than straight LA. I have initial thoughts, but I haven't had the chance to play this on piano yet - it definitely needs more looking at

Could you clarify your thoughts on the "avoid" notes? Are you saying avoid E on the A LA, avoid G# on the Db LA and avoid D on both? Or are you saying something else?

[chespernevins]

ML,

It's great to have you around!

I spent some time last night with your note choices. Very cool. A 10 note scale like that offers so many choices. I ended up trying to hear and characterize each note over each chord. Too much to type here.

But for example, the C over the B7 sounds like a blues note to me - F# blues.

The Bb over the B7 seemed to work primarily as a passing tone for me. The way it's used in the melody sounds like a typical resolution Bb -> A if the chord was an F7 underneath.

The D nat. over Bb- sounds like a little window into a side-slipping type line. I was learning Tristano's "Two Not One" I think it's called and it has tons of back and forth between the key and a half step up.

Another interesting thing - with those notes sometimes Bb-7 sounded like a VIIh of B Lydian. Only the C nat broke the spell and brought us back to a Db Lyd sound.

Yes, and it's a great recording. Amazing how subtle the out notes in the first 2 bars of the Bb- are when you listen to it being played. Sounds like Miles is playing some unusual notes in his solo as well.

Thanks for sharing - good stuff. I'm sure I'll return to this some more.

[chespernevins]

That IS funny. Telling. I appreciate how your take on Lyd Aug is not the 7 specific notes alone, but a set of associations. That's the language of music, I guess.

I once did a youtube video type of thing - I had said I'd demonstrate major key melodies on the harmonica. Let's say it was the key of C. Without thinking about it at all, I played C Major, with Chromatic Notes, some focus on A-, some C blues, maybe a couple of C Aux Dim notes. There might have been a b9 on the V chord, maybe a iii-VI-ii-V-I or bII -> I type melody, I forget now. You know, basic noodling around in the key. Well, I posted it without thinking a thing when i started getting emails from musicians. This wasn't a major scale melody! Someone said they heard some minor in there! lol! Well, they were right, but so was I. Ok, they were probably more right!

[chespernevins]

ML,

Thanks for uploading this.

So what I'm getting from this is that the combo of the two Lyd Aug scales can be used as an almost fully chromatic scale, but it can also be used to enhance one of the lyd aug scales if you want to focus on that.

For example, I get the sense of bi-tonality in the first 4 bars, where the focus in the melody centers around Bbmin (Db Lyd Aug) and where the chromatic notes of B and F# are used to enhance that Bbmin sound.

This focus on Bbmin gives us a bitonal sound over the B7b5 chord, and also is related to the Bbmin that is to come in the next 4 bars.

Your "extra note" of E is used when it conveniently allows for a chromatic passing line going to the strong resolution of C and F over the Bbmin chord of m.5.

I think I detect some focus on A LA over the Bbmin chord as well.

I like the effect of the bitonality of the Major sound over the G- on the bridge.

Would you say I'm close to the idea here? Is this mixing of scales from two different areas typical of your style or is it something that this composition suggested to you because of the juxtaposition of the 4 bars of A LA and Db LA?

I remember that bitonality is of interest to you. Perhaps this is just one device that you use to achieve it?

[chespernevins]

The uptempo version is great.

Funny, it really sounds different at a different speed because at the faster tempo I tend to hear the melody as a horizontal entity instead of hearing the vertical relationships as much.

Thanks!

[chespernevins]

Regardless of your first working copy/sound file, I was playing it on the piano pretty slowly, hearing the vertical relationships. My eye recognized the line, but my ears were also hearing the vertical quite a bit. But the faster recorded version made me hear the *line* much more as its own entity.