A Peek Under The Hood Of Modes

Modes are ancient scales of the church which are still used today by jazz musicians.  You can also hear modal music in many of today's film scores and in some churches who still value their rich musical heritage.  Film composer John Williams composes many of his movie themes in modes.  One of the first jazz musicians to come to mind when I think of modes is Chick Corea.  Most jazz musicians are actually drawn to these classical scales because they are very rich in melodic and harmonic possibilities.  The church, in an effort to dumb down for the common person is actually dumbing down the common person.  If you can find a church offering a Tridentine Mass, most likely you will hear a lot of modal music.  As much as I love contemporary Christian music, it is very much trapped in the Ionian Mode (major scale) and doesn't give a sense of the sacred as many other modes do. When I attend other churches, I usually leave feeling numb from the "white bread" music and musicians.

This video is a simple example of how one may explore the modes as an improvisational tool.  One does not need to explore the modes for only jazz styles, but they are a great tool and inspiration for writing melody and fleshing out rich harmony.

For further listening:
Theme from the movie ET, Jurasic Park, The Simpsons

Rye Bread Music Festival

July 10-12, 2015 at The Barn, 100 Glen Road, Fort Edward, NY 12828

Pack your tent, sleeping bag, chairs, food, cooler, grill, beer, wine.
Family friendly.  Dog friendly.  Over a dozen bands.  Admission $20.  Arrive any time after 3 to claim your spot. 

Owning our Mistakes, Honoring our Mistakes, Everybody Makes

I recently performed a concert with a young artist who is going off to college to study opera.  He has dreams to then move to Europe to live and perform music.  Not only does this young man have a deep and rich bass voice but, he was also a pleasure to accompany.  Rarely do I get to play for someone who can both lead and follow an accompanist at the same time.  Many singers will either hijack a piece and force the accompanist to blatantly follow them or in contrast slavishly follow the accompanist.  When I encounter a singer who is neither a leader nor follower but does both, that is when music happens and a pleasure to work with. 

There was one moment however when he began to sing the wrong verse at the end of the song.  He stopped and corrected himself, everyone knew he made a mistake.  Many musicians learn and memorize their music from rote by practicing them dozens of times over until it is "memorized."  That method can set up many traps and things to go wrong without notice.  Rare is the musician who eats, drinks and sleeps their craft so that they are one with the song. 

I once played the show "Nunsense" for a year and a half, performing six shows per week.  All the musicians in the pit had the score memorized.  One evening, Mother Superior accidentally sang the wrong lyrics and without a second thought, all the musicians looked at one another and we all seamlessly jumped to the spot where she was.  After her verse was over, knowing that she skipped an important lyric, Mother Superior walked to the edge of the stage, looked down and said to the pit "Vamp boys."  Then she proceeded to tell the audience that she skipped a verse and said to the pit "take it back to the second verse" and we all flipped our pages, she counted us off and it was magic to have a mistake a living and breathing part of the performance.   

At my concert last weekend when my bass started to sing the wrong lyric and melody, I knew exactly where he was and was prepared to jump to that spot because I was prepared for the possibilities.  When I practice music, I jump around on the pages, mixing and matching beginnings and endings, playing the piece in different keys, different styles and in general, exploring the possibilities of the work.  This helps me to learn it and to be prepared for whatever may go wrong or, in other words - own the song.  I thrive on these challenges.

My suggestion for all musicians, especially singers, when you practice with your accompanist, don't just practice the song the way it is "supposed to go."  Play with it.  Try different rhythms, accents and styles.  Without notice, jump to a different section so that the accompanist has to find you.  If your accompanist can't do this, find a new accompanist.  There is nothing more frustrating than trying to make music with someone who is not a "musician."  Music should not be something which is regurgitated from a page or set in stone.  It should be a living breathing expression of our selves and spirit.

The worse thing for a musician to do when they encounter a bump in the road is to stop.  Don't train your mind to stop.  Don't practice making mistakes.  Train your mind to be flexible and prepared for the possibilities.  I once worked with a great singer who during rehearsals would stop every time she made a mistake.  That practice manifested itself when she made a mistake on stage, she didn't know how to recover and everyone in the audience knew it.  It also made rehearsals unbearable for me.

If one were to tell the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, chances are we are not reciting a memorized version of the story but, extemporizing, improvising and re-living the story pretty much in our own words.  If we make a mistake, we don't stop, go back or apologize.  We effortlessly and almost invisibly correct it on the fly and continue with the story.  Nobody would even notice.  Music can be like that too if we are not a slave to notation, propriety or our egos.  The purpose of telling the story is to tell the story.  The purpose of music should be to tell a story, not put on a concert.  Janis Joplin once said that she doesn't put on concerts when she sings, she makes love to the audience. 

This is what making music should be about. That is the difference between an amateur, professional and artist.  Very often amateurs can also be artists and very often, professionals can be mere amateurs. 

Better Late Than Never; Halloween Organ Recital

Do you think organ recitals are long and boring or that organists can be uninspired, uncreative, they play safe or all sound alike?  Are you afraid the music will be stuffy, long haired, or worse - like Sunday church organ music?

Then you should come to this one which I promise will be unique, fun, engaging and filled with surprises.  Come experience "The Scary and Fugal Side of Nursery Rhymes" May 3, 3:00 p.m. at the Foothills United Methodist Church on 17 Fremont Street, Gloversville, 12078.  The price is freeeeeeeee!  So that you won't suffer from organ indigestion, in addition to the organ solos there will be guest singers, singing bowls and instrumentalists.


Here are two samples of what I will be playing (the second half of each video BTW, is of Len Anderson who took my collection of arrangements and improvisations then rearranged each piece for his saxophone quintet):
http://youtu.be/0GMUG7Wr5RA                BINGO in Fugue
http://youtu.be/h-ZWaiXVnLY                     Old MacDonald Had A Farm

Did you know that there are dozens of diseases a human can catch from a lamb?  There are orphan children buried alive in the pillars of the London Bridge?  Ring Around the Rosie is about the plague? The original lyrics to "Ten Little Indians (which is still not politically correct)"  was also racially offensive?  Come discover what other creepy, rapey and phobic topics our joyous childhood songs are really about.

The church is handicap accessible with an elevator but it is squirreled away in a closet.  Here is a short video tour showing where the elevator is hidden within the building:
http://youtu.be/qXO5NFGKo9c

-Malcolm.
After watching his parents murdered by a mugger in a back alley, Malcolm Kogut grew up vowing to become the world's greatest crime . . . wait, that's Batman.  Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Mr. Kogut stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator . . . no, that was Sam Beckett.   After being bitten by a radioactive spid . . . uhm, Malcolm suffers from nefelibata.  Truth.

Practice Room Pianos

Playing the same song on several pianos between rehearsals.

The Illiterate Musician; How To Transpose

Infants first learn a few words through repetition and imitation.  They then learn a few more words because they understand that the words have meaning and can get them something.  Then they are taught the alphabet and they learn to spell small words and sound them out.  As their vocabulary increases, they are able to put together more complex sentences and mix and match the words to convey a message or to get what they want. 

Once they are able to read, spell and write, they are able to create and communicate ideas and feelings which opens up new worlds of possibility for them.  Some children are able to make up or improvise their own stories using their imagination, drawing from their experiences or using concepts and ideas from other stories or people.

Sadly, some children never advance beyond the stage where they are taught to speak.  Due to either a learning disability or behavioral issues they can't comprehend the concept of breaking down the words to their base letters so for whatever reason they don't learn to read well.  They acquire a basic vocabulary just enough to meet their needs and have no interest in expanding beyond that.

Musicians are like that, too.  Some only learn to read and repeat the notes on the score and like words, don't grasp how or why they are "spelled" as they are.  For those who learn basic music theory, the notes on the page may appear as blocks of phrases, scales or chords to them without the music student actually understanding how each note is used in each phrase or harmonic block.  Furthermore, despite maybe having a musical vocabulary, they don't know how to use all the theory they do know or how to create or manipulate the music with what they do know. There is a disconnect.  A musical autism.  They are like a TTS (text to speech) computer program which robotically  reads back the written word without understanding the words or meaning or spelling. 

Most musicians are taught to read music and that is all they need or think they need.  Others are taught music theory but are never taught how to apply it. Others teach themselves to "play by ear" and hope for the best.  They are constantly taking chances, may not know what they are doing, can't duplicate it or their playing can easily come crashing to a sudden halt because they don't know what they are doing or don't know where to go next.

A high school teacher friend asked me to help do tech for her at a recording studio for a school project.  She brought in the biology teacher to accompany her at the piano and he introduced himself as a musician, too.  I thought to myself, no you're not, you're a biology teacher.  He let it slip out a couple of times that he had a music degree from Juilliard saying things like "They taught us to do that at Juilliard," or "My teachers at Juilliard would be aghast at me playing such simple music," or after a compliment, "That's what four years at Juilliard can do for you."

At one point my friend asked him to transpose the piece up a third and he couldn't.  He asked if there was an electric keyboard available and there wasn't.  My friend asked me to step into the studio because she knew I would be able to do it.  The biology teacher said, "I'm an artist, not a technician." I'm not sure but I think I was insulted.  But, I think it was more him trying to save face because he realized he was not as smart as he thinks or has been told he is.

So, that is why I wrote this blog and made the accompanying video on how to transpose.  Because this guy has the musical IQ of a four year old or someone with a severe learning disability or can only regurgitate what he sees on the page, like a TTS program. 

Actually, it is not his fault.  He only knows what his teacher taught him and their teacher before them and their teachers before and before.  Somewhere along that lineage, none of those teachers had a teacher who could teach them the open secret of numbers.  Here is the video:
http://youtu.be/JrMrYbViCIw

My Local News

I am regularly disgruntled by the quality and content of the local morning news so I decided to watch all three of my local stations simultaneously to see what each chose to report on the first thing in the morning.  I watched the six a.m. time slot and this is what each station chose to lead with during the first five minutes. 

Channel A:
NYS Budget issues.
The closing of an interstate ramp today, leave early or find alternate routes.
The opening of a new exhibit at the museum.
The Golub family launches a fund raiser for fire victims.
Commercial.

Channel B:
A woman was arrested for poisoning her husband.
A man is to appear in court today on charges of animal abuse.
There was a home invasion while a family slept.  No leads or arrests.
A tease about the court case of the Boston Bomber - story coming up.
Commercial.

Channel C (mind you, I live in Albany, NY):
Banter and tease about weather coming up.  Photo of sunrise.
The death of an oil millionaire in Los Angeles.
Autopsy results of a deceased couple in PA to be released today.
Banter about the weather.
Brush fire in California.
Commercial break - Up next, the NYS budget

I found it interesting that one channel chose to lead with stories which affect local lives, the second focused on crime and fear while the third talked about stories not about my community.