Ben Monder kindly offered to talk to for Modern Guitar Harmony about his harmonic thinking
and its relation to the Mick Goodrick Almanacs. Mick Wright connected with Ben via a slightly
glitchy international Zoom call, last Saturday lunchtime (7th October 2023). What follows below the video is a
transcript of the Zoom video-call. Square brackets [ ] are Mick’s annotations.
The Ben Monder Interview
Mick W: Hello, and welcome to Modern Guitar Harmony. I’m delighted to say we have Ben Monder here today to talk about the Mick Goodrick Almanacs. So first of all I’ll name check his last couple of albums. There’s a really lovely album called ‘Day After Day’ from 2019 – I think – and it’s just full of some amazing guitar playing. I won’t rave about it, but I certainly could. It’s a lovely record, and there’s also a live album with Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey called ‘Live at the 55 Bar’, which is also fairly recent, fairly current. So please check them out as well. [Available at
Bandcamp: https://BM.bandcamp.com/music]
So I’ll welcome you Ben, to the session. You’ve been working on the Almanacs, we talked a little about them before, and last March at the Soapbox Gallery event for commemorating Mick Goodrick and celebrating his music, you played a piece based on the Almanacs. Could you say a little about that, please?
Ben Monder: Yeah, well, most of what I got out of the Almanacs were probably more ways to compose, like, you know, ways to give me ideas to compose, than necessarily improvise, although that’s obviously relevant as well. I just decided to see what I could come up with based on some of the various cycles, and, I’ve got to say, I almost exclusively concentrated on the 3 voice stuff. I don’t even remember which what information is, in what volume.
MW: I believe that’s Volume Two?
BM: I would say, yeah, I think Volume 2 is where I got the basic material for this piece. and it was just this particular cycle that informs most of the idea of this piece you refer to is just three-part fourths in a cycle of fourths. Spread. So in this case, in G … what’s … let’s say, if I if I do it in C [plays chord].
No, I’ll do it in G ‘cos that’s where the piece is. I’m starting here [chord] Can you hear that ok?
So obviously. if I was gonna go cycle 4, all in the root position. It would just kind of sound like this, with, you know, whoops! Not great voice leading right? [Continues playing] So the way he voice leads it, there’s … [continues playing behind talking] … is that right? … I should’ve prepared for this – I keep going back to C instinctively.
So anyway … the piece started with this [playing] and then I decided that if I go through the cycle literally it doesn’t sound that great, melodically. So, I’m actually cheating a little bit – I’m going one step too high. So I’m actually going – [plays main phrase again] going back to C instead of to B. But I’m arpeggiating, and then a little melody forms out of the top notes with the cycle, and then I go to something else, which is…. [plays phrase] this is another pattern for me,…I guess …will this technically be fourths, close to open, in cycle 7?
So this is like … [plays] Bto A … G to F#, [plays] So that’s how the piece starts. So, cycle 4 … cycle 7. And then just
kind of like departing from the strict cycle thing … just go off by ear a little bit, ending up in G – in Bb. [Playing]
No, I’m really not strictly adhering to the diatonic cycles any more – but more thinking of the melody and the shapes of the fourths and I’m ending up here. [Playing]
Now … I guess I call this the second part of the A section. I’m playing the same material as I started with, but I’ve added a melody on top, and … see if I can – I really haven’t practiced this in months… [plays] So that’s again the same, literally the same, virtually the beginning material with an added top melody. And pretty much all of that informs what the rest of the piece is based on: just the fourths movement and the melodic strands that you find within that. So between, you know – [plays] Sorry for the crappy performance, everyone!
Mick W: Thank you so much, that’s really useful. And we’re watching you thinking – it’s really interesting. It’s fascinating that people ask, all the time, what melodic and what creative use are the Almanacs? Because of it being in complete form, in one key and one section / one cycle at a time. You’re breaking the cycle up, you’re changing a little bit of the pitch, the key centre’s moving… – I think you varied the time signature at one point? It bounces around from 3 into something else later on …
BM: Oh, there, yeah, it’s constantly changing. I mean, so far in this piece i’ts based in groups of 3, whether it’s like 3, 6 or 9 … changing.
MW: Often the dialogue on the news group about the Almanacs has been “where’s the creative use? How do we apply these?” And David Lee, Marcel and myself. we’ve been talking a lot about this, this year on Zoom, about once a month. And it’s been a fabulous conversation – we all go away with our batteries charged, and practice more and play more. It’s changed my playing this year, just talking. This is a really useful dialogue to have today. You’re using melodic generation as compositional material – what Mick Goodrick calls the musical DNA.
BM: Right? Yeah. I mean, there’s so much melodic content just already embedded within all of these things. So you find them, and then that just serves to open your ears up and take it in some different directions.
MW: thinking compositionally, it’s a wonderful use of the Almanac raw material. You’re using it as marble to carve.
BM: And it’s striking a balance between that academic information and and your intuition.
MW: one technical question: your left hand is doing the normal thing with the big stretches, and we’re very aware of those, obviously with the risk and the the difficulty of them. But your right hand is doing some quite complicated selection of those voicings. You’ve got some classical background in your right hand technique, I can tell from your other pieces. Is it a standard right hand technique you’re using? Or are you using a pinky as well?
BM: Hey? I don’t use my pinky that much but if I want to get a 5 note chord I will certainly use it.
But I don’t .. yeah, I’m not like using it – not really manipulating it. Yeah, it’s pretty rare that I actually use it in an arpeggio, which you know is a limitation.. I’ve never really thought about it – I did take some classical guitar lessons as a kid never excelled at it. It probably did help, learning Villa Lobos Etudes.
MW: and this piece that you’re demonstrating for us. Has it got a name yet? Or is it just still a work in progress?
BM: Oh, no, it’s recorded. It’s fully recorded. I was actually wondering if if I played something on my computer … will it just come through the speakers and then through the microphone and sound garbage?
MW: I’ll try it. Maybe if we pause the recording for a second and just experiment, that’s probably a good idea. [Pause]
MW: Here we go. We’ve got a piece to play for you.
BM: So anyway, since I just like fumbled through this piece live ‘cause I really haven’t practiced it in years. I was just going to play a little bit of the recording – not too much because it’s a 23 minute piece… but I’ll just play the first couple of minutes so you get the idea. And again, the beginning material is this spread fourths cycle 4, and that leads to a number of other cycle ideas, generally three-part cycle ideas. So anyway, here goes. I’ll just play the first couple of minutes of this thing [Plays recording] Yeah, and then it gets into some kind of other stuff – we
can pause it there …
MW: Maybe we can put up a link to it to the purchasable – the buyable – version of it?
BM: It’s not buyable yet.
MW: Oh, so that’s a ‘sneak preview’.
BM: Well, this will be on a record that I’ve been working on for the last few years, and one of many pieces … hoping to finish it up in the next couple of months, and it’ll be out maybe next year at some point.
MW: Thank you so much for sharing that – it’s really an honour to actually be able to hear that in advance. It’s great. I call this technique high maintenance. If you’ve got a piece that complicated, it’s so demanding to keep it … ‘ready’.
BM: It is, yeah, it’s only like when you’re actually preparing to record it. It’s like.. lots of hours without anything else. But that was already a couple of years ago. Actually.
MW: I think David mentioned ‘triads over bass notes’ as well, as part of this, and he’d actually listened to some of this along with Mick. And while Mick was alive, and he had identified these
BM: That’s actually a different … I think he’s talking about a different piece, which is also based…. – we could talk about that as well … So this one, the main idea is… let’s see if I can remember this… 3 part spread cycles to three-part fourths, cycle 5. [i.e. spread cluster cycles] So that’s also volume 3. So if I could just demonstrate that in C major. [Plays] So the spread cluster would be C D E [plays] then it goes.. there’s the 9th note left there [indistinct] but
anyway, so the cycle in C major [plays ] – does that sounds familiar? So that’s that’s the literal cycle, in cycle 5. [This material is linked to Almanac 3 paper copy p. 31 – pdf version p.29.]
MW: one very quick technical question, are you incorporating open strings some of the times there?.
BM: Not yet – [redirects the camera and plays more] [plays clam] There’s an open string! Ok, so that’s C major.
So for this piece, the one that I sent to David I’m adapting it to the fourth mode of harmonic minor. So in this case
B harmonic minor ‘over’ E. [plays melody notes B A# G F# E F#] and again, like the melody in already … [sound gets unclear] it’s compelling I think. And then it just starts to appear.
[plays lengthy section and pauses] – what do I do now? – I’ve nearly forgotten it, I’ll try this one more time, and then maybe I’ll just play with it here.
Oh, yeah, that’s okay, I hear it. Last time, sorry to waste your time {Plays more extensively]
That’s as far as I’m gonna get. This is another like 20 minute thing.
MW: George Van Eps would have been spellbound by that.
BM: I highly doubt it!.
So this starts out as the strict cycle, and then it just occurred to me to go somewhere else melodically with it. So this melody, already contained in this cycle, just inspired the rest of the phrase, which does not follow the cycle strictly, it’s probably jumping… [plays] and of course I’m also departing from the strict mode at this point [plays] I’m ending up in E major, which is contained within the mode .
That’s the original mode [Plays the B harmonic minor scale, descending, from a C# starting note to a low F#] I guess in a way it’s a [Car horn, and unclear words’ it’s a deceptive cadence’?] then going back to the cycle in A minor, over E. If I was to do this strictly diatonically it would something like [plays] in Dorian, but I’m just mixing modes a little bit. So this is your chromaticism you’re interested in – so I’m introducing a G# in this – it started as A. [Plays extended harmonic voice-led sequence] So that’s the first couple of phrases of that.
MW: so what we’re getting, If I understand your process, we’re getting a mixture of the theory from the sequence, mixed with creative choice at a point that your intuition kicks in and tells you that’s the piece that you want to work with.
BM: that’s a good way of describing it.
MW: it’s certainly very effective. It works for me – it sounds great.
BM: So this piece contains quite a few more of the 3 part cycles, strewn throughout … [unclear] … and also all the melodic material – I’m exploring a lot of melodic material but it’s all continued pretty much within the first phrase. If you just take segments of the longer melody you, [plays] you could create shorter motifs that you’ll later explore independently. So there’s already tons to work, with just within the first statement.
MW: Are you ever thinking canonically with it, in terms of the way that the voices move canonically in the cycles. Do you take that and bring it back, from time to time?
BM: Both – do you mean, do I employ like strict canons? Or…
MW: are you looking for the canons to actually be part of the piece, or is that just something that happens in the chord sequences?
BM: Yes, sometimes they just happen automatically..I think there actually is a couple of spots in that piece where I’ll consciously try to execute a canon.
MW: There’s a famous quotation from Bach’s time, where one of the theorists [Niedt] said that everyone thinks that canon is the secret, and it drives people crazy.
[Dreyfus writes how Even “progressive” writers of the early 18th century, such as Niedt, who
railed against learned counterpoint and canons as “artificial eye-music” which are “not worth the
trouble and expense to waste paper and ink on”, saw a value in fugue and taught it as
appropriate chiefly to the church style. L. Dreyfus, Bach and the Powers of Invention (Harvard
1998)]
MW: They don’t really need it as much as they think they do. But it’s not the solution to
everything. And I think what we’re working with here in the creative realm is that it’s the start of
things where you hear a canon, and then you can take a freeform approach to it to some extent,
after that – an expansion of it.
BM: Well, sure. it’s not an end in itself.
MW: And do you have a title for that piece so that we know what we’re referring to?
BM: No.
MW: The usual thing, the pieces get put on the pile..
BM: I mean though, so far, the working title is is 3PSC. just because it’s 3 parts spread clusters: I don’t know if that’s really gonna fly. So I might want something a little more poetic …
MW: And I’ll ask a few more general questions about it. With a piece like this, do you settle on a key quickly, or is it pragmatic with what the guitar offers?
BM: well, it’s not really in a key, but, I think when I was just playing around with that particular cycle, I was just experimenting with different modes and different modes of different scales, and I just hit a part. You know. You need to decide how bright or dark you want something, once you’ve got the building blocks. [Playing descending contrary motion in C major] it could have been very different piece if were all in C – but I could decide that maybe I wanna go a little bit darker. [plays] you know – that’s a kind of attractive sound and it’s not a mode that I really ever explored that much – the fourth mode of the harmonic minor [dorian with a sharp 4] … yes, so I settled on that,,, but, apart from that, I wouldn’t say it’s really in a key, because it floats around and modulates a lot. There’s a lot of E involved, just because it’s a guitar and I grab this thing [plays low E string] but I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s in the key of E
MW: Yeah, that makes sense.
BM: This is another one where I could, since I did it with the other piece I could play a little bit of the recorded version.
MW: Yes, please!
BM: That would be more fluid.
MW: One technical question again, are you writing these on paper quickly, or do you get them on the guitar first and then transfer them to paper. Your book’s full of dots obviously [Ben laughs]. You have [many, many] pages of dense music there. [Ben Monder Compositions, Vols 1 & 2, published by Mel Bay]
BM: I used to write on guitar and then, much later, on paper but, since as my memory has got more fallible I kind of write things down, not neatly and not in any kind of finished form, I just jot down rough ideas of of what I’ve played so that I’ll remember the next day. But at this point, yeah, everything is completely notated.
BM: Okay, we’ll try to find this thing … here it is. Let me know if you can hear this. Okay.
[Plays recording of piece.]
BM: right – that’s enough of that.
MW: That’s lovely. We’re talking about ‘modern guitar harmony’ and I think that’s perfect for the label on the tin, today. That’s exactly what we’re talking about. Would you say you’re influenced by twentieth century classical harmony with that? It sounds like classical guitar from the mid- twentieth century, in parts – things like Tippett’s ‘Man with the Blue Guitar’ or … [Leo Brauer, or Frank Martín].
BM: Yeah, definitely, more probably by osmosis than analysis. But, yeah.
MW: but you sound like you’re having fun with it. It sounds enjoyable.
BM: There is fun elements yeah… I remove the the torture.
MW: Have you played any of the Mick Goodrick solo pieces – have you tried them?
BM: Embarrassedly, I have not, but I do have the book, and it’s on my giant pile of things that I need to get to once I’m done.
MW: There are one or two pieces with fragments like that in there which I think you’ll enjoy
exploring …
BM: I’m sure. I’ll look forward to that.
MW: I’m so looking forward to hearing this on record, I mean, we’re hearing a preview of it today again. But this is exciting stuff, it really is. With the ideas that you’re using, are you thinking guitaristically, or are you thinking ‘band’ with them when you’re writing them? Are you looking for a bassist to cover some of the score?
BM: Well, it depends on the tune, but these two are pretty much just like solo guitar, and then one of them has drums, and bass just to fill up the bottom.
The 3PSC is just a solo guitar piece. But there are other different types of tunes on the record.
MW: That’s really something to look forward to hearing. I’ll be listening to that quite a lot I’m sure.
BM: You’re welcome
MW: I’ve got your lesson handouts, that you hand out with your one-to-one lessons, and you’re very kind enough to allow it to be published on the Modern Guitar Harmony website. I hope you know about that already? I expected you would have done; it’s interesting. You pick the same voicings that the Goodrick Almanacs use. You’ve got your six main voicings of your seventh chords.
BM: Yeah. Those are the ones that exist.
MW: I think there may be one or two others, that people are talking about, but they’re the main ones – or they are the only ones that you would recommend working with?
Do people come along with others?
BM: So you’re talking about seventh chord voicings, right?
MW: So that’s the full set.
[While the six voicings are ‘the full set’, the unasked question here was perhaps attempting to
ask about doubled notes in chords, and the various 7 no 3rd, and 7 no 5th voicings.]
BM: So your question is, “Are there one or two that would be more of a priority than others?”
No, I wouldn’t – why not treat them all equally right?
But the ones that fall under your fingers easiest are probably the obvious – Drop 2 … But they all have a unique identity and important different uses. So I’d say why not learn them all, equally well?
MW: … and I mentioned open strings before. We got into a really strange discussion, that we seem to be doing opposite things [with the Almanac cycles] when we were talking on the news group meeting a few weeks ago. Some people avoid open strings, playing this kind of material: other people exploit them.
BM: Why not exploit them? They exist. And they offer a very unique different timbre: I’m all for like expanding all the timbral possibilities that you have, so yeah, I definitely would be in favour of open strings. But just know what they sound like, and know that maybe in context, an open string voicing is not gonna work, because it’ll just sound jarring. But on the other hand, it’s just a [indistinct] to hear a lovely sound in one certain context .
MW: And that varies from guitar to guitar and from right hand to right hand with different players’ touches. One thing I found with the Almanacs is touch of the right hand seems to be as vital as even moving those voices.
BM: You have to sound good – that’s the bottom line, yeah. You could hack your way through this stuff and … it needs to sound like something that somebody wants to actually listen to. It sounds obvious, but …
MW: I think that was the magic I found in the Almanacs – what it offered in terms of the the sonic possibilities plus this logical melody just coming out of nowhere, from the [various] chord changes of the cycles.
BM: Right, there’s melodies on top and there’s melodies like embedded within the voice leadings [last words of sentence unclear]. I’ve also explored open-string voices, I mean apart from the Almanacs, just by picking the key and maybe a mode and just seeing, like, what are the open strings that are available. And then, like working around that, you know.
When I think of B flat Major, obviously, the A string is available [plays A string] so maybe, you know, I could play like a ninth voicing [plays notes Bb F C D followed by A] and that’s available – I could even add the… [open E string – plays Bb major 9 #11, alternating Bb root and the open A string, even overlapping the two tones.]
Or, E flat has a lot of nice stuff in it… because you have the third [plays G string], and then the seventh [plays D string then a selection of great-sounding extended chords]. There’s tons of stuff in here. Anyway…
MW: that makes a lot of sense. Yes.
BM: Just pick a key and just see where you plop your hands, with some open strings…
MW: And with these big stretched chords, and it’s not so difficult, on a guitar with a comfortable neck – [on] a guitar like this.
BM: Yes, the one you’re playing it would be a lot harder.
MW: I’m fortunate, it’s a small body with a slightly smaller {shorter scale] neck, so it’s not too bad – it’s a it’s a nineteenth century replica. So you you can do the … umm … [MW plays the opening of No 3 ‘For Stella’ by Mick Goodrick.] That’s [from] piece No. 3, from the Goodrick solo pieces. And he dedicated that book to Fernando Sor. That’s the Sor model guitar [A replica after Martinez 1816 built in England by Geoffrey Needham] so it’s kind of nice to make the connection – that’s what I was looking for with it.
BM: Has anyone ever recorded those pieces, like an album or something?
MW: There’s a few YouTube Channel versions of a few of them, not a selection of them yet, but I think it’s it’s going to be very viable to do so. There’s some really exciting things – there’s a very short fragment of the Rite of Spring in one of them. [Early Piece III ].
BM: which one? Do you remember?
MW: I’ll have to dig it out, but I don’t think I’ll be able to put my hands straight on it. I’ll try. Got the book in my hand. It may be one of his ‘Early Pieces’ I think – you can spot it easily enough now it’s near the back. This might take a little while I’m looking – you can spot the triplets in the bass – it’s got the little ostinato bass figure. That’s twice I’ve been put on the spot, asked the same question about that piece! And I think someone played it at one of the Berkeley concerts. I’m sure I saw a live stream of a Berkeley concert. I’m struggling to find it today, but I’ll take it
out, I’ll definitely pop it in an email. And it is certainly in this book.
MW: could you say a little bit about your own reaction to the Almanacs when you first saw them. I asked Randy about that, too.
BM: Hmm. … what I really remember? I don’t remember being like immediately intimidated.
Maybe I kind of got the material in dribs and drabs before I actually got the full spiral bound books, so it wasn’t like a plunge head-first.
I think my reaction was just like, ‘this is really exciting’, and what kind of blew my mind was that prior to being acquainted with the Almanacs I was doing a lot of my own experimenting with four-part chords, and deriving what I would call intervallic structures, and those being four-part chords built in intervals other than thirds or fourths – so just various combinations of intervals, and then moving them around diatonically. And I came up with what I thought were really appealing sounds, and sounds that I hadn’t heard before on the guitar, in a very unscientifically
unmethodical manner. I’d just write them out, and then displace octaves with certain notes, getting it to 70 or 80 different shapes, and then move them all through diatonic major scales and melodic minor and harmonic minor, harmonic major, and also voice-lead them, find inner-voice movement, and voice-lead them among each other, just to create some interest and not have them just be all going in the same direction.
Anyway, my point being I thought I was, you know, coming with them all these various things.
And then the Almanac taught me that every diatonic chord I came up with could be thought of within of one of 5 chord types: so there’s not there isn’t a single chord I came up with that doesn’t exist in the Almanacs. Because it’s either the seventh chord, fourths, the two different triads-over-bass-notes, or clusters. that’s it –but that there’s nothing else that’s possible hadn’t really occurred to me. It’s obvious when you think about it.
MW: that’s so important to actually explain to students and to let people know that this is a big number, but it’s finite.
BM: Yeah, especially on guitar it’s even more finite. So I’ve been combining my approach with the Almanac approach which yield pretty different results because my approach is much more haphazard than his, because I’m not following cycles, I’m just kind of going by ear. So, for example, a chord like this [plays notes CGDB i.e. G triad over C bass, G/C] which I’m thinking of as fifth, fifth, sixth, right?
MW: double drop 2 drop 3?
BM: No, no, – obviously, this is triad over bass note – don’t ask me if this triad over bass note 1 or 2 …[G/C is classed as a Triad over Bass Note 1 construction – TBN1 in the Almanacs’ terminology]
In my own taxonomy its fifths and a sixth: sp I can either just take this through the C major scale, [playing] or I could move it – voice-lead it – to where I hear it, or where my fingers even actually go.
So, keeping it diatonic, I can move to this chord [playing] or I can just sequence something like that. [playing various options] Some internal counterpoint … that kind of thing.
MW: it’s great to watch you thinking your way through this.
BM: Yes, so my idea would just be to start somewhere with something, and to see where the voices can lead and try to incorporate some contrary or oblique motion with the outer voices, or the inner voices …so that’s the non-Almanac element, all that stuff like that. And then you open the book, and you would learn how to actually voice-lead this through every diatonic cycle … strictly … and that would be a whole school – a different discourse… [?? Audio is unclear.]
MW: Did you feel like that changed your playing as you were working through that material?
BM: Oh, for sure, yeah, it just kind of opens up the neck and, more importantly, opens up your ears.
And but you know, with any kind of practice. there’s … it’s a little bit delicate, how this stuff comes out in the real world.
You don’t want to be thinking about all this .. the more you practice, the more you could tend to think about what you’ve practiced while you’re performing, and that’s generally not a great idea.
So it’s just a matter of really internalising it so that it’s unconscious, and that its’ in and it comes out.. And you know, honestly, like most of what I practice never comes out. [Laughing] But some of it does. So it’s kind of I don’t know, could be a tip of the iceberg type of scenario.
MW: I like to think that the rest of it is cooking somewhere, and it’s still ready to come out one of these days.
BM: Yeah, yeah. I have to trust my faith that that’s true ….
MW: Someone asked – what about the 5 notes you’re not using in the diatonic cycles, and that’s a bit of a brain-boiler for me. When you start to think about the outside notes as well as the triads, but as well as the seventh chords or the diatonic tones, and that’s probably where Volume 3 starts to really kick into some serious chromaticism and things.
BM: … yeah, chromatic? You could be chromatic within a key and just introduce chromatic passing tones. And you can be chromatic in terms of modulating – lots of keys. So there’s a wide field I really just try to use my ear in most cases.
MW: I tried to do some sequencing on the diminished voicings just to actually write them the same way as the Almanacs. And I got a little way with it. it’s hard thinking, actually, to sit at a desk and work that out..
BM: Oh, yeah, now that you reminded me, I did quite a bit of work, most of which I don’t remember, treating four-note diminished chords in the same way as the intervallic structures.
MW: Yes, I’ve tried that – it’s demanding!
BM: It comes to mind, something like that [Playing rising diminished sequence] – there’s just a lot of stuff.
MW: I’m hearing Joe Zawinul. [BM continues playing]
MW: That sound like something someone will take and run with, anyway.
BM: You have eight notes to play with so there’s a little altered fun stuff you could do [unclear,indistinct]
MW: it’s strange, I’m reading a little bit about theory. I try to keep on the practical side of things about the music side, but the theory is fascinating, and as long as it’s kept in its cage. It’s okay. I think. It can bite you, otherwise. I think it’s the geometry of music, Tymocko, that one. It’s a really lovely book.{MW hold up the cover to the camera – Ben Monder picks his copy up from the floor and shows it!]
MW: You have a copy, too! Yeah, Nice one! He talks about the usefulness of the harmonic major being the fourth option, [After major, harmonic minor, and melodic minor] because those scales have a nice distribution of semitones and whole tones. And if you add more semitones, or fewer, things get less interesting. So when you’re onto 8 notes, you’re becoming a little less creative with those 8 notes than with the 7.
BM: Oh yeah. I mean, you can’t live there, you know, although I did write a piece based on Messiaen mode 6, which is an 8 note scale. [C D E F F# G# A# B C].
But to be fair,I couldn’t really live strictly within that mode either, so that piece departed from the strict mode pretty quickly.
But yeah, there, I don’t know. I find those tools kind of more colours, things to apply sparingly, rather than places to really sit.
MW: That’s interesting, it is. I remember, when I was starting up, the Aebersold books had the notes of the harmonic major, and it didn’t seem to have a title in those days. It didn’t have a label attached to it, but it was obvious that it was a cool scale, and people were using it. And I’m sure that some of the nineteenth century artists were using scales that probably didn’t have labels on either, like harmonic minor might not have had a label in the nineteenth century perhaps. So it’s just horses for courses.
BM: Yeah.
MW: I think we can start to wind it down now, we’ve done nearly an hour, So I don’t want to wear you out, and I’ve got a head full of ideas to scribble down. I’ll put some links up to your Bandcamp page for people who are interested in hearing more of this, [see below] and we’ll make sure they’re linked to from the MGH Modern Guitar Harmony webpage, and I hope I’ll be able to get to chat to you very soon again.
BM: Where are you? I assume you’re in England somewhere.
MW: I’m on the border between England and Scotland, I’m in the Northeast of England.
BM: OK ‘cause I’ll be there pretty soon, but I’m not sure if I’ll be in your region.
MW: I’ll watch your web page and find out what’s happening. It might be great to catch up.
BM: I could tell you in a second -I’m gonna dip my calendar here. there’s London, obviously – Southampton?
MW: Yes, quite a long way away from here
BM: Some place called Jazz Stroud?
MW: That’s in the vicinity of London…[Well, 100 miles away, in Gloucestershire, but south-west,…]
BM: Yeah. Oh, well.
Mick W: OK. But sometime it would be brilliant to to catch up. Thank you so much again for the time that you’ve given us so generously today, and I’m sure there’ll be a lot of discussion, about some of the ideas you’ve shared, the next time we meet on the the Zoom calls that we’re doing with Modern Guitar Harmony. And, obviously, you’re invited to any of those, anytime you feel like you’ve got free time to pop along. Thank you again. I’ll get off now and I’ll let you enjoy your day.
Ben Monder: It’s great to meet you. Thanks again. Thank you, bye, for now.
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Ben Monder on Bandcamp, links:
https://benmonder.bandcamp.com/album/day-after-day
https://benmonder.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-55-bar
Modern Guitar Harmony:
https://modernguitarharmony.com
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