“Intro to Modes” 9-week music course with Trey Gunn

by | Sep 19, 2019 | Prog News

The course runs from October 14 to December 14, 2019.
Work directly with Trey Gunn on a weekly basis in this group course.

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For all instrumentalists and singers. 

In this 9-week course we will break down one of the basic building blocks of music — the modes — into digestible parts, both sonically and theoretically, so they can be used with ease.

This course will:

  • Help you to immediately find your ground in a piece of music
  • Give you flexibility when improvising
  • Give you greater color choices when developing your own compositions
  • Help you grasp command of the core material of music
  • Give you a long-term pathway to hear deeper into the relationships of the notes

The course is designed to work for all level of players:

  • Beginning players. We will start with the basics.
  • Intermediate players. You will hone the fundamentals in your hearing for improved playing and writing.
  • Advanced players. You will find every gap in your melodic hearing. Then apply practices to clean this up and take your playing further.

Learn to play confidently while capturing the unique quality of each mode in your improvisations and compositions. This ease only comes from the deep exploration based on how you hear, in your own particular way. This course breaks down that exploration into its core essence, step-by-step.

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How a painter uses color is a useful analogy for working with the modes. Any musical idea can be tinted with one of the modes. The idea remains essentially the same; but the color of the music changes based on which mode you are using.
This course is designed to establish these “modal” differences in your ear so you can use them as you need to, much as a painter pulls from his or her palette of colors.
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Learning about modes isn’t about the information. The information is easy. Learning this material, the way I think we should, is about getting to know each tone intimately within its context — the mode’s center of gravity, or tonal center.
This course will use a progression of practices to develop our sense of each note and how that note fits into its mode. Known as ‘functional hearing’, in contrast to ‘intervallic hearing’, this work proves much more vital when improvising.
This is an oversimplification; but based on many years of practice, study and playing I have honed an approach to go directly into the sounds.
First, we learn the sounds. The information can come afterward, simply to help us organize.
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Testimonials from participants on last year’s course:

“Trey is a consummate coach. The material was presented in an alternate yet very practical order that integrates one’s voice, heart, and head. I loved it!” – David Synder, Phd.

“This course made me realize that although I have been enjoying and receiving music my whole life, I haven’t been actively listening.  That would be a bitter pill to swallow, if the course didn’t also show me that listening is within my grasp.” – Marc Pelath

“At the end of this course I felt more like being at the beginning of something.” – Jaakko Peltonen (touch guitar)

“I have been studying modes for a long time but found Trey’s presentation as the one approach where the light bulb goes on above my head.” – Bob Kessler (harmonica)

“This course helped me to understand the notes I’m playing and reminded me to keep questioning why I’m playing those notes.”
– Alex Crane (guitar)

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“This course is part of my work in aiding musicians and artists to speak from their own, original voice.”
– Trey Gunn

This will be a type of correspondence course with info/practices being presented each week and all of us digesting it together via a Google Group. There is no real-time participation, so any time-zone or personal schedule will fit with our work together.

Cost is $350
30% off discount if you register before September 30, 2019

Note: An Intermediate Modes Course will run February 10 – March 21, 2020, taking all these concepts further.
The prerequisite is this Intro Course.