Michael Dolce

“TOm Qualye light”? lol :D:D:D
But seriously, I thought he was MUCH more Allen Hinds, both in tone and playing style
REALLY good in any case!

I love Michaels playing, i’ve transcribed quite a lot for him.

I don’t see as much Tom in his playing, though I see exactly where you are coming from. To me they are both offshoots of Garsed, but each took it in a very different way. They have that modern legato sound at the base of their playing, but then did very different things with it. Michael has a lot of soul and country in his playing.

You would never mistake a Michael solo for a Tom solo, though he definitely has the Hinds thing down.

Of course, in the grander scheme of things, Michael most definitely slots in with that clique

I have his CD – amazing player, and awesome guy. Was actually just talking to him last night. Definitely hear Hinds in his playing

Yes, MD is definitely a glowing exponent of the Garsed technique set, but with a LOT of his own stuff too. In fact, I believe, from hanging out with him, that he does a lot less of the hybrid picking than Brett, but uses the sound of his hammers to get some attack.

I suppose this is as good a place as any to ask Levi (since he transcribed a few of MD’s solo including the “Minor 3rds” jam)… the way you notated Michael’s dorian moving in 3rds jam, is it common to notate as if if’s in natural minor and use accidentals for the major 6th? Rather than notate E dorian (as in this case) as D major’s key sig, with some sort of performance note to indicate the E Dorian tonality?

Ah, the old classical vs jazz thing. I still remember studying at the Australian Institute of Music and going from jazz class when we talked modes all day, and then go to theory class with a classical composer who’d say something “back in the day when people used modes” to chuckles from all the guitar players in the room.

So I guess you look at the harmony first and look for a tonic (pretty easy in a one chord vamp, lol) and then consider the melody to be either faithful or unfaithful to that tonic and notate accordingly with accidentals?

I must admit, I’ve always intuitively notated, say Dorian, in the parent major key, but I’ve never really asked anyone about this. My thinking was that a) I don’t wanna go through the whole piece writing accidentals in 🙂 and b) I thought extended chords like Em6 might confuse people if they’re not even in the key I’m writing it in. But it’s all language and as long as the person on the other end gets it, and as long as those lines with the numbers on them are right, it’s all good! 😉

Have you ever asked which way a jazz or fusion guitarist how they do it? Curious. I know you just hung out with Greg Howe for instance.

@missmisstreater 12352 wrote:

Hey Chris

It really is a personal taste thing, I prefer to use either a major or relative minor key signature and notate the accidentals because:

1.) Im from a classical background…. and they don’t like modes! I really like the fact that this was includes accidentals.

2.) When doing that the stave shows you that you are playing Aeolian with a natural 6th which is how i like to look at modes

If I use the relevant modal key signature, the intervalic structure of the mode isn’t all that easy to see, the guys i know who do it that was all play with a key center approach, seeing all modes in their relative major or minor.

I know alot of guys hate reading accidentals, but If i see a piece of music with a G key signature and there are C#s all over the place I can make an educated guess that im playing E dorian. Its the same as in the classical world, if youre reading in C and there are lots of G#s you make the assumption that you’ve modulated to the relative (harmonic) minor.

Neither method is wrong (and as we both know, 95% of guitarists don’t even look at the dots! haha)

Which method do you prefer then mate?

Hey Levi, 🙂

Wow, I never thought of it that way, (from the classical/non-modal perspective) but that makes a lot of sense! Great explanation bro! 😎 I’ve often wondered why so many choose to notate from the root’s Natural Minor (IE: in your Dorian example) and then naturalizing the “6ths” as they occur, instead of what Chris Brooks mentioned (which is to notate the mode from it’s relative key-signature.) I’ve always approached it like Chris, (from the mode’s relative key-signature) but now you (Levi) have me thinking that there is a lot of very valid merit to going the “Parallel Natural Minor” (for minor modes) and “Parallel Major” (for the major modes) route, with accidentals being individually notated as they occur. Of course in the case of Harmonic Minor, there’s not much of a choice anyways, since so many people take a quick glance at the key-signature’s total number of sharps or flats and draw their conclusions from there – LOL! Thus the Harmonic Minor’s maj-7th just can’t be an up-front/pre-existing condition. You’re so right though, as anytime I see a G-Major Key-Signature with “D” being sharpened all over the place, then I immediately think “E Harmonic Minor!” 😉 (….And if it’s an Yngwie piece without vocals in a Minor-Key, then I can probably assume that the “7ths” are sharpened! – OK, sorry – bad joke! – LOL!) 😮

Thanks for clearing that up, as I’ve often wondered about that! :confused:

*You’re “The Man” Levi! 😎

~Bill Meehan~