OT: Theory...Modes epiphany?

[Fuzzy Dustmite]

All I can kick in here is how I remember their names and their order:

If - Ionian
Dora - Dorian
Plays - Phrygian
Like - Lydian
Me - Mixolydian
All's - Aeolian
Lost - Locrian

(remember that locrian comes last because it starts with lo just like lost.)

and if this is wrong, please feel free to slap me with a salmon.

 

[Wasabi]

All I can kick in here is how I remember their names and their order:

If - Ionian
Dora - Dorian
Plays - Phrygian
Like - Lydian
Me - Mixolydian
All's - Aeolian
Lost - Locrian

(remember that locrian comes last because it starts with lo just like lost.)

and if this is wrong, please feel free to slap me with a salmon.

It's correct. You will be spared the salmon slapping.

 

[Lazybite]

ahh the mode epiphany... I had that late last year..... its a pretty cool feeling....

I still play by ear.... but my note selection has improved out of sight.... but I would like to get to the stage where I can sit down and nut out bass line using modes...

now I want to go home and practice.... DAMN YOU WORK DAMN YOU!!!!!!!

 

[Aussie Mark]

It's correct. You will be spared the salmon slapping.

Better than a Turkey Slap.

 

[Lazybite]

Better than a Turkey Slap.

Happy to be slapped by wild turkey though!!

 

[RiddimKing]

Blues Progressions and Modes

First, a caveat: I'm a relative newbie and not a theory wonk.

It's my understanding that one shouldn't approach blues progressions the way one would approach a non-blues. The blues is its own beast, and actually involves modulation. In a (non-minor) blues, for example, the modal "shape" that works best is Mixolydian--but it's a modulating Mixolydian where the shape moves with each chord change. In other words, in G blues, the fingering shape would be 24, 124, 124, 134 (starting with the two finger on the G on the E string). When you go to the IV chord (C), the same shape moves "up" a string, so that on the A string, C is the first note of the shape 24, 124, 124. When you go to the V chord (D) the shape moves over with again, the root D becoming the first 2 of the 24, 124, 124 fingering. This is easier than my awkward explanation would imply, because it merely means memorizing and applying a shape.

 

[MingusBASS]

That lightbulb moment of actually understanding how to use the modes is a great thing. Imagine being a painter, and the only colors you have to work with are red and blue. You can do some nice things with those two colors but after a while your paintings all start to look the same. All of a sudden you discover green and yellow! Ahhh, something different, it gives your paintings new life. You start to mix the paints and it opens up even more colors for you to use. Your "job" is not only easier, but more fun. The modes do for musicians what new colors/techniques do for an painter. Ha, It's late and maybe I'm talking crazy but it makes sense to me.

 

[Paul_C]

Everything I've ever been told about modes by people who know better than me says you're not looking at this the best way.

Rather than view a mode as a modification of another scale. it would be better if you see them as scales in their own right.

While it's true that E Phrygian has the same notes as C Ionian they are very different scales.

C Ionian is C D E F G A B C - ( T T S T T T S )

E Phrygian is E F G A B C D E - ( S T T T S T T )

So while it's handy to be able to pick out the notes in a mode by relating them to notes from a different scale, you'd be better off in the long run by learning each scale separately, and understanding the different subtleties that each gives you.

If all you do is play the same licks from a major scale over various changes of chord in that key then you're not using modes to do it, if you're changing the feel of a piece by using the notes differently based on how each scale or mode sounds then you are.

My knowledge of modes is not extensive, so I stand to be corrected on this


P.

http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory25.htm#modes might help you understand a bit more

 

[Psychicpet]

Riddim is right on track here,
all great stuff Wasabi but remember that if the tune and changes are diatonic then modes work great BUT as soon as (like in a BLues) instead of the changes being centered around a home key diatonically then it gets to be more of a 'modal' tune and then; generally; let the pentatonics fly and the Mixo licks or whatever chords are being used and their respective mode

getting foggy yet adougy?

 

[Wasabi]

Everything I've ever been told about modes by people who know better than me says you're not looking at this the best way.

Rather than view a mode as a modification of another scale. it would be better if you see them as scales in their own right.

While it's true that E Phrygian has the same notes as C Ionian they are very different scales.

C Ionian is C D E F G A B C - ( T T S T T T S )

E Phrygian is E F G A B C D E - ( S T T T S T T )

So while it's handy to be able to pick out the notes in a mode by relating them to notes from a different scale, you'd be better off in the long run by learning each scale separately, and understanding the different subtleties that each gives you.

If all you do is play the same licks from a major scale over various changes of chord in that key then you're not using modes to do it, if you're changing the feel of a piece by using the notes differently based on how each scale or mode sounds then you are.

My knowledge of modes is not extensive, so I stand to be corrected on this


P.

http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory25.htm#modes might help you understand a bit more

This is true, and I planned to post something like this once the first stuff sunk in. Each of the modes themselves were actually "invented" in music before we really dealt with the whole 12 tone thing, and have their own flavor.

What happens is as you practice the modes and learn to flip them around in various ways, you hear the color of each mode start to emerge.

To get to this, though, we can't just run each mode up and down, because the tones that make each mode unique won't be highlighted. This is why doing things like practing the arepeggios of each mode over a particular static chord can help, and to use permutations of the scales, etc. You need to hear the tension and release points in each mode to really get the sound of each one, and the way the modes are practiced usually doesn't transfer anything to a person's mind and ears.

Additionally, I don't know of many solos that are stuck in, say, only the "Phrgian" shape. The fact is, you can play "Phrygian" from any other modal shape.

 

[Wasabi]

Riddim is right on track here,
all great stuff Wasabi but remember that if the tune and changes are diatonic then modes work great BUT as soon as (like in a BLues) instead of the changes being centered around a home key diatonically then it gets to be more of a 'modal' tune and then; generally; let the pentatonics fly and the Mixo licks or whatever chords are being used and their respective mode

getting foggy yet adougy?

Right, but that's because we're sticking with flat sevenths on each of the chords, in, say, a blues progression. Same with modal tunes. I was definitely talking about diatonic stuff in these posts (mostly because that was the original question, or how I interpreted it). And I totally agree...mixolydian works over blues, and the pentatonic shapes...which are nice because they add some "vertical" feeling to your solos, given they have larger intervals, so they don't sound quite as "scalar" if you run them up and down.

But again, let's say you're in a modal tune, and you're soloing whatever chord is being used, and its respective mode...say a Bm chord and you're treating that as the ii (minor ii), you can any of the modes to reach all over the neck. You can use B Dorian, but also C# Phrygian, D Lydian, etc, and you're still playing the "B Dorian" scale. You can't think of it this way if you're playing piano or a wind instrument, but as a bassist, we can use every one of those shapes to give us more range on the instrument.

So this isn't an either/or. There are several ways to "use" modal shapes as bassists.

 

[dlloyd]

BUT...what if...I played the key-of-A-major MODE that starts on the D over the D chord, and the same with the E chord (i.e. mode of A major that starts on E)? All I'm doing is playing three different modes of A major. The three scale patterns are all different, but I'm still in the same key.

Sort of, but not quite.

You're not really playing modally in this situation, you're just playing a chord progression in A major. You're not really playing A ionian over the A chord, D lydian over the D chord and E mixolydian over the E chord... You're playing in A major over the whole lot, as the overall tonality of the piece is still A major.

You can think in terms of using different modes for different chords and it does work, but theoretically it's incorrect to call these modes.

Modal music (in its correct sense) involves the overall tonic being shifted, or rather the interval series for a specific tonic being shifted. Take Miles Davis' "So What" for example. The tune hangs around D, but uses notes from C major. This gives the tune a very specific "serious" feel that's characteristic of the dorian mode. If rock is more your sorth of thing Steve Vai's "Call It Sleep" hangs around an E major tonality, but it uses the notes that you would find in B major. It's a lydian modal piece and has the specific dreamy/happy feel of the lydian mode.

A better way to think of them is in relation to the intervals you'd find in either the standard major or minor scales with the same tonic. For example, If you were playing in F lydian, you'd be better thinking in terms of F major with a sharpened fourth rather than C major starting on F. Dorian is like a major scale with a flattened third and seventh (or, if you prefer, a minor scale with a sharpened sixth).

 

[adouglas]

This is REALLY interesting, folks. Many thanks.

Hmmmm....now I'm starting to get confused all over again.

In the original post, I said "blues-rock progression" and I shouldn't have...I was just using as a convenient label for a random chord progression. I don't want to muddy the waters talking about blues (oh, geez, did I really say that? Very punny, guy) and whether it's appropriate to use the example I posited in a blues setting.

All I'm trying to do is understand the very, VERY basic mechanics of this. So to keep it on track, let's just use arbitrary chord progressions without talking about any particular genre. That's the next level, and I'm not quite there yet.

Paul C wrote.....
Rather than view a mode as a modification of another scale. it would be better if you see them as scales in their own right.

While it's true that E Phrygian has the same notes as C Ionian they are very different scales.

C Ionian is C D E F G A B C - ( T T S T T T S )

E Phrygian is E F G A B C D E - ( S T T T S T T )

So while it's handy to be able to pick out the notes in a mode by relating them to notes from a different scale, you'd be better off in the long run by learning each scale separately, and understanding the different subtleties that each gives you.

But... isn't the sequence the same, just shifted? I'm envisioning the scale sequence as a "window" placed over a continuous scale. Shift the window left or right and you have different modes because you're starting on a different degree of the scale. The example you show above has the same sequence of intervals, just starting in different places. Like this:

S T T T S T T S T T T S T T S T T T S T T S T T T S T T S T T T S T T

With your C ionian and E phrygian "windows" overlaid, it looks like this:

S T T T S (T T S T T T S )T T S T T T S T T ( S T T T S T T ) S T T T S T T

From where I sit those two modes ARE very much the same scale, jsut starting in different places. Sure, they're "scales in their own right" as you say, but when envisioning this, it makes more sense to me to look at it from the point of view of getting everything to relate by applying an overall framework into which the scales fit. DNA vs. a bucket of amino acids....

I'm just finding it a lot easier to visualize all of this as a simple set of rules that will let me arrive at something usable than as a set of seven discrete scale forms that I'd have to learn by rote...in all their positions....and THEN try to relate them to what I'm playing....that's a lot of stuff.

 

[dlloyd]

But... isn't the sequence the same, just shifted? I'm envisioning the scale sequence as a "window" placed over a continuous scale.

Yes, you can think of it that way. For thinking in terms of playing over chord progressions in the way you described it's probably best to keep it in reference to the overall key, so thinking "C major starting on D" is a pretty good way to think about it. Arpeggios are a little trickier to think of this way, but it's possible to do.

When it comes to actual modal pieces, the "C major starting on D" method becomes less useful. The problem is that it inhibits you from thinking modally. You're mentally relating to a tonic that doesn't exist in the tune.

I found it best initially to think like this...

Lydian = Major, #4
Ionian = Major
Mixolydian = Major, b7
Dorian = Major, b3, b7 or minor #6
Aeolian = Major, b3, b6, b7 or minor
Phrygian = Major, b2, b3, b6, b7 or minor, b2
Locrian = Major, b2, b3, b5, b6, b7 or minor, b2, b5

Going down the list, there's a progression from the happier modes through moody to downright mean.

 

[Paul_C]

This is REALLY interesting, folks. Many thanks.

But... isn't the sequence the same, just shifted?

I'm envisioning the scale sequence as a "window" placed over a continuous scale. Shift the window left or right and you have different modes because you're starting on a different degree of the scale. The example you show above has the same sequence of intervals, just starting in different places. Like this:

S T T T S T T S T T T S T T S T T T S T T S T T T S T T S T T T S T T

With your C ionian and E phrygian "windows" overlaid, it looks like this:

S T T T S (T T S T T T S )T T S T T T S T T ( S T T T S T T ) S T T T S T T

From where I sit those two modes ARE very much the same scale, jsut starting in different places. Sure, they're "scales in their own right" as you say, but when envisioning this, it makes more sense to me to look at it from the point of view of getting everything to relate by applying an overall framework into which the scales fit. DNA vs. a bucket of amino acids....

I'm just finding it a lot easier to visualize all of this as a simple set of rules that will let me arrive at something usable than as a set of seven discrete scale forms that I'd have to learn by rote...in all their positions....and THEN try to relate them to what I'm playing....that's a lot of stuff.

Your system does tell you what the notes are, but doesn't help you learn their relationship to each other, nor does it help in constructing chords etc. from them.

If by learning the scales you know that the mode/scale you're playing in has a sharpened fourth then you can apply that to whatever you're trying to play much easier than having to translate it through whichever Major scale you're taking the notes from.

It's true that almost everyone sees the connection between a Major scale and the modes that use the same notes and assumes it's "easier" to keep that association than learn each scale individually, but those people that I know who have a better grasp of music theory than I do all tell me that it's easier in the long-term to put the extra effort in at the beginning and learn them as individual scales.

P.

 

[Wasabi]

This is REALLY interesting, folks. Many thanks.

Hmmmm....now I'm starting to get confused all over again.

In the original post, I said "blues-rock progression" and I shouldn't have...I was just using as a convenient label for a random chord progression. I don't want to muddy the waters talking about blues (oh, geez, did I really say that? Very punny, guy) and whether it's appropriate to use the example I posited in a blues setting.

All I'm trying to do is understand the very, VERY basic mechanics of this. So to keep it on track, let's just use arbitrary chord progressions without talking about any particular genre. That's the next level, and I'm not quite there yet.



But... isn't the sequence the same, just shifted? I'm envisioning the scale sequence as a "window" placed over a continuous scale. Shift the window left or right and you have different modes because you're starting on a different degree of the scale. The example you show above has the same sequence of intervals, just starting in different places. Like this:

S T T T S T T S T T T S T T S T T T S T T S T T T S T T S T T T S T T

With your C ionian and E phrygian "windows" overlaid, it looks like this:

S T T T S (T T S T T T S )T T S T T T S T T ( S T T T S T T ) S T T T S T T

From where I sit those two modes ARE very much the same scale, jsut starting in different places. Sure, they're "scales in their own right" as you say, but when envisioning this, it makes more sense to me to look at it from the point of view of getting everything to relate by applying an overall framework into which the scales fit. DNA vs. a bucket of amino acids....

I'm just finding it a lot easier to visualize all of this as a simple set of rules that will let me arrive at something usable than as a set of seven discrete scale forms that I'd have to learn by rote...in all their positions....and THEN try to relate them to what I'm playing....that's a lot of stuff.

This is one way to look at it, but the caveat a previous poster stated is you're not playing "modal" music. You are using the modal patterns in the original way I was describing them, which is to navigate the fretboard and be in a particular key. That's not ALL you get, though. You have the physical building blocks to place lots of tonal colors into your solos.

For example, as I said before, you don't have to play a particular scale over each chord. In other words, if you're in the key of G, and the chords are G, Em, C, D, you don't have to play Ionian over G, Aeolian over Em, Lydian over C and Mixolydian over D. The song is in the key of G (given the chord family that you see), so you can play any of the modes in that key (G Ionian, A Dorian, B Phrygian, etc.). If you do that, you ARE really playing a G scale, but you're also play an A Dorian scale, B Phrygian, etc, just starting on different notes.

As bass players, because of the way our instrument works, we have the modal shapes as a way of creating a super all-neck version of a scale. BTW...this works for other scales, too, like harmonic minor...you have modes of that, too, derived the same way as from the major. And really, the pentatonic shapes are "modes" of the pentatonic scale.

That's the answer to the question you were originally asking, I think.

But we can take it further, and this is where other instrumentalists like pianists or horn players use modes, since they're not dealing with fretboard shapes, as we dealt with above.

You can take each mode and define it in relation to the major scale (Ionian) as the previous poster said.

Ionian is the major scale.
Dorian has a flat 3rd and flat 7th (in relation to the Ionian)
Phrgian has the flat 2nd flat 3rd and flat 6th and flat 7th
Lydian has the #4
Mixolydian has the b7
Aeolian has the b3, b6, b7 (natural minor scale)
Locrian has the b2, b3, b5, b6, b7

Each of those modes has a "sound" or "flavor" in its own right, and we can explore them as individual sounds. Again, you develop your understanding of each of those modal sounds not by running each mode up and down, but by exploring permutations, arpeggios, scale fragments, etc within each shape.

Hope that helps.

Not to advertise too much here, but if you take MusicDojo's Jazz improv 1 and Jazz Improv 2 courses with Adam Nitti, this stuff and a ton more is presented in those two courses, and I can almost guarantee it will all make sense to you. And you don't have to play jazz for it to be beneficial. It's really a fretboard awareness, theory, and improv course for any style.

 

[Wasabi]

Wow..we were all posting at the same time Lots of duplicate info there! ;-)

 

[Paul_C]

Wow..we were all posting at the same time Lots of duplicate info there! ;-)

lots to type, that's why

P.

 

[Wasabi]

Oh...listen to Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, and start with So What. Learn his solo on your bass, and see how he explores a modal shape.

 

[dlloyd]

Phrygian has the flat 2nd flat 3rd and flat 6th (it can sound Spanish or middle eastern, because it has that big leap between the flat 6 and the 7th

and b7

Lydian has the #5

#4 instead of #5

Not to advertise too much here, but if you take MusicDojo's Jazz improv 1 and Jazz Improv 2 courses with Adam Nitti, this stuff and a ton more is presented in those two courses, and I can almost guarantee it will all make sense to you. And you don't have to play jazz for it to be beneficial. It's really a fretboard awareness, theory, and improv course for any style.

I've learned a ton of stuff from Mr Nitti's columns in Bass Player, I plan to take his Music Dojo lessons when time and finance allows. So a sort-of +1 here