Scale Modes are Weirder Than I Thought
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- Опубликовано: 14 июн 2024
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I think what gets lost in teaching music theory-and a lot of people who should know better are guilty of this, from neighborhood piano teachers to contest judges to MIDI chord pack bros-is that theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. Scales and harmonizing existed before a bunch of university boffins gave them fancy Greek names, and the fact that some note combinations make harmonies that people like is a weird mix of acoustic physics and cultural upbringing. You don’t need to know any of it to make music, but it can save you a lot of time if you do. So music theory is bullshit, but it’s bullshit that *works.*
Extremely good point!!
That is a motivating POV for me to be more mature and wade through the gate-keeping language and attitude that triggers me with theory to get to the goods. Thanks for the well articulated comment.
And thanks Jeremy. Your style sure helps tear down the walls for me. I’m sitting down at the piano for a hands on re-watch.
💯 Music theory is the study of “why does it sound like that?” It’s fundamentally about analyzing music that already exists, not about creating new music.
And that “analysis” is basically just giving names to common patterns that have been found in music. And you don’t need to know a single one of these names to make good music - but if you do, you’ll likely be able to get where you want to go faster by understanding things as higher-level macro concepts instead of micro, note-for-note thinking. And you’ll definitely be able to communicate with other musicians more easily. 😁
So yeah…bullshit that works.
It definitely is prescriptive for a large amount of traditionally composed music and styles. It's hard to make generalized statements about it because it's more or less relevant depending how you make music and what music you're making. For certain instruments, time periods, etc, music theory is definitely more of a prescription than a description.
@@shlermjuice8068 I would say that music theory knowledge can be used prescriptively, but that the study itself is fundamentally descriptive. You can’t theorize about music without music to study.
I’ve watched hundreds of videos on modes and this was by far the most fun
Great stuff Jeremy! One little thing to add: you mentioned that A Minor is the “relative minor” to C Major. In that same way, this “you can play all the modes with just the white keys” means that F Lydian is the “relative lydian” to C Major. We don’t seem to use names like “relative dorian” or “relative phrygian” very often, but they work just the same as “relative minor.” 😁
And a little tip for writing with modes: most of the modes have just one note different from a major or minor scale. This is the note that gives each mode its unique character. Jeremy mentions that in Dorian you get a major subdominant (IV) chord. That happens because the characteristic note of Dorian is the sixth degree (which is sharp compared to natural minor), and that six degree is in the subdominant chord. When writing in modes, it’s usually useful to emphasize the characteristic note of the mode by using it in the harmony. The characteristic notes of each mode, when compared to major or natural minor, are:
Dorian (minor): raised 6th
Phrygian (minor): lowered 2nd
Lydian (major): raised 4th
Mixolydian (major) lowered 7th
(Let’s not talk about Locrian!)
Great video Jeremy!
This is my take from having experimented with these concepts but I find that the reason relative minor and major are talked about so much is that when you play diatonically and move around the available chords you start to outline a gravity that is the most comfortable on the Ionian or Aeolian scales. If you’re in C major you can “slip” into A minor without leading into it at all, you can just go there and be in minor already. It’ll take a bit more work to tonicize D dorian as the new key; it’ll usually sound like it’s a predominant flavor when you land on it.
In fact I think it would be easier to go to A dorian from C major (sans lead-in)
I think this property is what makes the relative major and minor so often mentioned.
That said I also think of the position of the modes in the same way
All very well said.
Terms like “relative minor” and “major scale” are inherently misleading, not least because - if we define “minor” as “having a major third above the root”, then aeolian is just one of four “minor” modes of just one particular scale, the diatonic scale, while Ionian is just one of three “major” modes of that particular scale. It would make more sense to talk about a given heptatonic scale, rendered in a particular transposition (it’s “key”), having seven “relative modes”
If terminology was clear and unambiguous, what we call “the C major scale” would be called “the diatonic scale, in the Ionian mode, tuned to the key in which the Ionian tonic corresponds to C”, which is a hell of a mouthful, but much more accurate.
Similarly, rather than thinking of “C major” and “A natural minor” as “relative keys”, it would make a lot more sense to think of them as two of seven relative MODES, of the SAME key (in this case, “the white notes key”) of the same scale (with “scale” understood as a particular, distinctive pattern of large and small intervals - in this case the diatonic scale pattern - with no particular note specified as tonic, until mode is clarified)
The muddied distinctions that exist between “scale”, “mode”, “key”, and “tonal centre”, in the overlapping ways those terms are commonly used lead to a lot of fundamental misunderstandings about the way music actually works.
@@fromchomleystreet I didn’t make the terms, bro. I have my beefs with the language that has been decided upon by old white men, too. But here we are. 🤷♂️
@@bodhibeats8257Hey, I wasn’t taking a shot at you. I agree with your point and was building on it. The “relative keys” terminology commonly applied exclusively to Ionian and Aeolian, neglects to acknowledge those five other modes that have just as much claim to “relative” status.
Also, I have to say I don’t think the particular hue of their skin or whether they were young or old had a hell of a lot to do with it. People of all ethnicities and ages share a capacity for coming up with confusing jargon weighed down by the weight of history. It’s not anybody’s “fault”, it’s just a function of countless generations of people basically making something up as they go along, and simultaneously devising ways to describe it. It’s inevitable that it will be imperfect. But that doesn’t mean we can’t analyze it’s imperfections, to maybe bring a bit more clarity into the conversation.
The fox face was oddly hypnotic and I had no choice but to watch this straight through in one sitting, though I would have anyway because modal theory is freaking awesome!
Yeah definitely learned some things but still loved hearing the parts I already knew. Decades ago I knew nothing and was writing a song I thought was only in C major but was informed it was actually A minor and I thought, “neat! Why not try writing with the same notes but move the root to different notes.” Then I was writing in all the modes but only much later in a jazz history class in college learned that church modes are a thing. Mind blown again. This video explained the names and various other facts that are blowing my mind yet again. Thank you!
I wrote a little midi daemon which reads two keyboards, one "hint track" for key/scale/chord info and the other for performance info, and merges them into a single output stream. Tap 2 or more notes at the same time on the "hint" keyboard to set a new key, scale, or chord (or tap 1 note to transpose)... and then the white notes on the performance keyboard get automatically remapped to fit. This makes improvisation really easy, even for songs with complex key changes and stuff, because the hint track can be sequenced to keep the performance track always in tune. The program also shows the current status for both on a screen, like the name (if any) and tonic for the current scale, and the name (if any) for what is currently being played. So I had to build a big table of nearly every possible combination of notes, find out which ones have names, and make up labels for the others. Someday I really should clean it up and put it on github or something.
I'd buy that for a dollar!
That sounds really cool. Might take a crack at it myself (probably by splitting one keyboard). Even if it doesn't work I oughta learn something about music along the way
what language/framework did you use to build it?
@@alexbolton8402 I used Python with ALSA in Linux.
Fun presentation. Couple of things:
1) I think it's fine to just think of a mode as a rotation of a "parent scale". That Phrygian Dominant you like is the 5th mode of Harmonic Minor (which, as you point out, has a minor 3rd in it).
2) As you showed, most of us learn the major scale (Ionian) pattern by the intervals *between* the notes, i.e. W-W-H-W-W-W-H, but ultimately I think it's good to learn the names of intervals (from a given root/tonic), so that you can understand that natural minor is characterized by a minor 6th and minor 7th (m6,m7) while Dorian minor has a major 6th and minor 7th (M6, m7). Harmonic minor has a minor 6th and a major 7th (m6, M7). Etc. I think that's easier than trying to memorize that Dorian is W-H-W-W-W-H-W
3) On the other hand, that last sentence does show that Dorian is a palindrome.:)
4) The so-called Greek modes can be arranged from light to dark in the following order: Lydian, Ionian, Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian, Phrygian, Locrian. I remember this as LIMDAPL. Starting with Lydian, you lower, in order, 4-7-3-6-2-5-1. (ie the 4th, then the 7th etc). The cool thing is when you reach the darkest (Locrian) and lower the 1 (root/tonic) you get Lydian a step lower, i.e. you can start the cycle all over again.
Hope all that made sense.
Cheers
First time I’m screenshooting a RUclips comment, thank you!
@@nickygrillet786 You're welcome!
I enjoyed your comment, understanding almost nothing except the basic shape of your argument. You also made me google Palindrome and it took me a minute to get it after :D. What a subtle joke.
I know none of the words. But I play a Bansuri for a long time now. 6 holes, equivalent to the white keys of the piano. To me the scales are just on what hole I start, and normally end.
As I can also play slightly dirty half tones by slightly opening holes, I can play any scale ever used and I can play along with them by ear.
But what I can never do, is tell another musician what I'm doing. I can't tell tell them anything but the key of my flute and I don't understand anything of what they tell me in terms of keys or modes. I have my own tactile and emotional understanding of these things but I cannot explain that to another person. For me communication is really the raison d'être of the theory.
Like many people I enjoy learning music, but never wanted to put in the effort to memorize all the theory. I always feel sorry for people that stopped music because they couldn't learn the theory. It's a great tool to have, but the key is to enjoy music with people. You don't need theory for that. I just play and learn along the way. It is a wonderful journey of which I enjoy every single step.
If you want examples of every single mode, there's an album by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard called "Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, And Lava" (see if you can notice the gimmick in the title)! Each song is written in a consecutive mode. So the first is in Ionian, then Dorian, and so on! Very good songs and a wonderful implementation of this bit of music theory!
One CW though: The song Hell's Itch contains descriptions of self-harm.
i appreciate you very much thank you
gizzard mention in the wild!
@@suop1234 And I'm not the only one! I scrolled through the comments a bit and saw someone else recommend the same album.
I self-studied some Indian and Arabic musical history, trying to understand why they sound so exotic.
I came to discover a past where there weren't really any conventions.
Each area had their own scales and their own tuning. In fact imagine a town without a tuning fork. You just tune the instruments to each other and then play. There is a past with much much more variety than even those modes on that album you mention.
In the west music theory has erased more of this past, than in other cultures. This is partly an explanation of the exotic sound in non-western music. There are sliding tones and tiny differences that simply don't exist any more in western music.
An Example:
Indian musicians have a startling ear for the subtle shapes a sliding tone can have. In an instrument like the Sitar this is very prominent. It is a whole world that western musicians are nearly blind to. It's not captured much in our music notation, and thus it's importance has been lost. But in Indian music it is very very important. And therefore they also have a much much better ear for it. After all their teacher would reprimand them for doing a sliding tone slightly wrong.
There is a whole world outside western music theory. It is utterly fascinating and not well studied. I'll stop here 'cause I think I could write a book on this :p. It is so fascinating.
I don't know what I love more about this video - the fact that Jeremy is, I think, the person I find most helpful at learning a topic from; or the fact that he's just fully leaned into his furryness now with the talking fox
Thank you Professor Fox!🦊
Hot tip for anyone thinking about playing with modes: they make key changes easy and smooth as butter! By keeping the scale the same but temporarily changing the root note, you can inject certain feelings into a song, like an adventure without ever leaving home. Or, if you're modulating to a scale that's further away, you can borrow chords from the different modes of your current scale to ease the transition. It's really something you get a feel for the more you play around with it, give it a try and see what you come up with!
(I actually found this out by accident - I needed a filler track for an album, so decided to take one of my old compositions and move it around to different modes. But I discovered by playing it in F Dorian, I was able to PERFECTLY transition into the next song in E flat Major, since you know, both scales are all the same notes!)
Hot tip for anyone wanting to explore this super hot tip further: this practice of “borrowing” chords from relative modes is often called “modal interchange.” It is awesome and there is copious RUclips content about it. 😁
Hey, I'm trying to understand your post as a player of improvisation without barely any theory.
When you say keeping the scale but changing the root note for a part... And let's say I'm only using the white keys on a piano.
Do you then mean that for a part of the song "changing the root" you are just starting off on a different white keys for a certain part, but while using still only the same keys? So just sort of changing which note is emphasized?
Forgive that I also don't really know the difference between key and mode. I play a 6 hole flute and I struggle to understand why there is a difference. To me it is just what holes I use and what hole I start on.
@@melanieenmats Sounds like you’ve basically got it to me! If you play all the white keys on a piano from C to C, you get Ionian mode (which is the “typical” major scale). If you play the same notes from D to D, you get Dorian mode. The same notes from E to E is Phrygian mode. And so on. 😁
It gets even more perplexing when they talk about it in jazz. They're like: oh yeah, play the mixolydian with a dominant 7th. Play the dorian with the minor 7th. And as a pianist you are thinking .... you mean I just keep playing the same major scale?
G# Super locrian submediant
Lol I don't understand the theory you use but that is what I'm always thinking when I hear jazz players like this.
Meanwhile I improvise with anything on a 6 hole flute, and I just pick what holes or half holes to use or skip by ear. And then I can play with them in most cases.
This is very funny to me.
But sometimes it is too complicated and then I do fail to find a solution. If there are many key changes it gets really difficult if I don't know the music beforehand.
but a mixolydian is like a major scale with a b7 so a dominant 7th can be built from the degrees in the mode?
you being a flute player makes so much sense. Big flautist vibes from this channel.
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned already, but when I was studying this in school, we discussed how the thing about disliking the augmented second in the harmonic minor scale at least partially had to do with vocalists. They believed that it would be difficult for vocalists to sing that interval in tune, so many of those especially old conventions exist around performability on their specific instruments. A lot of things in music are holdovers from practicality of how things used to be, and that still exists even in the production world today, which is always fun for me to discover
But on the other hand much of those conventions erased much of our music history. I find it baffling that anyone would think there is any interval we could not sing. I've studied Indian music a bit, and you should hear them practice their vocals. There is so much subtlety in the sliding tones... If you listen to that.. Why would you ever think there is some interval that is difficult. It is not, this is entirely cultural. A voice is just a string that can play any tone after any other tone.
@@melanieenmats Oh exactly! I'm Ashkenazi Jewish, and our musical culture diverges heavily from standard Western musical cultures. I was just pointing out that within the ideas of Western music theory, that's where those ideas come from.
Cuppla things.
The modes have a pretty deep relationship to counterpoint. If you're new to studying functional harmony i reccomend stepping back a bit and digging deeper into counterpoint. A lot of the "weirdness" starts making a lot more sense.
Also, and this isnt necessarily a callout because it's an issue in music theory, but we collectively need to formalize some scale names and genre names that don't utilize slurs for romani people.
One of my favourite things about the modes of the major scale is that, just like a major key will have chord qualities of major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished, so the modes of the major scale follow the same pattern.
The D Dorian is an altered minor scale, E Phyrigian is minor, F Lydian is major, etc etc, following the same formula as the chords of the major scale.
I do it like
Desert level scale: phrygian dominant
Arabian vampire tower scale: harmonic minor
Water level: ionian
Level that requires a flashlight cause it's really dark: locrian
Mushroom forest: mixolydian
Tavern music: Dorian
Yup... Music theory...
everyone knows water level is lydian
@@eddy_is_crunchy5593 actually that does fit pretty well, maybe ionian can be for ice levels with those slippery floors and yetis 🥶
Bruh water level is dorian
Awesome! Particularly helpful to hear all the modes in C next to each other at the end. Next do the chords that are diatonic to the scale, and how you can use them in composition!
Short, to the point, nice, simple. And I love the fox animation.
The talking fox never ceases to be funny.
My most popular song is in Locrian scale and it is often used in Heavy Metal because of how the tritone is utilized there (Enter Sandman intro is an example of Locrian in popular music)
I make soundtrack music and do most of my compositions in Locrian just because it has a good amount of sound variety.
I learned about these back when I crammed 3 years of theory into 6 months for college entrance exam and was fascinated by it. My favorite is the Lydian mode which, from what I remember, is used a lot for more spacey vibes. It's my go to playing around mode, playing Lydian C, so... C in F position. Idk why but it sounds so beautiful.
Also this is such a good way of explaining it. I was trying to talk to my brother in law about these modes and just couldn't find the right way to explain it.
this is stuff that never made sense at school, but now it does. i'm gonna rewatch this lots of times until it sinks in. thank you!
The modes all finally clicked for me, both in my ears and in my hands, when I practiced them this way in tandem:
1) Parallel from the same root note, which is what you did toward the end, when you play all the modes from C for example. This forces you to understand what notes alter from the primary "major" / Ionian scale played from C, which also allows you to really hear what these alterations do to the scale, rather than playing them "derivative" which means from each scale degree (as is typically taught and as you illustrated each mode in the beginning).
2) Perhaps most helpful is to play them NOT in order of how they are viewed from derivative scale degrees (that is the modes built on C, D, E etc), but rather, the modes in order of their alterations. Doing so allows you to play a master scale template so to speak, and alter only ONE note at a time, so it's far easier to grasp and also hear the differences as you go. I prefer to do this from what I would call Brightest to Darkest, and in parentheses are the notes you would alter as you go, thinking of alterations from the template major scale (all white keys starting on C for example), and each one sequentially building off the previous one:
Lydian (#4)
Ionian (nat4)
Mixolydian (b7)
Dorian (b3)
Aeolian (b6)
Phrygian (b2)
Locrian (b5)
This will also allow you to observe the specific notes which give each note their specific flavor and quality. Observe as you go that all of these alterations create new half-steps intervals (as located in the parentheses). It is these half-steps which give each mode their character - so much so that I often think of these modes as their alterations instead, which has made it far easier for me to learn and hear them in other songs too. Because each mode can also be quantified as having a primarily major, minor, or diminished quality, it's easier to categorize them as such:
Lydian - Major with a #4
Ionian - Major with all natural/unaltered notes
Mixolydian - Major with a flattened 7th
Dorian - Minor with a flattened 3
Aeolian - Minor with a flattened 6
Phrygian - Minor with a flattened 2
Locrian - Diminished with a flattened 5
How is that helpful? Well, it makes it that much easier to do modal mixture, where you can bounce between modes in your song for added colorations. So you can be playing your major scale and know that when you sharpen the 4, you'll get a bright and wondrous Lydian sound. And let's say you switch over to your relative minor (Am for simplicity of all white keys) - by default this is Aeolian, which we can describe as having that somber sound due to its flattened 6th. But then try raising the 6th and seeing what happens - you'll suddenly get a brighter minor sound, one which is less doleful, perhaps even a little quirky = Dorian. But maybe you want to go even darker and edgier, so simply flatten the 2 = Phrygian. In this way when I play Phrygian I'm really just thinking of a minor scale with a flat2. So in other words, rather than having to memorize the specific formula for each mode, it's far easier and more musical to understand how they alter from the major and minor scales.
You can also observe certain things about playing them from "brightest to darkest," such as their tonal colors. Notice how Dorian is in the middle - now go play Dorian and look up tunes written in Dorian - interesting that it almost feels at times kinda major, and kinda minor (which you can hear really perfectly if you play a simple chord progression between minor i and the major IV, such as between Dm and G major). As a mode it's one of my favorites because it really is the best of both worlds and can straddle the line nicely of being a little bit dark yet also a little bit hopeful and playful too, yet not too sweet either ;)
One last thing, on the topic of minor scales as you mentioned with harmonic minor & melodic minor, one of the most helpful lessons I ever received is to think of them less as individual minor scales, and more like alterations on the natural minor scale = or more like, the minor scale includes all of those altered notes, and context dictates how they are used. Melodic minor is especially misleading how it is taught which is that it is its own separate scale which always ascends with the raised 6th and 7th, and descends with the flattened 6th & 7th. In musical reality, composers didn't think of it so literally. It's most likely taught this way to make it easier to learn the fingering for muscle memory. But real music uses all altered forms of the minor scales and will frequently mix and match back and forth within a single passage. In fact sometimes they will RAISE the 6th & 7th on the way down! How is that possible you might think? If that sounds confusing, it's more helpful to understand *tendency tones*, and that is that the 6th and 7th scale degrees have magnetic pulls to our ears in one direction, or the other. A flat or natural 6th wants to pull toward the 5th scale degree; but when raised it points in the direction of the tonic. So with that in mind, if you see a composer raise the 6th but the direction of the melody is descending, you might observe further on they are going down to the tonic at the bottom of the octave, or they are going down and then back up toward the tonic above, using that alteration as a turnaround basically. And crazy enough, sometimes the 6th will raise, but not the 7th, and it never resolves to the tonic - which takes us back to that Dorian sound which is exactly what that is (minor scale with a raised 6th but flat 7).
Point is, all of these minor key alterations are best understood through the lens of tendency tones and their magnetic pull - where do you want your melody or chords to go? Alterations create not only spicy color but also movement. When practiced as I recommended above, altering just one note at a time from the C major scale, it will be the easiest way to train your ear for what these modes sound like and are capable of doing.
Then, once you feel more comfortable, you can enter the even wackier world of altered modes! Two fun and still very musical ones are Lydian Dominant (#4/b7) + Superlocrian. Hope this super long essay helps someone out there! 🤪
I love the animated fox, it's awesome
Learning and using modes is key when it comes to writing more spicy flavours of music. Like how some Phrygian modes are used in alot of egyptian music, Celtic / Medieval music can be nailed just jamming in A dorian and some mixolydian modes etc. Its very handy stuff to know.
The Locrian mode is quite interesting. It sometimes sounds like a spookier flamenco scale, though it also evoke a mundane-like tone, or it can be emotionally ambiguous and transcendent.
A fun example of mixolydian: Scottish trad has a lot of mixolydian tunes which have parts of the melody with their 1 on scale-tonic, and parts of the the melody with their 1 on scale-VII, adds a fun dynamic jumping feeling to them. (EDIT: I guess this means you could say the two resolves to mixolydian but dances between mixolydian and lydian) Mixolydian being the “dominant” scale means you can also then from the mixo tune to a tune in the relative ionian/major to get that whole V-I resolution thing going on a set level, all while playing on a diatonic instrument like the penny whistle or pipes.
pentatonic minor d# is just the black keys if I'm not mistaken, and it's interesting to know the scales or modes that share these keys and switch between em
This felt like a hack to me when a buddy of mine asked me to write a few tracks for a short film he was working on. He sent me a bunch of tracks that he was feeling inspiration from and asked me to make something of a similar vibe; so I took the melody lines from his inspo tracks, found what scale mode they were using, and then just... wrote a song in that key to get the right mode. Like, oh, this one song has a melody line that uses the Lydian mode - I'll just pedal point on F and noodle on the white keys til I find a good hook!
I really enjoyed this video! I enjoyed this while I was drinking my morning coffee, then suddenly felt the need to start taking notes and now here I am learning before breakfast. Thanks for making this!
Nice coincidence! I've just been looking into the topic
Some interesting things I have found so far:
The modes can be sorted by how many sharps and flats they have compared to the major scale
Moving to the next mode while keeping the same root note is in a way equivalent to moving in the circle of fifths
It even works between lydian and locrian, but the root note has to shift by a half step
The dorian mode seems to be the most neutral as it has three modes that have more sharps and another three that have more flats than it
It is also the only symmetrical mode as in you get the same whole-/halftone sequence moving either up or down the scale from the root
Heptatonic scales have 7 notes and so there are 5 unused notes in an octave
Moving to the next key in the circle of fifths removes a note from the scale and adds a new one
You can figure out in which order the notes of a scale are replaced by going around the circle enough
If you use a major scale, you'll notice the original root note changes quite quickly, and instead the 2nd note of the scale remains the longest
Now, if you instead use the dorian scale, you'll get something more logical
The root stays the longest, the next are the fourth and the fifth, then second and seventh, and the first ones to go are the third and the sixth note of the scale
This order is in line with how stable the notes of a scale are usually tought as, which I find really cool
By the same logic you can also figure out which out-of-key notes are "the least out of key"
I guess we should have D dorian at the top of the circle of fifths
Also, stacking different intervals fit best in a certain mode, meaning you get every note of the scale before you need to stack out-of-key notes
Stacking fifths work best in lydian
Fourths work best in locrian
Alternating major and minor (first major then minor) thirds results in the lydian scale
Alternating minor and major thirds gives you the notes of a dorian scale first
i'm really surprised that you have missed that when you've been in music for so long. it's probably the first thing beyond minor and major i learned when playing guitar as a kid.
when making music, i do find western theory pretty limiting nowadays. i lifted my favourite scale from indian classical music (and have yet to find anyone else making use of it in the west).
I think myxolydian with a flat 6 sounds really nice, for the same reason as why you like Dorian, but inverse. Myxolidian flat 6 is like inverted Dorian, with a Major root surrounded by minor chords. This can be useful to have a hopeful resolution on the home key.
More videos in this format please! You've got a hit, this was amazing. Really, really good, even with basic concepts it was fun and I loved the conversational style.
Phrygian Dominant is such a beautiful scale. Phrygian Dom also can be used in harmonic minor where there are two 1.5 steps. Between 2 and 3 and between 6 and 7. A melodic minor for phrygian dom could also be employed.
What the melodic minor scale is trying to accomplish is smooth voice leading, for both versions of the 7th scale degree. It's not necessarily trying to get at the concept of "only these notes while ascending and only these ones while descending;" rather, it's just a convention due to the more common ascending resolution of the leading tone toward the tonic, as opposed to the subtonic (which is what we call the 7th scale degree from natural minor) which is just as happy to move up to the tonic as it is down to the 6th.
Essentially, the scale is encapsulating the harmonic vocabulary needed to use both versions of the 7th degree effectively in compositions with smooth voice leading, but it isn't meant to suggest that the raised 6th and 7th degrees are only to be used while ascending, and that the 6th and 7th from natural minor only while descending.
Also, what piano plugin are you using here? It's gorgeous.
You should check out the album Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. It has one song in each mode and also it just slaps generally.
Very good album, and I like the hidden nod to the modes in the title!
This taught me more than any music classes ever did - your charisma and fursona are icing on the cake. Awesome video!
Thanks so much! I have read so much about it and never really "got" it. Your explanation that they can be found by moving the root up the keyboard was enlightening (at least for me).
you can also use the parallel modes, say c mixolydian when operating in c major, to find borrowed chords that change the mood depending on which mode you borrow from
Fun thing related to modes is using borrow chords from your root note’s other modes (e.g. IV min to I major). Lets you break out of typical chord progressions without going off the rails.
Awesome stuff as always Jeremy... love the presentation style and content! xD
I started on a folk instrument that had diatonic frets (appalacian dulcimer). so you are always playing in key. Because of the fretting the instrument is very comfortable in Mixolydian and Ionian but you could do other modes by just leaving out any notes that don't work or capoing (just like how you moved modes on the piano) or by changing the tuning of a string (usually to do Aeolian or Ionian in a different way). It has drone strings (I and V) and some melody notes can make very strong chords or partial chords (especially third, seventh, sixth, and fourth).
The Strumstick is a related instrument and tuned the same way and a bit more approachable if you're looking for something easy to try (even easier than a ukulele)
This is so awesome! Thx for explaining so well and calming
I sincerely appreciate this so so much! Please keep doing this, it's so lovely and it really help
i would really love more of these music theory videos! you explain it really well
So the whole concept of modes found me like 15 years in to my music hobby. I was super used to thinking in the rigid western key signature way of thinking about scales. It was good to learn to prescribe music, but learning about modes changed how I think when I'm improvising and composing. Mixolydian mode is cool, but mixolydian flat 2nd is basically the recipe for any "epic" soundtrack.
It's a super neat way to re-think how to catch a feeling in composing
The thing you didn’t know was the very first thing I learned about modes- and it made sense almost immediately. There’s even a really appropriate mnemonic to help you remember them: I Don’t Particularly Like Modes A Lot.
The natural overtone series (and synthetic ones) are another important part of modes and harmony which isn't always emphasized in classical theory. In synthesizers, for example, you aren't always working with overtones that work with a happier mode (ionian, lydian, mixo), and you have to keep in mind what "chord" your single note is implying with its overtone harmony. Something you write for a triangle wave, for example, might sound horrendous on a sawtooth because the full set of your frequencies aren't stacking up the same way -- and then of course which harmonies you use with that "voice" is going to affect which modes best fit with them.
once i learned all this stuff i concluded that one can play anything, and it will be some scale. it only becomes music if you could repeat it
I didn't know I could use 20minutes of my time on earth to learn about scales. You made me do it. And I'm glad I clicked.
I believe that's the kind of video I can go back to in 1 year and understand even deeper. Thanks a lot.
I was within a couple months of a two-year music degree studying guitar when I quit school.
I was taught modes as the major scale starting on a different degree. I was also taught them as modifications of the major scale - For example, Lydian is Major with a #4, Dorian is Major with a b3 and a b7, etc... But for better or worse, I always thought of Dorian, Phrygian, and Locrian as modifications of the natural minor scale - Dorian is Minor with a #6, Phrygian is Minor with a b2, etc...
I suppose both ways of thinking about it have their strengths.
Absolutely awesome video. Someone just showed me for the first time that the modes are just that array of WWHWWWH, and then you just take the note from the front and slap it on the back to move to the next mode and suddenly the whole thing made so much more sense.
I would love to see more like this, it was fun, informative, well laid out, and really showed good examples of how it works.
I'm currently taking theory 1 and my professor showed us something like this. We were told to look at it like the circle of fifths, and that any time you change the "zero-point" (scale that has zero sharps and zero flats in their key signatures), the mode changes. C is the "zero-point" for major scales, A is the "zero-point" for minor scales, and other "zero-points" act as the home scales for the other modes
Ahhhh, I get it. As a guitar person, now using keyboards recently, these modes now makes sense.
Doing the parallel modes at the end starting on the same root note I think exemplifies the use of modes the best because using modes is all about how relative they are to the tonic note, and the relationship the higher intervals you choose beyond that have to that note. That is where the color comes from, so if you're composing or improvising and the major or minor scale you're working in feel stale or like they aren't leaning into the particular emotion you're going for well enough you should try doing a different modal melody over the chord progression you have or change the chords to be more modal to fit the emotion better. I think it's important to note that if you just have the root note of the mode scale in you're bass (lowest note) you can sort of freely choose any of the modes to play over it, while keeping in mind the order of their brightness or darkness, but the more you define the chord in the lower register the more you are limiting what kind of mode you can use because you've already chosen several notes of the scale mode by the notes in the chord you're playing. That's why you run into Ionian and Lydian being considered major modes because they can be played over major chords, and Dorian, Aeolian, and Phrygian being considered minor modes because they can be played over minor chords, and then Locrian can be played over half diminished chords. There are more options beyond that, especially when you include other scales like melodic and harmonic minor, but that's enough to get anyone started in a practical sense.
That was pure love J. I wish I had you in my life 30 years ago. Beautifully done. More enjoyable than any music theory professor I ever had. Love ya man!!! Big up!!!
I really wish that modes were always explained as just shifting up a note on a scale, because that makes way more sense to me.
Thank you for the video!
This video made me sit at the piano and just playing with these different modes, it’s a great way to get out of always playing the same patterns. Thank you for the inspiration!
What I'm slowly starting to grasp with scales and modes is that they become relevant when you want to evoke a certain mood / feeling / atmosphere. Of course, the tempo and rhythm of a piece is as important. But the thing that made it a bit clearer to me is that while the basic major and minor scales are kind of the middle of the road what comes to creating those differences, with modes, you can emphasize them.
Like, for example Lydian, Ionian & Mixolydian are all in the major family, but Lydian is the brightest of them, Ionian (the basic major) is in the middle, and Mixolydian is the darkest of the major scales.
Of course, you can create upbeat music with minor scales and sad music with major scales creating even more nuance, but I at least find that set of descriptions helpful.
What a wonderful and helpful video. Thank you Jeremy!
I like what the great Johann Joseph Fux said in his 279-page tome on ‘Counterpoint’ called ‘Gradus Ad Parnassum’ (1725) :
Aloysius : When it comes to the contradictory & confusing writings on the subject of Ancient Greek Modes, my very dear Joseph, all I can say about them is that the whole subject is one Giant Clusterfuck-with hardly any ancient theorist agreeing on much common ground at all’ (de Modis from Gradvs ad Parnassvm p. 221-228)
So if we dig back into the writings of Pythagoras, Eratokles, Adrastos, Plato, Aristotle, Aristoxenos of Tarentum, Philodemos of Gedara, Nichomachus, Porphyrios of Tyre, Aristides Quintillianus, Plutarchos, Boethius, Claudius Ptolomaeos and later theorists such as Zarlino in the 1570s-we can see exactly what Fux was talking about - and some Ancient Greek theorists like Aristoxenos spilled a lot of ink vilifying earlier theorists (‘we say this interval is dissonant but the uneducated writers like Lassos or Epigonos or Adrastos not surprisingly have wasted a lot of pen and ink on a lot of silly nonsense…’)
Making the whole subject even more cludgy is the fact that ancient Greek musical theorists didn’t address ‘diatonic’ or even ‘chromatic’ scales except in passing-and spent all their time on weird ‘enharmonic scales’ which were not related at all to the modern piano keyboard with ‘even temperament’ where each semitone (half-tone, say between C and C#) to-day contains 100 Pythagorean ‘cents’ evenly divided over 88 keys - whereas Pythagorean tuning (based more closely on mathematical ratios such as 1:1, 2:1. 3:2, 4:3, 5:4, 6:5 etc.) had 1/4 tones and half-tones not evenly distributed - limiting the possibilities of ‘sweet harmony’ -
By the year say 1650 the so-called tuning into an ‘even-temperament system’ was more of an issue with fixed keyboard instruments - with stringed instruments like the violin or violoncello a simple ‘lean’ of fingering the string can flatten or sharpen any tone at will - but with an harpsichord a b-flat is stuck as a b-flat and sounds the same as an A#-which is not the case in music written before the year 1680…
Even temperament allows all 24 keys to be played without having to ‘well-temper’ the fifths & thirds so is very handy but the ancient Greeks (and theorists up to the year 1700) didn’t have that luxury !! LoL
This is the best way ive ever had the modes explained to me!!
When I was learning light music theory as a guitarist, playing the different modes using the same notes was how I was taught the scales. It's interesting to hear a different perspective on the structure of the music ^w^
My favorite thing about modes is how they're directly related to the circle of fifths. Want to make C Ionian into C Lydian? Make the F sharp. Want to go full C Locrian? Flat a bunch of notes! Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb. Hey, wait! BEADG (CF)? That's the same pattern as on sheet music! And it works for sharps, too. Wonder what G# Phrygian looks like? Four sharps (FCGD) starting on G#. So neat!
Nice ✌ - in the same realm of 'blew my mind' is that this explained to me the Note names. Because if you keep in mind that for a long period of French medieval music theorising blabla they really liked Aeolien a lot (minor). So they would think of that as Home even more than we do today with Ionian (major).
If you think of Aeolien as home and then start to name your seven notes you get: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. 🤯😎
I would love to see more of these.
yes you can use one greek mode at time, but the idea too is how we can combine them, going from major to minor or minor to major is what main stream music usually does, so if you make a song that begins in dorian, then you go to another minor scale, then repeat, and take some chords for the bridge then dominant and come back dorian and finish in minor, well yes is a different song of what everybody usually listens, bc is more complex, but its pays too.
Ok. Super easy way to demystify modes that start on the same note. Start with C major (Ionian) because most people know that's all the white notes. Raise the 4th to a #4 (tritone) and now you have Lydian. Go back to Ionian and change the 7th a b7 and now that's Mixolydian. Ok, simple right? Now take Mixolydian and lower the third to a minor third-that's Dorian. Add a b6 to Dorian and now you're at Aeolian (minor). Take Aeolian and Lower the the 2nd to be a semitone above the root, that's Phrygian. Finally, lower the 5th of Phrygian to a tritone and you now have Locrian. These same patterns apply to any major scale you start with, or you can expand outward if for some reason you've memorized a random mode because you like the way it sounds. Lydian sounds the "brightest" while Locrian sounds the "darkest" or most dissonant. Lydian can sound heavenly or epic (think the Jurassic Park or Simpsons theme songs), Mixolydian is used in funk / celtic music, Dorian is used quite a bit in jazz, and Phrygian has that classic middle eastern or Spanish Flamenco sound to it. Once you learn to associate the modes with how consonant / dissonant they sound are and you think of them in relation to their intervals, modes make a lot more sense.
There are a ton of other scales out there (even microtonal scales have modes 🤯) but basically it's all different systems for dividing an octave in creative ways, focusing on intervals that have some functional directionality or intended sound the composer wants to achieve. Personally I think it's super important to learn as much theory as possible to get a sense of what is possible and what might sound good as a starting point, then completely forget the about the rules and find what sounds good to your tastes. Once you land on something you like, then you can use theory again to try to explain why or to expand on that and take that concept even further. A lot of the "best" music was made without any direct knowledge of theory, but I still think it's a fun tool that every musician should know how to use to some extent.
It's always good to review this stuff and get excited about it all over again
Ahhh, all my music theory classes came flooding back, but they were never as lovely as having Jeremy-fox doing the teaching. Thank you. Also, I was reminded of this question: are emotional responses and ideas of tension following simple orders of tones and half tones learned or are they innate. These things keep me awake at night.
I'd love to see more videos like this! I did already know this one but as a non-trained musician/long time technical nerd/ producer who's been learning theory for a few years now, its super valuable. If you need more ideas for vids, I'm still trying to understand the emotional directions/progressions and their deeper relation to modes, modal interchange. Like "this chor progression crosses 2 modes a and b, resulting in the feeling of x". I feel the need to build a library/encyclopaedia.
Fun! I did not even think to question why the modes were named for.
A certain "Lizard King" group released a concept album two years ago about modes... Seven songs, one for each mode. And the locrian song is by far the best. Somehow. Also, it's in 7/8, so that's a plus...
Thank you for this! I've known this to be the case, but always forget the order. This video is a super helpful mnemonic and review. Going to change up this Phrygian track I'm working on and have it jump up to Lydian at the end. Thanks!
Wow - amazing find, demonstration of the modes, and a little bit of etymology thrown in? Nice! 💚
A clear explanation - as good as any other I've seen.
Thanks for this video, I learned a lot!
This is the best fuckin music learning experience I've ever had, thank you Mr. red fox. keep it up!!
In college i remembered the modes and their order by corresponding them with the phrase "I Dont Particularly Like Modes A Lot"
Heh, i recently had the same aha-moment about scales on the piano. Coming from a guitar background, the piano key arrangement never made sense until that moment.
The best scales explanation I have seen so far 🙏 thank you
Love this style of video!
If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know the whole thing with each mode just being "the next key up" until fairly recently earlier. Guess it takes us music school dropouts a little bit to catch back up to these things.
One thing missing from your explanation is that modes have their own particular cord progressions too. You can play a melody that is simply within one simple pentatonic scale. You wouldn’t know what mode that scale or the song was in unless he put the cords behind it exposing cords that are only in certain modes. For example, if the melody is just C to D, played with some rhythmic interest to make it not bland, it could be in any “major” mode. But if the chord progression is show to be C to Bb, it would suggest then that you are in mixolydian mode. Most of the scales have one or two cords that are very definitive of the mood of that mode or scale.
Turtle loves music fox very much. Thank you for the lesson ❤
i remember when I realized this during my random dips into music theory. It was legitimately mind-blowing, and opened up my use of scales/modes in a huge way.
Another great watch (and listen)!
Not scale modes, but Equal Temperament vs Just Intonation blew my mind when I learned about it. Could be something for a future video with Raposa. Cheers from Lisbon, Portugal
Great tip!
You are so smart and this is so cool and I did not understand a word of it but it was a very fun watch! thank you fox
Its funny, I had kind of internalized that whole step 'rule'.
After college and my stuff started sounding really bland.
Then I discovered that I could sound a lot more exciting by deliberately flouting it. Especially when I solo.
Also, forgot about Locrian. I think I use that but call it something else.
This grinds my gears a little, because I also realised this late.
Music theory and teaching seems deliberately difficult about this, when it is REALLY easy. All you have to do is to ignore pitch for a moment. Pitch is unimportant. You play your guitar, and it only has to be in tune with itself. Same with the piano. Ignore the pitch. Imagine there was a giant crank that lets you transpose the whole thing to any pitch.
To me sure we don’t get confused, lets replace the alphabet (C, D, E….) with numbers. 1,2, 3, etc.
Now, each of the white keys has a simple number, 1-7.
The most important take away now is this: even though there are 3 minor and 3 major keys, they are all different. To understand this, picture the giant crank that can retune/transpose the whole thing. So you can play the 1 key, then turn the crank, and play the 4 make it sound identical, right? Of course, since you‘e played a nondescript major key now.
But ONLY the 1 major key had a diminished chord left neighbour (the 7) and a minor right neighbour. Each key has a unique combination of neighbours. Only the 5 key (previously called G) has a major left neighbour, etc.
Once you realise this, it should fall into place. If you make the 4 your root key (formerly known as F), and you noodle over this (white key only, diatonic scale), you create therefore a unique sound. This is what makes this Lydian.
Now full circle: you only need to know the number, and learn ONE scale to play any diatonic mode. Typically you learn the 1 scale, the ordinary “true-major” scale (called Ionian) - we know now this wording is misleading as there are 3 different major scales.
For pianists and beginners, it’s easiest to assume C major. If you play C/D, aka C over D, aka D as bass, and noodle over white keys (i.e. the C major scale) you automatically unlock the 2nd mode, because D is on position 2, and that’s called Dorian, and since D is minor here, Dorian would be one of the three minor scales.
By simply picking any white key as bass and anchor, but then noodling/fiddling the white keys for melody, you can play any mode like this. It will give a different vibe, and the magical keys are typically 3-4 and 7-1 (i.e. where the half steps are).
What was the spiel about ignoring pitch. Simple. They keyboard layout is made and designed to make seeing the diatonic scale in C major, A minor easy to see, and play. Instead of teaching people they need to “raise the fourth to play lydian” better understand that Lydian is just F major as bass/root over white keys as melody. Learn the others too, just some names and how they feel like. And only after that get hung up on “in which pitch” you want to play this.
So next time your band mate shouts “it’s in E Mixolydian” don’t worry. You ask yourself this jeopardy question:
“In what key is E the 5th of”
You know that Mixolydian is the 5th mode (the “G” in our white key crutch). So when the 5th is E, we just have to walk down 5 keys, ergo we should be soloing / noodling with A major. So we just play A major, over an E minor as bass/riff, to play this.
Here are they for easy reference:
Remember, just white keys!
Solo, right hand, noodling etc in C Major, always. Hence you only need to know one scale (that you can then transpose).
Root / Bass is …
1 - Ionian (C major) - THE major, most stable
2 - Dorian (D minor) - e.g. the Wall by Pink Floyd, a bit mellow, but uplifting
3 - Phrygian (E minor) - Andalusian/Spanish/Arabian/Exotic
4 - Lydian (F Major) - wondrous, space age and the Simpson theme
5 - Mixolydian (G Major) - Classic rock vibes
6 - Aeolian (A Minor) - THE minor scale.
7 - Locrian (B Diminished) - hard to establish as root, Bjork and metal
Note also how everyone knows that A minor is just white keys. Now you see why. In the sane way, D Dorian is “just white keys” and so on. Also note how “THE” minor and minor scales are grouped around the odd duck the diminished 7, as a lynchpin.
Another trick to just learn along with this: 1-4-5 are the Three Majors, 6-1-2 are the Three Minors, and they are exactly the same interval wise. There is the lonely one (1 and 6) who are THE major/minor pair, called parallel. And then there are two each next to each other (the 4 and 5, and the 2 and 3).
This is something Beato or someone just explained like this, without the nonsense complications of bringing in flats and sharps etc. Because that’s just transposing, AFTER the principle is clear.
Thanks for reading (this really ground my gears) ;)
Thaaaaank you so so much!! Super useful! 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌
more like this please!
cant really wrap my head around it yet as i am an amateur hobbyist in music.. but it feels like this was eye opening.. will have to rewatch and play along somehow...
I’ve heard about these modes for years but was too scared to look into since I still struggle with basic modes but this is the first video that gave me a pretty solid foundation. Thanks.
Amazing video. Really engaging and easy to understand even for people like me without any music thoery background.
You have absolved me of my ignorance (no sarc); I have been cured... thank you!
Aaking someone's fursona is so last year. I'm gonna start asking people what their mode is today
Wow this is new for me as well - and great explanations!
Really enjoyed this cheers
Those are just the modes of the major scale. It starts getting weirder and even more flavoursome when you get into the modes of the harmonic minor (you demo'd one) and melodic minor (treating the melodic minor the same ascending and descending).
The main thing everyone should know about modes is that they have characteristic notes i.e. notes that separate them from other modes and the regular major or minor scale, and characteristic chords. For example, Mixolydian mode has the flat 7 so hanging around there melodically will give the Mixolydian flavour. It also has the flat 7 major chord which also gives that Mixolydian flavour.
Trivia: these scale modes are Euclidean patterns of 2 over 7, rotated
and the half note spacing descends as the you ascend through the modes