music theory general knowledge exchange

Could anyone explain Chord Progressions for me? Alot of times when Im reading about theory I see something like... "i (Im) - bVII - bVI - bVII" written down and I really have no clue what that means....

BEADGoodCornFlakes - order of flats

FatCatsGetDiarrheaAfterEatingBurritos - order of sharps

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darqdean wrote: Snipergoat wrote: Whoaa, im really confused about modes now. Id watched this video of Joe Satriani on YouTube talking about modes and I thought that a mode was basically just another scale. He was playing Lydian, Dorian, Locrian etc... but always staying in the key of E. Here it is: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LWHKeC4IEgA So I learnt "E Lydian".  But I read on the previous page that Lydian can only be F? /really confused. :P No, you can transpose the Lydian mode into any key you like. in my example I showed how the lydian is made from all the white keys played from F to F on a piano keyboard,   if you transpose that down to E you get: E, F#, G#, A#, B, C#, D#, E   (or all the same notes as B Major, which makes sense as F Lydian is all the notes from C Major)

So Lydian is 3 Whole Steps - 1 Half - 2 Whole and then 1 more half step?

and if you move that from E to D Lydian it becomes - D, E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D?


What combination of intervals (I think it's called that) make up the Dorian mode?

Whoaa, im really confused about modes now.

Id watched this video of Joe Satriani on YouTube talking about modes and I thought that a mode was basically just another scale. He was playing Lydian, Dorian, Locrian etc... but always staying in the key of E.

Here it is: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LWHKeC4IEgA

So I learnt "E Lydian".  But I read on the previous page that Lydian can only be F?

/really confused. :P

jmcdaniel_ee wrote:   But in the end (IMO), a skilled songwriter can make better use of 2 basic chords than someone unskilled trying to throw all this other stuff in.

nightlamp wrote: purplepiper wrote: yeah, I posted this a while ago. I've since learned about the medieval modes. I find them to be impractical personally, a bit redundant. Oops...   I certainly can't argue with the redundancy of the church modes now, or the six rhythmic modes for that matter!  I'd love to get some early-music jams going (that adhere to all those modes), but time and circumstances haven't allowed...

nightlamp wrote: purplepiper wrote: do you know about them? If so, do explain! I like to hear about these obscure musical things. Do you know about the medieval modes, or church modes? I've been wondering what those were... The medieval modes (Church modes) were similar to our current modal system.  Originally there were eight Church modes broken into pairs of authentic and plagal (hypo-) modes: Dorian, Hypodorian, Phrygian, Hypophrygian, Lydian, Hypolydian, Mixolydian, and Hypomixolydian.   A given pairing of authentic and plagal modes would use the same basic note values, but the Ambitus (or range) was different.  An authentic mode would have a roughly one-octave ambitus of tonic to tonic (perhaps including the lower leading tone).  A plagal mode would usually range from a fourth below the tonic to a fifth above the tonic.  During the Renaissance, four new modes were added that conformed (roughly) to the same system: Aeolian, Hypoaeolian, Ionian, and Hypoionian.  Hope this helps!

THE_POLE wrote: Ok, so is there a scale/mode then that would allow me to write music wiith a european folky(scandinavian in particular) feel to it? I mean, it's easy to write blues melodies on a blues scale, but not knowing it it's a little more difficult because you have to work out yourself what intervals make a melody sound bluesy. Do folky melodies work in a similar way? What about middle eastern folk?I'm attempting to write music influenced by a lot of folk metal that i listen to, but i'm having trouble getting the melodies to sound right.

I haven't been playing much things with celtic or scandinavian flavour, but most of these are just simple melodies. I would use harmonic minor and play some kinda sequences. Just listen to what you play and come out with some catchy melody.

More interesting and more difficult is creating an middle-eastern flavour. I don't find all the scales' stupid names like "eastern bedouin midnight battle scale" much useful. I've come across several names for just one scale so I stopped using those names. But you can create your own scale that sounds arabic. The trick is in the number of semitones (half-steps). The "non-arabic-sounding ones" (all seven modes, melodic minor) have only two semitones, that's too little. You would need at least tree of them, just like harmonic minor. Raising the 4th note of harmonic minor you get a scale with four semitones, which sounds even more exotic. It's refered to as Algerian and Hungarian minor (I call it harmonic minor with raised fourth). It also has, of course, seven modes. My favourite is the fifth (Byzantine scale). Here they are:

1st - T 2M 3m 4+ 5 6m 7M - Algerian scale, Hungarian minor scale
2nd - T 2m 3M 4 5- 6M 7m - Oriental scale
3rd - T 2m 3M 4 5+ 6M 7M
4th - T 2m 3- 4 5- 6m 7-
5th - T 2m 3M 4 5 6m 7M - Byzantine scale
6th - T 2+ 3M 4+ 5 6+ 7M
7th - T 2m 3m 4- 5 6m 7-

Another trick is, over what chord it is played. If you play E byzantine over A minor, it won't sound very exotic, but play it over E major and you got it!

Interesting is Southern Indian classical music with its 72 ragas (scales). But this is just for fun, don't even try to learn it!!

http://www.ipnatlanta.net/camaga/vidyarthi/Carnatic_Basics/Melakarta_Scheme.htm

Chinese music uses well-known pentatonic scale.
There is a mystery (for me) about Japanese music though. I know nothing about its theory, but Marty Friedman of Megadeth knows a lot! So ask him, lol. He has also studied music from all around the world, so can be considered a real expert. Get some of his videos or books, or if you're looking for anything particular, try his website www.martyfriedman.com. He usually has no problem with answering his fans' questions.

In conclusion, it's not only about scales. In fact, maybe, it's not about scales at all. Music is all about intervals - those are the basic building block of music, not the pitches as many people tend to think, but the relationship between them.

Edited by Slayertplsko - August 12 2007 at 07:13

Ahhh now its more clear!  Thanks for infos !!!!

Yann wrote: Just a test If I understood: 1- If i'm doing a riff in C major dorian, I will not play the tonic if I do a C chord and C is the lower note. Will I replace the C by a D ? 2- The chord D minor ( second degree in major scale is minor ), will be an usefull chord to get the feel of dorian mode. 3- We can have a C major dorian mode but D minor dorian mode too, by using modes, we can get "simillar scales". P.s Thx for your help everybody!

You're confused. There is no such thing as "C Major Dorian." C major is one mode, C dorian is another. C dorian contains these notes: C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb. In other words, it's a Bb major scale starting from the second note and emphasizing that note as the tonic. So a tune written in C Dorian will fell like it's "In C" but sound different than either C major or C minor.


Edited by thellama73 - June 22 2007 at 09:26