As Purplepiper says, Modes are startlingly easy once you get the hang of it. I find it easiest to think of them on a piano keyboard. In any octave there are 7 white-keys and 5 black-keys (sharps); if you start on "C" and play the 7 white-keys up to (but not including) the next "C" you have played the Major scale, which is also the Ionian Mode. However if you start at "D" and play all the white-keys up to the next "D" you have played the Dorian scale. All the modal scales using this method are as follows:

 

C: Ionian (or Major Scale)

D: Dorian

E: Phrygian

F: Lydian

G: Mixolydian

A: Aeolian (or Minor Scale)

B: Locrian

 

Obviously to play a Major scale in "D" would mean starting at "D" and then playing the same semitone intervals between notes that there were in the key of C-major (t-t-s-t-t-t), so in this case the F and C would be sharpened. This transposition is simply based upon the semi-tone intervals of the original root, hence transposing a Modal scale into a different key is done by the same method.

 

 

ionian-natural major -happy/cheerful/bright

dorian-minor-dark/'cool'/jazzy

phrygian-minor-spanish/romantic

lydian-major-melacholic/enigmatic/mysterious

mixolydian-major-hip

aeolian-natural minor-sad/dark/'classical'/brooding

locrian-minor-unresolved/uneasy

 

I did the best I could to put it in words, but you really need to listen carefully and make your own judgements. Remember, every scale has modes! try experimenting with the modes of exotic scales...

 

One superb exponent of the Lydian mode is Danny Elfman: The Simpsons theme tune is lydian, being Major it first appears happy and bright like any normal TV-Family sitcom theme, (but that's mainly down to the instrumentation), but if you listen to the melody there is something slightly askew and off-kilter about it, making sound un-normal... a parody infact.

Scandinavian folk music melodies often keep within the first five notes of a scale. The Locrian mode has an eastern feel to it.

It is the Melodic Minor that has different ascending and desending scales. It is not just about playing scales, it is about playing a melody and what sounds melodic.

 

Notes in a melody will either ascend or desend and the direction that you take from one note to the next determines which scale to use (sort of).

 

The natural minor scale has a whole step between the 7th note and the tonic, which means that when playing a melody that goes up the scale it may not flow as smoothly into the next octave as say a major scale would. The melodic minor attempts to "fix" this by sharpening the 6th and 7th notes. When the melody desends, the whole step from I to VII is not as noticable, so you can revert back to the natural minor scale.

 

However, these "rules" are not cast in stone - play what sounds right to you, Jazz often uses the ascending in both directions, but if you use the desending in both directions you are really only playing a natural minor scale.

 

HOPE YOU'RE STARTING TO GET IT!

I'll tell you more if you're still not getting it...I like to share my immense knowledge!

 

Even though all the notes in the D-dorian are also in the C-major you haven't changed key - you are still in the key of D-minor because the root note is D and the chords are Dminor.

Sorry my mistake... I meant sharpen and it's the sixth note, which is not in theDm7 chord (D,F,A,C) but is in the Dm6 chord (D,F,A,B) - so my whole post is rubbish really - sorry

 

D-minor = D,E,F,G,A,A#,C

D-dorian= D,E,F,G,A,B,C

 

C'MON GUYS! Share some knowledge!

 

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. If I want to go a fourth below a dorian mode or whatever in a melody, I just do it! I don't need to declare myself as having been in hypodorian. Thanks for to reply though! Post any musical knowledge you wish!

 

the modern day modes are my musical bible. I think the church modes are just limited versions of what we have now. For the sake of medieval music though, I'd stick to a church mode in an instant!

Someone mentioned the melodic minor scale.  The James Bond 007 theme is based on that scale (or maybe it's harmonic minor).  The very distinctive chord you hear is a minor chord with a major 7 on top.  (I believe it's Em/maj7.)  Pretty wicked.  Purely harmonic minor gives a really old fashioned medival feel (Greensleeves or the Christmas carol What Child is This?)

 

If you consider the melodic minor as a static scale (i.e. not using it only when ascending or what not) then you can draw 6 other modes from it.  (The anti-modes or whatever you want to call them.)  These are the only other 7 note modes that you can come up with without having a gap of more than a whole step between notes.  But aside from discussion's sake, they're probably largely useless .

 

You can really get a good wicked effect if you play a diminished chord arpeggio (1, b3, b5, 6th).  The diminished chord repeats every minor 3rd, so if you move it up a minor 3rd, you're playing the same notes, just a different inversion.  Whole tone has some similar concepts, but is generally more disorienting or dreamy than wicked.

 

The major #9 is a pretty funky chord (it's basically a major chord with a minor 3rd an octave higher).

Adding a 9th will make a minor chord sound even sadder, and a major chord sound even happier.  Replacing a 3rd with a 9th makes you sound like Andy Summers.

Moving the bass note of a chord up a whole step will basically turn it into some crazy extensioned chord (like an 11th or 13th depending on what you're playing on top).  I find it's a lot easier to visualize than actually picking out the extensions (on piano at least).  Steely Dan would use these types of chords all the time.  Steely Dan definitely exercises your chord vocabulary.

 

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.

 

 

 

That is the single best theory lesson I've ever read.

 

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)

 

In some ways of thinking, the actual key of a song becomes irrelevant.  Either because you may want to play it slightly higher or lower, or if you simply want to analyze the relationships between chords.  So, writing a chord progression in roman numberals makes it easier to discuss relationships.

 

An uppercase is major, a lowercase is minor.  If you're in the key of C playing a I - IV - V progression, the chords will be C, F, G.  If it's i - iv - VI - V, then it's Cm - Fm - A - G.  The numbers are based on degrees of the major scale, so even if you're in the key of Cm (which the minor 3rd is an Eb), a i-III-v progression would be Cm E G, not Cm Eb G.  If you wanted to represent Eb, you would represent it as bIII.  When me and a friend are writing riffs, we usually discuss it this way, i.e. "Should we go to the minor third before or after going to the flat 5th?"

 

Using the notes in a major key, the natural major/minor relationships are as follows: I IV and V are major, ii iii and vi are minor and vii is minor-diminished (1, b3, b5).

 

Louie Louie and TONS of other 50's and 60's rock and R&B songs, and standard 12-bar blues utilize some version of the I IV V progression.