modes, modes again and more modes (not only modes from the major scale)

[possopo]

I think I'm running too fast now (my knowledge of theory is still a bit poor) and I really hesitated a lot before asking this. but since Google didn't help too much and since I'm always craving for answers to the many questions I have, I'm posting nonetheless.

 

so I'm asking myself what are the most useful (common) modes I should learn ?

or in what order should I learn scales and modes ?

not only modes from the Major scale but also modes derived from the Melodic Minor, the Harmonic Minor and maybe others...

 

I think my list would start like this :

Ionian (Major scale) : the basics of basics

Aelian (Major scale) : its minor counterpart

Mixolydian (Major scale) : very much used in Rock, Jazz...

Dorian (Major scale) : also very much used in Rock, Jazz...

 

and then what ?

other modes from the Major scale (Phrygian and Lydian) ?

I read that some modes of the Melodic Minor scale (SuperLocrian -altered scale- and Lydian Dominant) were quite useful too, especially in Jazz. I even already started working on the altered scale.

 

I love the baroque sound of the Harmonic Minor Scale but what about the modes derived from it ?

 

any others (aside from whole-tone scale and diminished scale and of course pentatonic and blues scales) ?

[mosiddiqi]

This might help regarding the Major scale modes, or it might make things worse:

 

[video=youtube;T5xYTV4wpKE]

[Virgman]

Way cool to see you in a video, Mos.

 

To us American barbarians a British accent sounds so cultured and refined.

 

I found your explanation of modes to be very useful. So much time is wasted by people chasing the mode secret.

[possopo]

mosiddiqi wrote :

This might help regarding the Major scale modes, or it might make things worse:

 

I understand the point of the video and the Drone and Metal explanation is pretty enlightening but (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm now entering a world very new to me theory-wise) in Jazz, the point of scales and modes is also to improvise over a set of chords that are not a straight forward major scale chord sequence, right ?

I think that's where some scales and modes will be more useful than others.

and it's kind of the same in Rock (the very commonly-used V7 chord in a song in natural minor for instance)

some songs are also purely in A (or any other key) Dorian, A mixolydian... probably fewer are in A phrygian...

[mosiddiqi]

mosiddiqi wrote : I understand the point of the video and the Drone and Metal explanation is pretty enlightening but (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm now entering a world very new to me theory-wise) in Jazz, the point of scales and modes is also to improvise over a set of chords that are not a straight forward major scale chord sequence, right ? I think that's where some scales and modes will be more useful than others. and it's kind of the same in Rock (the very commonly-used V7 chord in a song in natural minor for instance) some songs are also purely in A (or any other key) Dorian, A mixolydian... probably fewer are in A phrygian...

 

I'm glad the vid was useful..JonR or one of the others will know a lot more about jazz than me ..but certainly if the chord progression you're playing over is NOT diatonic (belonging to a key) then, yes, modal sounds are going to be one way of approaching them. The jazz example often quoted is Miles Davis' "So What"..where the progression is basically Dmin7/Ebm7.....nothing keycentric there ..so you might approach that as D Dorian/Eb Dorian.

 

Regarding the V7 in a rock tune in Aminor..if the change was, say, Amin/E7, then I'd just add a G# to my Aminor scale over the E7 chord..which is the A Harmonic minor scale. That scale has it's own set of modes, and the most useful (for rock guys anyway!) is the 5th mode, commonly called the phrygian dominant..you hear it a lot in Ritchie Blackmore or Yngwie Malmsteen's playing..Uli Roth too.

[possopo]

 

...Harmonic minor scale. That scale has it's own set of modes, and the most useful (for rock guys anyway!) is the 5th mode, commonly called the phrygian dominant..you hear it a lot in Ritchie Blackmore or Yngwie Malmsteen's playing..Uli Roth too.

 

hehe, that's exactly the kind of information I am looking for, I'll be googling so I know exactly how to use this one mode !

[JonR]

some songs are also purely in A (or any other key) Dorian, A mixolydian... probably fewer are in A phrygian...

True. With rock music (generally made by people who are not especially concerned about theoretical niceties ), you can often analyse it in those kind of modal terms.

 

Eg "major key with b7" = "mixolydian mode"

"minor key with major 6 (and b7)" = "dorian mode"

"minor key with b2 (and b7)" = "phrygian mode"

 

The musicians themselves (with a few notable exceptions) probably have no idea about this jargon, they just find (or copy) sounds they like. They certainly have no allegiance to any set of rules they've been taught (other than whatever their rock'n'roll heroes followed). They will therefore mix and match two or more keys or modes freely, so you can rarely "see the joins". Even so, for us theorists (or for composers or improvisers wanting a conceptual framework), modal terms can be handy.

[mosiddiqi]

...and there you go! JonR...legend.

[GreenAsJade]

Yay that you got labels into that video :phil:

[girevik]

 

in Jazz, the point of scales and modes is also to improvise over a set of chords that are not a straight forward major scale chord sequence, right ?

 

 

It's better to learn jazz tunes first, then learn how to solo over specific tunes, one at a time, than dive right into modes. Learning to solo over jazz tunes is just like learning to solo over blues tunes - you start by copying your favorite players. Did you learn to solo over "Crosscut Saw" by working a bunch of scales first or listening to Albert King play the tune and copying his licks? I bet most blues enthusiasts did the latter first.

 

JonR has the details nailed of course.

[windmill]

Thanks for posting your vido again Mos and thanks for including the labels . All this the talk and at last a simple example of what the sound of the modes are.

 

Ta

[gennation]

Before you get into modes, learn how to play in a Major and a Minor Key.

 

Do you know the in's and out's of playing in a Major or a Minor Key? If you don't, you are missing the biggest part of music...the music.

 

You can search for theories and concepts and practice things individually but the one thing everything you ever play will have in common is, it's music.

 

If you want to understand modes, listen to modal music. Here's the basic list of resources...

 

Need U Bad by Jazmine Sullivan (featuring Missy Elliot) - Phrygian

So What by Miles Davis - Dorian

Impressions - Dorian

Maiden Voyage by Herbie Handcock - Dorian

Song for John by Stanley Clarke and Chick Corea - Lydian with tensions

Km-Pee-Du-Wee by Steve Vai - Lydian

Norwegian Wood the Beatles - Mixolydian and Dorian

In Memory of Elizabeth Reed by The Allman Brothers - Dorian

Windows by Chick Corea - Lydian

Moondance - Dorian and Aeolian

More Ravi Shankar and Shakti than you can shake a stick at!

[JonR]

If you want to understand modes, listen to modal music. Here's the basic list of resources... Need U Bad by Jazmine Sullivan (featuring Missy Elliot) - Phrygian So What by Miles Davis - Dorian Impressions - Dorian Maiden Voyage by Herbie Handcock - Dorian Song for John by Stanley Clarke and Chick Corea - Lydian with tensions Km-Pee-Du-Wee by Steve Vai - Lydian Norwegian Wood the Beatles - Mixolydian and Dorian In Memory of Elizabeth Reed by The Allman Brothers - Dorian Windows by Chick Corea - Lydian Moondance - Dorian and Aeolian More Ravi Shankar and Shakti than you can shake a stick at!

Thanks for those, Mike, one or two I hadn't heard, to add to my collection. (Not totally sure about Maiden Voyage - isn't that partly mixolydian too?)

 

Here's a few more:

 

Phrygian: Pink Floyd "Set the Controls for the heart of the sun"; Metallica "Wherever I May Roam" (opening riff at least)

Lydian: Joe Satriani "Flying in a Blue Dream" (That Satch is a fool for lydian...)

Mixolydian: Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows", "Within You Without You"; Kinks "Tired of Waiting" (main verse); David Bowie "Heroes".

Dorian: Santana/Tito Puente "Oye Como Va"

Aeolian: REM "Losing My Religion"; Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (vocal melody)

[possopo]

great, thanks !

a list of songs played in modes derived from the melodic minor and harmonic minor scales would be even greater

[gennation]

great, thanks ! a list of songs played in modes derived from the melodic minor and harmonic minor scales would be even greater

 

The list of songs you are requesting probably wouldn't include any modal aspects at all but just "playing in Key" as those scales are primarily used in Keys rather than modally. "Playing in Key" DOES NOT mean "playing in scale". Playing in Key shows you about both the notes that ARE in the scale as well as the notes that AREN'T in the scale.

 

Where the Melodic and Harmonic scales are concerned don't bother yourself with modes, just start with application.

 

Melodic Minor application:

 

for a 7th chord functioning as a V7, play a Melodic Minor scale a half step above the Root of the V7 chord (ie Dm-G7-C-C, for the G7 chord, play Ab Melodic Minor.

 

for a 7th chord not functioning as a V7, play a Melodic Minor from the 5th of the 7th chord...for D7, play A Melodic Minor

 

application where both are used in a song...Take the A Train....C-D7#11-Dm-G7...play the C Major scale for both C and Dm, for the D7 play A Melodic Minor and for the G7 play Ab Melodic Minor

 

Both of those Mel Min applications have nothing to do with modes, but everything to do with "playing in Key".

 

Harmonic Minor application:

 

This is one of the reason I asked if you understood playing in a Minor Key. In a Minor Key, many, many, many times the Vm7 chord is played as a V7 chord. And when it's played as a V7 chord you'll find probably the most used application for the Harmonic Minor scale.

 

In a V7-Im progression in A Minor like ||: Am | Am | Am | E7 :|| (make sure you repeat it or you'll miss the most important part of this progression...the resolution) play A Natural Minor for the Am chord, and play A Harmonic Minor for the E7 chord.

 

When playing a Minor Blues, let's say in C Minor, you'd have: || Cm | Cm | Cm | Cm | Fm | Fm |...right? Well, the Minor tell us that the C root move to a F root is a Vm7 to a Im move...in this case you can treat the Cm as the Vm7 to F being "the new Im chord". So, it allows us to play C7 instead of Cm WHEN WE ARE ON OUR WAY TO Fm. So the progression now becomes: || Cm | Cm | Cm | C7 | Fm | Fm |...here you play C Natural Minor for Cm, F Harmonic Minor for C7, and C Natural Minor, or even F Natural Minor for the Fm chord.

 

Those applications are the foundation of the Minor Key. There's no reason to be concerned with modes here, again, only "playing in Key".

 

Learn this stuff before getting saddled into the modes fiasco.

 

By learning how to "play in Key"...you learn EVERYTHING else

[JonR]

great, thanks ! a list of songs played in modes derived from the melodic minor and harmonic minor scales would be even greater

As Mike says, this is a "key" issue, not a "mode" issue.

 

The applications he describes for melodic minor are the common jazz conventions for certain altered chords. IMO there's a risk of confusion here because the scales used are unrelated to the key they're used in. Eg, F melodic minor would be used on an E7 chord in key of A minor. But don't let that make you think F melodic minor has anything to do with the A minor key!

The reason it works is that it highlights all the altered tones, the chromatic tensions, in the E7 chord (b5, #5, b9, #9). That's how it ties back into the A minor key. It's the chromaticisms (relative to A minor) that matter. It's pure coincidence that that set of notes happens to match a mode of a melodic minor scale.

Same with "lydian dominant" (used on non-V dom7-type chords), which coincidentally matches 4th mode of melodic minor. It works on bII chords because it's the same pitch set as used on altered V7 chords. It works on any other dom7 because it disposes of the single avoid note in mixolydian (the "standard" dom7 scale) by raising the 4th. (Lydian b7 = mixolydian #4.) And probably because it's the best compromise scale between the key and the chord tones. (Eg if you alter the major scale just enough to accommodate the chromatics in a bVII7 chord, the scale you come up with is lydian dominant.)

 

But the tonic use of melodic minor can be equally interesting. In jazz, the melodic minor scale of the key is used on the tonic chord because it provides consonant chord extensions (6, maj7, 9).

 

Then again, there's the classical convention: use of melodic minor when ascending to the tonic (generally over the V chord), but only ascending. There are rare examples of this in popular music.

One of the most distinctive is the Beatles "Yesterday". The line "all my troubles seemed so..." is ascending D melodic minor, on the dominant chord (A7) (resolving back down to D on "far away"). The following line ("now it looks as though...") then descends the D natural minor scale - resolving to the relative major (F) in fact.

You also get a short snippet in "Autumn Leaves" - the final phrase of the first A section (just 4 notes, lyrics "of red and gold") is ascending melodic minor.

 

Sustained melodic use of harmonic minor is quite rare, although you commonly get the effect of it any time you have major bVI and V chords in a minor key (eg F and E in A minor).

Sidney Bechet's "Petite Fleur" has a pretty good dose of harmonic minor content, although there's also plenty of the relative major and also touches of melodic minor.

 

There's also a harmonic minor flavour to the guitar solo in Sweet Child o' Mine - from 3:35 here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzAGZT_XTAk

(BTW, as a side note on improvisation principles: he's playing off the chord tones here: the scale arises from the chords used, which are all in the key of E minor (from the natural minor scale) with the harmonic minor element being the B7 chord, containing the D#. The only time he plays the D# is when there's a B chord. Otherwise, if he hits a D, it's a D natural. IOW, he's not just playing harmonic minor because it's a cool scale ; it's dictated by the chords.)

 

Again, to underline Mike's point, this is all key-based harmony (and melody), nothing modal going on. (So I guess it's kind of off topic...)

[possopo]

I think I have to read this again and again so I fully understand everything:)