Scales/modes/tonality

[Poparad]

Originally posted by D8rkn3ss Just wondering, if modes are only reflected by the underlying harmony, how does one explain Palestrina's use of the modes? Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he use actual modes in his melodies? example a melody in D dorian that begins and ends on D.

 

 

I'm not too familiar with Palestrina's music. I've heard the name in some of my music history classes, but I haven't heard much of him.

 

Can you recommend some pieces to listen to? Perhaps I could give you a good answer then.

 

 

Also, keep in mind that the perspective that I am giving on modes is from that of how to use it for improvising. The harmonic language during Palestrina's time was cetainly different than that of 20th century jazz, for example. But again, I'll have to listen to Palestrina before I can definitively answer that.

[D8rkn3ss]

honestly I dont know a particular piece. but I'v read from several sources (music history books, books on counterpoint etc..) that he wrote with modes in that fashion. Anywas, just thought I'd ask. In the mean time I'll try to dig up a specific example.

[PorridgeOfHate]

Can modes be constructed from pentatonic scales as opposed to septetonic(?) scales?

[Poparad]

Originally posted by PorridgeOfHate Can modes be constructed from pentatonic scales as opposed to septetonic(?) scales?

 

 

Technically, yes. It's not something I've explored, but really you could attempt it. I'll have to try that out and get back to you on it.

[Paul J. Edwards]

Originally posted by PorridgeOfHate Can modes be constructed from pentatonic scales as opposed to septetonic(?) scales?

 

 

You cannot build chords off a pentatonic scale so the modal theory does not really apply here.

[D8rkn3ss]

and why not? 5 notes yields 60 permutations of notes and 10 combinations for a 3 note chord.

[Poparad]

Originally posted by D8rkn3ss and why not? 5 notes yields 60 permutations of notes and 10 combinations for a 3 note chord.

 

 

True. I think his point is that you can't get all tertian chords like you get with 7-note scales. With the pentatonic scale, you will have a lot of quartal sounds, which is really what the pentatonic scale is: a linear ordering of notes of a quartal or quintal chord:

 

A C D E G A = Am pentatonic

 

In 4ths (high to low):

 

C

G

D

A

E

 

 

In 5ths (high to low):

 

E

A

D

G

C

[jzucker]

Originally posted by Paul J. Edwards You cannot build chords off a pentatonic scale so the modal theory does not really apply here.

 

 

Sure you can. I have pentatonic based chords in my book. McCoy, Chick and Holdsworth all use pentatonic based chords.

 

Also modes of pentatonic scales are very powerful devices.

 

For example, mode 2 of a F major pentatonic sounds very nice over C9sus or G9 sus. They are very open sounding and wonderful voicings and modes...

[adamsj]

Before digging into the more exotic modes, it's really helpful -- almost mandatory -- for rock-based players to understand the basic modal theory behind rock guitar playing.

And for most of your blues-rock type stuff (ie. Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Van Halen, etc.), it's a good idea to thoroughly learn how to use the Mixolydian mode, and a combination of the Mixolydian and blues scale, which is sometimes referred to as the "Mixo-Blues" scale. Guys like Vai, Holdsworth, and Satch can smoke just about anyone playing straight rock-blues style soloing, using this "Mixo-Blues" scale, and it is there that most great soloists start, before moving on to the more exotic stuff.

And that particular scale is described in detail in hundreds of the books, DVDs, and videos available at this new instructional resource: http://www.BluesLessons.com.

Check it out.

[rushko81]

Anyone agree with me that Anomandaris has been more helpful in a few paragraphs than most text books are in 200-400 pages?! I think Anomandaris should write a book on this stuff. I now realize why he/ she is a senior member. Thanks Anomandaris!!!

[rustyfingers]

Thanks Anomandaris (and others )

Extremely helpful thread.

[nylon rock]

I've read this thread many times, and it hasn't helped me very much.

Someone who is not a music major (myself, for example) and who checks this out to help better understand what notes go with general guitar chords, and how to get a different flavor to improvisation by incorporating modes, now has to wade through about a half hour of posts, and doesn't come away with a vastly better understanding because of all the "noise." This is borne out time and again by the newbies who start new Modes threads to better understand things, because this thread isn't cutting it. (and this thread is for us newbies because the music experts already understand modes)

Even worse, some of the music majors have hijacked this thread with all sorts of nomenclature arguments that the average guitarist has to skim over. In some places, the thread turns into all out war.

Anomandaris started the thread by pointing out that there are major and minor aspects to "scales" and that that's all you need to know. But the way he went about it doesn't help me all that much, when it comes to applying things.

Poparad's posts are generally helpful, but I've seen better approaches from him elsewhere on modes, scales, and boxes. In his best work, he lays things out with guitar fingerboard "layouts" which were very helpful to me since I could visualize the fingerings. More improvements along those approaches would help non-professionals like myself.

If only the mods could edit this post down to the bare essentials and get rid of the clutter. Then this thread would once again be worthy of its Sticky status.

[Reposki]

I have a question I don't believe has been asked (though, this IS a long thread and my eyes are tired...),

Why are the modes named as they are?

It seems to me the only concept in modes that is straight memorization (everything else can be derived in various ways from the maj/min scales) are their names. I believe it may be greek, but none of the books I own say anything about it. Sheer curiousity, they'd function just the same if they were named after flowers.

Nylon: It seems to me you may be missing some very fundamental concepts about scales that would bring all this information into perspective. It's more simple and practical than you might imagine. When I'm not so tired I'll see if I can't help clear it up for you in pm. I have a strong suspicion that learning to read standard notation would be like taking off a blindfold.

I agree that this thread is very long and gone off into tangents that would be tough for the newbies who could use it... A FAQ would be a useful project.

[Auggie Doggie]

Originally posted by Reposki Why are the modes named as they are? It seems to me the only concept in modes that is straight memorization (everything else can be derived in various ways from the maj/min scales) are their names. I believe it may be greek, but none of the books I own say anything about it. Sheer curiousity, they'd function just the same if they were named after flowers.

 

 

The names of the church modes were eventually (incorrectly) borrowed from the ancient Greek names, which themselves were named after places in Greece. You're right--they could have been named after flowers just as easily.

 

However, the 'Ionian, Dorian, etc' names were not the first Greek names used for the modes; originally they used Greek numbers:

 

Protus, Deuterus, Tritus, Tetrardus, ('first, second, third, fourth, respectively) each of which had an authentic and plagal form. When the geographical names were adopted, someone made a clerical error and got them out of order.

 

I did a thread a while ago about this stuff:

 

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=739202

 

None of the information is practical or useful, but it's just some historical background.

[keano]

Certain modes sound right over particular chords like minor 7 or 9 etc. Will modes sound ok over normal power chords?

[adamsj]

Keano,

Power chords are fine -- and since they are usually neither major nor minor (they're power chords because they have only a root note and fifth, no third -- and it's the third of the chord that determines major or minor) any mode should work over any particular power chord.

But which mode will work best for your chord PROGRESSION is more important. Learn what's in a major and minor scale, then build chords on those and you've got chord scales -- and songs/chord progressions are made up of chord scales or segments of chord scales.

If you chord progression goes E, F, G -- you don't want to play a mode over it that goes E, F#, G. The F# will clash with the F chord.

Do you understand? Learn scales, then learn to build chords over those scales, and you'll understand modes and music so much better.

[qwerty]

Reading TornadoShaun's mode thread ( http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=848633 ) finally prodded me to read this one! I've always understood modal keys (thanks for the clarification, Poparad) and extensively play in them, but I never bothered to follow all the hubbub when guitarists write about using modes over chord changes. I think Poparad's posts in this thread make it easy to follow. If I come across as having a sceptical tone, don't take it too seriously because I understand how useful this method must be, I'm just having a little fun and trying to learn something in the process.

Poparad mentioned:

This is an informal board, so I don't want to feel like I'm chaining you to your word choice and then nitpicking, but isn't "essential" awful strong here? Bear with my rudimentary understanding, but introducing modes into it seems like an extra step, almost like "If you read a word you don't know: look it up in the thesaurus first, and then look up those other words in the dictionary to get the meaning."

What I would've thought essential is knowing the notes of the chord. They're distinctly telling you the main notes to play, and after that it's just a matter of filling in the blanks, right? Using your example of EMaj7, it has already defined 1 3 5 7, and since the E chord is major, I think we're allowed to easily assume the 2 4 6, yes? Isn't that basic "key" stuff? If we further want to play around with the assumed (if it's correct to call them that) "2 4 6" notes, don't we have free reign on all of them, or (jumping ahead of my post a little) are we really limited to sharpening the 4th or not?

Here's Poparad's helpful list of what "modes" goes with what:

Major triads / Major 7 chords: Ionian - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Lydian - 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7 Major triads/ Dominant 7 chords: Mixolydian - 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7 Minor traids/ Minor 7 chords: Aeolian - 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 Dorian - 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 Phrygian - 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7

Using Poparad's example progression "Emaj7 / Dmaj7 / Dmin7 / Amin7" and refering to the list, all the modes really do for the Major chords is either sharpen the 4th or leave it natural. That's all. The 7th is ~already~ dictated by the Maj7, so we don't need to choose a mode to tell us which degree to play there.

Looking at dominant 7 chords, the term "mixolydian" might be the fanciest, redundant word possible The flat 7 is already defined by the chord being dom 7. Resorting to mode names seems an awfully over-the-top way to tell us what we've ~already~ been told. I hope what I'm trying to say is clear.

Idle curiosity: Any reason to not sharpen the 4th when playing over a dom7 chord?

With the minor chords, all you're playing around with are the 2nd and 6th. Is there a reason why you couldn't also alter (if that's the correct term), the 4th? How about if we sharpen the 7?

If we have an Amin7 chord and I flatten the 2nd, but not the 6th, am I flip-flopping through modes during the measures? If so, it seems like a lengthy way to communicate theory for such a small change in note choice.

Does this stuff get more useful when getting into more complex chords or chord progressions? I'd think more complex chords (extensions?) would only serve to limit note choice if you weren't looking for dissonance.


P.S.
Regarding the row over "scale patterns", we might need to be careful since some people say "scale pattern" and are thinking "whole-whole-half whole-whole-whole-half" rather than thinking of fingering patterns.

[Poparad]

Originally posted by qwerty What I would've thought essential is knowing the notes of the chord. They're distinctly telling you the main notes to play, and after that it's just a matter of filling in the blanks, right? Using your example of EMaj7, it has already defined 1 3 5 7, and since the E chord is major, I think we're allowed to easily assume the 2 4 6, yes? Isn't that basic "key" stuff?

 

 

Yes.

 

If we further want to play around with the assumed (if it's correct to call them that) "2 4 6" notes, don't we have free reign on all of them, or (jumping ahead of my post a little) are we really limited to sharpening the 4th or not?

 

 

I was just limiting things to the modes of the major scale for the sake of simplicity. You can certainly be more exotic if you want by altering other notes.

 

 

Idle curiosity: Any reason to not sharpen the 4th when playing over a dom7 chord?

 

 

Nope. You can sharpen it if you want (I like to). That would make it Lydian Dominant, one of the melodic minor modes.

 

With the minor chords, all you're playing around with are the 2nd and 6th. Is there a reason why you couldn't also alter (if that's the correct term), the 4th? How about if we sharpen the 7?

 

 

Again, I was just sticking to major scale modes. You can certainly do anything else you want like you mentioned.

 

One note, the seventh wouldn't be sharpened, but natural. A sharpened 7th with be the same as the root. In relation to C, Bb would be a b7, and B would be a natural 7th. To have a sharp 7th it would be B#.

 

Some older books one modes call it a sharp 7, which really irks me, but in the past couple of decades that's really been phased out in favor of more correct terminology.

 

If we have an Amin7 chord and I flatten the 2nd, but not the 6th, am I flip-flopping through modes during the measures? If so, it seems like a lengthy way to communicate theory for such a small change in note choice.

 

 

As with any theory, it's meant to be learned to the point where you just don't have to think about it. When I play, I'm thinking more about 2, 6, etc, like you've been writting, but I'm aware of what the name of the mode is and where it comes from.

 

With just some practice and application, what may seem like a whole lot of theory will just become something that you do rather than something you have to think about.

 

Does this stuff get more useful when getting into more complex chords or chord progressions? I'd think more complex chords (extensions?) would only serve to limit note choice if you weren't looking for dissonance.

 

 

Definately. Although I wrote out a bunch of names for all the modes and where they came from, that's really just for giving a little understanding. The real heart of the matter is the scale degrees that make up the modes.

 

When you have an unusual chord, like m7(#11), I go about it by first writting out what I know: R b3 #4 5 b7. Then I add the rest that would probably work: R 2 b3 #4 5 6 b7. This happens to be the 4th mode of harmonic minor, but it doesn't really have a name. So long as I understand which notes I have to play and can remember that sequence of scales degrees, that's all I need to play efficiently over that chord.

[qwerty]

> One note, the seventh wouldn't be sharpened, but natural.... Some older books one modes call it a sharp 7

Woops, I own that one! It's a mental error I'm glad to be reminded of.

am I flip-flopping through modes

Thanks, Poparad. Actually, I'm trying to show how overly complicated modes appear to me as a means of explaining melody over chords. Using 1 b2 b3 4 5 6 b7 over minor chord is "simply" flattening the 2nd. It takes two modes to communicate that: one that contains the natural 6th, and another that contains the flat 2nd, hence my biased use of the word "flip-flopping." Maybe figuring out all possible modes from all possible scales we can find one that matches, but that seems crazy Like you said, you think along the lines of b2, b6 (quick, practical, efficient!) rather than mode names. I think it highlights the method's inefficiency, but that could just reflect my lack of interest in memorizing the names!

The useful and practical lesson I take away from all this modal talk is: you can "easily" alter notes not directly suggested by the chord to provide color. Lee33 and Poparad discussed this briefly (chromatic vs modal). The difference between Lee33 and Poparad may have been semantic; without audio examples, Lee33 may have meant the same thing as Poparad, no way of knowing for sure. So that raises the question for me: can you use a chromatic note ~not~ as a passing tone? Can the word enharmonic be used here also?

I'm curious as to when theoreticians started talking about modes this way (ie, scale choices over every respective chord in a progression, rather than simply as modal keys). Not sure if this is clear, but: I'm curious as to whether this method was born out of explaining (or legitimizing?) certain styles of music, and then was common enough that it's been re-applied over all music as another method of explanation. I guess this is a "historiographical" question. I've seen modes introduced into discussion about something as simple as a I IV V7 progression in the key of C (C Ionian scale over the I chord; F Lydian scale over the IV chord; G Mixolydian scale over the V7 chord). 50 years ago, would anyone have discussed it in that manner?

[Poparad]

Originally posted by qwerty

 

 

That's a tough one to answer... The first thing that comes to mind is playing melodic minor over a minor 7 chord. Melodic minor has the natural 7th, while the chord has a b7, but it works. Perhaps the blues scale is another example of chromaticism that can be used and not be a passing tone (the #4/b5 in the scale).

 

 

I'm curious as to when theoreticians started talking about modes this way (ie, scale choices over every respective chord in a progression, rather than simply as modal keys). Not sure if this is clear, but: I'm curious as to whether this method was born out of explaining (or legitimizing?) certain styles of music, and then was common enough that it's been re-applied over all music as another method of explanation.

 

 

 

It probably all started with the music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. They were the first to play bebop, which utilized chords using extensions all the way up to 13ths. While 13th chords weren't new, improvising over them using various scales was. Before them, soloists in big bands mainly arpeggiated basic triads or seventh chords, and the dominant 7th chords were hardly altered.

 

As a way to explain what they were doing, the scale over chord concept was born. Did Bird and Diz know what they were doing? Yes, actually. Dizzy especially took time to teach their approach to other players. These two guys were fairly educated in the theory of what they were doing, which is probably how they ended up playing that way in the first place.

 

And you're probably right about that approach then being applied to other, less complex types of music. For me, I think it's rediculous to talk about playing modes over a I IV V I progression. It's all in the same key, so as long as you play around the chord tones of the progression, you'll be fine. Thinking about modes is best served when each chord actually has a different sound and group of notes that go with them, such as in the music of bebop.

[WattsUrizen]

Originally posted by D8rkn3ss Just wondering, if modes are only reflected by the underlying harmony, how does one explain Palestrina's use of the modes? Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he use actual modes in his melodies? example a melody in D dorian that begins and ends on D.

 

 

I think you've almost answered your own question there: Palestrina wrote entirely modal music. It wasn't tonal harmony with modal melodies over the top. Tonality didn't even exist at that stage (at least not in its classical form).

[D8rkn3ss]

This might have been answered, but ill ask anyways because this popped up in my mind after perusing the last few pages.


Is true modal music melodically based (like I mentioned with Palestrina) or is it more often associated with progressions that don't end On the I chord of the key? It confuses me because I've heard modal playing referred to in both ways so im not sure if theres a real distinction.

[SpyderBlak]

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[FloodsCFHCG]

Really elementary question, but when you say 1 2 b3 4 5 6 7 8 or something like that, what do you mean? Whole step, half, whole....what? I'm just not clear on that part and I'm assuming the "b" before the 3 means the note is flat?

I'm pretty much clueless, but I'd like to learn.

[Poparad]

Originally posted by FloodsCFHCG Really elementary question, but when you say 1 2 b3 4 5 6 7 8 or something like that, what do you mean? Whole step, half, whole....what? I'm just not clear on that part and I'm assuming the "b" before the 3 means the note is flat? I'm pretty much clueless, but I'd like to learn.

 

 

 

The numbers refer to the notes of the major scale. If the numbers are just "1 2 3" etc without any sharps or flats, then the notes are the same as they are in the major scale. The flats and sharps lower and raise the notes of the major scale.

 

Here are a few examples:

 

1 2 b3 4 5 6 7 8

 

C major scale: C D E F G A B C

 

The pattern applied to it: C D Eb F G A B C

 

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 b7 8

 

G major: G A B C D E F# G

 

Applying the pattern: G A B C D E F G

 

(Note that the b7 makes the F# an F natural)

 

 

 

The value of patterns like this is that you can quickly represent any scale in any key, so long as you know your 12 major scales well.