The Modes
Seven scales from the same seven notes, depending on which one you call home. That explanation is true and useless. What makes a mode sound like itself is one note that differs from major or minor, and here all seven play from the same root so you can hear exactly which one.
- 7 notes
- same notes, different home
- one per mode
which styles use it
- Deep house
- Jazz
- Film music
- Rock & folk
How it is built
Play the white keys from C to C and you get Ionian, which is plain major. Start on D instead and you get Dorian, on E Phrygian, and so on through Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. The notes never change. What changes is which note your ear treats as home, and therefore where the half steps fall relative to it.
Ionian is major. Lydian is major with a lift. Mixolydian is major with a bluesy edge. Dorian is minor with hope. Aeolian is plain minor. Phrygian is minor with a dark, Spanish second. Locrian barely holds together.
Where to use it
Modal writing works when the harmony stays put and lets the mode speak. Give a Dorian vamp a proper dominant chord and it collapses back into an ordinary minor key within one bar, which is the single most common mistake.
The chords that go with it
Each mode has a home chord and a characteristic chord. Dorian leans on the major IV, Mixolydian on the flattened VII, Lydian on the major II. Those chords are where the mode actually lives.
What it gets confused with
With keys. A piece in D Dorian is not a piece in C major, even though the notes match. The difference is which chord the music keeps returning to.