Why don't people understand modes!!!

KeithTS

Hi all,

I was looking at a thread the other day and a question about scales/modes came up and got me thinking.

Why is there such a general misunderstanding about modes?
There are so many resources out there about this kind of thing and even they have it wrong a lot of the time (the theory sticky here is full of it too). you always hear stuff about the major scales being played in different positions (which is half the story - kinda) but you never hear anything about the underlying chordal structure which is probably the most important thing got to do with modes in the first place.

It's primarily a problem with guitarists I feel, we don't listen to what is going on and are only concerned with our solos, thinking they are this cool Dorian lick when in fact its just the second position of a major scale.

Is this something that you've been noticing for the last number of years too or am I on my own?

18AD

The problem is, is that it's music theory and there're many different ways of looking things. Of course some may be less helpful or even wrong, but there are different correct ways.

For example, in jazz they're basically just different scales you can use. And in a given progression one needn't follow the modes. For instance, if you have a ii - V - I progression you don't necessarily have to play Dorian - Mixolydian - Ionian.

Edit: You're right though. It seems to be a very confusing topic indeed. And in all honesty I don't remember how exactly I learned it.

KeithTS

18AD wrote: »

For example, in jazz they're basically just different scales you can use......

This is exactly my point, they are just scales you can use, however, in order to use them in a modal context you need to use them with reference to the correct chordal sequences.

for instance, I play a pattern of the G major scale ( G, A, B, C, D, E, F# ) over the I - IV - V sequence of G, C and D it's Ionian.
If I changed the pattern of notes I play to B, C, D, E, F#, G, A it does not magically become phrygian because I'm starting on a B.

In order for this to sound phrygian I need to alter the chords to the relevant i - iv - v progression of Bm - Em F# dim^, all the work is done by the chords, not the "scale" in the sense that is implied by most references to modes.

Anyway, it's just a pet peev I have.

endacl

KeithTS wrote: »

Why is there such a general misunderstanding about modes?

Combination of youtube, and no editors on youtube. Modes aren't difficult to understand. A large proportion of people who 'teach' them, seem to feel compelled to give the impression that there is something complicated to teach. Remember that guitargnosis dude? His channel is gone, but google will find him.

Modes (including the Ionian and Aeolian) are just an agreed sequence of tones and semitones within the span of an octave, each with a slightly different flavour. There's no magic to them. I'd always advise people to learn them on a single string. That also gets them away from using bloody 'shapes'. Which leads to another interesting question... Why do guitarists spend hours practising towards the next glass ceiling they set for themselves?

Shapes aren't music...:rolleyes:

18AD

KeithTS wrote: »

for instance, I play a pattern of the G major scale ( G, A, B, C, D, E, F# ) over the I - IV - V sequence of G, C and D it Ionian.
If I changed the patter of notes I play to B, C, D, E, F#, G, A it does not magically become phrygian because I'm starting on a B.

It does though, don't it? If you're thinking in terms of it just being a scale you have played an ionian scale and then a phrygian scale over the underlying harmony, which hasn't changed. The key centre is still G. It would be wrong to say that the tune is now in B phrygian instead of G ionian.

But equally valid, is that you've just played the G scale from the third.

It seems to me that both descriptions are valid.

But over the I - IV - V you could play Lydian b7 - Lydian - Mixolydian or something. The first isn't a mode of the second two, but the next two are modes of eachother. Even here the key hasn't changed though.

KeithTS

18AD wrote: »

It does though, don't it? If you're thinking in terms of it just being a scale you have played an ionian scale and then a phrygian scale over the underlying harmony, which hasn't changed.

It's this that I would find issue with. Modes aren't really to be viewed as just scales in my opinion, the major scale has 7 seperate positions just like the pentatonic has 5. Moving around these positions does not mean you are using a mode even though the shape is exactly the same.

Although my example could be viewed as a B phyrigian vi - ii - iii progression I guess.
The sound of a mode can be very telling, phrygian gives a Spanish feel and so on, playing in the context you described above doesn't give any indication of that modal "feel" and such perhaps it shouldn't be viewed modally?

From looking at your posts you seem to know what you're on about so I mean no disrespect or anything I'm just trying to have a debate on what I find to be an interesting and somehow mystical aspect of music.

and as an other poster has said, it probably stems form the fact us guitarists use shapes rather than a knowledge of intervals in our playing.

endacl

This guy.

While being comically intense, he's also a parody of himself. Guitar players are funny, and I say this as one! It's just playing music. There are no higher levels of enlightenment to be attained.

Trumpet players don't carry on like this! Not one of his 'I'm about to bestow upon you on of the seven mystical secrets of playing widdley woodeliness' videos'. This is far better/worse. Enjoy.


http://www.dailymotion.com/GuitarGnosis#video=x7eepn

We've all kinda been there, I suspect.

18AD

KeithTS wrote: »

It's this that I would find issue with. Modes aren't really to be viewed as just scales in my opinion, the major scale has 7 seperate positions just like the pentatonic has 5. Moving around these positions does not mean you are using a mode even though the shape is exactly the same.

The sound of a mode can be very telling, phrygian gives a Spanish feel and so on, playing in the context you described above doesn't give any indication of that modal "feel" and such perhaps it shouldn't be viewed modally?

I think it's just a description issue with regard what you are playing. I mean you can describe what is played as being a B phrygian over a G major harmony. You have played a B phrygian scale, it is that exact sequence of notes. Which is the exact same as playing a G scale from the thrid degree.

In relation to the sound of it you're right. It's not going to sound very phrygian playing it over a G chord. But likewise playing that run has it's own sound as compared to a simple G major scale being played.

There is still however a certain sound from playing those phrygian lines over the chord progression. It won't have that sound of being stuck to the root.

I mean you could play B phrygian - E aeolian - F# locrian over the same I - IV - V progression in G and it would sound different to playing G ionian - C lydian - D mixolydian, granted you are emphasing those relevant scale tones. But it's all still modes of the same thing.

This is the problem I see a lot then is that you start over conceptualising the modes and see that over the G major chord I can play any of the seven modes. While this makes sense and is true it doesn't help you're playing when you have so many options. So you're definitely right when you say that you are just playing the G major scale from a different point and I think this is a much easier way to think about playing in a scale.


This is the issue of how you want to approach or think about what you want to play. This is the other hand of what I said above, because I find it helpful to think in terms of these different scales and shapes. As I disagree with the above that shape is unimportant, but surely not what it's all about.

To give an example, say you just have a G major chord repeating. I find it useful to think that I want to play an E blues scale over this as I am familiar with that pattern and in a different way than to how I play G major.

endacl

18AD wrote: »

As I disagree with the above that shape is unimportant, but surely not what it's all about.

It's certainly not unimportant, yet in understanding 'music', as opposed to 'instrument', shapes are irrelevant. They are an emergent property, as opposed to a fundamental influence. Take a sax player for example, who knows their modes and can use them. They have to know what is meant, for example by a 'flat 5', as opposed to a guitar shaper who thinks 'that finger goes there'. The sax player has to think in terms of notes.

Guitar players in my experience, get distracted by shapes and patterns. As a species, we're evolutionally predisposed to do so. The guitar as an instrument provides the perfect outlet for this thinking. They're certainly a handy means of learning/teaching scales and modes, but if the learning/teaching stops at shapes and patterns the knowledge is essentially useless.

KeithTS

endacl wrote: »

It's certainly not unimportant, yet in understanding 'music', as opposed to 'instrument', shapes are irrelevant. They are an emergent property, as opposed to a fundamental influence. Take a sax player for example, who knows their modes and can use them. They have to know what is meant, for example by a 'flat 5', as opposed to a guitar shaper who thinks 'that finger goes there'. The sax player has to think in terms of notes.

Guitar players in my experience, get distracted by shapes and patterns. As a species, we're evolutionally predisposed to do so. The guitar as an instrument provides the perfect outlet for this thinking. They're certainly a handy means of learning/teaching scales and modes, but if the learning/teaching stops at shapes and patterns the knowledge is essentially useless.

Agree 100%.
I recently had a run in with a guitarist I was showing a few bits and pieces to.
He was ripping out all this Yngwie Malmsteen stuff, totally flawless.
When I asked him to play something and then add a flat 7 to it he didn't have a clue what I was on about, he was technically brilliant but hadn't a clue about anything he was playing.

Imitation is all well and good but if you don't know the basics there's a serious problem.
There's a massive difference between a musician and a play it by numbers kind of player.

18AD

endacl wrote: »

It's certainly not unimportant, yet in understanding 'music', as opposed to 'instrument', shapes are irrelevant. They are an emergent property, as opposed to a fundamental influence. Take a sax player for example, who knows their modes and can use them. They have to know what is meant, for example by a 'flat 5', as opposed to a guitar shaper who thinks 'that finger goes there'. The sax player has to think in terms of notes.

Guitar players in my experience, get distracted by shapes and patterns. As a species, we're evolutionally predisposed to do so. The guitar as an instrument provides the perfect outlet for this thinking. They're certainly a handy means of learning/teaching scales and modes, but if the learning/teaching stops at shapes and patterns the knowledge is essentially useless.

I think sax players think in shape as well. Each instrument has its own shapes. It basically comes down to body movement, which is clearly all above shapes and movements. In that regard shape is very important.

It's a shame that guitar is easily picked up through shape alone, with no contextual understanding of music. It's basically one step away from guitar hero.

The communicative aspect is huge. Music is boring if it's not communicating with me or between its members. Malmsteen is impressive technically, but you can hear that the backing band is not saying anything. Same with most guitar fronted bands. I still enjoy some of it though. :P
It's also a symptom of being able to learn everything in bubble. It removes the inherent social context of music.

Anyway, I could go on. :rolleyes:

endacl

Why do I get the feeling we all agree, from slightly different directions...?

Shakti

I think the modal process can be grasped by the enthusiastic guitar player but I find their interest tends to wane on modal harmony.

KeithTS

Out of interest, what would you define to be the "modal process" over modal harmony?

Shakti

Hey keith,
The modal process the simple method of taking the first note of a scale and placing it at the end to create a new scale, incidentally 'mode' can be used to describe a 'process',

Someone who has a solid understanding of modal harmony is dennis cahill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAd0_ZDK9CY

dadvocate

18AD wrote: »

I think it's just a description issue with regard what you are playing. I mean you can describe what is played as being a B phrygian over a G major harmony. You have played a B phrygian scale, it is that exact sequence of notes. Which is the exact same as playing a G scale from the thrid degree.

In relation to the sound of it you're right. It's not going to sound very phrygian playing it over a G chord. But likewise playing that run has it's own sound as compared to a simple G major scale being played.

There is still however a certain sound from playing those phrygian lines over the chord progression. It won't have that sound of being stuck to the root.

I mean you could play B phrygian - E aeolian - F# locrian over the same I - IV - V progression in G and it would sound different to playing G ionian - C lydian - D mixolydian, granted you are emphasing those relevant scale tones. But it's all still modes of the same thing.

This is the problem I see a lot then is that you start over conceptualising the modes and see that over the G major chord I can play any of the seven modes. While this makes sense and is true it doesn't help you're playing when you have so many options. So you're definitely right when you say that you are just playing the G major scale from a different point and I think this is a much easier way to think about playing in a scale.


This is the issue of how you want to approach or think about what you want to play. This is the other hand of what I said above, because I find it helpful to think in terms of these different scales and shapes. As I disagree with the above that shape is unimportant, but surely not what it's all about.

To give an example, say you just have a G major chord repeating. I find it useful to think that I want to play an E blues scale over this as I am familiar with that pattern and in a different way than to how I play G major.

If you had a piece of music with a key signature of E major and the D sharp notes appeared with a 'natural' sign where they occur in chords but not when they occur as part of the melody so as to create chords from the A major scale, then the music would be played in the lydian mode of E major and would have a characteristic flavour.

Is that right?

Similarly, if I play the notes from the C major scale over the chord of E major then am I playing in the phrygian mode of C major?

KeithTS

dadvocate wrote: »

Similarly, if I play the notes from the C major scale over the chord of E major then am I playing in the phrygian mode of C major?

Phrygian is a minor mode.
Em is the 3rd chord from the C major scale, if you played Em and used a C major scale over it you would be heading in the right direction.
Your progression needs to be able resolve to a chord though, playing just one chord gives no sense of movement meaning you won't get that modal feel.

Shakti

ahem modal music very often has only a single or a pair of chords in progression in accompaniment sometimes over the entire piece,

KeithTS

Shakti wrote: »

ahem modal music very often has only a single or a pair of chords in progression in accompaniment sometimes over the entire piece,

Generally a pair yes.
A single chord can be the case, maybe often it is, however if you're trying out ideas its very difficult to understand how the mode resolves without ever moving chords, in my opinion of course.

18AD

dadvocate wrote: »

If you had a piece of music with a key signature of E major and the D sharp notes appeared with a 'natural' sign where they occur in chords but not when they occur as part of the melody so as to create chords from the A major scale, then the music would be played in the lydian mode of E major and would have a characteristic flavour.

Is that right?

I need to clarify something. If an E major scale has a D natural that would be indicating an E Mixolydian scale. Usually both the melody AND the chords would be outlining this harmony.

And yes, E mixolydian is a mode of A major, allowing a smoother transit to this key.

If it's a D# it would be an E Major and therefore an A lydian mode.

Similarly, if I play the notes from the C major scale over the chord of E major then am I playing in the phrygian mode of C major?

If you play C Major over an E Major chord that will likely not work due to clashing notes.

Firstly, the C Major scale will be over an E Phrygian, not over E Major.

The modes of C Major are:
C Ionian
D Dorian
E Phrygian
F Lydian
G Mixolydian
A Aeolian
B Locrian

All these modes have the same notes as each other, so yes, C Major is a mode of E Phrygian.

BUT, there are different ways of looking at this.

If you just play a bass note of E and play C Major, it'll just sound like a C Major scale with an E in the bass.

If you play a C Major scale over an E Minor chord, it'll sound more Phrygian. So there's a very big difference when you are playing something over a chord.

To truely get the Phrygian sound you have to emphasise the important notes of the Phrygian mode itself. The Root and the b3, b7, then perhaps the b9, b6.

I actually have an example of this here: https://soundcloud.com/23ad/scale-jams

The second scale there is the C Locrian and it emphasises the important chord tones by moving around the all important C note. If I were to just play a Db Major here, while it is a mode of C Locrian, it would just sound like a Db Major.

Hope that helps.

dadvocate

18AD wrote: »

I need to clarify something. If an E major scale has a D natural that would be indicating an E Mixolydian scale. Usually both the melody AND the chords would be outlining this harmony.

And yes, E mixolydian is a mode of A major, allowing a smoother transit to this key.

If it's a D# it would be an E Major and therefore an A lydian mode.



If you play C Major over an E Major chord that will likely not work due to clashing notes.

Firstly, the C Major scale will be over an E Phrygian, not over E Major.

The modes of C Major are:
C Ionian
D Dorian
E Phrygian
F Lydian
G Mixolydian
A Aeolian
B Locrian

All these modes have the same notes as each other, so yes, C Major is a mode of E Phrygian.

BUT, there are different ways of looking at this.

If you just play a bass note of E and play C Major, it'll just sound like a C Major scale with an E in the bass.

If you play a C Major scale over an E Minor chord, it'll sound more Phrygian. So there's a very big difference when you are playing something over a chord.

To truely get the Phrygian sound you have to emphasise the important notes of the Phrygian mode itself. The Root and the b3, b7, then perhaps the b9, b6.

I actually have an example of this here: https://soundcloud.com/23ad/scale-jams

The second scale there is the C Locrian and it emphasises the important chord tones by moving around the all important C note. If I were to just play a Db Major here, while it is a mode of C Locrian, it would just sound like a Db Major.

Hope that helps.

Is that to say that the chords that are allowable in Em phrygian music are only the chords from the C major scale?

And if I play the notes from the C major scale over an E major chord, then what mode am I playing in?

18AD

dadvocate wrote: »

Is that to say that the chords that are allowable in Em phrygian music are only the chords from the C major scale?

If you're playing a tune in the scale of E Phrygian then any of the modes of C Major (which are the same as modes of E Phrygian) are allowable so long as these chord changes are happening. You can move between the specific chords of this mode without changing key. That's because you are staying within the notes of these modes, ie. in E Phrygian: E F G A B C D. None of these notes are altered if you stay within the modes of the scale.

So the basic chords of E Phrygian/C Ionian are:
Em
F
G
Am
Bmb5
C
Dm

For example the chord progression: Em l G7 l FMaj7 l Em l

You'll play these scales over those changes:
E Phrygian l G Mixolydian l F Lydian l E Phrygian l

All the notes are contained within the modes of the E Phrygian scale.

And if I play the notes from the C major scale over an E major chord, then what mode am I playing in?

C Major is not a mode of E Major/Ionian. If you're playing a C major scale, then you're just playing a C major scale. Over any chord. C Ionian.

C Ionian has seven modes particular to itself. E Major is not one of them.

C Ionian
D Dorian
E Phrygian
F Lydian
G Mixolydian
A Aeolian
B Locrian

E Ionian has seven modes particular to itself.

E Ionian
F# Dorian
G# Phrygian
A Lydian
B Mixolydian
C# Aeolian
D# Locrian


Not that you can't play C over E. If you play a C arpeggio (C E G) over an E Major chord (E G# you are going to imply a tonality of E#5#9. Implying an E altered scale.