Modes Parts 1 - 9

C Phrygian - Scale and Triads

The big deal with Phrygian is the b2 note and the bII chord it gives rise to. This is unique among the six modes we are concentrating on here. This potent flavour note is an essential ingredient though does need using carefully so as not to overpower the overall mix.
The chord progression provided emphasises the tonic chord with forays to the bII and short bursts of the bvii which also contain the b2 note.

TAB

Improvise using this scale pattern.

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Hard no to highlight this entire passage. This is golden, new learning for me on top of some fuzzy concepts, in the parlance of the UK - brilliant!

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Hey Richard,

Brilliant, clear cut illumination on a topic that seems to cause great confusion - and often controversy - all over the web. A great resource.
While I’m not studying modes specifically as a study area at this stage, I do find myself increasingly doing some adhoc investigation as I come across modal progressions in songs/ exercises, and then maybe play around with them occasionally in my own playing. I see them alot in some southern rock stuff I like etc, and its even a bit of fascinating topic in its own right for me.

A 10 minute read here has introduced some seemingly crucially important concepts for me, and made some others much clearer. Some of this core, essential stuff is just not being mentioned elsewhere, from many modal ‘experts’ on the web. Or when it is, its very poorly explained.
The whole concept of a different functional harmony as opposed to major/ minor; the importance of really understanding and emphasising specific notes/ chords that bring forth the particular modal sound.
These 2 concepts alone have unmuddied the waters considerably for me, if only at more of an intellectual level for now.
Many many thanks for yet another great series. Another important reference resource moving forward.

Cheers, Shane

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Love it. Once you understand the key concepts, it’s not scary at all. My ‘modal’ progressions never really sounded as I wanted them to sound. Why? I introduced too many different chords, including the V(7) of the PMS, which is just an open door for the PMS to come through and say hi. Less is more!

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Less is more all right. Having developed into a “noodler” I am in a bad place on this. Many things start to sound similar …

This is a good reminder as well then for me to focus and reduce and limit what I’m playing before it goes to the blah mush mode.

Gotta think motifs, in a modal arena as well as the yes-its-a-mode Ionian and Aeolian.

Bill Frisell is brilliant here and in countless other ways.

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Modes Part 9 - Some Backing Tracks

There are thousands of backing tracks available for major and minor music. Lydian progressions are seldom used for full songs, they tend to be small passages within larger pieces. No-one really creates Locrian modal music. Well really - who is going to spend time playing a m7b5 and think of it as home? :wink:
That leaves Mixolydian, Dorian and Phrygian. No doubt many pro quality backing tracks are available out in internet land. You may find Mixolydian tracks created with a tip of the hat to either southern rock boogie or with an AC/DC no-nonsense rock ‘n’ roll vibe. You may find Dorian tracks in a funky-latin-cool-cats style. Phrygian is perhaps something you will find with an eastern-mystical flavour.
I thought I would cook up some backing tracks in just those three modes. I have written them all out on Guitar Pro with no fancy mixing or anything. Besides, I’m suffering a bad dose of covid and my ears feel like they have several wads of cotton wool stuffed in them so that would be futile just now. If anybody fancies doing a post-production number on them by all means, just let me know.
So here they are, just raw, come and take what you can backing tracks to try some modal improvisation over.

Enjoy.

:sunglasses:

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C Mixolydian acoustic track

TAB

Improvise using this scale pattern from earlier - or a fuller scale pattern if you have scale pattern knowledge.

The flat 7th scale degree (the note Bb here) is the note to target. Notice that it sits within both the Bb and the Gm7 chords.

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C Dorian ambient track

TAB

Improvise using this scale pattern from earlier - or a fuller scale pattern(s) if you have scale pattern knowledge.

The flat 3rd and the natural 6th scale degrees (the notes Eb and A respectively here) are the notes to target. Notice that Eb sits within the tonic chord (it is the minor 3rd) and A sits within both the Dm7 and the Gmadd9 chords.

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C Phrygian rock track

TAB

Guitar 1

Guitar 2

Improvise using this scale pattern from earlier - or a fuller scale pattern(s) if you have scale pattern knowledge.

The flat 2nd and the flat 3rd scale degrees (the notes Db and Eb respectively here) are the notes to target. Notice that Eb sits within the tonic chord (it is the minor 3rd) and Db sits within all the Db, Bbm, the Gm7b5 and the dyad Bbm (no5) chords. And listen out for that last one - it’s a doozy!

Oh yeah - crank your amp for this one!

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In the Triad list, shouldn’t the Em be an Edim?

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Good spot, thank you. I have corrected it now.
:slight_smile:

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I would just like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to @Richard_close2u for this series. I just this week finally sat down and worked out all the triads in all the modes so that I could pinpoint which ones contained the flavour notes. Then a couple of days later I come here and find this, presented in a much better way than I could, THANK YOU!

The quick takeaway I arrived at after all my working out, is this, and I am now in the process of trying to commit them to memory:

DORIAN CHORDS: i ii IV
PHRYGIAN CHORDS: i bII bvii
LYDIAN CHORDS: I II vii
MIXOLYDIAN CHORDS: I v bVII

Notes, questions, and observations:

  1. I haven’t yet tried adding in any of the diminished chords that contain the flavour note, to my modal chord vamps, but am assuming in Rock, Pop and Folk they are not very common?

  2. Why is the one flavour chord more common than the other? I.e. in a Mixolydian vamp it’s more common to go I bVII than I v, or in a Phrygian vamp it’s more common to go i bII than I bvii etc? Is it because they are closer to the home chord/tonal centre?

  3. You mention, “The colour tones need to be emphasised by selecting chords containing those notes. Making use of extended chords or suspended chords, rather than simple triads, can be a big part of this.” This opens up a WHOLE OTHER WORLD of searching for extended and Sus chords which will also contain the flavour note and bring more variety to your chord progressions while still maintaining that “modal feel”, very, very cool! :slight_smile: I think this probably happens a lot in acoustic fingerpicked folk guitar (my main area of interest).

  4. I also hadn’t really considered the chords to avoid, so that’s great info, don’t do the classic dom 7th resolve!

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Wow, thank you Gregg, your appreciation is very much appreciated. It seems you’ve absorbed and are beginning to use this. :slight_smile:

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I like this a lot:

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This is an “on holiday, don’t have an instrument with me, can’t just sunbathe “ theory exercise for me. I also hear “major scale” with the modes in series. However as one of my warm up exercises is roots/ 3rds of the major scale played linearly (i.e. on 2 strings going up the fretboard, rather than in one position) the series approach almost works for me - at least in terms of knowing which modes are major and minor. I hadn’t come across the circle of 5ths approach, but I think it may work for me.

Currently I’m (kind of) restricting myself to Dorian and Mixolydian modes (in addition to Major / Ionian and Minor / Aeolian). Mainly on the basis that they are the easiest scales to remember (minor and major respectively, both with a flat 7).

From a practical perspective I try to give myself song references and understand how the chords relate to the modal scales. So a song with chords D G and A at first glance looks like it is in D. But if when you play it, it sounds like A (V of D major) is the key centre, it’s probably in A mixolydian.

My song references for Mixolydian are:
Good Love is on the way (John Mayer) - A Mixolydian
The verses from Crazy little thing called love (Queen) - D Mixolydian (apart from the weird Bb that somehow works)
And possibly a new one for me that I heard playing round the hotel pool yesterday “Don’t you forget about me” (Simple Minds) - verses are in E Mixolydian (I think)

For Dorian my song reference is “So what” by Miles Davis which is Dm7 (D Dorian) and Ebm7 (Eb Dorian) for a lot of the song. Once you know the Dorian scale it is easier to think of it as improvising on 2 Dorian scales a semitone apart.

I’ll give the coloured circle of 5ths a day or so to sink in, then read some more.

Edit 1:
So after a couple of days and another read I’ve got the following:-

  1. The colour wheel helps

  2. Lydian (one of the major modes (I already knew that)) adds a sharp (the 4th) and sounds brighter

  3. The ones with flats (I.e. all except Ionian and Lydian) go anti-clockwise so (as per the colour wheel) are getting “darker”

  4. Mixolydian is major with a flat 7 (I already knew this).

  5. Next on “the dark side” of the colour wheel (I’m not sure the Star Wars reference helps, but something may come to mind😀) is Dorian. A minor 3rd with a flat 7 (so 2 flats). Again I already knew that.

  6. The dark side of the colour wheel keeps adding a flat. So 3 flats for the next one and as we have already used the 3 major modes it has to be a minor one. Applying some previously learned music theory, C minor is the relative minor of Eb (Eb major has 3 flats), so it must be Aeolian.

  7. So that must leave me with Phrygian with 4 flats.

  8. For completeness, I can forget about Locrian (or at least if I can’t, I’m probably playing in the wrong band :joy:).

  9. For the 3 and 4 flat modes (Aeolian and Phrygian respectively) I need a way of remembering what the 3rd and 4th flats are. Maybe noting that the flats come in pairs when written as a scale will help. I can probably quickly remember that the 6th is flat in Aeolian by comparing A major to Am (relative minor of Cmajor) and that 2 of the 3 sharps in Amajor come at the end of the scale. So the Aeolian flattened pair are the 6th and 7th degrees. It’s not much of a jump from there to memorising that the flat pair for Phrygian are the 2nd and 3rd degrees. I won’t be able to do the mental gymnastics quickly enough whilst playing, but this will sink in over time.

Assuming I’ve understood correctly, that is the furthest I have ever got with the modes. The colour wheel really helped, so thanks for that @Richard_close2u .

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Hi Simon, thanks for checking it out - especially on holiday! :slight_smile:

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Brilliant way of illustrating this Richard. I’ve not seen this anywhere ( including on my previous visit here…minus points to me for overlooking/ forgetting). I’ve been on a ‘modal adventure’ the last 2 days…
This ‘silliness’ does more to explain modes and modal sounds than the volumes of nonsense presented by others. Again, brilliant exposition.

Cheers, Shane

Had a misadventure yesterday involving my Wolfhound, Marley, her lead, and another dog; no dogs were injured, but the human (me) suffered a nasty rope burn on his right hand, including one big white blister, and a couple of smaller ones to keep him company… :crazy_face:

So no guitar for me last night or today, so thought I’d delve headlong into some theory for a little while; specifically modes. And what better way to do that than watching/ rewatching some of Justin’s PMT modules, as well as @Richard_close2u brilliant series on Modes.

So, I’ll often start with a blank piece of paper, taking notes, writing out the basics again; in this case , the major scale, the mode, the parent scale, diatonic triads, 7th chords, distinctive notes etc, and see what else I can glean from it, in addition to what I’m reading.
And boy, have I been reading a lot of cool stuff; with perhaps more knowledgeable eyes than say a year ago.

So, I’ve come across something very interesting, at least to me. I haven’t heard it mentioned anywhere, and am still at the point where I’m thinking, “ What else can I glean from this, and is there some potentially practical benefit here by looking at it this way?”. Wondering if @Richard_close2u can perhaps throw some light on this, critique it, pull it apart etc. It’s basically another path to answering the following 2 questions on the fly. This perspective is more about using knowledge about diatonic chords, chord construction, and intervals to get quick answers.

Q1. What are the notes in a particular mode ?
Q2. What is the relevant Parent Major Scale ?

A1. 7 Notes in any mode = I7 + II triad ( nomenclature up for improvement, but will suffice here)

( ie. The four 7th chord notes built off the tonic + the three triad notes built off the 2nd degree = 7 notes of the mode)

A2. Parent Key = 9 - Modes degree number. The resulting note on that degree is the tonic of the parent.
( ie 9 - the modes degree number when seen in series)

Example : D Mixolydian ( 5th degree mode)

D7 (II7) + Em (II triad) = DF#AC + EGB
= DEF#GABC ( D Mixolydian mode/scale
and,

9 - 5 = 4.
From above, 4th degree = G
Parent scale is G Major.

So, a couple of points/ caveats re ascertaining the chord tonalities, degrees etc

  1. Knowing the chord qualities built off the 7 degrees of the Major scale, including both triads and 7th chords; chords in a key basically. I suppose, if you’re looking at modes, it’s pretty much prerequisite knowledge.
  2. Knowing the type of 2nd degree in 1., in order to start building the triad. Eg. Is it a b2 or a 2.? It will always be one tone up from the tonic in every mode, except for Phrygian and Locrian, which both have b2 degrees. Given their more limited use, I think this is OK. Plus I’d put it under prerequisite knowledge anyway.
  3. Knowing the tonality/quality of the triad in 1. This can immediately be gleaned by simply looking at the tonality of root chord, then looking at the one above it. eg. For say Mixolydian, in the Major scale the 5 chord is Major, so the 6 ( in effect the 2nd in the mode, and the answer we’re after) must be minor.
  4. I’ve found that with some modes, with less sharps and flats etc, working the above out can be pretty quick anyway. However, for many other modes, I can quickly get into a bind, and need to nut it out on paper; thus taking me away from the guitar. This method may indeed be very helpful at those times.
    I’d say if one has a pretty good working knowledge of chord construction, this can be a quickfire way to reveal the notes of any 7 note scale. Seems obvious now, but all those times I put myself in knots when working out major scale notes across any key; many are committed to memory now as ‘images’, but hey, it’s just the notes of the root Maj7 + 2nd minor triad.

Here’s a table of all the modes, and the chord qualities, pertinent to (1) above. I noticed the columns are offset by 1 to reflect the 1st and 2nd degrees. I love logical things.

Mode 7th Triad

Ionian Maj7 + min

Dorian min7 + min

Phrygian min7 + Maj

Lydian Maj7 + Maj

Mixo- Dom7 + min
Lydian

Aeolian min7 + dim

Locrian m7b5 + Maj

The whole process above might sound a bit dense, and given its a ‘new’ discovery for me, it perhaps could be put more succintly. Not 100% sure if it has full integrity yet either, but it appears so at this point.
In real terms however, the whole process is less than a minute, and often less the 30 seconds.

Cheers,
Shane

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Good to seeing you doing a modal deep dive. Richard’s feature is a great explanation and opportunity to explore. When your hand is better try doing some of the exploratory “exercises” a few of us did when the series came out. But make sure your give Locrian some love, it can be an interesting mode to mess around with. :crazy_face:

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Bah! I hope it heals soon.

Yes. And this is totally logical. It will always work if just dealing with scale degrees and not being concerned with chord type or sharps or flats etc.

The tonic triad, and then its extension to a 7th, will always be:

1 - 3 - 5

1 - 3 - 5 - 7

That is the odd numbers taken care of.

The triad built off the second scale degree will always be:

2 - 4 - 6

That is the even numbers taken care of.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - the complete set are contained within those two chords - the tonic 7th and the 2nd scale degree triad. It cannot be any other way.


Aha. You have discovered the 9 subtract something formula. Have you learned, discovered, noticed something along these lines when it comes to intervals? Specifically intervals when viewed as pairs or related intervals.

You will be familiar with the interval of 3rds. Of course you will. You’re discussing chord construction. I’m sure you have also encountered 6ths.
Did you know that 3rds and 6ths are inversions of one another?

Let’s take a G major chord. It is built by stacking 3rds.
G → B → D

G to B is a major 3rd. B to D is a minor 3rd. WHat about the intervals of B back to G an octave higher, or D back to B an octave higher?

Check the diagram - those ‘return’ intervals are both 6ths.

3rds and 6ths can be called inversion of one another.
G → B is a 3rd
B → G is a 6th.
That applies to all 3rds and all 6ths.
Their quality is also flipped, major / minor.

What about other intervals?

G → A is a 2nd.
A → G is a 7th.

G → C is a 4th.
C → G is a 5th.

Hang on … 3 and 6, 2 and 7, 4 and 5. All pairs add to 9! It’s magical.


@TheMadman_tobyjenner Toby loves Locrian. :heart_eyes:

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