Hi Richard,
Hopefully this is something from the old forum as I totally missed it,…i haven’t read everyone’s comments,…but @adi_mrok , I nearly choked on my tea laughing…
And do you want us to reply per subject or everything in its entirety, in connection with the overview,…not that I have much to say,…most words are correct,…except sunset /sundown that can’t go together(especially if you’re reading this in winter) logically for me,… and the colors red and orange are the colors for the blues, and blue( Blauw…kou…in dutch) is more sharp and cold,…but yes that’s more of a language thing…
Locrian : relief and calm…not for me
If you’d rather see it written differently, just say so…
Good luck,
To respond or not to respond, that is the question!
Honestly, seriously, this Part 5 I deliberately called a digression as it is an entirely voluntary and unnecessary walk through a little flight of fantasy that I had, a little hypothesis that people would, unprompted, connect colour groups with words, descriptions, moods, feelings etc. And somehow, magically, those same descriptors, some similar emotional responses, would be brought out by the sound of the modes.
I am likely wrong.
Right or wrong, I got excited for a little while and it was a bit of fun.
You were certainly not wrong…colors and sounds (and emotions) have been going together since the beginning,…only for some people other colors and words apply to some sounds,…it is not for nothing that they are used in many studies methods,…if it was simple and the same for everyone, therapists/researchers/teachers wouldn’t have to use it anymore…which group do you belong to?
But one thing is certain for me … with colors learning much more fun for me … without my big 4 color pen it is not writing for me
I think I still stand by these descriptions but would drop the Happy tag from Mixo and say “driving exotica” but that may just be down to the backing tracks I’ve been drawn to. But yes an Allman Bro style BT brings out the happy side, others can be a little darker despite it being classed as a Major mode. Or it could be me slipping in a timely 3b now and then !
Thanks Rogier.
Colours and music and moods certainly do blend together. Plus there are people with something marvelous that one can only imagine at - synaesthesia.
In terms of right or wrong, I was more specifically referring to my thought that people’s responses to the combinations of colours when shown out of context would be a reasonable match for the conventional ways that people describe the sound of the modes. In such a way that when I overlaid the colour wheel and the circle of fiths, they would more or less align. The colour of Ionian would be warm, happy etc. The colours of Phrygian would be cool, mysterious etc.
To move towards understanding, hearing and using modes harmonically and melodically, we need to build a catalogue of chords that are associated with each.
This topic does not need to deviate towards chord construction. Suffice it to say that for any given major scale as a start point, there is a process called harmonising the major scale. THis builds the chords within a key by taking each note of the major scale in turn, using them as a starting root, stacking a total of three notes from the major scale by counting in thirds and so forming triads. Harmonising the major scale gives the sequence of chord types:
Major, minor, minor, Major, Major, minor, diminished.
Knowing the chords of given major scales can help us know the chords associated with the modes. Okay. But which major scale do we use for each mode?
That is where it can be helpful to look at the Parent Major Scale of each of these C-rooted modes in parallel. As this is the first mention of Parent Major Scale in this exploration, that concept needs a little introduction.
At the very start of our journey we saw modes in series. The C Major scale was the start point. There followed a succession of modes, in series, called D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Aeolian and B Locrian.
The amazing – although sometimes confusing and sometimes irrelevant – fact about all of those modes is they all share the exact same seven notes. Without exception. In other words, they all share the same Parent Major Scale. They all have C major as their Parent Major Scale. Sometimes called PMS.
The C major scale is the ‘parent’ of C Ionian, D Dorian, E Phrygian etc.
The chords of C major are C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and Bdim respectively. In turn, those are also the chords of each of the modes derived in series from the C major scale - albeit with the chords occupying different positions. When viewing the modes sequentially in series, the major scale notes move along one place, therefore so do the chords rooted on those notes.
Back to the modes in parallel of our study – all having root note C. Clearly (I hope), C major is the Parent Major Scale of C Ionian. What of the other modes? What are their Parent Major Scales? How can we quickly find them?
There are several ways and I am going to refer back to the 12-colour circle of fifths and the seven-sector frames used earlier.
As at the very outset, the start is C Ionian, clockwise to C Lydian and its solitary sharp, then anticlockwise in succession to all other modes with their assortment of flats.
There is something useful to see and use here. This is a crucial point to understand the power of the circle of fifths as a tool to discern the Parent Major Scale of a mode.
C is the Parent Major Scale of the C Ionian mode and its root note can be found in the second sector of the frame when taken clockwise.
For emphasis:
The note in the second sector of the seven-sector frame shows the root note Parent Major Scale.
This holds true for all the modes here.
Let us now run through all seven modes with their seven-sector frames to identify the Parent Major Scales.
In summary, in one reference post, bringing all seven modes and their associated chords together, along with their Roman numeral designations, we have:
