That leads us who knows where….
Great illustrations, really interesting!
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Richard
Good to see this wonderful explanation back again and I suspect the odd tweak.
Reading this on a damp Saturday morning and staring at my tablet’s interactive CofF, it just dawned on me why the circle is divided into 2 arcs of 7 and 5 notes respectively. DOH !!
So the ability to identify the notes in any parallel mode for any key has been staring me in the face, hidden in plain sight. Double Doh.
So from I Dont Play Like MAL for the order of Serial Modes, It will have to be
I Like Mal. Doesn’t Angus Play Lead ?
for the parallel order. As easy as ACDc 
Looking forward to the next instalment !
Cheers
Toby
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Ionian Lydian Mixolydian Dorian Aeolian Phrygian Locrian ? There begins and ends my knowledge of modes. Somewhat useable knowledge Ionian = the major scale
Keep on rocking in the southern world, The Mad Mixo Kid 
You got it David, its the order in which Richard presents them as parallel modes. And understanding how that applies to finding them on the C of F for any given Key, I needed another phrase to remember the sequence. Also note in parallel its the 3 Major Modes followed by the 3 minor and the cool on last or weird as Mr C would call it.
So for serial modes you should be able to deduce :
I Dont Play Like MAL
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Thanks @DarrellW
Modes in Series:
Ionian
Dorian
Phrygian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Aeolian
Locrian
Yup!
Modes in Parallel … mmmh … I threw you a curve ball here didn’t I rather? I rotated one space clockwise from Ionian, went back to Ionian (which I referred to as zero / default) then began rotating anticlockwise, giving Modes in Parallel:
Ionian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Dorian
Aeolian
Phrygian
Locrian
Yes, according to the presentation above. There is a case to be made that Lydian could come first, then Ionian second, if we took the furthest most cluster of notes as a start point and then only considered rotation in one direction from there (anticlockwise rotations all the way).
That modest alteration would give:
Lydian
Ionian
Mixolydian
Dorian
Aeolian
Phrygian
Locrian
L-I-M-D-A-P-L
Make somethning of that !! 
Yes. Another benefit and advantage I see in adopting the parallel perspective.
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Like I’m Mad. Does Angus Play Locrian ?
And that will work on my C of F app, as long as I remember to place the Key/Root at 11am !! 
Off for a lay down.
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That’s early in the morning for some loud rocking!!
After reading all this I’m off for a lie down. Lovely pictures! 
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Thanks to a question on the recent University Challenge final I now have a great way to remember that distinctive but angular and tricky to sing sounding Lydian Mode
It’s the Simpson’s Theme tune ( Starts C E F# A G E)
D’Oh!
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I reckon the reason Locrian doesn’t get used is because it is the only mode that doesn’t have a major dominant. The dominant to tonic interval or V - I cadence is so important to western music that it’s easy to see that a scale without that feature becomes an unattractive prospect for music makers.
And I think bands like Sabbath that used the flat fifth a lot, didn’t play in ‘chords in the key’ of Locrian
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That’s an interesting observation which I hadn’t noticed before. I didn’t really look past the fact of it having a very unstable tonic chord - diminished chords simply do not sound like home base, as a place of resolution, to my ears.
I work on resigning myself to the parallel naming convention, even though lines sharing a vertex cannot, by definition, be parallel unless vectoring 180º.
Relative modes on the other hand, are indeed parallel. Slip sliding parallel.
musings from my head.
Edit add:
let me add I’ve struggled hopelessly at times over 6y or so to understand this stuff. It started to come together finally about a year ago with the help of more thorough on line site that explained it fully. Successively playing relative modes around a circle sounded just that - major scale. Parallel modes with an open drone note of A, E or D then allowed me to hear a real mode in context harmonically.
Your explanations are taking this to the next level still for me in terms of clarity with no ambiguity. So much on line leave out contextual detail entirely and muddy the waters terribly.
Great stuff, thanks for posting all this.
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Modes Part 4 - Modal Melodies: the sound of the modes?
It is time to involve the ears in our cognition.
We are going to hear seven parallel modes, all with root note C. First in a simple ascending and descending sequence. Then in a three-note sequence formed from playing three notes up, going back two, three notes up, going back two and so on. This inverts once the upper most note of the pattern is reached. These may still sound like the scale exercises / etudes I decried earlier when discussing modes in series. However, I hope that this time, a distinct difference in character and the unique flavour of each mode becomes just that bit more evident in the eras.
We are going to start with the Lydian mode - the mode found when the modal frame holding a seven-note cluster was rotated to its furthest point clockwise. We will work anticlockwise, ending with Locrian. The order will be:
Lydian
Ionian
Mixolydian
Dorian
Aeolian
Phrygian
Locrian
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The C Mixolydian Mode
—
C Mixolydian ascending and descending
C Mixolydian ascending and descending 3-in-a-line
The C Dorian Mode
—
C Dorian ascending and descending - audio file
C Dorian ascending and descending 3-in-a-line
The C Aeolian (natural minor) Mode
—
C Aeolian ascending and descending
C Aeolian ascending and descending 3-in-a-line
The C Phrygian Mode
—
C Phrygian ascending and descending
C Phrygian ascending and descending 3-in-a-line
