No, it isn’t. Not for someone new to music. The vast majority of songs are written in a major key or a minor key, not a mode.
According to a study on Spotify, over 99% of songs are written in either a major or minor key.
Major keys: Account for around 66.1% of songs.
Minor keys: Account for around 33.7% of songs.
That’s how it is. They have not been exposed to modes. If a beginner sees an Am-D chord progression it’s not going to be obvious to him/her that these two chords are from the G parent major scale. Why would it? The G chord isn’t even being played. Since it starts with Am they more likely to think they are in the key of Am. The D chord won’t look out of place. You and I know that the key of Am has a Dm chord and not a D chord. That comes from experience.
Cmon man.What are you talking about mate? You are playing silly word games. I was clarifying an obvious point you made, simple as that; nothing to do with ‘new’ users. And this was a very minor passing point in the discussion, as its at such a basic level.
You’re being frivolous here. I cant take this seriously.
My apologies Jozsef. It was meant as a joke. Frank Zappa can be quite a divisive character in discussion forums! It wasn’t meant as a knock against you.
Oh, no need to apologize I didn’t know he’s supposed to be a divisive person. I’m a fan of his, myself. The title of his records just came to mind and I thought it could serve as a tongue-in-cheek but also practical advice to Shane and Greg to stop slagging each other and just continue to play the way they feel like playing. It’s clear they approach the topic of modes differently, but the discussion stopped being constructive (to me, at least) pretty soon.
But I still think that by and large this Community has been immune from this kind of nastiness, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d like it to stay that way.
It is in my modes topic, but I know that is an extensive read. So I shall offer what I hope is a short comment.
Major and minor key music is far and away the most prevalent and familiar. For major and minor key music, you can basically use any - as many as you wish - of the seven (six if you’re avoiding diminished) diatonic chords. and create a reasonable sounding harmonic structure for a song. Then the melodic content will be major scale or minor scale. Easy peasy.
Often in minor keys, the ‘five chord’ is altered to a major or dominant 7th chord, which affects the scale (harmonic minor is needed - but that is not a story for now).
Modal music is different. That is not just because the intervals of the scale are different when compared to the parallel major scale either. Music is much more than melody. It is different because the harmonic structure of modal chord progressions is usually composed in a different way. Modal music tends not to draw upon all of the seven diatonic chords. It uses a very limited number of chords which are selected because they contain the all-important colour tones of the mode. This is why you often see 2-chord or 3-chord vamps for modal music. Extension chords (major or minor 7ths) or sus chords can be used to specifically include a colour tone. And it is the mixture of the harmony (specifically chosen chords) along with the melody (which will be targeting the colour tones) that makes for modal music.
An imaginary song in G major using six diatonic chords.
| G | D | Bm | G |
| Em | C | D | Am |
| Bm | C | D | G |
An imaginary song in A minor using six diatonic chords (but the five chord is a dominant 7).
| Am | Fmaj7 | G | Am |
| Dm | C | E7 | Am |
| G | Dm | E7 | Am |
An imaginary song in D Dorian (using select chords that contain the natural 6 colour tone - the note B in this example).
Brilliant summary Richard as usual. Thats why I see the parallel and relative argument as pretty pointless in that both methods make sense and work when practising them. But once you know them you generally play in only one mode the majority of the time over a note, chord or backing track etc so you need to be able to play each mode in isolation and get that modal sound.
I didn’t know he’s supposed to be a divisive person. I’m a fan of his, myself. The title of his records just came to mind and I thought it could serve as a tongue-in-cheek but also practical advice to Shane and Greg to stop slagging each other and just continue to play the way they feel like playing. It’s clear they approach the topic of modes differently, but the discussion stopped being constructive (to me, at least) pretty soon.
