If there is one subject that seems to pop up on almost every guitar blog and forum… it’s modes. To understand modes, it’s helpful to be fluent in the following areas:
- Major, Harmonic Minor, and Melodic Minor Scales (Know the notes and chords in all 12 keys)
- Intervals (2nds, 3rds, 4ths)
- Chord Construction (Triads & 6th/7th chords)
- Tensions (9, 11, 13)
There’s really no way around not knowing these things to get into modes. For those that do… read on!
What exactly are they?
A concert with great lighting can be magical. A change of lighting and colour during or between songs can instantly highlight the emotions the artist is trying to convey in a really visceral way.
In artistic terms, modes are little bursts of light or tone colour. Mood shifters if you like. Writing music with major scales becomes limiting after a while. Modes offer the writer and improviser a richer canvas of tone colour to draw upon and add another dimension to the flow of drama in the piece.
In Musical terms, they are scale inversions of a parent scale. The three main parent scales include: Major, Harmonic Minor, and Melodic Minor. Any 7 note scale can be ordered 7 different ways:
C D E F G A B
can be reordered to:
D E F G A B C
or:
E F G A B C D and so on.
Each parent scale yields 7 scale inversions… or modes. The same follows for the harmony. The chords in the parent scale are the same chords in each mode. The difference being, that the ear perceives a different relationship between the home chord and the secondary chords of each mode.
K… But what are they…really?
Drilling down further, the major scale is a series of notes a whole step apart, but with two half steps between the 3rd/4th note and the 7/1st note. When you invert that (start on a different note) the half step locations are shifted and the sound of the scale changes. The harmony (chords) of the mode are also shifted in relation to the starting note and tonic chord.
Modes are functional, meaning they depend on having a clear tonal centre. Each mode will have a unique tonic chord. Some Maj/Maj7/Dom7, min/min7, or Dim/min7(b5).
IE:
The chords in C Major are:
Cmaj Dmin Emin Fmaj Gmaj Amin Bdim.
The chords in D Dorian would be:
Dmin Emin Fmaj Gmaj Amin Bdim Cmaj
- In Cmajor, the Cmaj chord is home.
- In D Dorian, the Dmin chord is home.
- In Cmajor, the V chord is Major.
- In D Dorian the V chord is Min.
- In C Major, the 7th chord (VII) is diminished. It’s root is a major 7th higher than C.
- In D Dorian, the 7th chord (bVII) is major and it’s root is a min 7th higher than D.
Each mode has a name, and a characteristic note.
Yeah, but what do they do?
Modes are useful in two primary ways: Composing and Improvising/Melody. In this blog, I will present a general overview of how modes are used in both.
Composing With Modes:
Sometimes the sound of the mode is baked into a chord progression. 3 conditions need to be present here:
1) Clear Tonal Centre
2) Clear Tonic Chord
3) Characteristic note of the mode is present
It’s not always that cut and dried, but that pretty much covers it. Again, modes are functional, meaning they rely on hearing a clear tonal centre. A chord progression with no common thread or tonal centre between them will sound atonal… not modal.
A C-7 Chord vamped for 4 bars is not modal on its own. Why? Because there is no characteristic note in that chord on its own. Putting the note A in the solo/melody makes it sound Dorian. The harmony sets up conditions #1 & 2, the melody over top satisfies condition #3.
A C-6 chord vamp on the other hand… is almost modal on it’s own. It satisfies all conditions because the characteristic note of (A) is in the chord itself. There’s pretty much only one scale that’s used over that chord which is Dorian, and in this case…. C Dorian.
Sometimes 2 chords can satisfy all three things:
C-7 | / / / / | / / / / | F7 |
The C-7 doesn’t have any characteristic mode on it’s own, but the F7 contains the note A. Collectively between those two chords, you would have the notes C, Eb, F, G, A, Bb. Those 6 notes are enough collectively to imply the sound of the mode.
One way a C-7 extended vamp could be fashioned to sound Dorian would be for any member of the rhythm section to add the note A… either in a chord voicing or in the bass line. A good rhythm section will often expand on a chord if it’s going to be vamped for an extended period of time.
Consider the chord progression:
|Fmaj7 |D-7 |
|BbMaj7 |C7 |
All chords in the key of F right? The sound of the Fmajor scale is hard wired into that progression as all the notes of the Fmajor scale are used collectively with all the chords, and the Fmaj will clearly sound like home especially with the C7 to FMaj7 cadence.
Now let’s suppose we modify the chord progression on the next time around to:
|FMaj7 |DbMaj7 |
|BbMaj7 |GbMaj7 |
There is no one scale that could accommodate all of those chords. While FMaj7 & BbMaj7 are both in the key of F, DbMaj7 and GbMaj7 are not. The DbMaj7 accentuates the b6 note in relation to F, and would therefore take the F Aeolian scale. The GbMaj7 chord accentuates the b2 note in relation to the key of FMaj which takes an F Phrygian scale.
Notice in that example, all scales used have the starting note F. That is known as modal interchange. A common starting note which changing secondary notes of the scale. The common note F is the glue that holds that progresion together… it’s also a chord tone of every chord.
How Do I Use Modes For My Own Music?
There are three primary ways to use them:
- Drones
- Songwriting/Composition
- Improvising/Soloing
1. Drones
Sustain any note for an extended period of time. It helps if it’s in the lower register. Start by playing each mode over the drone of the low E string. Play E Lydian, E Phrygian, or E Mixolydian… whatever you like. This is a good starting point to hear the sound of each mode. With drones, any mode can be used at anytime as long as the root of the applied mode is the same note as the drone. These can serve as a dramatic intro or interlude in a song.
2. Improvising:
Modes can be used to solo over single chord, or a chord sequence. Not all modes are appropriate all the time. The mode should correspond with the harmony for smoother sounds.
IE: F Lydian is appropriate for an FMaj7 chord. FMaj7 is a tonic chord of F Lydian.
C Dorian is appropriate over a C-7 —> F7 chord vamp. Both chords are in C Dorian
At other times, a mode might be applied to a single chord in a longer sequence if the chord shifts from the primary mood of the song.
|C |A- |F |G |
|C |F |Fmin |
In this sequence, Fmin is the outlier as the other 4 chords are all in the key of Cmaj. The Fmin has an Ab in it which needs to be reflected when improvising. F Dorian would be an appropriate chord scale to apply.
Improvisers often think of the chords from the root irrespective of tonal centre.
Composers often think of the chords as a collective in relation to a tonal centre. IE, the Fmin in the above example would function as IVmin and would be borrowed from C Aeolian.
3. Composing:
This is one of the most useful aspects of modes. They can be used to weave in and out of different moods and emotions when using them in a song. The mode can be baked into the chord changes, the melody, and or the bass line. The general recipe is for the listener to hear a tonic chord and one characteristic note of the mode either in a secondary chord change, or in the melody, or in the bass line. Sometimes all three.
How can I go about learning and actually applying them?
The first thing is to learn them conceptually. This is best accomplished in written form. Here are some basic assignments to work through:
Stage 1:
- Write each of the three parent scales in all 12 keys
- Write the specific names of the triads and 7th chords generated by each scale
- Write the intervallic spacing of each note and chord from the root of the scale
Stage 2:
- Rewrite each parent scale step wise alphabetically starting from each of the 7 notes in all 12 keys
- Name each of the inversions you just wrote
- Write the intervallic spacing of each note and chord from the root of each scale
Stage 3:
- Identify the tonic chord of each mode
- Identify the characteristic note of each mode
- Identify each chord in the mode that contains the characteristic note
Stay tuned for part two of this article with examples and further tips on applying them.