My View On Modes Options

[ElHombre]

Hello

I see a lot of young metal/rock muscian talk about modes.
I think most of them have got the whole idea wrong. Or maybe I have?

Well for me, this is all that a mode is.

Its the chord behind it.
Ok, that is simply everything for me.

For me there are no "F dorian scales or C lydian scales"
For me they dont exist.
I only think in major scales, and of course i know the names of all the notes on the board instantly

A mode is when you play a certain major scale over a certain chord.
The end.


It has everything to do with the chord behind it.
young muscians learn modes as "shapes" starting on a note. For example A dorian (being a G major scale)
which it is, starting on a certain note doesnt really make it a mode. The chord makes it the mode

I constantly see people trying to be smarter than the other, "oh he should totally play A mixolydian there, I learned that scale today and I can tell it would be awesome right there".

Its with comments like this that gets me thinking people have about as much of an idea of what they are talking about as I have of rocket science

As I was told
"There is no mode unless there is a chord behind it".

Is it just me or does a lot of people dont get this?

------------------

For me there is no reason to think about modes as individual scales unless you want to confuse your brain
You only have to think about major scales and what chord is being played

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This post has been edited by ElHombre: Aug 11 2015, 03:30 PM

[klasaine]

The beauty and also the confusion of modes is that you can think of them and utilize them from both points of view.

Your way - always knowing the 'parent' major scale. Ex; A phrygian is really just F major (ionian) until there's an A phrygian chord and that particular collection of notes (F G A Bb C D E).

On the other hand it's also cool to derive chords from the mode.
Lets take the A phryg mode - A Bb C D E F G.

A Bb D E is a pretty cool voicing X0875X = Asusb9, otherwise referred to as an A phygian chord.
Another cool one is X 1 2 2 3 X or X 3 3 3 5 X or X 5 5 5 6 X or X 7 7 7 8 X or X 8 8 9 10 X

Or play an A to Bb power chord pattern - | A5 | A5 Bb5 | etc. A phryg sounds pretty cool over it but none of the power chords are necessarily phygian, though the progression 'implies' it.

*I never really think 'F' on stuff like that.

Modes are definitely 'a sound' in my opinion.

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[ElHombre]

The beauty and also the confusion of modes is that you can think of them and utilize them from both points of view.

Your way - always knowing the 'parent' major scale. Ex; A phrygian is really just F major (ionian) until there's an A phrygian chord and that particular collection of notes (F G A Bb C D E).

On the other hand it's also cool to derive chords from the mode.
Lets take the A phryg mode - A Bb C D E F G.

A Bb D E is a pretty cool voicing X0875X = Asusb9, otherwise referred to as an A phygian chord.
Another cool one is X 1 2 2 3 X or X 3 3 3 5 X or X 5 5 5 6 X or X 7 7 7 8 X or X 8 8 9 10 X

Or play an A to Bb power chord pattern - | A5 | A5 Bb5 | etc. A phryg sounds pretty cool over it but none of the power chords are necessarily phygian, though the progression 'implies' it.

*I never really think 'F' on stuff like that.

Modes are definitely 'a sound' in my opinion.

There you said it, its a sound, what I was looking for..

Its a sound and it has to do with the chord/progression
its not a scale in itself Thats where I wanted to head..

Or, well, you can say that it is a scale, but for me its the wrong way to view it.
You are just starting a major scale on a certain note, its still the same diatonical scale so this is were a lot of people get it wrong

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This post has been edited by ElHombre: Aug 12 2015, 11:21 AM

[klasaine]

A lot of music is purely linear with very little or no harmony.
South Indian Carnatic music uses modes (thaat) and don't have any chords/harmony. Not necessarily 'our' modes (Some are the same) but modes nonetheless. http://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/that.html
http://chandrakantha.com/articles/scales.html

Modal jazz in it's purest form (Miles Davis, late 50s early 60s) uses very little harmony, but that harmony is derived almost exclusively from the mode. All western 'jam' type of music - anything that has a long guitar solo in it that isn't blues or classical based - whether it be the Grateful Dead and the Allman Bros or Black Sabbath and Dream Theater owes a HUGE debt to the album 'Kind of Blue'. In fact I'll go as far to say that any 1 or 2 chord jam in any relatively western style of music owes a lot to Miles Davis and Indian Ragas.

Knowing that a mode has a diatonic parent major scale is good and important knowledge but IMO, if you always relate it back to the diatonic parent major i.e., think or play in the parent major - you can lose the texture (color, flavor, mood) of the particular mode. *I'm not saying that you personally do this but this is where I feel a lot of students get off track.

If I was jamming on some of the chords I listed in my previous post I would never think F major (ionian). Even though I intellectually understand that F major contains the same notes, those chords are squarely in some type of A modality. I would only hear and think of everything I play as coming from some type of 'A' tonality. In this case A phrygian.

The next step is to be able to hear and hopefully employ modal sounds and concepts over chords that don't imply that specific mode. For example using the A phryg over just a static A power chord or over an A7 (A7#9) funk groove or a Bbmaj7#11 or if you wanna be 'jazzier', over a ii - V in D (or Dm).

We may actually be expressing the same thing here.

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This post has been edited by klasaine: Aug 12 2015, 03:09 PM

[slickster]

In regards to play modes, you need to Learn the different intervals of a mode..yes you can boil it back to the parent scale...mixolydian is great over a blues progression so is Dorian...

And you need to Learn which modes gives you that certain sound...or you can emphasize on the new root note.

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