Today I had a student ask me to explain how the modes worked. First things first, I told him that the name of each mode comes from various Greek Islands. These names can take some effort to memorize, here they are:
IONIAN
DORIAN
PHRYGIAN
LYDIAN
MIXO-LYDIAN
AEOLIAN
LOCRIAN
I told the student to focus more on what the concept behind each mode actually meant in practical, music making terms. I said that each mode represents a starting point of any Major scale. Ionian is the very first mode, and represents Do to Do. Dorian is the second mode which represents Re to Re. Phrygian is the third mode and represents Mi to Mi. Lydian is the fourth mode and represents Fa to Fa. Mixo-Lydian is the fifth mode and represents So to So. Aeolian is the sixth mode and represents La to La. Locrian is the seventh mode and represents Ti to Ti. Make Sense???
When someone says "Let's play in B Locrian" how do we know what key we are playing in? In other words, how do we come up with names for each mode? As usual, I will be using the key of CMajor to demonstrate the practical application of this knowledge, as CMajor has no sharps and no flats. You start by taking all the notes in a scale and putting them in order, for example: C D E F G A B C. Next, apply that to the order of the modes to get
C IONIAN
D DORIAN
E PHRYGIAN
F LYDIAN
G MIXO-LYDIAN
A AEOLIAN
B LOCRIAN
How do we use this seemingly useless information? Imagine we have two guitarists, one playing rhythm and one playing lead guitar. The rhythm guitar plays a C Major chord, and the lead guitar player is going to experiment with the different sounds each mode produces. The lead guitar player is going to do this by figuring out the Do to Do, Re to Re, Mi to Mi, Fa to Fa, So to So, La to La, Ti to Ti scales in the key of CMajor.
Practise playing these two scales, and then try to fill out the third scale on your own
C IONIAN
Do to Do = C to C = C D E F G A B C
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D DORIAN
Re to Re = D to D = D E F G A B C D
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|--------------------------7--------------------------------
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|------7-8-10---------------------------------------------
|-10-------------------------------------------------------
E PHRYGIAN
Mi to Mi = ?
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