Where to Begin - A great way to learn modes

Hi, it's Chris with Implied Music. Where to begin? We've been looking at the fundamentals of music theory, sort of one topic at a time, and we've covered a lot of things, including basic stuff like naming notes, structure of the major scale, the diatonic chords, seventh chords, dominance, inversions, lots of good stuff. Today, I want to look at kind of a next level idea. It's called modes. What are the modes? They're scales. We know that, sort of, do we? What are modes? If you've got some value out of this where to begin series or my reviews, or even maybe some of the other videos about more sophisticated ideas or production techniques, now's a great time to subscribe to the channel, if you haven't already. Leave a comment, too. It turns out, I think comments are great for the channel, and we're trying to grow the channel. I have this idea. I want to get to 10,000 subscribers. It's an insane concept for me. This began a year and a half ago, and I just thought getting to 1,000 was going to be impossible, and here we are. I feel like what we're doing here is helpful to a musician who's interested in building their musical knowledge, who wants to make the most out of their creativity, who wants to grow in a way that's uniquely theirs. A lot of music theory can feel academic and dry. I'm hoping that this is music theory for everyone. Well, to that end, this series, where to begin. Someone asked me that question. Well, where should I begin? Love your channel. Well, we've got a whole playlist now, where to begin, and today I want to talk about modes. Well, I think we need to do a tiny bit of review first, and then we'll launch forward into it. When we were talking about scales, we discussed how a scale is built. This is a major scale, a C major scale, out of a formula of whole and half steps. That formula is consistent across every major scale. Whole step, whole step, half step, and then I'm gonna have another whole step, and now really the same thing, a second tetrachord. Whole step, whole step, half step. The tetrachord is the Adams family riff. Major scales are built out of two tetrachords joined by a whole step, and I can build that major scale anywhere. Dieter correctly identifies it as A-flat, and did you see the word Ionian? A-flat Ionian. We have seven Greek names for the modes. Those seven Greek names are Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian, and then the whole thing starts again. We're back to the first step of the scale. Listen, do I need to know all those? Yes, you do. Why? Because you want to talk to your buddies who are also musicians. You want to be specific, and I'm hoping that this video will convince you that knowing a little bit about modes will help you a lot in your music. What are they? What are those modes? Well, it's actually not that complicated an idea to show. That collection of notes is the C Ionian scale, and those notes, those seven pitches, make the C major scale. Now, if I take those exact same seven pitches and rethink my mind and say C is not the center, it's not the first note in the scale, but rather D is, I get those. And again, my computer correctly identifies this set of notes as D Dorian, and the reason it does is because I've played them this way. It's the same set of notes, right? The same seven pitches, but now with D at the bottom, it's become a mode, and it's become a really specific scale sound. Modes are scale sounds. Listen to the sound of the Dorian mode. Whole step, half step. In other words, it's got a minor third, and then a whole step. That's a beautiful sort of soft, gentle minor sound. And then here's the rest of it. It's exactly the same structure. Whole step, half step, whole step. In other words, it has a minor third too. It's a beautiful, gentle minor mode, and like a major scale, it has diatonic chords. Those chords outline the shape of the D Dorian sound, and there's plenty of excellent music, kind of minor sounding music, that is in the Dorian mode. If I go on and build a set of notes off the E, the computer correctly identifies that as E Phrygian. Now, E Phrygian is a unique sounding minor scale. It's got a half step right away, very spicy, a minor third, and then there's my four, five is normal, five half step right away, a minor third, and so on. You see that this structure and this structure are the same? Interesting, isn't it? Well, the Phrygian mode has its own character. It's got a minor one, a minor four, and then this spicy sound here on the five. Let's go on to the fourth step of the major scale. When I do that, I get the mode called the Lydian mode, and like all of the modes, it has character. It has a major third, and then when you get to the fourth step of the scale, it's not what you expect in your ear for a major scale. Whoa, instead of this, you get this. It's brighter, and because of that, jazz musicians love the sound of Lydian major. How a mode differs from the expected major or minor scale is a big part of its character. I'll say it again. How a mode differs from an expected major or minor scale is a big pivotal part of its character and how it's used. Let's go on. This is just an introduction to the modes. There's a lot to be said, really, about each mode. Where have we gone to? We're at the fifth step of the scale. Here's the G set of notes. The computer correctly identifies it as G Mixolydian. Lydian Mixolydian. It has a major third. The four is normal. The five is normal. The six is normal, and then when you get to the seventh step of the scale, flat seven. Because of that, it's a great rock scale, a great dominant chord scale, and it's got diatonic chords as well. One, four, seven, one. Sort of a rock sound, isn't it? Flat seven major chord. Very nice. Let's go on. Now, as it happens, the sixth step of the scale, Aeolian, the A Aeolian scale, is just the natural minor scale. In Hanon and piano books and stuff like that, you're going to be taught a major scale, and you're going to be taught its relative minor. How far have we gotten? We just did the sixth step of the scale. Now it's time for the seventh, and this is a very special and kind of great sounding mode, the Locrian mode. It's got some unusual qualities. Half step right away, minor third, normal fourth, flat fifth. Oh my goodness, the tritone. Working in the Locrian mode can be one of the more challenging modes to sort of compose meaningful music in or compose music that feels normal and natural in, but it's a powerful sound nevertheless. Listen, I think mostly when people teach modes, this is the approach they use to teach it. They give you a major scale, and then they say on each of the notes of the major scale is where the mode lives, but I like to think and teach, and I think it's about more valuable to us as composers to think about modes with a static fixed central pitch. So most listeners will experience a mode as it differs from an expected major or minor mode. That's the way we should teach it to ourselves as well, and I'll show you what I mean. Here's a C major scale, and if I wanted to change that to C Dorian, I would have to alter it. I would, yeah, there it is right there, and take a look at the notes that changed. The major third went down to become a minor third. The major seventh, a half step below the root, went down to become a minor seventh. Two notes changed from C major to C Dorian. Now, I can figure out what those notes are if I know that the Dorian mode is built on the second step of a major scale, and I know the B-flat major scale. What if I wanted to take the C major scale and convert it to C Lydian? That's doable. Here's C major again. Here's C Lydian. How is it different? The fourth step of the scale has been raised from F to F sharp. I can do that because I know the structure of the Lydian scale. I can do that also because I know that the Lydian scale is built on the fourth step of a major scale. C is the fourth step of G. There's my F sharp. Here's C Lydian. I won't bore you by doing this over and over again, but you have a responsibility to bore yourself by doing this over and over again. Let me do a little playing, though, because I want to show you how I use this in my own work. I'm very interested in my own composing and what I call modal saturation. I'm going to show you an example of that. So, what if I take those four notes in the left hand and those three notes in the right? That's all the notes of the C major scale. I'm going to alternate the two hands. Now, if I want to go to C Dorian from there, I have to change the E to E flat and the B to B flat, and that sounds like this. Let's go back to C major. Let's go to C Lydian. The F is going to become F sharp. Back to C major. C mixolydian. The B becomes B flat. Here we go. Back to C major. The C was the center the whole time, and as I changed scales, I got a different quality of sound, a different landscape, a different terrain on the keyboard and in my ear. That C at the bottom never changed, and a few notes didn't change, but those careful adjustments as I slipped from the Ionian mode, the major mode, into the Dorian and back, the Lydian and back, the mixolydian and back, shifted colors in a way that's really interesting to me and gets used in film and just kind of like epic music now, game music, all the time. All the time. This is a very modern approach. I'm staring at you because this is a big tip off to you guys. If you're interested in this kind of composing, if you're interested in this kind of music, modal saturation and modal exchange and pattern writing like this and melody and chord writing like this is what's happening right now. Well, I hope this has been useful. Like and subscribe. Ding the bell. You'll be notified when I do my videos, and I will see you next time.