Musical Modes for Practical Guitarists

Recently I watched a number of You Tubes explaining the various modes of a scale. This one set me off.



 I’m going to be the first to say that Mr Beato is a better composer, guitarist, music theorist and probably all-round human being than I am. Just so we get that clear. I'm just not sure that it’s helpful to call anything, well, I can’t write it, so I’ll show you the screen

It’s the one at the bottom, that minor seven diminished flat-3 Locrian double-flat 3rd, double-flat 7th. No. This is madness. Let's start over.

A musical key is a bunch of notes, in no special order. Once you insist on an order, in which each note is higher than then one before it, until you get to the note an octave higher than you started, you have a scale. So the notes {C, F, E, D, G, B, A} are the notes of the key of C, and when played in the order make up the scale of C major.

The order that generates the familiar do-ray-me (tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone) sequence of intervals is called the “Major” scale and the (Western tradition) default order to play the notes of that key.

What happens if we take the same notes and play them in a different ascending order? Say ? Try it, and play the sequence at mid-tempo. What you’ll notice is that the last interval - C to D - seems to want to reach out for something more. It doesn’t resolve and land you ‘home’. It sits there waiting for you to do something more. That’s how I feel, anyway.

Now play A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A. That should sound dramatic and dark, but also the A sounds like ‘home’, though a darker home than sunny C. This is because this sequence is a Natural Minor sequence.

It makes a difference which notes we start and end on. Even though the notes are the same. That’s the basis of the idea of modes. However, instead of being sensible, and doing this:

C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C : C Major / C in the Ionian mode
D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D : C in the Dorian mode
E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E : C in the Phrygian mode
F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F : C in the Lydian mode
G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G: C in the Mixolydian mode
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A: C Natural Minor / C in the Aolian mode

We have this mess:

C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C : C Major / C Ionian
D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D : D Dorian
E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E : E Phrygian
F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F : F Lydian
G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G: G Mixolydian
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A: A Natural Minor / A Aolian

In the first list we focus on the key, and the mode tells us in what order to play the notes. In the second list, we focus on the starting note, assume that we would play the major key on that note, and issue instructions about how to modify that major key. In the first reading, "play in the Lydian mode" means "treat the fourth of the key as the home note". In the second reading, it means "play in the major key corresponding to the fourth of the original key, and oh yes, sharpen the fourth of that new key".

I know which one I'll go with. And the composers and choristers of early Church music, where modes originated, agree with me. That's how they thought of, and used, modes. There were no "keys" in the 12th Century. Modes live in a simpler musical world.

The academic approach is the source of the lunacy in which a guitarist, faced with a sequence of Fmaj, Gmaj and Cmaj chords, is told solemnly that they need to play in F Lydian, G Mixolydian and C Ionian. Which means they need to play in F but remember to sharpen the fourth, G but flatten the seventh, and then plain old C.

Or they could just play in the key of C over all the chords, which is what they are actually doing.

One of the first, and still the best use of modes in jazz, is Flamenco Sketches



from Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue C Ionian (natural major scale) (notes of C, starting on C) A♭ Mixolydian (Major with a minor 7th) (notes of D♭ starting on A♭) B♭ Ionian (notes of B♭) G Harmonic Minor over D Phrygian Dominant (alternates over bass notes D and E♭) (notes of B♭) G Dorian (notes of F)

The single most dramatic moment in everyone’s solos is the change from B♭ Ionian to D Phrygian. SAME NOTES! We only hear the difference because the soloists play the mode at the start of each change so that our ear gets attuned to what’s going on. As for the second change, it’s Miles’ standby C - D♭ trick (aka “shift up a semitone”, which is easy on the guitar, but I suspect rather more tricky on the saxophone) disguised by starting on A♭ instead of just sliding up the fretboard one step while carrying on.

To repeat, I'm not claiming that the academic approach is wrong. I'm claiming that it's horribly confusing, carries way too much overhead, and that in practice, I bet even the best players translate "E Dorian" to "D-major+E home note" rather than "E major flat 3 flat 7."

I know music theorists are rolling their eyes, huffing and preparing to tell me I will never work as a real musician, and that any pupil of theirs who can't figure out what notes to play instantly on being given the instruction "C Aolian, sharp 1, sharp 4, sharp 5" should have their guitar taken from them. 

It would still be easier to tell them to play in the key of C and make the chords sound good.