How To Write Dorian Mode Chord Progressions

Dorian mode has a smooth mellow sound despite its minor nature it's not as heavy or sad as the aeolian mode for this reason it is used widely in pop and rock to represent emotions that are somewhere between the happy major scale and the sad minor scale listen to how it sounds here with the a Dorian scale [Music] and here are the chords that are found in the a Dorian key with the scale notes that go into each chord a minor B minor C Major D major E minor F sharp diminished and G major these are the diatonic chords in the a Dorian key that is chords that are made purely with notes from the a Dorian scale a Dorian is a good key for guitar players because it has lots of chords that can be played as simple open chords another useful key for guitarists is D Dorian you can see that each of the diatonic chords has a Roman numeral above it lowercase indicates minor chords and uppercase major chords this helps you to understand chord progressions as the Roman numerals can apply to any Dorian key and simply indicate the function of the chords let's start building some Dorian mode chord progressions now and look at how you can write your own the easiest starting point for Dorian key progressions is to alternate between the one chord and the four chord you may be familiar with this sound it was used extensively by Pink Floyd amongst other artists [Music] thank you [Music] this progression works well because it contrasts minor and major chords the one chord a minor angers Us in the mode with a minor sound from the flat third note but we could still be in the natural minor key slash aeolian mode when we move to the major four chord D major it introduces an unexpected brightness it lifts us up from the expected four minor chord to the four major chord the one and four chords are great scaffolding to build out your Dorian key progressions from the contrast between the monotonic chord one and the major chords three four and seven features heavily in the most popular Dorian chord progressions in the next example I'll play these chords in various positions to flesh out our chord progression and give you an idea of how they sound and function foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] it's worth comparing the chords in a Dorian to the chords in a natural minor aeolian the point of difference here are the two chord four chord and the six chord this suggests we're going to leave this chords somewhere in our progressions to clearly signpost that we are using a Dorian key with that in mind I'll now bring in the minor 2 chord into the progressions listen to how it worked with the various other chords [Music] thank you [Music] [Laughter] foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] you will have heard in the previous progression that when the chords are in Roman numeral order they create a rising or falling feeling called an escalator effect always be aware of this in your progressions and utilize it if you want to build up to a section or create movement the last remaining minor chord is five as highlighted earlier this is the same in minor slash aeolian Keys as it is in Dorian so be mindful of what chords you pair it with if you want to be truly Dorian let's look at a few examples now [Music] laughs [Music] foreign when writing your own progressions experiment with where the chords feature particularly the one tonic chord you may have noticed in the previous example that one part of the progression didn't start on the one chord like the others and therefore stood out that one chord is your home base as such it is safe and not threatening consider holding the one called back in certain sections to build up tension and generate interest when the one chord is finally brought back the feeling of home is even stronger you may have noticed that we have been avoiding one of the chords so far six this is because it is a diminished chord diminished chords have a strong dissonance sound which many songwriters seek to avoid they can also be difficult to play on the guitar I don't think you should avoid them completely and they are at least worth experimenting with in your Dory and progressions listen to the effect they bring in this progression [Music] foreign [Music] songwriters will often swap the diminished chord for a major Triad and then use that in its place to do this you drop the diminished chords root note by half a step and then build a major Triad from this new route so for example in a Dorian we take F sharp diminished drop its root note to F and then use that to make an F major Triad we label this chord flat six you could also think of this chord as being borrowed from the aeolian lochrian or phrygian Keys let's use this in a progression now have a listen to how the chord sounds of the other chords around it the second four bar sequence has a rising feeling and then look out for the use of the diminished six chord next to the flat six in a descending progression after this [Music] foreign I referred to this Flat 6 chord as a borrowed chord because it has been borrowed from another key and then used in the key of our progression another term that applies here is modal mixture or modal interchange this is when you take a chord from a parallel key and use it in your progression you can usually feel and hear when this has happened as there is a sense that something has changed this is only a brief change too short to call it a modulation or a key change we then go back to diatonic chords from the key a parallel key is any which has the same root or tonic note for example we're using a Dorian so parallel Keys would include a major a mixolydian a phrygian etc they don't have to be modes of the major scale so you can also reach out to more exotic Keys like harmonic minor or phrygian dominant any chords that you like from the parallel key can be used although you will see some use more commonly than others this is a hugely powerful technique for your chord progressions and songs the potential options for borrowed chords is huge providing you with almost infinite ways to color and shape your chord progressions my recommendation when dipping your toe into these Waters is to build up a Dorian scaffold in your song first to establish the tonal Center as we saw this would focus on chords one two four and six then bring in your borrowed chord for a short time before moving back to diatonic chords let's look at a few examples the first borrowed chord is a flat two this has come from the a locrian key then we'll listen to a sharp three from the a lydian key listen to how it sounds after the standard three chord finally we have a major two chord again from the a lydian key listen to how these chords color the progression but it doesn't sound out of key or completely discordant [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] can see that the creative options you have with this idea are almost Limitless I'll demonstrate a few more here by reaching out to more exotic scales the first chord is a free chord from the a harmonic minor key you'll see that it has a plus sign next to it this is an augmented chord which has an uncomfortable tension they are neither major nor minor and have a strange awkwardness the phrygian dominant scale is a mode of the harmonic minor you may know it as the Andalusian scale where the well-known Andalusian Cadence comes from this uses another augmented chord this time as the six chord when we use this in our Dorian key song it becomes a flat 6 augmented chord in this case f augmented [Music] foreign [Music] you will have noticed that so far I've only focused on basic Triads major minor and diminished but there's a world of core types out there for you to try in your Dorian chord progressions I'll run through a few ideas now but please note that this is by no means exhaustive as with everything I recommend experimenting with chord types and find the ones that you like the sound of let's start with a couple of these basic two chord progressions I'll play the minor chords as minor sevenths and the major four chord as a dominant ninth listen to the Jazzy smooth feel this provides here [Music] foreign other chords that can emphasize the Dorian sound are seven Major Seventh and five minor ninth you can also utilize add chords to create different sounds with more guitar friendly chords [Music] foreign foreign [Laughter] chord type to use in Dorian Keys is sus4 sus chords are widely used in popular music because they are very versatile sus4 chords have a focused tension that guitarists will often use because of accessible open chords next I'll use sus4 chords as three of the diatonic chords in our a Dorian key a simple move from 1 to 1 4 provides a real sense of drama another popular Dorian method is ending your chord progressions with the four sus4 to 4 change which can add some uplifting brightness I've also included a five dominant seventh chord here this is a borrowed five chord an example of modal mixture that we discussed earlier the dominant 7 5 chord is very common in major and minor keys to provide a strong drawback to the tonic one chord listens to how it sounds here after the five sus4 chord [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] by this stage you should have some ideas of the chords you want to use and maybe even the structure of a chord progression this is more than enough to create interesting progressions that you can build up into songs but there is a bit more finessing that we can do you may have noticed that every progression has so far been using one chord per bar this is not typical for a whole song as it becomes quite predictable chords can be played for as long or as short as you like you can mix them up to create rhythmic rift-like sequences in a band setting you might also have to consider what other instruments are playing and how your chord progression will complement them maybe there's a rhythm that runs through your song and your chord progressions match this I know I sound like a broken record at this stage but experiment with chord durations in your own progressions and see how it can shape the sound of your songs another thing to consider is Chord voicings you may have never considered this before but it can have a big impact on your chord progressions this is often true of guitar players who will learn a chord in one position and then always revert back to this when required this comes down to how the notes and chords move from one chord to the next this is also known as voice leading although technically the same notes are being heard the arrangement of them impacts upon the sound of the progression the best way I can demonstrate this is with an example take this progression I played earlier here it is with the most common open chords on guitar [Music] there's nothing wrong with this providing a gentle rising up feeling but what have we thought about the movement of notes and go after a particular sound for example we could attempt a descending downward feeling to the progression this involves playing the chords in different positions on the guitar and also utilizing inverted chords chord inversions are great for creating these sorts of effects look at the intro to Stairway to Heaven for a similar idea thank you I'll now put some of what we've discussed into a full song example there are a few things to note before we begin the verse is played partly as arpeggios that is chords where the notes are played individually this is a really common thing to do on guitar I play the six chord as a minor seventh flat five this can make the chord a bit easier to play on guitar it's also known as a half diminished chord in the chorus an interesting chord is played after the E minor seven it is a g at 9 with an E bass this can be written as a slash chord like this G at 9 e in the bridge I use all fifth or power chords again you'll be familiar with this if you play the guitar and like Distortion look at how my choice of chords voicings durations and effects all play a part in shaping the sound of the song listen along see if you can spot things we've discussed and try and write your own Dorian chord progressions [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] about chord progressions but there's a wide world of the Dorian mode out there I've made a playlist just for you so make sure you watch that next and improve your Dorian mode knowledge today

Channel: Write A Song

Views: 6,267

Keywords: songwriting, songwriting explained, how to write a song, write a song, write a song now, chord progressions, music theory, dorian chords, dorian key, dorian chord progressions, how to write dorian key songs

Id: ckZ_Xy2NQn4

Length: 17min 9sec (1029 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2023