Modal Chord Progressions : The Ultimate Guide

unsure about modes or don't know how to use them watch this Ultimate Guide to modal chord progressions and take your songs to the next level let us Begin by quickly looking at the idea of scales in western music there are a total of 12 notes that are the building blocks of music seven of these are labeled with the letters a to G the remaining five are called sharp or flat they are also known as the accidentals generally we use sharp when we are moving up to a note and flat when we are moving down to a note the distance between each of these notes is called a half step or a semitone for example if we move from a to a sharp this is a distance of a half step or semitone if we move twice this distance then we call it a whole step or a tone so starting again on a if we move to B this time it is a distance of a whole step or a tone notes are organized into collections known as scales we call a set of notes a scale when we remove the notes from their musical setting such as a melody or chord progression and arrange them in order from a starting point they will typically Ascend in Pitch continually moving from lower to higher notes the difference in Pitch between two notes is called an interval for a comprehensive guide to intervals check out the video in the description below scales will divide an octave which has a maximum of 12 notes that we saw earlier into a series of scale steps scale steps can be thought of as intervals that make up the scale the distance between scale steps can be measured in the whole steps and half steps that we learned earlier they can also include intervals that are wider than a whole step but this is less common a typical number of steps or notes in a scale is seven but this could be any number up to the total of all notes which is 12. the scale steps or intervals that make up a scale are collectively called an interval pattern the interval pattern of a scale will give it a certain sound these patterns buttons are used to categorize scales in ways you may have heard before such as major and minor scales are defined by their interval pattern category and the note that this scale begins on this is referred to as its first degree or tonic it may also be called a root note for example the c major scale has a major interval pattern which gives it a major sound and begins on or has the tonic of the C note the most common and foundational scale is the major scale if you've not heard the name before you will certainly recognize the sound of the major scale [Music] you just heard the c major scale it has the notes C D E F G A and B these are all of the white notes on a piano these scale notes degrees or steps can be labeled with numbers to help understand their relationship we start with the tonic note as number one subsequent notes get numbers in order until we get to B which is number seven the interval pattern or formula for the major scale starting from the tonic is whole step whole step half step whole step whole step whole step half step these patterns mean that you don't have to memorize the actual notes you take the formula start on your chosen tonic note and Away you go this system can be applied to any scale or mode for easy learning and understanding from these scales we can then construct chords which make up a key if you have heard a song in the key of C major the underlying chords will be constructed with the note from the c major scale so we can Now understand scales and have looked at the formula for the major scale but you came to this video to understand modes what are modes as we said right at the beginning of this video the easiest way to think of modes is as distinct individual scales that each have their own sound and characteristics each one has its own interval formula so you can use them as easily as we use the major scale the modern modes are given complicated sounding names they are derived from ancient scales that predate the idea of major and minor don't let these names put you off they may create a sense of mystery or feel like you need to be a genius to understand them but they are just names of scales confusion can sometimes arise from the fact that all modes are made of notes from the major scale indeed they are referred to as the modes of the major scale such as first second third Etc this can lead to people thinking that they all sound the same as they use the same notes as we go through the seven modes you'll see that they don't sound the same but you may spot patterns that repeat or link them together think of them as distinct scales in your mind and you shouldn't have any problems we'll use the tonic or root note of C to show you the different modes and allow you to appreciate the sound and difference between them let's begin with the first mode of the major scale the ionian mode this one will be familiar to you as it's the major scale we discussed earlier it has the interval pattern whole whole half whole whole half see ionian has the notes C D E F G A and B the scale degrees are one two three four five six and seven foreign [Music] it could be described as bright happy or joyful the terms major scale and ionian mode are used interchangeably but don't panic as they mean the same thing the second mode is called the Dorian mode it has the interval pattern whole half whole whole whole half whole you'll notice that this is the same as the ionian but the first hole has been moved to the end of the interval list this pattern will repeat for the rest of the modes taking the previous mode and moving that first interval to the end of the list see if you can spot it on the remaining modes see Dorian has the notes C D E flat F G A B flat with the scale degrees 1 2 flat three four five six flat seven you'll see that the scaled to Green numbers show how the notes relate to the major scale slash ionium mode this means that once you know the major scale the subsequent modes are easy to grasp here the changes are a flat third and a flat seventh [Music] the Dorian mode has a minor sound this comes from the flat third note which if you know about chord construction is integral to the minor sound Dorian can be described as mellow smooth or folky whilst being a minor mode it doesn't feel as sad as other minor modes third mode is called the phrygian mode it has an interval pattern half whole whole whole half whole hole see phrygian has the notes c d flat E flat F G A flat and B-flat with scale degrees 1 flat two flat three four five Flat 6 and flat seven foreign [Music] mode has a minor sound where the Dorian lightened up the minor sound the phrygian intensifies and darkens it its tense evil sound is commonly used in metal music the fourth mode is called the lydian mode it has the interval pattern whole whole half whole whole half see lydian has the notes C D E F sharp G A and B with scale degrees 1 2 3 sharp four five six and seven foreign [Music] mode has a major sound its interesting sound has little dissonance and creates a floaty dreamlike feeling this comes from the raised slash augmented fourth degree the fifth mode is called the mixolydium mode it has the interval pattern whole whole half whole whole half whole C mixolydian has the notes C D E F G A and B flat with scale degrees 1 2 3 4 5 6 and flat seven [Music] the mixolydian mode has a major sound it is bright upbeat and has a rock music feel to it provided by the flat 7. the sixth mode is called the aeolian mode you may know it as the natural minor scale it has the interval pattern whole half whole whole half whole whole C aeolian has the notes C D E flat F G A flat and B flat with the scale degrees one two flat three four five flat six and flat seven foreign [Music] mode has a minor sound it is dark and sad as you would expect it is frequently used in rock music the seventh mode is called the locrian mode it has the interval pattern half whole whole half whole whole whole see locrian has the notes c d flat E flat F g flat a flat and B flat with scale degrees one flat two flat 3 4 flat five flat six and flat seven foreign [Music] mode has a diminished sound it has an unstable dark and tense feel that wants to resolve for this reason it is found mostly in the heavier forms of metal I'm now going to show you how to use each mode to construct a series of chords and then use those chords in progressions I'll use hook pad for the examples follow the link in the description if you want to get hook pad and follow along I won't go in depth about ionian or major key chord progressions because they are already covered extensively on the channel I've linked an in-depth guide to Major key chord progressions in the description if you want to learn more about them aeolian or minor key chord progressions are also covered by another one of our videos which you can find in the description the rest of this video will concentrate on the remaining five modes and we'll begin with one of my favorites the Dorian mode the 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 some where between the happy major scale and the sad minor scale it also has applications in jazz music let's now construct some chords using the Dorian mode we'll use the C Dorian mode for our examples but you can repeat what we teach here with any tonic note of your choosing to generate a new list of chords according its most basic form has three notes and it is called a Triad C Dorian has the notes C D E flat F G A and B-flat to create our first chord we take the first note which is C here and then count up to the third note which is E flat then we count up to the fifth note which is G these three notes will create a Triad in this case C E flat and G create C minor this is our one chord we then repeat this process starting on the next note along and counting up to generate seven Triads in total a Triad will be either major minor or diminished after completing this method and using every note as a tonic note for a Triad the set of seven chords in the key of C Dorian looks like this C minor D Minor E flat F G minor a diminished and B flat let's now look at some common chord progressions using this pool of chords although we're in the key of cedorian remember that the Roman numeral system means you can use these progressions in any key that you like just work out your pool of seven chords and use the progressions in the same Roman numeral order the first chord progression is a really simple one we 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 foreign [Music] [Applause] this progression works well because it contrasts minor and major chords the one chord c minor anchors Us in the mode with a minor sound from the flat third note but we could still be in the minor scale slash aeolian mode when we move to the IV chord F major it introduces an unexpected brightness this is because the IV chord has the sixth note in it rather than the flat sixth of the minor scale it lifts us up from the expected four minor chord to a four major chord as we said earlier targeting this sixth note will be important in defining Dorian mode chord progressions the contrast between the monotonic chord one and the major chords three four and seven features heavily in the most popular Dorian chord progressions as we saw earlier the IV chord contains the sixth note it is the only one of the three primary major chords in the Dorian mode that have this note so it plays an important role in moving us beyond the minor scale and flying the Dorian flag to demonstrate this point listen to this chord progression in c minor C aeolian [Music] and now the same progression in C Dorian [Music] do you hear the difference that the major chord makes at the end of the progression here are a couple more popular Dorian progressions that work on this same principle foreign [Music] let's now introduce the two remaining minor chords two and five although it is a minor chord two can play a similar role to four in defining ardorian progressions because it contains the sixth note listen to how it works with the one chord in this progression also listen out for the escalator effect the putting chords in number order creates [Music] the V chord is the same in the Dorian and aeolian modes so if we want to clearly signal that we are in the Dorian mode we need to pair it with the two or four chord as before for example [Music] you can see that it could be easy to merge or blend Dorian progressions with aeolian minor progressions and this is commonly done whether deliberately or not as a songwriter you could also play with this idea having one section that uses chords that appear in both modes and only defining the Dorian sound with two or four in the chorus for example [Music] thank 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 dissonant sound which many songwriters seek to avoid you can of course experiment with it yourself and see if you like the sound in your songs 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 root note so for example in C Dorian we have a diminished drop its root note to a flat and then use that to make an A flat 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 couple of progressions the first one has a descending feeling ending on our four chord as before [Music] this second progression revisits the escalator idea with the Flat 6 this time [Music] so far we have only used basic Triads in our Dorian progressions but you are of course able to use different chord types and extended chords in your Dorian songs here is a simple progression that uses minor seventh chords it is commonly found in jazz foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] which includes a dominant ninth four chord [Music] [Applause] [Music] we can use the extra notes in these different chords to play the sixth note of the mode that we discussed earlier there are many ways to do this but we will look at two here in this first one we will use the major seventh of the seven chord so in the key of C Dorian we use the B Flat Major Seventh chord the B flat major chord has the notes B flat D and F when we create a B Flat Major Seventh we add an a note to this as you will remember this is the sixth note in the C Dorian mode here is an example of this chord in a progression [Music] thank you another chord that can be used in a similar way is the minor ninth V chord so in the C Dorian key we use the G minor ninth chord [Music] foreign [Music] if you're unsure about chords keys and scales then we have a website at writersongnow.com to help you next up I'll explain the phrygian mode it is also known as the third mode of the major scale this has the scale degrees one flat 2 flat three four five Flat 6 and flat seven C for G and therefore has the notes c d flat E flat F G A flat and B flat foreign the only difference between a natural minor scale and the phrygian mode is the flat second note this note will be vital in defining the phrygian chord progressions we create later on it gives the phrygian mode its distinctive intense and dark minor sound because of this the phrygian mode is often used in metal music to provide an evil or exotic Edge let's use the seetheridium mode we saw earlier to construct our chords to create our first chord we take the first note which is C here and then skip a note which takes us to E flat and then skip another note from E flat which gets us to G these three notes will create a Triad in this case C E flat and G create C minor this is our one chord then we move on to the next note and start again in c3g and the next note is d flat if we skip a note from d flat we have F skip a note from F and we get to a flat d flat F and a flat create a d flat major chord this becomes our two chord we then repeat the process for the remaining notes of the phrygian mode to generate a set of seven chords note how we have repeated the notes twice here to make constructing the chords easier to visualize this gives us the following chords the one chord is C minor two is d flat major three is E flat major 4 IS F minor five is G diminished six is a flat major and seven is B flat minor let's now look at some common chord progressions using this pool of chords although we're in the key of C phrygian remember that the Roman numeral system means you can use these progressions in any key you like just work out your pool of seven chords and use the progressions in the same Roman numeral order the key to creating phrygian sound and chord progressions is to use chords that have the flat second note in them as we saw earlier this is the only note that is separating phrygian from aeolian so if you want to make clear what mode you're in then keep coming back to the chords with that defining note the basic phrygian Triads that have the flat second note in them are 2 5 and 7. let's start with a one two one seven progression foreign [Music] like this will fully anchor you in the phrygian mode this is because it goes from the tonic chord to chords that contain the flat second note that we discussed it also mixes minor and major Triads nicely this next progression introduces the three chord the use of mainly major chords colors the sound of this progression we still have the two chords to keep things phrygian note how the chords rise in number order this is referred to as the escalator effect phrygian is not exclusively used in metal music in this example we'll use a dark electronic sound to give you an example of a different phrygian use [Music] here are a couple more common chord progressions that use ideas we have discussed so far to produce a phrygian sound [Music] foreign [Applause] foreign [Music] so far we have only used basic Triads in our phrygian progressions but you are of course free to use different core types in your phrygian songs you can experiment with this on any of the chords but where it is particularly interesting is in introducing or emphasizing the flat second note as you understand now this will reinforce the phrygian sound there are many ways to do this so what we discuss won't be exhaustive let's start by taking the three chord turning it into a dominant seventh this adds the flat second note from the scale to the three chord major Triad here it is at the end of a progression see how it pulls us back to the one chord [Music] thank you three of the chords in the previous progression have the flat second note so there's no question that we are in phrygian but one way we can emphasize this even more is by using the first inversion of the seven minor chord this puts the flat second note in the base of the seven chord to make it stand out in this example it leads us into the two chord [Music] [Music] thank you combining different chord types with different instruments can really transform the phrygian sound experiment with this yourself to come up with new and interesting ideas if you change the six chord into a sus4 chord then it introduces the flat second to yet another chord the use of the sus4 adds a completely different feel to this progression which may not be associated with the phrygian sound here it is in a chord progression using acoustic guitars foreign [Music] we'll now look at the lydian mode it is also known as the fourth mode of the major scale it has the scale degrees 1 2 3 sharp four five six and seven see Lydia therefore has the notes C D E F sharp G A and B [Music] as you can see the only difference between the major scale and the lydian mode is the sharp four note this note will be important in defining our lydian chord progressions that we create later on it gives the lydian mode its floaty dream like brightness that is elevated beyond the standard major scale this particular sound isn't used a lot in proper Rock but will be recognizable from the huge amounts of film scores and soundtracks that use it a lot of songs use lydian for a small part of the song maybe a verse or a chorus and then go back to another mode or key let's use the C lydian mode we saw earlier to construct our chords to create our first chord we take the first note which is C and then skip a note which takes us to e and then skip a note from E which gets us to G these three notes will create a Triad in this case c e and G create C major this is our one chord then we move on to the next note and start again and see lydian the next note is D if we skip a note from D we have F sharp skip a note from F sharp and we get to a d f sharp and a create a D major chord this becomes our two chord we then repeat the process for the remaining notes of the lydian mode to generate a set of seven chords note how we have repeated the notes twice here to make constructing the chords easier to visualize this gives us the following chords one is C major two is D major three is E minor four IS F sharp diminished five is G major six is a minor and seven is B minor let's now look at some common chord progressions using this pool of chords the key to creating lydian sound and chord progressions is to use chords that have the sharp four note in them as we saw earlier this is the only note that is separating lydian from the major scale so if you want to make clear what mode you are in and keep coming back to chords with that defining note the basic lydian Triads that have the sharp four note in them are 2 4 and 7. the simplest and most common way to establish a lydian sound is to have a repetitive Vamp between the one chord and the two chord will you see lydian in our examples here's how that sounds [Music] the reason this simple chord progression is strongly lydian is because it takes us from the one chord which anchors the key and then to the two chord which has the sharp four note in it this makes it clearly lydian and not major slash ionian because it doesn't deviate from these two chords there is no ambiguity in the progression we are in lydian this one to two scaffolding is used widely in the most common lydian chord progressions let's now introduce the three chord the three chord can be easily used in lydian progressions because it shares two notes in common with the one chord because of this it won't pull the listener away from the lydian sound here is a basic one two three progression listen out for the escalator effect that having the chords in number order creates [Music] thank you [Music] another chord which is strongly lydian is the seven chord it has the sharp four note in it and also has two notes in common with the two chord let's use these four chords in a couple of common lydian chord progressions foreign [Music] [Music] foreign mode has a major scale with the same notes for example C lydian has the notes C D E F sharp G A and B and G major slash ionian has the notes G A B C D E and F sharp this means that they also share the same pool of seven chords they just have different Roman numerals because they are in a different order this makes modal chord progressions harmonically unstable depending on what chords you focus your progressions on which is known as the tonal Center will draw the listener's ear into a certain key you can use the same set of chords but change what key it feels like the song is in there is always some subjectivity with modal music as to what key you are in but this is particularly strong with lydian this is because the five chord in lydian which generally has an important role in major sounding chord progressions is the one chord in its relative major scale and the one chord is this same as the IV chord another important chord in major progressions for example in C lydian the one to five progression uses C major and G major in the key of G major this would be four to one this instability means that the use of the five chord in lydian can very easily begin to sound like the tonal Center and pull your progression into the major slash ionian key you can of course use this confusion to your advantage if you like the ambiguous nature of this then use it in your song or don't worry about it at all but it is worth considering and if you want to just stay with the lydian sound then it is easiest to avoid the V chord altogether and Center your song around one and two here are some more common lydian chord progressions that use the V chord see what you think about the tonal Center of these foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so far we have only used basic Triads in our lydian progressions but you are of course free to use different core types in your lydian songs you can experiment with this on any of the chords but where it is particularly interesting is in introducing or emphasizing the sharp four note as you understand now this will reinforce the lydian sound there are many ways to do this so what we discuss here won't be exhaustive the three chord doesn't have the sharp four note in it if we add this note to the three chord we create a minor add 9 chord here's a previous example with the three add nine this time around [Music] [Applause] if we take the five chord with its various problems that we discussed and add the sharp four note it becomes a Major Seventh chord here's a previous progression with the five major seventh chord how do you feel it affects the tonal Center this time around [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you moving on next to the mixolydian mode it is also known as The Fifth mode of the major scale it has the scale degrees 1 2 3 4 5 6 and flat 7. see mixer lydian therefore has the notes C D E F G A and B flat [Music] as you can see the only difference between the major scale and mixolydian mode is the flat 7 note because the flat 7 note is further away from the tonic or one note than in major mixolydian has a more relaxed sound that doesn't feel like it wants to resolve as strongly as the major slash ionian scale it is also worth looking at the Dorian mode it has the scale degrees 1 2 flat three four five six and flat seven so the only difference between the Dorian and mixolydian is the three note these notes of difference will be important in defining our mixolydian chord progressions later on the mixolydium mode is one that is used widely in lots of different styles of music everything from pop to Jazz and Blues its distinctive major sound makes it very popular a lot of classic rock relies on the seven chord of the mixolydian mode for its core sound let's use the c-mixelidium mode we saw earlier to construct our chords to create our first chord we take the first note which is C and then skip a note which takes us to e and then skip a note from E which gets us to G these three notes will create a Triad in this case c e and G create C major this is our one chord then we move on to the next note and start again in C mixolydian the next note is D if we skip a note from D we have F skip a note from F and we get to a d f and a create a D minor chord this becomes our two chord we then repeat the process for the remaining notes of the mixolydium mode to generate a set of seven chords note how we have repeated the notes twice here to make constructing the chords easier to visualize this gives us the following chords one is C major two is D Minor three is e diminished four IS F major five is G minor six is a minor and seven is B flat major let's now look at some common chord progressions using this pool of chords although we're in the key of C mixolydian remember that the Roman numeral system means you can use these progressions in any key you like just work out your pool of seven chords and use the progressions in the same Roman numeral order as we saw earlier the only note that is different from the major slash ionian mode is the flat 7 and the note of difference of the Dorian mode is the three note we will therefore want to use chords that spell out these differences in our mixolydian chord progressions arguably the most common mixolydian chord progression is one seven four one it uses all of the basic major Triads in the mixolydian key please note that we will use the key of C mixolydian in our examples [Music] this is the best known mixolydian progression it is used extensively in classic rock songs and it is easy to see why the first reason is it uses all major chords which which means on guitar it can be easily played by using open or bar chords therefore many guitarists will come across this progression by simply practicing playing Major chords from a theoretical level the progression also works well starting on the one major chord clearly defines that we are in a major mode this highlights the note of difference the three note we mentioned earlier with the Dorian mode move into the seven chord then strongly plays our flat 7 note as the root of this chord So within the first two chords we have defined our progression as clearly mixolydian and not ionian or Dorian The Descent from seven to four and then to one contains root notes that are a perfect fourth interval apart from one another this provides a nice symmetrical resolution to the progression you may also see these three chords in different orders within a progression so feel free to experiment another popular mixolydian chord progression is similar in structure as the first progression we saw but this time we introduce the minor five chord see how using a minor chord changes the feel of the progression this time around foreign [Music] like before this is clearly a mixolydian progression as previously the one chord anchors us in a major mode moving to the V chord introduces our flat seven note again the basic Triads that have the flat 7 note in them are 3 5 and 7. this separates us from major slash ionian we then descend down to four and back to one let's now look at two more common chord progressions we're now bringing in the minor two chord you'll see that it is replacing the four chord from the first two progressions like four two is also in the major slash ionian mode so we need to pair it again with the one chord and either five or seven to complete our mixolydian sound pay attention to how swapping the major four chord with the minor 2 chord changes the feel of these progressions [Music] foreign [Music] so far we have only used basic Triads in our mixolydian progressions but you are of course free to use different chord types in your mixolydian songs you can experiment with this on any of the chords but where it is particularly interesting is in introducing or emphasizing the flat 7 Notes as you understand now this will reinforce the mixolydian sound there are many ways to do this so what we discuss here won't be exhaustive if you had a flat 7 note to the one chord it becomes a dominant seventh chord here's the first progression we discussed with a one dominant seventh chord in it this time foreign [Music] chord this removes the sixth note of the mode from the chord and replaces it with the flat 7 note let's add this chord to our progression with the dominant 7. [Music] thank you foreign you can emphasize a note is by using chord inversions we know that the V chord has the flat seven note in it if we play the first inversion of the five chord it puts the flat 7 note as the lowest or the bass note of the chord this makes it stand out more than the standard chord let's swap the seven chord for this inverted chord in the previous chord progression [Music] you can swap out chords in your progressions in different parts of the song to get more mileage out of your chord progressions let's play the original one seven four progression followed by our new version imagine this is a song section and experiment with these sort of ideas in your own mixolydian compositions [Music] foreign [Music] get ready now for the locrian mode it is also known as the seventh mode of the major scale it has the scale degrees 1 flat 2 flat three four flat 5 Flat 6 and flat seven see locrian therefore has the notes c d flat E flat F G flat a flat and B flat [Music] you'll see that there are only two notes in common with the major scale this shows us that we are a long way away from the major sound it can be useful to compare locrian with the phrygian mode the phrygian mode has the scale degrees one flat two flat three four five Flat 6 and flat seven so the only note of difference between locrian and phrygian is the flat five note this note is extremely important in defining the locrian sound you will know that the rest of the modes have a perfect fifth interval in them this interval is the foundation of major and minor chords and gives the other modes a sense of resolution and completeness in locrian we have a diminished fifth interval this gives the lock cream mode its diminished sound it is unstable dark and tense and feels like it wants to resolve for this reason and more which we will discuss later Lord Korean is rarely used in songwriting you may come across it in parts of songs to create tension but this is often resolved to another mode let's use the C locrian mode we saw earlier to construct our chords to create our first chord we take the first note which is C and then skip a note which takes us to E flat and then skip a note from E flat which gets us to g flat these three notes will create a Triad in this case C E flat and G flat create C diminished this is our one chord then we move on to the next note and start again in C locrian the next note is d flat if we skip a note from d flat we have F skip a note from F and we get to a flat d flat F and a flat create a d flat major chord this becomes our two chord we then repeat the process for all the remaining notes of the locrian mode to generate a set of seven chords note how we have repeated the notes twice here to make constructing the chords easier to visualize this gives us the following chords one is C diminished two is d flat major three is E flat minor four IS F minor five is g flat major six is a flat major and seven is B flat minor let's now look at some common chord progressions using this pool of chords although we're in the key of C locrian remember that the Roman numeral system means you can use these progressions in any key you like just work out your pool of seven chords and use the progressions in the same Roman numeral order as we discussed earlier the defining note in lochrian is the flat 5. the diminished fifth interval therefore sits in our one chord which is C diminished in C locrian we usually avoid the diminished chord in popular chord progressions but in locrian it is the one chord the defining chord in a key so we have to tackle the diminished chord head-on if we look at the chords that have the flat 5 note in them then we have one three and five so let's use these chords together for our first lock cream progression [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] you can hear straight away how tense the locrian mode is the flat 5 note is constantly demanding a resolution but we never get there so the progression feels unsettled I hope you can now appreciate why diminished chords and the locrian mode are not widely used in popular songwriting but just because something isn't widely used doesn't mean that you shouldn't use it by experimenting with the lock cream mode you might find a sound that works well with your song indeed many songwriters have used lock screen for part of their songs to generate tension and then resolve to another mode for example phrygian for the rest of the song so it is always worth experimenting with modes even if you think you don't like the sound as you may find a way to incorporate them into your song Let's now look at another big issue people find with the locrian mode as you may know the modes are derived from what we call the major scale this means that every mode shares its notes with a major scale for example C locrian shares its notes with the D flat major scale because of this they also share the same set of chords which we created earlier they are just in a different order we discussed the problems with the one chord in locrian being a diminished chord in its relative major scale the diminished chord is the seven chord in a major key the seven diminished chord wants to strongly resolve to the major one chord as we can see here the seven to one change in D flat major is the same as the one to two change in C locrian if we play the one to two change the strength of the resolution will make the listener feel like they are in a major key you can appreciate how much of a problem this could be it is another reason why locrian's songs are so rare here are a couple of progressions that have this one to two change in them whilst being in C locrian listen to how they sound do they really feel like they are in locrian thank you [Music] so far we have only used basic Triads in our lock cream progressions but you are of course free to use different core types in your locrian songs we will only look at a couple of examples so this won't be exhaustive feel free to experiment with different chord types as we know now the biggest problem with locrian is the tense diminished field that wants to resolve in order to smooth this out a little we can use minor and major seventh chords let's take an earlier progression and swap in the minor and major seventh chords see how this changes the sound [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] progression that uses all minor chords with the diminished chord it also has a descending number order after the one chord listen to how the Minor 7 chords change the feel here foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign you've got your chord progressions now transform them with extended chords by watching the playlist on screen now

Channel: Write A Song

Views: 32,040

Keywords: music theory, modes, modal chord progressions, how to use the modes, songwriting explained, write a song, how to write a song, dorian mode, locrian mode, ionian mode, aeolian mode, phrygian mode, lydian mode, mixolydian mode, major scale, minor scale, how to write a song with the modes, Modal Chord Progressions : The Ultimate Guide

Id: 43yKF_YqJNE

Length: 54min 38sec (3278 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2022