Songs that use the Dorian mode

this video is sponsored by the piano learning app skoove the dorian mode or the dorian scale is basically just a special type of minor scale dorian is exactly the same as the natural minor scale otherwise known as aeolian but dorian's sixth degree is raised so whereas e natural minor would have a c natural as its sixth note e dorian has a c sharp and as you can hear the small change gives dorian a noticeably different character to the natural minor scale [Music] dorian sounds brighter more mystical and uplifting a textbook example of dorian is the intro to riders on the storm by the doors the iconic descending keyboard line is literally just working its way down the e dorian scale [Music] if riders on the storm didn't use dorian and instead use the natural minor scale it would sound like this [Music] to me that sounded far more serious and mournful whereas dorian sounded whimsical and intriguing to put it crudely dorian is like a less sad minor scale a song that is entirely written in dorian is mad world by tears for fears later covered by gary jules what i love about madworld is that in the verses the dorian sound is only present in the chords and not the melody we have the dorian ray's sixth note the d natural in this b flat chord here giving the versadorian sound but that d natural the ray's safe isn't appearing in the vocal melody [Music] but in the chorus the vocal finally lands quite prominently on that distinctive race sixth on the d natural bringing full attention to the curious story and sound and i find it kind of funny i find it kind of sad the dreams in which i'm wasn't in dorian and instead had the flattened six of the natural minor scale here it would sound like [Music] find this kind of sad the dreams in which i'm dying are the best i've ever had that sounds far more depressed and woeful the dorian ray 6 that we actually get in mad world gives the chorus a moment of brightness and hope in an otherwise cheerless song another song to be written entirely in dorian is get lucky by darth punk get lucky is in b dorian as we can see from the ray sixth note here in the melody and in these e major chords [Music] if get lucky was instead in b natural minor it would sound like this [Music] now that this g sharp has been turned into a g natural it actually sounds quite dissonant this is because unlike the raised stick from dorian which feels quite at rest in the scale the flat 6 is only a semitone away from the 5th degree of the scale and as the 5th degree of the scale is a central point of resolution the flat 6 from the natural minor scale really wants to resolve down onto that fifth creating a lot of tension [Music] this is actually one of the main reasons that dorian has a far more mellow and cooler sound than the natural minor scale whereas in the natural minor scale the sixth degree wants to resolve downwards introducing tension to the scale in dorian because that sixth degree has been raised away from the fifth it's far more stable resulting in a more stable and relaxed sounding scale [Music] now as you probably already know dorian isn't just a scale it's also a mode it's the second mode of the major scale but what is a mode this is the scale of a major however if i now treat the second note of the scale the b as the root note i get a different scale b dorian b dorian is the second mode of a major it uses all the exact same notes as a major but instead of treating a as the root note it treats b as the root as the center of gravity a major is the parent scale to b dorian they are related but far from the same thing now i think a common point of confusion with modes is that even though they're derived from a major scale they're related to a major scale you won't really be using them alongside that major scale for example b dorian is derived from a major but you'd rarely be using b dorian with a major you're more likely to use b dorian with b major or b minor b dorian is a b scale not an a scale even though its notes are derived from a major when dorian is used in a melody it lends an ethereal intriguing quality to a song for example in the traditional folktune scarborough affair when we reach the lyric rosemary and time we can hear the dorian ray's sith lending the tune a whimsical bright sound [Music] the sixth note of the dorian scale really is the most significant of its seven notes as it's the one note that differentiates it from the more typical natural minor scale so when that sixth note is first introduced in a piece of music it can be a particularly ear catching moment as it's the moment that the song goes from being in plain old minor to being in dorian for example joni mitchell's woodstock is in e flat minor but until the end of the first chorus the whole song is actually pentatonic in other words until the end of the chorus the song doesn't touch the sixth degree of the scale in its chords or melody meaning that we're not really in dorian or natural minor we're just in an ambiguous pentatonic minor [Music] it's not until the end of the chorus that jones vocal finally lands on the dorian sixth the c natural introducing the dorian flavor to the song for the first time [Music] likewise in blue jeans by lana del rey although the chord progression is using the dorian sick from more or less the very beginning of the song the dorian sixth doesn't make an appearance in the vocal melody until the chorus saving the dorian sick for the chorus adds a sense of satisfaction and intrigue when we finally hear it which helps to lift the chorus and set it apart from the verse some songs in dorian though never actually hit the sixth note in their melodies and instead keep the dorianness exclusive to the chords drive by rem is in d dorian but the vocal melody never actually hits the sixth degree so if we were looking at the vocal melody in isolation we wouldn't refer to it as dorian however the chord progression of drive is dorian thanks to this g major chord that contains the raised sixth so the dorian chord progression effectively recontextualizes drives otherwise ambiguously minor melody meaning we can now refer to the entire song as being indeed orion [Music] if you've always been interested in learning to play the piano then you can get started right now with scoove scoove is an interactive app that listens to you as you play and features a wide range of classic songs that you can learn use the link in the description to start your free trial today a style of music where you often find dorian is funk music in fact i would say that the dorian mode is probably more common in funk than the natural minor scale is funk songs will actually often feature the exact same dorian chord progression a move from the minor one chord to the major iv chord this chord progression which i call the dorian vamp captures the essence of dorian in just two chords the minor one chord acts to set us in a minor key and then the major iv chord introduces dorian's signature raised sixth note for christmas [Music] hey [Applause] [Music] just [Music] this story in vamp isn't only common in funk music it can be found across many styles of music and is a very common way to bring the dorian sound into a song [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] i was afraid that you you you've got to know [Music] [Music] of course this chord progression isn't the only way to give a song that dorian sound for example instead of using the major version of the iv chord alongside the minor tonic chord we could instead use a minor chord built on the second degree of the scale this chord also features dorian's distinctive rays sixth it's the ray six that makes it a minor chord rather than the diminished chord that we would get if we were in natural [Music] minority [Music] [Music] a great way to bring out the character of dorian is to directly contrast it with the natural minor otherwise known as the aeolian mode during the verse of the beatles elena rigby paul initially sings the dorian ray's sick for the c-sharp but just one line later he now sings the c natural shifting the tonality from e dorian to e lives aeolian a dream this use of both the bright dorian and the darker aeolian sound in the same line contributes to elena rigby's unsettled eerie mood likewise michael jackson's thriller written by rod templeton is largely in c-sharp dorian as we can see from the a-sharp in the melody here and in this f-sharp major chord but occasionally the f-sharp major chord will shift to an f-sharp minor giving us a little hint of the aeolian mode [Music] briefly switching away from dorian to aeolian and then back again brings out the brightness of dorian and the bleakness of aeolian a band that are seemingly very fond of dorian is pink floyd the minor one to major four dorian vamp that we were discussing earlier makes an appearance in many floyd songs often being vamped for minutes on end [Music] leave those kids alone [Music] the last example of dorian that we'll look at today is so what by miles davis so what is probably the most famous example of a style of jazz called modal jazz in modal jazz rather than the compositions being based on chord progressions the music instead basically just hangs around on tonal centers whilst the soloists explore different modes on top [Music] on so what rather than having a conventional chord progression we have 16 bars of d dorian then eight bars of e flat dorian and then a further eight bars of d dorian so although you could try and boil this down to being d minor seven followed by e flat minor seven and then returning to d minor seven these shifts aren't chord changes they're changes in mode they're almost closer to key changes during these sections we'll explore the scale of d [Music] dorian and during this section we'll explore e flat dorian i'll leave you today with this piece that i wrote in a dorian if you can think of any other songs in dorian then do let me know in the comments below in fact if you can think of any modal song then do leave it down below because i'm planning on doing a video like this on each mode of the major scale and thank you as always to all of the wonderful people who support me on patreon including the names you see on screen right now and abigail allen andrei science diageo andrew andrew brown andrew sussman austin barrett austin russell bob mckinstry brittany parker cameron olivaina colin aiken chris cabell christopher ryan david rivers donald howard dr darren wicks analyst gorchenko as ben hansen eugene leroy fd hodor gillamo latona hamish brocklebank hugo miller james ko j.a kochensberger john dye jonas sodastrom justin vigger lavenderman rose mark height mark ziegenhagen max o'keefe melody composer squared melanie schoenert michael vivian nancy gillard nathan lawrence nathaniel park paul miller paul paisle peter dunphy pioche minowski roger clay sam lin scott finley sean kennedy steve daly stephen lazzaro tim beaker tricia adams kim payne toot victor levy vidad flowers vladimir kodakov and [Music] volte you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 183,829

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Keywords: modes, dorian, dorian scale, dorian mode, music theory, examples, songs that use, how to, pop music, rock, funk music, analysis, minor scale, minor, natural minor, aeolian, major

Id: n_Zzztd5ZCk

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021