USING MODES - Part 2

[Music] foreign hey it's me Michael I'm back and I'm talking about modes again I had no idea that my last video on most would get so much attention which was nice but along with that also came a number of comments that made me realize that maybe I'd um glossed over a few sections missed a few points maybe hadn't explained myself very well so I wanted to respond with a part two video that hopefully clear up some of those points I also had a number of people asking about a chart that I could make that would show what modes and scales can be used over what chords so I've done that and I'll talk a little bit about that too so this has ended up being quite lengthy video so I've broken it down into chapter markers over which topics I'm covering so the chapter markers are down below so if you want to skip you can skip [Music] Point number one why even bother with modes at all let me say this learning and understanding modes is not a prerequisite of being a good player a good musician a good composer there are so many incredible players who would tell you that they don't know anything about modes and plenty that I'll tell you that probably don't know anything about music theory at all now in the comments in the last video I had a few people sort of poo poo in the whole premise of modes which isn't something that I completely disagree with if I'm honest so I'll touch on a few points as to why I might agree and disagree modes aren't for everyone and I understand why some people say that they're unnecessary and if they're not helpful for you that's fine but for some people they're a useful device to help them formulate ideas and I reckon that all improvisers use devices to help them improvise for some it's a variety of licks that they've learned some people base their ideas around chord tones and arpeggios and others use scales such as the pentatonic scale or the blues scale or the diminished scale all the modes modes are just another device a doorway an option to explore and creating ideally we use all of those things together in one big Melting Pot that eventually starts to sound like us our own individual voices music is a Sonic experience and oral experience a-u-r-a-l oral our ears should be leading our playing our composing our improvising what sounds good what sounds when played together create the emotion or the atmosphere that I like or that I want that should be Paramount but as humans we have the tendency to to analyze to pick apart to give names to things and that can sometimes be unnecessary and over complicate something that actually isn't that complicated in response to my last video I had a few people commenting saying something along the lines of most important is you should be just thinking about the parent major scale there's no need for the fancy names you just created six more things to confuse yourself when you only need one now they're not wrong adding these fancy names and creating new versions of what is essentially the same set of nodes has complicated things also when we're taught modes we always taught them in a scale or a strict order but actually when we utilize them and are playing we don't keep them in that order we move them around and that in turn the fact that we'll be mixing the notes up might strengthen the argument for just thinking about the one parent scale to be honest this is how I felt about modes for a long time before I found some ways that the application of them could actually be quite useful now I think about modes in two separate ways the first is predominantly linked to improvising which is what notes do I have at my disposal over this harmonic framework the second way I like to think about mode is in writing a song or creating a piece that has a certain mood or flavor um I think there's a slightly different approach there which I'll get on to later on in this video the reason I say this is because I think that the people who are arguing against modes in this scenario are only thinking about modes from this first point of view improvising over chords but I do think there can be value to thinking about modes in this instance and I think for me it comes back to this idea of home base sort of thing and I'm improvising thinking in terms of modes helps me establish a home base for the chord that I'm on especially if I'm on that call for any length of time if I'm improvising over a C minor seven [Music] then my first thought might be a case minus seven I can use Doria and phrygian or aeolian and then I might choose okay let's go phrygian see phrygian then when I'm playing my ideas are rooted in that c [Music] ID keep coming back to that c [Music] I'm accentuating strong chord tones and I can accentuate certain notes that emphasize the phrygian sound but instead I'm thinking about the parent scale a flat major now what I find if I think like this a flat major is that my ideas are still coming back to that c root my ideas often come back to it a flat foreign doesn't feel like home on a C minor seven chord but if my ideas keep coming back to [Music] finding myself coming back to a flat doesn't work as well or effectively over a C minor chord and it doesn't help me accentuate Keynotes to emphasize my reason for that choice because I'm thinking more a flat than I am thinking for June and also a normal major scale if I'm thinking ionian my fourth is normally in a void note it's a note that I don't want to hang on really but if I'm in C mate C minor seven actually it's really pivotal to the phrygian sound so I don't want to avoid it does that make sense can you see my reasoning there yes you don't need to know your modes and you can just think about the parent scale as we're all just using the same notes anyway but by thinking about modes it can help you root your ideas and lines in the home base of the chord that you're on convinced or agree to disagree [Music] number two how to write a song in a mode earlier I touched on the idea of writing a song within a mode and how that's another application of mode Theory I didn't really touch on this in my last video so here's a bit more of an explanation to me the fundamental thing about modes and mode application keeps coming back to this home base idea one of the comments on my last video emphasized this shout out to Yin over yan4246 who wrote this it's always about the root note the root of the scale everything you're hearing and making sense of in music you're always aware of where that ternal Center is nearly every song we've ever heard there's always been a tonal Center a place that feels like home when we arrive back at it um that's not to say that the tonal center of a song Can't Change within a piece of music though that's modulation when you move from one key Center to another key Center within the song that has a new home base okay but how does this apply to modes how can I write a modal song say for instance I wanted to write a song in d Dorian what does that mean and how would I go about that well to me firstly that means that my key Center my home base is going to be a D minor [Music] so if I'm composing I'm going to start with a D minor and the notes that I'm going to use for my melody are going to come from the D Dorian scale I've got a major second flat three four five natural six flat seven on the root again and the chords from the D Dorian scale D Minor E minor F major G major a minor B diminished C major then we're back to D Minor so yeah these are just the chords from C major all the modes of C major share the same no so therefore also share the same chords now in My Melody I'm going to intentionally use notes that characterize the D Minor as a d Dorian so it's got a flat there and a flat seven but phrygian and aeolian also have a flat three and a flat seven and what characterizes Dorian to be different from those is that it has a major second unlike the phrygian and it has a major six [Music] foreign [Music] so hopefully in that you can feel that D Minor is home it's when we've come away back to the D minor Feels Like Home often you find songs that are written in modes like this don't actually stay in that mode for the whole song you'll find it in the chorus they'll move to something that's a bit lighter maybe often it changes to the ionian or the major scale to bring some sort of relief from the discomfort of the verses and that's a good way to use this device if the verses are based in a darker mode then the impact of moving to a lighter mode for the chorus can impact and accentuate the mood of the song right I hope that's clearly explained a way of thinking about writing a song in a mode moving on number three what modes for what chords and finally this one's here because I didn't really do a very good job in my last video I think I jumped into explaining how modes can be really useful when improvising or composing over chords but I never really went into how I knew what modes worked with what chords and why some people said I lost them at that part in the video and I can understand why um other people have asked for a chart that shows which chords go with which scales have created a PDF which has the most sort of common chords you're going to come up against and what sort of scales and modes you can use with those the link is in the description hopefully it's useful for those of you who asked so how do we know what skills we can use from what chords the collection of notes you have in your chord whatever that is will exist within a scale or maybe more than one scale and this will then reveal to us what modes and scales we have available to use and to draw from when we're improvising or composing if we take a look at some chord Theory then hopefully we can connect some dots you may or may not already know how we create chords in the first place these are also formed by using scales so we take our major scale every note within that major scale has its own chord we simply create chords by adding notes in the interval of thirds or more simply put we skip a note and add a note if we do that on every note adding four notes then we get all the seven chords from the major scale [Music] what we have is two major seven chords the first chord and the fourth chord for major seven chords we have three minor seven chords the second third and sixth chord and then we have one dominant seven chord the fifth and we have one half diminished chord and minus seven flat five now these link up to our modes if we put our mode names underneath our chords we can see that a major seven chord could be either ionian scale or a lydian scale and there are minor seven chords could be a Dorian phrygian or an aeolian our five chord our dominant seven chord is a mixolydian and our half diminished chord is a locrian and this is the same for all keys so any Mages haven't chords could use ionian or lydian any minor seven chords used Dorian phrygian or aeolian and the dominant seven chord would use mixolydian any half diminished chord which is locrian so if we had an E flat major seven we could use E flat ionian or e flat lydian if you had an E flat minor seven we could use E flat Dorian phrygian or aeolian and if you have an E flat dominant seven we would use E flat mixolydian if we had an E flat half diminished or minus seven flat five we would use E flat locrian now here I'm just dealing with simple seventh chord so there's four note chords we're just using the root the third the fifth and the seventh but we can continue to add extensions and as we add extensions to our chords chromatic and diatonic it actually Narrows down the choices we have when it comes to what scales we can use over with which chords in order to add extensions we just continue the same process we had before of adding intervals of thirds so we already have our root third fifth seventh we'll just continue by adding our ninth eleventh and 13th okay so back to what I was saying so as we add more extensions we actually give ourselves more information to work out and narrow down potentially precisely which scale we need to use over that chord when we're dealing with the seventh chords we have four notes that's four bits of information to work out what scales these could come from if we take major sevenths a major seven thousand root note a major third a perfect fifth and a Major Seventh now there's two modes of the major scale that include all of those intervals the ionian and the lydian so if that's all the information we have the root third fifth and seventh then we can choose either or both of these scales to use however when we start seeing chords with extra extensions and alterations that information is pointing us to something more specific so if we see a major seven chord but it has a sharp 11 in there then that tells us something quite specific with just a straight major seven chord we've got two options because they both contain all those intervals of the root third fifth and Major Seventh but the sharp 11 or the sharp four they're both the same thing that isn't included in both of those scales so that extra bit of information that's sharp 11 tells me that the major seven sharp 11 functions as a four chord and we should therefore use the fourth mode of the major scale to m provides with so when we start seeing these more complex chords that's usually what they're doing too they're pointing us to a more specific mode or scale and most chords that have chromatic extensions and alterations won't be linked to modes from the major scale they'll be linked to modes from the melodic minor scale or the harmonic minor scale or diminished scale etcetera so in the same way that you've probably previously learned that the seventh mode of the major scale is logarithm you're going to want to learn that the seventh mode of the melodic minor scale is the altered scale and can be used over an altered chord or seven with a sharp nine and a sharp five or any seven chord that might include a flat nine or sharp nine or a flat five or a flat 13 because the intervals in those chord tones can be found in that scale get it and just how many the melodic minor scale is used frequently so you'll often see chords with the extensions written that specifically place that chord within the parent scale of the melodic minor for example the altered chord or the seven sharp 11 chord which are the seventh and the fifth modes of the melodic minor scale respectively we know that the mode of the major scale have these fancy ancient Greek names but it appears that the Greeks lost interest after the major scale because the other scales don't have their own exotic names most of them just reference the mode names that we already know from the major scale and then include the alterations for example the second mode of the melodic minor scale is called the Dorian flat 2. so it's the same as the Dorian scale but the second note is flattened let me add within the context of jazz performance and some other styles to some extent there'll be loads of times when you're faced with just a simple seventh chord and you have the freedom in that moment within that style to add some Source a dominant seven chord is a prime example of that anytime you see just a plain dominant seventh chord you've got permission to add some of that chromatic Harmony to take it wherever you want like anything in music use your ears decide what sounds good and appropriate you know there might be certain chord types that you want to avoid using behind a singer for example so be sensitive to the situation that you're in so learning what type of complex chords live in what parents scale will equip you for the times that you come across more complex chords don't let this scare you off though I found in the plane that I do that a few of these chords crop up regularly but there's lots that you never see at all so if you're playing regularly implying this you'll soon go to groups with those common chords and related modes hopefully that explains a bit better what I sort of skipped over in the last video along with this point I had another comment that said what informs your decision making my assumption is that they're asking how do you choose which mode or chord to play when you have a few options now that's a good question and I don't know if I've got a good answer I think to some extent it depends on the scenario some mode and chord choices are quite safe and diatonic and others are more crunchy if you know what I mean so the style of music will sometimes affect those choices but also the Dynamics within that section of the song if you want a song or a solo to build an intensity you might start off quite plain sparse and use modes and chords that reflect that and then as the intensity grows you might choose chords that have more embellishment and chromatic Harmony and maybe use chords that create a bit more tension so we can use our choice of scales and chords and their extensions to complement or reflect the mood of the song or the the section of the song that we're in also there's no way that says you can't combine two different things over the same chord if you have one bar or two bars of the dominant chord why not split it in half and the first half is is mixolydian and a bit more diatonic and then the second half you use the altered scale to bring a bit more attention you know again I think it comes down to listening and deciding what you'd like the sound of and what you think sounds good and appropriate [Music] right that's it I hope that's cleared a few things up and been helpful and not just muddied the water for some people let me know if you think we need a modes part 3 video or maybe I should quit while I'm ahead anyway thanks for being here and maybe I'll see you next time foreign

Channel: Michael Keithson

Views: 15,061

Keywords: music, music theory, music education, theory, modes, modal harmony, modal, education, musician, teacher, educator, jazz, keyboards, piano, learn, tips, tricks, ionian, dorian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, locrian, minor major 7, locrian #2, superlocrian, diminished, scale, scales, lydian dominant, harmony, harmonic, modal song, write a song in a mode, chord, chords, chord scale, what mode, chord mode, chord mode theory, scale theory, melodic minor, harmonic minor, whole-tone, chord chart, improv, improvise

Id: ZnD5F6o7B1g

Length: 21min 44sec (1304 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023