The Modes: One Scale, Seven Starting Points

Modes have a reputation for being difficult, and almost all of that reputation comes from being taught in the least useful order. Here is the easy half first.

Take the notes of C major and play them from C to C. That is the major scale, and its formal name is Ionian. Now play the same seven notes from D to D. You have not changed a single note, but the pattern of tones and semitones is now different, because you started in a different place. That is D Dorian. Start from E and you get E Phrygian, from F you get F Lydian, from G you get G Mixolydian, from A you get A Aeolian, which is the natural minor scale, and from B you get B Locrian.

Seven modes, one set of notes, seven starting points.

C Major

C major, also called C Ionian — the reference.

That relative view is true and it is how modes are usually introduced, but taken on its own it is actively misleading, because it suggests the modes all sound the same. They do not. If a band is vamping on a D minor chord and you play the notes of C major, you are not playing D Dorian in any meaningful sense — you are playing C major over a D minor chord and hoping.

The useful view is the parallel one. Compare every mode to the major or minor scale built on the same root, and describe it by what is different. Then each mode has one or two characteristic notes, and those notes are the entire sound.

Against a major scale on the same root, Lydian has a raised fourth and Mixolydian has a flattened seventh. Everything else is identical. Against a natural minor scale on the same root, Dorian has a raised sixth, Phrygian has a flattened second, and Locrian has both a flattened second and a flattened fifth.

So Dorian is minor, but brighter, because of that one raised note. Here it is on D, where its notes happen to be the white keys.

D Dorian

D Dorian. Compare it with D natural minor: every note is the same except the sixth, which is B natural here instead of B flat. That one note is the whole character.

F Lydian

F Lydian. Compare it with F major: only the fourth differs, B natural instead of B flat. It is the sound of a major scale with a floating, unresolved quality.

The way to actually hear this, rather than read about it, is to hold the root down and play the scale against it. A mode only exists in relation to a root note — without one droning underneath, all seven are just the same seven notes in a different order, which is exactly the confusion the relative view creates.

Use the keyboard to hold a bass note while you play the scale above it. Play a low D and then the white notes from D to D, and you will hear Dorian rather than C major.

Digital Keyboard

Hold a low root note and play the seven notes above it. Change the root, keep the notes, and hear the mode change.

A funk jam centred on G minor seventh. Listen for the C major chord in it: a major chord on the fourth degree needs the raised sixth, and that is the Dorian sound. The track wanders elsewhere too, but that chord is the giveaway.