modes are confusing me

[Codmate]

I think another reason to treat a mode like it's own key is in the case of chord progressions that suggest a mode. For instance a popular mode for heavy metal music is phrygian, in which I would want to consider a chord progression in "E Phrygian" rather than refering to its major scale derivative.
I would not even want to consider it's parent major scale.

So you wipe that knowledge that that mode is within a certain key from your mind when you're playing it, in order to avoid treating the parent scale's tonic as the root of the mode?

Wow - I'm glad i don't have to go through such mental gymnastics just to play in a phrygian mode

 

[Scottgman]

modes are confusing me

I'm sure this thread cleared it right up for you!!



Seriously, I can't add much here but I do have a suggestion...

Quit worrying about root notes, scales, and modes and just play the freaking notes-- C Major and D Dorian are the same notes! You don't always have to start a solo or melody on the "root note." In fact, that would get boring sounding real quick. Just try noodling around until you get something that you like the sound of.

Quit worrying about when they should be called what or which note you should start playing on. Just play something that sounds good. Let the theory wonks beat each other up over key signatures, etc.

 

[espskully]

I play modally but I don't know what modes I am using. I think of it more in terms of what notes will work over what changes. But really I have no idea what mode I am using at any given time, and I don't particularily give a shit.

 

[metalhead28]

Codmate, No need to be a smart ass.

I was just making a point. No I'm not saying you need to concentrate on removing that from your mind, I'm just saying it's helpful to not even have to think about it. Period. To me, it seems more like mental gymnastics to have to consider E phrygian anything other than E Phrygian. Make sense?

 

[DavidK]

A# major has 10 sharps. Bflat major has two flats. I have never seen 10 sharps in key signature in my life, not that you couldn't....but would you really want to?

You will NEVER see a key signature in printed music with more than 7 sharps or flats. Try to go to a program like Finale and print one, it wont do it.

A major or minor scale only has 7 notes, therefore only 7 sharps or flats can be in the key signature. You cannot put a double-sharp in a key signature, try and find a notation program that will. A double-sharp looks differently than this (##), it looks more like an x.

You can certainly write music in the key of A sharp, you just cant put it in a key signature, 7 is the limit.

 

[Cuzme]

To me, this is a backwards way of thinking. Your ear should guide your fingers, not the other way around. Admittedly, everybody does it the other way around when they are starting to play. But, ultimately, your fingers should be reproducing the sounds that your brain is telling them to, not your brain recognizing the sounds that your fingers are playing. It's a subtle but very, very important distinction.

ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY!

 

[Codmate]

Codmate, No need to be a smart ass.

I was just making a point. No I'm not saying you need to concentrate on removing that from your mind, I'm just saying it's helpful to not even have to think about it. Period. To me, it seems more like mental gymnastics to have to consider E phrygian anything other than E Phrygian. Make sense?

Hey - no hard feelings, I was just making a point too.

To me playing in a given mode without knowing what key the mode was in wouldn't be possible as I know all the keys for all the modes.

Name a mode to me and I can see the key signature it would have - that's the way I think. I just resented the inferance that I was somehow an inferior player who wasn't capable of playing a certain mode becuase I happen to know what key it's in!

It's just knowledge in my brain - and I'm kind of glad it's there as it's often useful.

 

[nkjanssen]

You're as aware as I am that B locrian is in the key of C Major.

Answer me this: Is A Minor "in the key of C Major"?

As I said - show me a mode with it's own key signature and maybe I'll agree with you.

Answer me this: Does A Minor have "its own key signature"?

I'm quite happy to post up a clip of me playing over Nature Boy in D Aeolian. It will most definitly sound like I'm playing in D Aeolian - even though I am aware that I'm in the key of F major. How do I do it?!

Answer me this: When you are playing a D Minor scale over a D Minor progression, are you thinking to yourself "I'm playing in the key of F Major"?

 

[metalhead28]

Okay bro, I don't want any part of telling somebody they're an inferior player!
No intentions in that respect.
By the way, I don't want to discount your method by any means, that may be the best way for someone to learn. I just wanted to defend the fact that other approaches hold water as well.

 

[Codmate]

Answer me this: Is A Minor "in the key of C Major"?

No - A Aeolian is in the key of C Major.
The Aeolian mode is sometimes called the 'natural minor' for convenience.
A harmonic minor and A melodic minor do not conform strictly to C major:
http://www.musictheory.halifax.ns.ca/12minor_scales.html

Answer me this: Does A Minor have "its own key signature"?

No it does not. But the harmonic and melodic minors are easily identified from the accidentals.

Answer me this: When you are playing a D Minor scale over a D Minor progression, are you thinking to yourself "I'm playing in the key of F Major"?

Yes I do. I'm also aware of every mode in F major at the same time and am able to swap between them depending on the changing harmonies of the piece.

Often I'll swap modes to change the feel of the improvisation.

 

[metalhead28]

OK, here's a question I've been confused about. At some point a jazz teacher mentioned that at some point I would learn the minor modes, but we never seemed to get around to that. Now that I see the list by SirNothingNess, I'm realizing perhaps I've been fooled into believing in some mythical modes that I don't know, when really they were just the Dorian,
Phrygian, Aeolian, and Locrian modes. Any thoughts?

Well no one else seems to have followed up on this...
The so called "minor" modes I BELIEVE would just be the modes of the major scale which contained a minor third. I'm sure somebody around here will squash me on that one too...
That seems to be what you have arrived at, and that is how I see it anyway.

 

[corban]

Thanks Metalhead, nobody seems to have resisted the idea anyways, so that seems to be it.

As for this:

You will NEVER see a key signature in printed music with more than 7 sharps or flats. Try to go to a program like Finale and print one, it wont do it.

A major or minor scale only has 7 notes, therefore only 7 sharps or flats can be in the key signature. You cannot put a double-sharp in a key signature, try and find a notation program that will. A double-sharp looks differently than this (##), it looks more like an x.

You can certainly write music in the key of A sharp, you just cant put it in a key signature, 7 is the limit.

This is true, but I want to further explain what you said, that music still can be written in A#, it's just typically in a transitory key change that doesn't warrant its own key signature. This is why the double sharp exists in the first place, and why it's important to distinguish between Bb and A#. But enough of being anal...

 

[corban]

On the other issue, I'm with NKJ on this one. If I need to play F# Mixolydian, it's so much easier and quicker for me to just play that mode, which is identical to a major scale but with the seventh lowered, than to think in B major. This could just be personal preference though. I think it's helpful for students to know and learn both way of identifying modes. If I can't remember a mode, I can always go back and think, OK this is the key signature, this is the root, etc. But if you can easily train yourself to bypass that step and just learn the actual mode patterns, why not do that?

 

[DavidK]

But enough of being anal...

I have to be anal: all those years in theory class at the conservatory finally paid off, I can give a theory lesson in a guitar forum on a bbs

There is a simple way around it;

in modern classical music, many composers are now writing with no key signature, regardless of a strong tonality in their music. A tune in A# would be written with NO key signature.

As for the modal stuff, I was always really high in theory class and either daydreamed or mentally undressed my fellow female classmates.

 

[corban]

I have to be anal: all those years in theory class at the conservatory finally paid off, I can give a theory lesson in a guitar forum on a bbs

There is a simple way around it;

in modern classical music, many composers are now writing with no key signature, regardless of a strong tonality in their music. A tune in A# would be written with NO key signature.

As for the modal stuff, I was always really high in theory class and either daydreamed or mentally undressed my fellow female classmates.

Ahhhh, sooo, but you contradict yourself. We are being anal and giving theory lessons, and all our hours studying theory are finally coming in useful, and so we are happy for once in our lives, and now you want to throw it all out the window for this modern, or even post-modern art music?

I know what you mean about theory class, though. My theory classes were always in the morning, so I was usually either at home in bed or mentally undressing my female classmates. Or both.

Usually both.

 

[krs]

There are pieces in the classical repertoire with more than 7 sharps. It is very rare, but there is no reason it can't be done. Whether it SHOULD be done is another question

I've only ever seen one piece with 8 sharps in the key signature, wish I could remember what it was...

 

[nkjanssen]

A Aeolian is in the key of C Major.

No [A minor] does not [have a key signature].

Yes I do [think of myself as playing in the key of F Major when I play a D minor scale over a D minor progression]

Well, OK, whatever works for you works for you I guess, but you have an unusual way of looking at things. And that doesn't really matter, I suppose, except to the extent that you want to communicate with other musicians. If you are jamming with others and ask them to play "So What" in C Major, you may get more than a few strange looks.

 

[DavidK]

There are pieces in the classical repertoire with more than 7 sharps. It is very rare, but there is no reason it can't be done. Whether it SHOULD be done is another question

I've only ever seen one piece with 8 sharps in the key signature, wish I could remember what it was...

Trust me, there is no such thing. The internet is big, try and find a piece with more than 7. Try and find a notation program that will do it.

 

[leddy]

Well no one else seems to have followed up on this...
The so called "minor" modes I BELIEVE would just be the modes of the major scale which contained a minor third. I'm sure somebody around here will squash me on that one too...
That seems to be what you have arrived at, and that is how I see it anyway.

Squash...

His teacher was likely referring to melodic minor scale harmony, as opposed to major scale harmony which is where you derive your ionian, dorian, etc.

Melodic minor scale harmony, in jazz, only uses the ascending scale (as opposed to classical music where there is a different pattern when descending). To make a melodic minor scale, take a major scale and flat the 3rd. This provides seven different modes, some very commonly used in jazz including the lydian-augmented, the lydian-dominant, the half-diminished, and the altered scale.

Check out "The Jazz Theory Book" by Mark Levine if you want to explore that.

 

[nkjanssen]

To make a melodic minor scale, take a major scale and flat the 3rd. This provides seven different modes, some very commonly used in jazz including the lydian-augmented, the lydian-dominant, the half-diminished, and the altered scale.

...but they're all in the key of C Major, because they don't have their own key signatures.

Sorry, that was a bit mean.