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Ricardo
Posts: 14854
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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 Modes
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For some folks wondering about the "modes", here are two important first steps at learning them, or understanding them. These are modes used in equal tempered music (12 note chromatic scale like a guitar or piano uses). Different than "modal music" which requires tuning an instrument to ONE mode only (like in Greek or Indian music).
1)Memorize the order of the 7 relative modes of the major scale:
Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian.
Ionian is the same as the major scale, Aeolian the same as the relative natural minor scale. So this order corresponds to the scale degrees, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 or do, re, mi, fa,etc, or cdefgab.
So for example, E Dorian is mode 2 of the D major scale. E Locrian is mode 7 of the F maj scale, etc.
2)Memorize this order, where if each mode had the same tonic note (such as A, or La), the relation is in 4ths (using the circle of 5ths). This one is important because it shows both a relation of accidentals (losing a sharp each mode down), and also the order of Brightest to Darkest, in terms of mood.
Lydian
Ionian
Mixolydian
Dorian
Aeolian
Phrygian
Locrian
So for example, A lydian has 4#s, A Ionian has 3#s, A Mixolydian as 2, A Dorian 1, A Aeolian 0, A phyrygian 1 flat, A Locrian 2 flats.
More later.
Ricardo
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 12 2005 4:10:15
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Jon Boyes
Posts: 1377
Joined: Jul. 10 2003
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RE: Modes (in reply to miguel)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: miguel
i was thinking more about "modulating" to A but still playing the scale that you were in before(E-Mayor).
If the Alegrias in E major and you are playing the A chord, there is no modulation of the Alegria involved, you are still in E major.
However, if we are talking about playing scales over chord changes, than I can see where you are getting confused, but what I said above is correct.
Perhaps it would help if we forgot about flamenco for a minute:
Lets say we are in a room jamming and you are playing an E major scale, I am playing Emajor chord as backing, so far so good. OK, lets say we stop. I start playing an A major chord vamp, over and over. You play from the same 'pool of notes' as the ones in your E major scale. It sounds cool and spacey, this scale choice of yours, technically is A lydian. Why? Well its A something, because the context (my backing) is A major. But hang on, if you wrote out the actual 'scale' you were playing from A to A, it wouldn't look like A major, it would have certain alterations as Ricardo says. The pattern of intervals would tell you this 'scale' (actually a mode) is A lydian.
OK, now back to your Alegrias in E major. You are soloing over the top of somebody playing through the chords, you are using an E major scale. The chords underneath change to A major, does this mean you are still playing an e major scale or A lydian? Well, technically, you could say that the mode you are in changes for each chord change, so call it A lydian if you like BUT outside of jazz, theres is no need for this complexity.
In musical theory when spelling chorsd or naming scales, modes etc. we go for the simplest model, taking account of the context. Therefore in this example, even though you have the A chord underneath you, the context (key) of the whole thing is still E major, so its simpler to just say you are soloing in E major. In my example above, there was no context other than the one chord, in your Alegrias you have the key of the whole thing to consider.
Jon
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 12 2005 10:42:02
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Ricardo
Posts: 14854
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Modes (in reply to Ricardo)
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Miguel,
you show an understanding of relative key signatures which is very good. Even still what Jon said is right. You have ask what is the context, the big picture. Alegrias in E, is simply that. Moving to A major chord, keeping the same notes (4#s), is just analyzed as the IV chord (E being I).
But you are correct that A lydian would seem to have the same notes, or key signature. In Jazz you learn how to play on each chord, so that if you want you could look at E, A, B as a progression that uses scales E Ionian, A lyd., B mixo. Of course if you did this, many would argue "why? You are just playing E major over I,IV and V?". The reason you can see it both ways is in Jazz, you will later learn how to change your scales, or change key on each chord, based on the concept you understand modes as separate enitities from a parent scale. E lydian, A lydian Dominant, B phrygian dominant. Adding 7ths, 9ths etc (extenstions) will narrow your options for a type of scale, but still the idea is to NOT find a common denominator to relate as many chords as possible. This is so you can play on each chord of a chart while reading it, w/ out worrying about the "key".
Anyway, back to Alegrias. Well, knowing your relative key sig and related modes can help you when composing or analizing an Alegrias in E. You may find a section that uses the tonality of C# minor. That would be a "relative minor" change or modulation. If you were to extract just that section from the whole piece, it would be easy to argue that music was actually "in C# minor". So if you could extract a section on the A chord only, you could argue that just that bit was "A lydian", but you see there is the big context of E major. You may also hear Alegrias move to G# phrygian tonality (like Minera). This is also a relative mode modulation.
How long you stay in a tonality really makes a difference. Rondena is in C# phrygian ultimately, but because of the tunning and scale, it makes a lot of good use of D lydian type themes. You can't say the piece as a whole is in "D lydian", but the way that note rings under alot of falsettas, like a drone, gives the flavor of "lydian" a lot of the time.
So that is understanding how the modes are "relative" or share a key sig. What about the other why I described? Alegrias in E, often moves to E minor or E phrygian, which is a Parallel Key change. You can see from my list above how closely related E Ionian is to E Aeolian (3 notes flat) and E phyrgian (4 notes flat). This is another characteristic of Spanish music and flamenco, changing a certain note (or a couple) to introduce a new modal flavor, over the same tonic. Keep in mind that this is easier to achieve if you use a dominant chord under the melody (B7 or B9 for E major, B(b9) for E minor, F major7 #11 for E phrygian). You can hear some modern composers (like Manolo Sanlucar for example), using other parallel modes like Mixolydian.
Ricardo
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 13 2005 18:56:53
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