more on modes

My discussion of modes from last week prompted some interesting conversation that I thought I'd share.

Darren pointed out that you can start on a white key on the piano and play a scale without any black keys. Starting on A gives you the natural minor scale (which is the Aeolian mode) and starting on C gives you the major scale (which is the Ionian mode). Starting on any other white key (B, D, E, F, or G) gives you the modes. If you have a mode and want to change keys, you have the template to know the scale degrees within the mode of choice.

So, in the example of "Greensleeves" in the other day's post, E-Dorian would have 2 sharps. To make that as a key signature, though, is so confusing for trained musicians that I don't do it. I just write in a sharp on the C.

Here are all the Western modes (called the church modes). Play upward on all white keys starting and ending on:

C - Ionian
D - Dorian
E - Phrygian
F - Lydian
G - Mixolydian
A - Aeolian
B - Locrian

Thus, if you want to put something in the key of F-Dorian, then it should have 3 flats. (Straight F-minor would have 4.)

More interesting than the mode itself is the characters of the keys if you play around in them for a while.

D - Dorian: Renaissance sound, but also a cool jazz sound. It won't sound jazzy like big-band or 20s jazz, but it'll give you that Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" mood. Also, see Santana.

E - Phrygian: Distinctly Spanish sounding. You hear it a lot with guitarists, because E is a great key to fart around in by leaving the E-strings open and scooting up just one fret to an F, and back and forth. Flamenco!

F - Lydian: Instantly recognizable as "wonder" music from movies. Any time you get kid actors together with John Williams, you've got Lydian mode. It's also, for classical composers, a go-to way of making a major key sound modern. You hear it all the time in new operas by Jake Heggie and Donald Hagen.

G - Mixolydian: more Renaissance, this time the major version. The second of my two examples up top there, in 6/8, gives you Mixolydian in a nutshell. You hear it all the time (with a few blue notes in there) in the Ray Charles era. Rock bands, especially the Beatles and other Brit bands, used it a lot. "You Really Got Me," "Norwegian Wood."

A - Aeolian: it's pretty much straight minor, but without any sharp sevens added in it gets a natural minor sound that suits rock-n-roll. Anything in a minor key in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s was probably really Aeolian. (Contrast that with late 90s pop by Britney Spears or Backstreet Boys, who stuck those sharp sevens in like crazy. Really sounded unusual at the time.)

B - Locrian: I can't think of any real uses of this mode outside of very obscure death metal, and even then my ear wants to resolve it to some other more stable-sounding tonality. As a separate tonality, Locrian gets a "Participant" ribbon. Jazzers use the locrian scale, though, when playing the iiº in a iiº - V7 - i progression.

Keep in mind these are all just Western scales. There are tons of other scales. I was in a Greek Orthodox church once where they sang a hymn whose key signature was 2 flats and 2 sharps. Figure that one out!

(Actually Mike Brannon and I did figure it out during one of our afternoon sessions, and played a couple of tunes, one with a tonal center of G and one with a tonal center of D. The G sounded more minor-ish and the D sounded more major-ish, but they were both pretty exotic sounding.)

The Japanese have several scales, the most recognizable one of which may be the Insen scale: D-Eb-G-A-C. Very typically Japanese-sounding.

Paul Soupiset asked about harmonic-minor-sounding mode that's in the synth line in the CCCP song American Soviets. Great 80s techno there. The answer is that it's not in a Western scale at all. It's in a Middle Eastern scale known as the Phrygian dominant, or (in Hebrew) Ahava Rabboh, or (in Arabic) Hijaz-Nahawand maqam, with a major 3rd and a flat 2. (This is what makes you think of harmonic minor, because when you play the harmonic minor scale as a scale you hit that interval of an augmented second [which is the same as a minor third], so in the key of A-minor it's E - F - G# - A. With an Arabic scale in the key of A that weird interval falls on the second, giving you A - Bb - C# - D)

The song is in G, and has a major flavor because of the B-natural. But it has an exotic flavor because of the A-flat. So, here's the scale:

G Ab B C D Eb F G

That distance between Ab and B is called an augmented second, because it's an A going to a B, but it sounds like a minor third; you could spell it G# to B.

A terminology note, though: we use the word "mode" to refer specifically to the use of a conventional Western diatonic scale starting from different points. That is, each mode has two half-tones separating a set of two and three whole tones, respectively. (It's easy to see on the piano keyboard, because whole tones have a black key wedged between them.)

So, no matter which mode you're in — Dorian (WHWWWHW) or Mixolydian (WWHWWHW) — that pattern pertains. In fact, you could express the different modes like this:

Ionian  WWHWWWH
Dorian   WHWWWHW
Phrygian  HWWWHWW
Lydian     WWWHWWH
Mixolydian  WWHWWHW
Aeolian      WHWWHWW
Locrian       HWWHWWW

Notice the order of whole steps and half steps never changes: just the starting and ending spot. If you squint your eyes, you can even see the pattern of the piano keyboard implicit there.

The harmonic minor scale, then, isn't a mode, because it doesn't have that pattern. Nor does the melodic minor.

Harmonic and melodic minor in Western music work like a dynamic font on your computer. That is, when you're in A-minor, you're playing an A natural minor scale, no sharps, no flats, just straight Aeolian mode, but it has the harmonic minor and melodic minor attached to it, so once you hit certain keystroke they kick in.

(Dynamic fonts do the same thing with ligatures. An f is an f, but when you hit an f and then a t, the f changes to fit; same with two fs; same with other letters that kick in based on what comes before and after. For instance, check out how a Mac handles the Zapfino font, much more like handwriting than just a dead font.)

The harmonic minor is just a minor scale with a raised 7th:
A B C D E F #G A
The melodic minor scale, as you remember, is actually two scales, one for going up...
A B C D E F# G# A
... and one for going down...
A G F E D C B A
... that last one being a simple natural minor scale. Apparently our ancestors didn't mind the lowered 7th going down but really wanted it going up, and couldn't stand the augmented 2nd. (Probably reminded them of evil Saracens!) So they raised the 6th degree as well. (That's why you have F# and G# above — it ends up sounding just like a major scale.)

If you really want to sound classical you just follow those rules. Sharp the 6 and 7 when your melody goes up, and leave them natural going down.

That only applies to a melody: when putting harmonies behind it, the harmonic minor kicks in and you always use a G#. That's why I was careful above to say "when you play the harmonic minor scale as a scale." You never do in the practice of real music, because whenever a melody is scalar, the melodic minor kicks in. You utilize the notes of the harmonic minor as you go about filling in the harmony. We want the 7 to be sharped but not the 6.

I always got cross with teachers who wanted you to "practice the harmonic minor scale," meaning they wanted you to get good at fluidly playing up and down your instrument using the flat 6 and sharp 7. That's something you will never have to do in classical music, and very rarely even in modern stuff. I could never, and I do mean never, get any music instructor to understand this basic principle. (Of course, teachers of instruments, no matter how good they are, aren't guaranteed to be aces in theory.)

By the way, for a nice textbook use of melodic minor, look no further than good old "Greensleeves": "sleeping" vs "watch are keeping." The downward motion of "sleeping" gives you a D-natural in the key of E-minor. But the (eventual) upward motion of "watch are keeping," especially since it goes from the seventh degree to the tonic note, really makes the Western ear crave a leading tone. So you sharp the 7, and because of that, you sharp the 6 too.

Leave them both natural, and it sounds dull and wrong. Sharp only the 7, and you sound like one of the magi. (You might not even be able to sing it without playing it on some instrument. It just doesn't fit in the Western throat.)

I'm endlessly fascinated with this stuff, the strange alchemy of science and perception and social history all rolled up.