What Are Modes? A Guide to Composers' Techniques
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- čas přidán 3. 06. 2024
- A guide to modes and how composers use them, in great music from Vaughan Williams to Hans Zimmer and beyond.
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Script by Kadin Madgwick
Narrated by Oscar Osicki
0:00 - Introduction to Modes
3:13 - Ionian Mode
3:44 - Dorian Mode
5:39 - Phrygian Mode
7:36 - Lydian Mode
9:15 - Mixolydian Mode
10:52 - Aeolian Mode
12:00 - Locrian Mode
13:48 - Advanced Modes
![Demonstrating 7 Ways that Composers Make Music Using Modes [SONGWRITING / THEORY]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sC2qXLnVU3A/mqdefault.jpg)
![Demonstrating 7 Ways that Composers Make Music Using Modes [SONGWRITING / THEORY]](/img/tr.png)
I'm in self-destruct mode
😮😅
8:54 so basically, Yoda has a higher fourth than the other characters. The fourth is with him. It all makes sense.
The fourth is stronger in this one.
How I explain this to newcomers:
- Dorian: Minor after a mindfulness session.
- Phrygian: Minor gone edgy.
- Lydian: Major after visiting Tibet.
- Mixolydian: Major with an adventurous edge.
- Locrian: Unemployed alcoholic Phrygian.
Please do another with other modes from other scales (especially, melodic minor).
As a middle eastern, the phrygian scale is always synonymous with a music that bears great sadness and sorrow. Interesting that in the western music it's often used for darker more intense themes.
It honestly it can really go both ways. I typically think of it more as sorrowful or dramatic, but it really depends on how you want a piece to sound and ultimately how people interpret it
Our musical senses are culturally conditioned. I'm aware of maqamat in classical Arabic music and it's influences on an Arab listener or on someone culturally conditioned into Arab culture. I am also aware that the ear of someone a few centuries back would be differently conditioned to that of today. So its not just culture but also distance back in time.
Excellent video!!!
You've inverted the degrees I and V at 3:36 :)
Great video...I think modes are best understood by examining the new harmonies these altered scale degrees imply and consider each one as a variation of either major (Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian) or minor (Aeolian, Dorian, Phrygian, Locrian) without harmonic context, they appear as random scales, etc
Bravo et merci pour cette vidéo. Des explications et des exemples , le tout bien rythmé et accompagné par votre diction très accessible pour des non natifs anglophones. Beau boulot !
Excellent discussion. I especiallty like highlighting the notes in yellow as they are being played. Most informative.
John Cage: “Do I really need modes?”
*writes piece that uses mode zero in the 4.33 piece*
I see Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 2 mentioned, I press like button.
I'm a beginner and I've incorporated practicing modes into practicing my scales, but I go in a different order. I start with Lydian, Ionian, Mixolidian, Dorian, Aeolian, Phrygian, and Lochrian, going down the tonal brightness. There is also another scale after Lochrian flattening the fourth (some sort of diminished scale) and you can also flatten the first. That is just playing the scale of the note of the first (B Major starting on C, for example).
I don't know how long it will take me, but I don't want to advance too fast. I tried to learn different things to start out and hadn't mastered my triads.
Thank you for this lovely video. I love your examples and subtle humor. So instructional and enjoyable.
I Just Fallen In Love With C Minor Harmonic Scale, I Mean The Rock Guitar Melodies ❤❤
Very interesting video! I also enjoyed seeing the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in a couple of scenes, with a young looking Jonathan Crow (concertmaster).
Seeing Chopin highlighted here brings a tear to my eye, thank you
Your work is worthy of praise as well.
This was a great explanation! The Mixolydian and Locrian Modes are my favorites! ☺️
Thank you so much. Very helpful!
excellent video, thank you for helping us along.
What an instructive video! Thank you for creating this type of high quality content
This is a wonderful and concise look into modes. I disagree though, with thinking about them in relation to another scale (i.e. D dorian is the second mode of the C major scale) because the way it's used has nothing to do with the other scale. I just released a video about Jerry Goldsmith's score to The Mummy (1999) on my channel and looked at some more unique scales that were used there. I wish these were taught more
that's exactly what I thought, the scales/modes have already their own name, but I guess the relation explanation is because they are the most popular/taught.
The clip at the beginning is of my local orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra 🥹
Congratulations for the video!
And then there are the modes from the minor scales (Mel and harm) and the double harm... Lots of modes to spend a lifetime of sound. Cool video 👍
Just joined the Discord. Great channel.
this explanation perfectly demonstrates how modes are not actually a thing, unless you are writing melodies consisting mainly of scale runs. which most ppl dont. so tired of the current fad obsession with (and misunderstanding of) modes.
Great Video...
4:31 I think Scarborough just modulates between D minor and C major, and B is just the natural note in C major.
7:02 Danse arab Tchaikowski: I'm pretty sure what's happening is a two tonic chord progression (from the full instrumentation):
G+F, G, G+F, G+E, G with the E tonic on the trill
Thanks
Hi! I love your videos on composers so can you do some composers like Stravinky, Bartók and Shostakovich because you analized only the 2nd movement his 11th symphony, thank you!
The opening theme isn't by RVW ; it is by Thomas Tallis. RVW used it.
Again, a most interesting analysis. But from my layman perspective, I’m under the impression that you could slightly alter many things a bit more (I mean add a flat or sharp here and there). Just like switching from UK English to New-Zealand English but maybe in this region, they have a slightly different dialect or pronunciation. Hard to remember without exposure. May be you could try a Fourier Transform to translate each mode in terms of frequencies spectrum to find out the real discrepancies between modes.
If you liked this video but want more, please check the two videos Jaime Altozano has on this subject. They are even better. The catch is they are in Spanish, but you can use CC.
Dorian : minor #6 / Phrygian : minor b2 / Lydian : major #4 / Mixolydian : major b7 / Aeolian : natural minor scale / Locrian : minor b2, b5
Lydian is common in Polish folk music; Chopin often raises the 4th of his major tunes.
I would really like to see guides about Tchaikovsky's symphonies!
Can you do a video on Composer Charles Ives?
9:33 Personal study note. As you were, ladies and gents.
I think another very good way to demonstrate each mode would have been to play each piece as if it were written in Ionion mode (for major keys) or in Aeolian mode (for minor keys) and demonstrate how it sounds so different. For example, play the Simpsons theme but play all the fourth notes as natural notes instead of sharpened notes.
5:34 I was wishing for more concrete examples of each mode. Instead of just naming the artists who have used the Dorian mode, it would have been nice to list the songs that used it or better yet include snippets of each song (I assume this wasn't done because of copyright issues).
I wonder how the modes got their names? They look like the names of ancient Greek regions but how are the two related?
11:51 "perfect for the character of Jack Sparrow" - who it wasn't composed for! Will Turner was originally the pirate in "He's A Pirate", not Jack! He was the main character
Does it mean that T-S-D will be different for each mode too? Or it still be from a major scale?
What about modes derived from minor and harmonic minor scale ?
Если я не ошибаюсь начало композиции "Время вперёд" Свиридова в локрийском ладу
👏
What is the name of that piece that starts at 14:33?
it's a repeat of Vaughn Williams' Variations on a theme by Thomas Tallis (later in the piece).
Thanks a lot!
For some reason your microphone sounds very glitchy in this video which is unfortunate since the content is great....
In Early Music, the mode is the final.
I know nothing about music theory (sadly), but I wonder if someone who does could help me out here. Below are two different versions of Purcell's "Fairest Isle", sung by Alfred Deller. Obviously they are in different keys, but are they also in different modes, or what is happening here? I am thinking of the 8th note he sings, the highest note of the "i" in "isles". In number 1 it's a half note higher than in number 2 (adjusted for key), and that brings it a completely different feeling. I like the 1st one more, but I can't really say why.
1. czcams.com/video/_9pVLr8SDZE/video.html
2. czcams.com/video/Ce9y-mPfHnM/video.html
Is it bad that I didn't feel any difference between any of these? They all felt like a series of notes to me.
You might be tone deaf, or if not, u need a LOT of ear training
Disappointed that you didn't mention Heiliger dankesang in the lydian mode
Both Bach & Beethoven used the Dorian.
Allen Van Wert!!! 😂
I don't know what mode I like best.
Justinian didn’t live in the 9th century…
Everything is very interesting. But nothing is understandable 😢
I'd better continue my structural design activity.
Harmony might be the greatest invention of Western music, and then there's its evolution into COUNTERPOINT, a whole other kind of animal.
Little secret...play a mode backwards and you will play another mode.
Its impossible to teach music theory, bec teachers are focused on the what, but listeners are there for the why
Vaughan Williams was gentle in the first exposition of Tallis Theme, but in the repetition he hits you with all the power of a tragedy that just happened. Is not sweet music at all.
Please help! Every single explanation of modes that I've watched breaks my brain in the following way:
"This is the C-Major Scale. C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. Dorian mode means to start playing this scale using the 2nd degree as the tonic. D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D. Therefore, the C Dorian scale is C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb."
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL F**K?!? 🙂
Seriously, if the Dorian mode of C Major is D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D then how can C Dorian be C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb? I swear every modes video glosses over this as if these aren't two impossibly confusing and contradictory pieces of information. Make it make sense!
The CHURCH MODES
BEETHOVEN IS GOD! 👊🏾🎹✨😈
Ionian is NOT major, leading people to believe that a V- I cadence is a "modal" cadence is wrong, tonal =/= modal