Forming musical modes

I think this will be my first post on music theory.

I was playing my jazz piano seriously today, going through the white blues scales. Then I remembered that I wasn’t very good in my mode scales. So I was referring to my jazz piano journals throughout the semester. I regret not writing more details on how the modes are formed because my lecturer thought me an ingenious way of forming the scales.

I think I wasted almost half an hour thinking how it was formed, even referring to the scales book which was not very helpful. Internet was worse ‘cause people were more concerned on memorizing the mode names in sequence.

Finally, I remembered that I did make a recording of the class which was when my lecturer taught me the modes. I literally smack my head wondering why the heck it took me so long to use the recording as reference instead. In a matter of 5 minutes, I got back on track on how to form the modes. Now I hope I’ll never forget it.

There are 7 kinds of modes: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian.

The way my lecturer taught me, you do not even need to know what are the intervals between the notes in the scale. You need even compare the base scale of the modes to the major scale. All you need to know is the degree of the modes in a scale. Like Ionian is the 1st degree, Dorian is the 2nd degree, Phrygian is the 3rd degree etc.

Another thing you need is a strong understanding of your major scales and its accidentals.

So now, let’s get cracking.

Example 1 : Dorian in A.

Think A as the 2nd degree because Dorian is the 2nd degree. Then you’ll get G as your first degree. In G major, you have F#. Now all you need to do is playing the scale, starting for the A note and playing the F# in it.

Example 2: Mixolydian in A

Think A as the 5th degree because of Mixolydian. Then you’ll have D as your 1st degree, hence you’ll be thinking in D major now. Starting from A note, you’ll be playing an A scale with only F# and C #.

It’s just that simple!!! Hope any music students whom come across this article will find this useful.

Yet, the internet made it so complicated. Urgh….