People find the diatonic modes confusing. They are confusing! But they’re also wonderfully useful. So one of the goals of my music theory songs is to make the modes less confusing (or, at least, to make them confusing in a different way.) Some of the confusion comes from the fact that you conventionally see the modes as being generated by the major scale. So, theory texts will tell you that the notes in C major also make D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A natural minor, and B Locrian. This information is not necessarily helpful to you! It doesn’t tell you anything about how the modes sound, or what you might want to use them for.
I think it’s better to think about the modes in parallel: C major, C Dorian, C Phrygian, C Lydian, C Mixolydian, C natural minor, C Locrian. It’s even more helpful to see them organized in a different order, from “brightest” to “darkest”: C Lydian, C major, C Mixolydian, C Dorian, C natural minor, C Phrygian, C Locrian.
This order makes more sense when you see the modes written on the circle of fifths.
The purple notes in my animations are “neutral” intervals above C: unison, perfect fourth, perfect fifth. The green notes are “bright” intervals above C: major second, major third, sharp fourth, major sixth, major seventh. The blue notes are “dark” intervals above C: minor second, minor third, flat fifth, minor sixth, minor seventh. As common sense would suggest, modes with more green are brighter, and modes with more blue are darker.
You can think of the seven notes in each mode as toggles, switches that can be set to the bright (sharp/natural/major) position or the dark (flat/minor) position. If you flip the switches from sharp to flat in circle of fifths order, then you will systematically move through the modes from brightest (Lydian) to darkest (Locrian). Here’s how you do it. Start with C Lydian:
- Lower the sharp fourth (F-sharp) to the natural fourth (F). Now you have C major.
- Lower the seventh (B) to the flat seventh (B-flat.) Now you have C Mixolydian.
- Lower the third (E) to the minor third (E-flat). Now you have C Dorian.
- Lower the sixth (A) to the minor sixth (A-flat). Now you have C natural minor.
- Lower the second (D) to the flat second (D-flat). Now you have C Phrygian.
- Lower the fifth (G) to the flat fifth (G-flat). Now you have C Locrian.
(Notice that each note you are lowering is a tritone away from the last note you lowered. Cool.)
What if you wanted to keep going? The next move in the sequence would be to lower the root (C) to the “flat root” (C-flat). But now something surprising happens: you wrap all the way around to the brightest mode! You have just made C-flat Lydian: C-flat, D-flat, E-flat, F, G-flat, A-flat, B-flat. The less headache-inducing way to spell that is as B Lydian: B, C-sharp, D-sharp, E-sharp, F-sharp, G-sharp, A-sharp.
Now you can take B Lydian and lower the sharp fourth (E-sharp) to the natural fourth (E) to make B major, then lower the seventh (A-sharp) to the flat seventh (A) to make B Mixolydian, and so on. When you get to B Locrian, you can lower its root to make B-flat Lydian. You can then move through the B-flat modes until you get to B-flat Locrian. Lowering its root gives you A Lydian. And down and down you go.
Here’s how it looks to move through all the modes from light to dark around the entire chromatic circle. The red notes are the ones that get lowered to change each mode.
So remember how it’s conventional to derive the modes from the major scale? This is because in classical music, the modes aren’t “real things.” C Lydian is “really” G major from C to C. However, in jazz and subsequent musics, C Lydian is not “really” G major; the two scales just happen to share the same seven pitches. I learned to think of the modes like this:
- C Lydian is C major with a raised fourth.
- C major is C major, just memorize it.
- C Mixolydian is C major with a flat seventh.
- C Dorian is C natural minor with a major sixth.
- C natural minor is C major with a flat third, sixth and seventh.
- C Phrygian is C natural minor with a flat second.
- C Locrian is C natural minor with a flat second and flat fifth.
If you already know all of your major scales really well, though, it might be helpful to think of the modes like this:
- C Lydian shares the same pitches as G major.
- C major shares the same pitches as itself (of course).
- C Mixolydian shares the same pitches as F major.
- C Dorian shares the same pitches as B-flat major.
- C natural minor shares the same pitches as E-flat major.
- C Phrygian shares the same pitches as A-flat major.
- C Locrian shares the same pitches as D-flat major.
So you could think of moving through the modes from light to dark as moving through the major keys counterclockwise around the circle of fifths.
If you practice your modes in bright-to-dark order, you will hear and feel that descending circle of fifths motion. It’s satisfying! It’s certainly an excellent way to learn the guitar fretboard. You can do all of this in the reverse direction too. Western classical music usually moves counterclockwise (downward) around the circle of fifths, but there is nothing stopping you from going clockwise (upward) too. Rock does a lot of that. The main thing is to find ways to make all of this sound like actual music. Isn’t that ultimately the goal anyway?