Oh, okay thank you.
What is a mode?
What is a mode?
A needless confusion that you should avoid at all costs.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
I know that this is probably sounding whiny right now, but I would very much like to now what modes are.
Modes mean different things to different people, hence the potential for confusion. But "to all intents and purposes" they are identical to scales.
Now... what is a diminished scale.
It's a scale that proceeds by an alternating series of 'whole tones' and semitones (whole steps and half steps).
There are two forms, depending on whether the first interval is a whole tone or a semitone.
Diminished scales are a type of octatonic scale - that is they contain eight notes before repeating an octave higher.
Ok so-D E F G A A# C D is a diminished scale or did I miss a note.
And what's a sad scale. I have heard that the minor scale is a sad scale, but it doesn't seem very sad to me because there is only a one note difference(the sixth if i am correct) between it and the major scale.
The two forms of the diminished scale (from D) are:
D E F G Ab Bb B C# D
or
D Eb F F# G# A B C D
The note that gives the minor scale its characteristic sound is the flatted third. The scale itself doesn't sound sad - but music composed from its notes can often express sadness , (While my guitar gently weeps) or regret, (House of the rising sun) or ironic reflection (Perfect day).
Oh it is the third isn't it. I feel like such an idiot right now.
Some forms of the minor scale also have flatted sixth and seventh notes - but ALL forms have the flatted third, which is a minor third interval above the first note - hence the name 'minor scale'.
What is the Locrian scale? I heard this was a dark scale, is this true.
Locrian is one of the modes (based on the 7th degree of the underlying major scale).
There is so much music that doesn't rely on modes, in the commonly accepted sense (the relative minor, based on the 6th degree of the underlying scale, is the Aeolian mode, but doesn't, generally, seem to count as a mode), that you can happily forget them for the next 10 years.
I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
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Ok, so if I do it like the natural minor scale, but instead of finding a scale that has the sixth or whatever, find the scale that uses the seventh.
Ok, so if I do it like the natural minor scale, but instead of finding a scale that has the sixth or whatever, find the scale that uses the seventh.
I'm not sure what that means but I suspect you're still asking about the Locrian scale or Locrian mode as it's more commonly known.
What Greybeard means about it being based on the 7th degree of the major scale is that it has exactly the same notes as the major scale that starts a semitone higher.
So if C major is CDEFGAB then B Locrian is BCDEFGA
Just as C major has C as its tonal centre, B Locrian has B as its tonal centre, or at least it would have if the laws of physics weren't stacked against it. The pitch relationships between B and all the other notes are such that, try as you might, you can't get B to sound like a convincing tonal centre or key note. That's why the Locrian mode, which was theoretically contrived in the 16th century, has virtually no musical use. I did read recently though of its use in ancient Icelandic folk melody. I don't know if its true - maybe Helgi (a knowledgeable member from Iceland) knows something about it.
Some guitarists use the same note series using a different tonal centre and call it the Locrian mode but I strongly dispute the correctness of that usage.
