modal madness

well i am just as confused by modes - but i must ask one question - i always thought A- aeolan was played over c , not the other way round??

anyway, i get by through picking apart the chord progression and finding a scale - major or minor that encompassess all the notes in the chords and using that scale to solo - and weather i am technically playing "X mixylodian" or "y dorian" is something i am blissfully ignorant of. however, one must bear in mind that my lead playing lacks a lot to be desired. i will now pass over to somebody who knows what they are talking about...............

I play alt-country and folk-rock rootsy music, simple three-chords-and-the-truth stuff. Is there any use for the modes?

No.
Huh? How many songs resolve to chords other than the I chord?

Well, G7 normally resolves to C, but as you pointed out, it could also resolve to Am (the deceptive cadence). C and Am are of course closely related. G7 contains the dissonant tritone B-F. This resolves to the sweet major third C-E which is in both C major (C-E-G) and A minor (A-C-E). This makes both G7-C and G7-Am sound good.
(I can play C Aeolian over an Am progression)

Um, no. C Aeolian would be C minor (C_DEb_F_GAb_Bb_C), nothing like A minor.

A Aeolian and A (natural) minor however are the same thing and have the same notes as C major (C Ionian).

Thanks for the responses, but I think I'm more confused now! :shock: I think the problem is one of terminology. Is it really true that C Aeolian is Cm and not Am? Matt Smith represents the C Aeolian as a C major scale beginning on the VI, which produces an Am scale. I would think that Cm would be Eb Aeolian, no?

This is where the terminology gets confusing for me: A mode can either belong to a key (Cm) or be the practical scale to use with the key (Am). Now consider the case of the mixolydian: The mixolydian mode in the key of C should be begin on G (so saith Matt Smith), but for practical purposes this mode should add a b7, which would mean that the proper myxolydian for C would be the F scale beginning from C. Am I wrong about this? The C mixolydian isn't the mixolydian one actually wants to use in music written in the key of C, right?

I'm guessing I'm not right about this.

Special thanks to hbriem for easing my mind about actually using modes in the music I play, but I'd still like to get a handle on this stuff. When, exactly, does one play a lydian mode? Do we have to find a song in the key of C that begins and ends on the F chord to make this work? This would seem rare.

Yes, the terminology is confusing and inconsistent. Hbriem and Alman are right. C Aeolian is C D Eb F G Ab Bb C, which is the same as the C natural minor scale.
From what you've said, I think what Matt is referring to is the 6th mode of the C major scale (which starts on note 6, A) and calling it the "Aeolian mode of the C major scale" or C Aeolian for short. But strictly speaking, it's A Aeolian because from a modal point of view, modes don't actually belong to the major scale. They're scales in their own right. The fact that they can be viewed as 'modes of the major scale' has led to a way of using them, not as they were originally intended, but as the major scale starting from different notes so as to coincide with the chord being played.

Originally, they were scales that whole pieces of music were composed from. Scarborough Fair, for example, is a song in the Dorian mode. Its notes are DEFGABC - That's D DORIAN. According to the key signature it looks like C major because there are no sharps or flats, but it's not in C major because the tonal centre is D not C and according to the tonal centre it looks like D minor but it's not D minor, because it has B natural instead of Bb.

Thanks, Fretsource, you've clarified things considerably! :)

My only lingering question concerns the apparent mismatch between the amount of discussion one hears about modes from guitar players and the amount of music written in these modes. For example, as I'm sure everyone here knows, Jerry Garcia was well-known for soloing in the mixolydian mode; but I'm reasonably sure that Grateful Dead material is firmly in regular major and minor keys, and that Jerry's modal soloing was irregular in some way.

So, barring the odd piece like Scarborough Fair, how does one use modes in music that is written in the major key? Matt Smith talks about music resolving in chords other than the I chord, but I don't see much music that fits this description. Though some songs modulate into different key centers, this doesn't really qualify, as we're then in a different major or minor key. What sort of resolution would lead one to break out the Lydian or the Dorian or the Locrian ( :shock: ) in the middle of a song written in a major key?

Or, to cut to the chase: Isn't soloing in a mode simply a way of continuing to use a major scale, but shifting the emphasized notes? So when a song in C major incorporates a G chord during an intrumental break the soloist knows to touch down frequently and meaningfully on the G note during the solo? Is that too simple?

I think for many guitarists, soloing in a mode is exactly as you said. It's just taking the major scale of the key and emphasising certain notes depending on the chord being played. It means they can have a stock of memorised scale patterns each one named after one of the modes because they happen to have the same notes. In reality though, it's just the major scale because, although the chords change and the scale shapes change to suit, the key centre usually doesn't.
It's unfortunate that they call them after the modes because it conflicts with the real use of modes in modal music. And as far as I'm aware, it's only guitarists who obsess about them, and that's because they're associating modes with scale shapes on the fretboard. If only they would call them mode 1, mode 2, mode 3 etc of the major scale there would be no problem.

From a modal music perspective, the mode agrees with the key centre, NOT simply the root of the current chord.
There are lots of examples of this more authentic (IMO) way of using modes. Apart from old medieval, Renaissance and folk melodies like Scarborough Fair, I've heard some Santana songs that stay around two chords such as Am7 and D7 and use the Dorian mode over it. The note set of those two chords is A (B) C D E F# G - which means that the A Dorian mode will work fine over it. I don't know if he consciously thinks "Dorian mode" or if he's just choosing the best notes by ear, which happen to be the Dorian mode. Led Zeppelin also get a bit modal at times.
Other songs that use chords from both the major and minor scales (mode mixture) can provide opportunities for using the modes for soloing purposes.
Think of Hey Jude. It's very much a C major key song with all the expected chords. But the long end 'na na na' section is different. it has chords C - Bb - F - C repeated over and over. . If you wanted to solo over that then the major scale would cause problems with the note B clashing with the chord Bb. However, the C Mixolydian mode (CDEFGABbC) would work perfectly.

Thanks, I think it's all clear now! :P

You're right about the guitar-player obsession. In my former life I was primarily a piano player--with a fair amount of classical training. Somehow, modes never entered the picture. :roll: Hmmm.

Now consider the case of the mixolydian: The mixolydian mode in the key of C should be begin on G (so saith Matt Smith), but for practical purposes this mode should add a b7, which would mean that the proper myxolydian for C would be the F scale beginning from C. Am I wrong about this? The C mixolydian isn't the mixolydian one actually wants to use in music written in the key of C, right?

I'm guessing I'm not right about this.

I didn't see this example addressed, so I figured I'd chime in.

The C scale "beginning from G" is G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G.

If you compare that to the G major scale, you'll see the 7th is the only note that's different - it's been lowered from F# to F. So the formula for the scale would be 1-2-3-4-5-6-b7.

I think your confusion is that you're looking for a scale that has the b7 of C (Bb). But when we compare scales, we always start with the tonic... so if you take the C scale and lower the 7th, you get C Mixolydian.

Fretsource's comments are dead on. Modes aren't nearly as useful (or as frequently used) as many guitarists would have you believe.

Modes aren't nearly as useful (or as frequently used) as many guitarists would have you believe.

This is so true! I simply don't teach my students modes at all. Unless they are specifically interested in a genre of music where modes are essential for understanding the music. Such students are few and far between.

Most students are far better served learning how to use the commons scales well (major, 3 minors, diminished, augmented and whole note). If you are to the point where you can fluently utilize those 7 scales in any harmonic context, and you are interested in medieval tunes or modern jazz, then jump into modes with both feet. But for most people, if they aren't at that point, then modes will simply confuse: both because of the immense amount of flat-out wrong information on the intertubes and the because such people won't be working with modal music when trying to use modes.