Now, when you first saw the title of this post, if you have been following along with my posts, you probably thought, 'Oh, he is just going to show us the rest of the major and minor scales, or maybe even the chromatic scale (scale consisting of all twelve notes in an octave). I already know this stuff, so I don't need to read this post.' But that could not be farther from the truth! I assume that if you plan to get more into music, that you will put the effort in to learn all the twelve major and minor scales yourself based off of the hints I have given previously. Today, I will be sharing with you some knowledge I have gained from this book about how expansive music theory truly is.
Lets start off with the seven diatonic modes. For most of you out there, this will be completely new information, so keep reading!
"Toward the end of the 1800s... composers started to feel restrained by the key system, and they began to experiment..." (Hewitt 215). In one experiment, composers looked back to the system that existed before the keys system we use today. Then, composers were using a different set of scales called modes. Learning all of these scales will give more originality to your music.
Basically how modes work is that as the root note changes, the exact key itself doesn't really. For those piano players out there, while you were learning all of the keys and other things, did you ever try playing scales made from only the notes of the C scale? I know I did. Those are modal keys.
In more musical terms, modal scales, say from the key of C major, use all of the same notes as C major, but each key starts on a different note.
First off, there is the Ionian Mode. This mode is very well known, if not by name, as it is the exact same as the major scale (Hewitt 216). I think you understand that one pretty well now, so let's move on.
The Dorian Mode is the second modal key. In this key, the tonic is placed on the second note of a scale. This scale, if placed on a D, is very similar to a D minor scale. The only difference is that the sixth is raised by a semitone (Hewitt 217). It looks like this:
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| D Dorian Scale |
The Lydian Mode starts at F, and is almost identical to F major, except that its fourth degree is sharp (Hewitt 219).
The Mixolydian Mode starts on G, and is very similar to G major except that its seventh degree is flat (Hewitt 220).
The Aeolian Mode is another that you should know very well by now. Starting on A, this is the same as the A natural minor (Hewitt 220).
Finally, the Locrian Mode starts on B, and is identical to the B major scale, but the fifth note is lowered (Hewitt 221).
Here is a mix of all the scales in the order they are listed in with the root C played underneath all of them:
Messing around with these scales can produce some very interesting and fun results, so be sure to do that.
I personally really want to mess around with the Lydian mode, as it sounds like it would work very nicely in a future bass track.
Next I'm going to show a lot of pictures of scales from around the world. There are way to many of them for me to go into detail on every one, but they are all very fun to mess around with and could create some interesting sounds in your next track!
And here's me, making the scales for the diatonic modes sample!
Well, thanks for reading! Now our journey comes to an end. I hope you learned something while reading these, I know I learned a lot of things from this project.
Did you know that the diatonic scales existed? How did you know about them?
Hewitt, Michael. Music Theory for Computer Musicians. Boston: Course Technology, CENGAGE Learning, 2008. Print. |
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