Modes

Stompbox

So if my understanding of modes is correct, a D Dorian scale would go as follows and its in the key of C:

D,E,F,G,A,B,C

Now does this mean that if I begin a song in the key of C and start on a D note that I'm playing in the D Dorian mode?

I was watching Satriani play and he transferred into different modes, exactly how does one transfer into different modes?

Rigsby

Check out this site.





http://www.guitarmodes.co.za/

Voodu Child

Sweet wrote: »

So if my understanding of modes is correct, a D Dorian scale would go as follows and its in the key of C:

D,E,F,G,A,B,C

Now does this mean that if I begin a song in the key of C and start on a D note that I'm playing in the D Dorian mode?

I was watching Satriani play and he transferred into different modes, exactly how does one transfer into different modes?

Satch makes extensive use of 'pitch axis theory' to shift between modes. Don't ask me to explain it, cos i havent a clue , but its something to look into.

Stompbox

Thanks for th replies but I don't wanna get that technical, what defines actually using say a Dorian mode in the key of C?

JC 2K3

I never fully understood this myself, but to the best of my knowledge you just emphasise the D more, as you'd emphasise the C when playing in C-Major, end phrases on D etc.

18AD

If you have a song that's in Cmajor and you move up to a Dminor chord you'll be using the dorian mode, provided you don't use notes outside of Cmajor/Ddorian/Ephrygian/Flydian etc...

If you have a tune in Cmajor and you move up to a Dminor chord you can alternatively use a Dminor scale.

Then you can continue on to do increasingly weird stuff. Start in, say, Eminor and move to D dorian. Or C harmonic minor to D dorian.

It has more to do with how you colour the underlying song structure which is usually chordal, imo. ie. colouring the Dminor chord with a dorian mode or an aeolian mode...

Good luck.
AD.

Fusion251

I think people are overcomplicating this. D Dorian is a scale that relates to a chord and not to a specific key. The modes all relate to the chords you play and not so much the key of a song. If the Key is Cmajor7 then play the Cmajor scale! Simple!

I'll just give you a quick example of the major modes..

Cmajor7 - you play C Ionian
Dminor7 - you play D Dorian
Esusb9/min7 - you play E Phrygian
Fmaj7#11 - you play F Lydian
G7 - you play G mixolydian
Amin7 - you play A Aeolian
Bhalf diminished - you play B Lochrian

So effectively the modes are chord specific and not key specific. When you talk about general jamming in a key then all your doing is playing from different notes in the major scale...