Some regions like Lydia and Phrygia were outside of ancient Greece. (Asia minor, neighbouring ancient Greece)

+rüştü cüneyt güren For me, this only reinforces how much of our musical aesthetic is determined by culture, and not by any mathematical propriety of the intervals. I particularly love the sound of the diminished second, and think you can do lots of great things with it, but we insist in pigeonholing certain sounds as "weird" because they're not used often, or because they're traditionally associated with some mood. This also applies to the "major keys are happy and minor keys are sad" nonsense. How can you explain that so many "happy" songs are in minor keys (Get Lucky by Daft Punk, Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees), and so many "sad" songs are in major keys (second movement of Beethoven's Pathétique sonata, Pictures of You by The Cure, Five Years by David Bowie). And I'll never understand why people think atonal music sounds ugly and/or scary, and yet find birdsong so beautiful and relaxing.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm from India. The Phrygian is the same as Raga Bhairavi for us and some of the most beautiful music I've heard has been in this "mode".

I'm American and It's always been my favorite mode I hadn't heard much like it until I learned it

Hahaha I feel you! from Kurdistan Region, Iraq.

Yep, it's called the Bhairavi in Indian music, one of the most mellifluous modes IMHO, and I suppose one KZfaq search on "Bhairavi Indian Music" would convince anyone to start using that mode!

Thanks for the summary

@@vlc-cosplayer Nah, just a Major scale with a raised tonic and subdominant! ;)

locrian: *error* *forbidden mode*

you forgot locrian: stupid from most angles

@@majorlycunningham5439 Pretty amazing how flattening the tonic will give us the benign Lydian

This confuses me. I play guitar and want to know the chord qualities for the modes. Why isn't C the 1 chord for each mode that you have listed?And where are the sharps and flats? In the Locrian mode how do you flatten a C?

what he meant is, that D dorian or G Mixolydian contain the same notes as C Major (Ionian) so you dont have any sharps or flats in the notes he listed, but in terms of thinking within the major scale he listed the flats and sharps in the number of the note and you flatten a C by playing a B, but technically it is not a B, but a Cb (I think if you got a perfekt intonated instrument, not like a piano, where every half step is not sqrt(12) of an octave it is a different note, not too sure about that)

Moving modes to guitar is pretty easy, if you think of it in terms of "boxes". For example, I bet you're used to playing a C major scale using only frets 7 to 10. In that box, starting on the 7th fret on your low E string would give you a locrian scale starting with B. If you want another starting note, you just move the box. If you try starting at different points using a scale you're familiar with, you should find it's not that tricky. As chords qualities go, you'll mostly have to test it out, once you've figured out which notes you have in each mode, and think of it in terms of shifting along the major/minor scale containing the same notes as your mode. But if you want a raw theory list, I guess you could have it. Chords in order I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, followed by explaining characteristics (m = minor, 7 = major chord with low 7th, dim = diminished). Ionian: I, II m, III m, IV, V 7, VI m, VII dim. Just like you're used to with a major scale. Dorian: I m, II m, III m, IV 7, V m, VI dim, VII What you get if you use a minor key and set the IV as your new starting point. The major IV has a lot of neat applications. Phrygian: I m, II, III 7, IV m, V dim, VI, VII m. Frequently explained as "A minor starting with E". Lydian: I, II 7, III m, IV dim, V, VI m, VII m. Mixolydian: I 7, II m, III dim, IV, V m , VI m, VII. Aeolian: I m, II dim, III, IV m, V m, VI, VII 7. Locrian: I dim, II, III m, IV m, V, VI 7, VII m. In each next step, the first chord in the previous mode becomes the last chord in your new mode.

You know what is interesting? That sharp right in the middle. The thing is, if you construct this based on the Lydian mode 2-2-2-1-2-2-1, the sharp will go away. If I'm not mistaken, Lydian mode is the only one without any sharps. Furthermore, the progression of tones on the circle of fifths somehow magically completes one turn after arriving at F or B. This makes me think that perhaps the Lydian mode should be the main mode for constructing music, because then these anomalies go away.

+RonPaul Revered It looks like there are no flats... look at Dorian starting on D, for example. The 3rd and the 7th should be flatted, right? Well, not here. Compare the Dorian mode starting on D to a D major scale. In a D major scale, you have: D E F# G A B C#. Now compare that to the Dorian mode... D E F# G A B C# (D major) D E F G A B C (D Dorian) Now, you can see that, compared to the major scale, the F and the C are lowered by one half step (instead of being sharped, they are natural) essentially, they are flatted. This holds true for each of the examples in the original comment above. Thus, to play these modes, you can just start on the corresponding letter and go up the alphabet and get an accurate modal scale. This is just a shift in perspective. To some, it might be helpful, others may prefer to think of it in the way presented in the video.

Michael really does a great job. I've really been enjoying his music theory videos.

Jesse Atwood i ate a lot watching i need to loo

besides him being wrong. the F# is in AMajb7. and in DMaj which is the 1st degree of this scale.

This has been the ONLY explanation of modes I've ever seen that makes the slightest bit of sense. All others that I've seen have never explained the relationship between the modes without causing more confusion. Michaels demonstration here shows how it all links together in a very simple way.

Hi Thomas, I do not undetstand. One piano video teaches Dorian starting on D and another video teaches Dorian starting on G. Which is right, and what is the Definition of Dorian anyway?

@@TheSunshinedreamer1 Dorian can start on any notes, the concept of modes and scales are that they are interval patterns, they are not a fixed notes combination, as long as your notes fit that pattern, it is the mode, e.g. Dorian pattern is whwwwhw(as Michael's drawing shows) , so let us start on D(we can start on any note), the interval between the next note with D should be a whole step(or 2 semi tones, they are the same thing), so we pick E(piano and guitar are made like that, interval between D and E are a whole step), then next step is a half step, so we pick F(on piano, E and F is a half step, but on guitar, all frets are half step), and go on, if you still not sure what is interval, you can check Michael's basic chord video.

Yea I agree amazing video!!

Totally agree. All the other videos I've watched on modes approach things from the other direction (if that makes sense), and it seemed to be just "this is how it is. Learn it". I think concentrating on the why underneath it all (i.e., the shifting patterns of intervals) made things clear to me immediately.

Just gonna jump in and add to what ur saying..Radiohead often use Phrygian too in their songs

I think you're referring to major -phrygian, used in the so-called andalusian cadence (which really isn't a cadence, but that's neither here nor there, it still sounds cool ). In music like flamenco you don't have i-bII but I-bII (i.e. major I). Sounds very different than what people usually think of when they think phrygian.

The flamenco thing comes from Phrygian Dominant I think, a mode of harmonic minor. Very exotic sounding.

Pink Guy I've had quite a few discussions about this. A lot of the problem is just that, like other "eastern" forms of music, western music theory just wasn't thought out to accurately describe flamenco. Not that it can't be done of course, just that it's fairly convoluted. The time signature is probably the main issue, and there are different schools of thought on this. And as far as the scale/mode goes, it's phrygian but, the chord patterns are based on phrygian dominant but the melodic scale used is usually phrygian natural. Add to that that some notes serve solely a rythmic purpose and they don't seem to care whether it fits in any scale or not. That rythmic note is usually the top E of the guitar (1st string). In the past, flamenco was mostly played in two "positions", either E phrygian or A phrygian (what they "por arriba" and "por medio", and to play in any other key, they'd use capo but wouldn't change the hand patterns they used), so that rythmic "E" note fit in quite nicely in the scale. But for the last 40 years or so, they've started experimenting quite a lot with other keys, Eb phrygian or G# phrygian are quite common nowadays in open position, and with some of those the rythmic E note is completely out of the scale but they'll still use for rythmic purposes.

I cannot agree with you enough! The phrygian has a very distinctive sound and is not even that uncommon. "Spanish" sounding is the first thing that pops into mind, but it has other uses too. Frank Zappa's Black Napkins is in C# phrygian and is based on a simple alternating chord sequence of C#m - D. I do, btw, think most of the modes have such an alternating chord formula, such as i - IV for the dorian and I - bVII for mixo. These can be used for establishing the tonality and feel of the mode. That would at least be a quick way to get into them. I agree with him on the locrian though... kind of. The problem is not that it's weird but that it's hard to stay *in* the locrian. I tried writing something in it once, but I figured out eventually that I was actually in the phrygian, i.e. the center of gravity wasn't where I'd thought it was originally. Any attempt at an alternating sequence will just make it resolve somewhere else!

+Sravani Vadlamani From what little I know, raagas are a lot more complex, and offer many more possibilities than Western modes. For example, if I want to have an augmented fourth *and* a diminished seventh in my scale, that's no longer a mode, but something else entirely. And for people thinking such a scale would sound utterly bizarre: that's the theme from The Simpsons. Western music just has a lot of very arbitrary and nonsensical definitions that we just happen to follow. The raag system just sounds a lot more flexible and interesting, while still holding a strong level of rigour. As a result, it sounds "weird" to much of the Western world, which is a shame.

you're close but those are actually 'thaats' in indian-hindustani-classical. 'Thaats' are the bases from where ragas are derived and unlike the ragas, there are only 10 thaats. To compare the two: ionian mode = bilaval thaat dorian mode = kaafi thaat phrygian mode = bhaiavi thaat lydian mode = kalyan thaat mixed lydian mode = khamaj thaat aeonian mode = asavari thaat There are 4 more thaats - Bhairav, Marva, Purvi and Todi. All these have a lowered second and sound pretty cool. In fact Bhairav is considered a go-to thaat when composing dark/sad music... Hope this helps... :)

Vatsal Pandya 😎Good Info

Fernie Canto appreciate your perspective good food for thought.

@@vatsalpandya5415 Thank you Vatsal