Notation, backing tracks & more on Patreon ► www.patreon.com/robbiebarnby

dude KEEP IT UP. this is what the youtube needs.

This guy is a genius. It amazes me how he not only creates this great content, but how he just lectures at 100 MPH really shows how deeply he is inside of all of this. It's weird in a way because his playing sounds like one of the lectures - sort of a manifestation of the lecture - super deep, intensely musical -

@4:06 Another cool observation that probably serves no practical purpose regarding this ordering of the modes: Dorian has a palindromic step pattern and is right in the middle of this. Compare the step patterns of the two modes either side of it - Mixolydian and Aeolian - and you'll find that one is the inverse of the other. The same goes for the other two pairs moving outward - Ionian and Phrygian, and Lydian and Locrian. Do with that what you will.

What a perfect teacher and player you are! Please continue to show how to teach us! Thank you veery much!

Impeccable content, as always. Have learned so much on this channel!!

Robbie - refreshing to hear you present this concept. I have looked at it this way for years. So much so that I often argue that Lydian is the 1st mode and then it goes from there. I am very supportive of George Russell's Tonal Organization and Tonal Gravity. Good job!!!

I find myself keep coming back to this video. Each time I watch I discover something.

I’ve heard Gary Burton talk about this before. Very cool way of thinking about the modes.

Haha I do these from bright to dark, as well as scat them by memory. You really feel the shift in each interval that changes in the gradient each time

for me, i thought of something when i was in bed this morning, just popped into my head.. but it was that the dorian mode represents PATIENCE, i don't know why i feel that it does, because like I say, it just popped into my head, but it could be because it is sort of halfway between being a minor scale and a major scale, or a minor scale with a raised 6th, so kinda halfway between dark and light (light at the end of the tunnel) sort of thing, but also minor chords generally to me, give an impression, or a sound (emotionally speaking) of the struggle of life and setbacks and difficulties, but yeah thank's i liked the video!! overall I suppose it is very reasonable to say that the Lydian mode does have more of an emotional impact, or a BRIGHTER sound to it, like you said, and yes this makes perfect sense for the reason you stated, it has the raised 4th degree, so it is higher of a scale, reaching up more if you will

Hello. A bit puzzled by your explanations. In equal temperament context all major scales are strictly identical. It is very difficult to understand that the musical sensation could be different. Concerning the modes, my understanding is that the brightness depends on the distance, in the fifth cycle, between each note and the first one. Cionian is built with the first notes in the fifth cycle from C : CGDAEB. Clocrian with the farest notes from C : GbDbAbEbBbF. Cionian is therfore more consonant/brighter, Clocrian more dissonant/darker. For me the brightness of lydian mode is due to the 3 consecutive major second which creates a kind of "overmajor" sound This is just my personal understanding. Your vid on Barry Harris concept was super

Excellent and very Clear! Thank you!

Robbie your mind of theory is an amazing ride. Great video...I had to watch it three times to finally grasp it but well worth it 👍👍👍🎸

Your videos are excellent all around. Production is great; edited nicely with lovely added bonuses with helpful visual aids, pleasant depth of field, colour science, and lighting. Content is excellent; the concepts are interesting, clear and informative explanations, concise, and well articulated. Even though I was familiar with this approach to modes, I still felt compelled to watch all the way through. You also fill an important gap in digital content for music theory education for post-intermediate musicians. Subscribing was an easy decision and I look forward to seeing more content from you.

Such as fan boy of your work brother, would love to see the note that makes the difference for a mode in its sound quality that defines it in the future. Much Love!

Very Beato-esque content. Would love to see you two do a collaboration video.

i never thought we could find the modes with the circle of fifths !! a BIG THANK YOU just for this !! Subscribed !

Didn’t hear about this concept until about halfway though music school. And hear it is on KZfaq. Very cool- and concisely explained!

And your Barry Harris vid is the best music instruction video I’ve very seen.

Love your videos. This one is short and sweet and explained in your elegantly brief style, but please don't abandon the more ambitious and longer crash course style videos like you did on 6th diminished. The Barry Harris vid is possibly the most informative and rewarding guitar video on all of youtube, in my opinion.

You are a great teacher so good.keep on never give up my bro

Holy cow, what a find your channel is! Your playing is also incredible! Instant subscribe.

Interesting perspective Lighter and Darker Modes. And something to consider when I'm playing (I play pianio/keyboard. Robbie I really enjoyed your video on the Barry Harris Method.Your video is helpful. Thank you😀👋🎹🎶

Fantastic video, as all the videos on your channel! Thanks for sharing this!

Top content! My sincere thanks to you for explaining this to us, really helpful! Just when i needed it..

Amazing Chanel Man!🤟🏻

Can you do a deep dive into the Lydian Chromatic Concept!?

I remember disovering this on paper when I was teaching myself theory. Dorian and Lydian are really popular in modern psychedelic. Tame Impala for example. On Lonerism he basically always replaces the Minor/Major dichotomy with Dorian/Lydian. Another interesting thing if you go further with the "relative modes" idea via thirds is discovering Locrian is the only mode that is the relative minor of a minor mode (Dorian) which is itself the relative minor of Lydian. Another reason to view Dorian as true neutral. It's also symmetric. Honestly I'm surprised why popular music hasn't taken more of a liking to modes. They seem difficult but they actually produce simpler music than any musician would find just dicking around on their instrument. The complex beautiful sounding stuff is almost always found by ear, not by theory, I think. But its useful to have an excess understanding.

You've got a way of organizing notions that I've had over the years really neatly, Robbie. I always thought Lydian would be better to start from since you could then just successively apply flats, and the symmetry in the way you think of the modes would be stronger. But you're taking it to a new level here, and I can only say thank you again for your insights!

Looking forward to the video applying this to the dominant seventh sounds.

mate your a bloody genius

Great video ! The way the lydian mode ends up being sort of a "reference point for brightness" make me think of George Russell's lydian chromatic concept. I would love to see you talking about that ! (I find the subject overlooked 🧐)

Fascinating and brilliantly insightful. I can relate to this having just recently been made aware that there is asymmetry in tonal color moving down 1/2 step vs. up 1/2 step. The usage of the circle of fifths to explain the modes is also very interesting and well done.

Brother 🔥🔥🔥🔥🙏

Oh my god. I’ve been playing for years, grade 8, dip, technically good etc - but you just gave me a eureka moment on the circle of 5th’s.

Man dude I never knew wat you explained before but I can understand it all for some strange reason, maybe I learnt just enough in Music class!

I love this content and the way you share it. I’ve found this info on the book “twentieth century harmony” which Vincent Persichetti wrote 60 years ago. In that chapter he also showed that you could mirror these modes, from darkest to brightest (for example if you mirror lydian it turns into locrian) being dorian the center, which symmetrical invertible. Fifths turn into fourths showing us the “undertone series”, the mirrored version of the overtone series. There is also a chapter where he shows a multi-octave scale with the lydian tetrachord, a scale that Jacob Collier names megahyperlydian (wtw) and claims as invention of his owns, but 60 years ago. That illustrates us that the magic of music can lead us to the same thoughts, that is also why music was consider as one of the greatest sciences by the ancient greeks, sharing that podium with maths and geometry. Greetings from Argentina. PS: loved the barry harris’ vid.

wonderful channel. Excellent tips. I saw this concept before, ordering modes from bright to dark, in the piano channel New jazz

Yes, I think this concept has definitely changed the "intentionality" of my playing; rather than trying to think about what not to play, the functionality of scale tones becomes much more apparent, making the modes much more useful in a variety of ways, especially improv.

Your content is elegant and tasteful!!!

Yeah this channel is gonna blow up. Awesome content🤙

Your videos and lessons are absolutely FANTASTIC! Thanks so much, Robbie. Always learn a lot from you.

With only a few videos online, your channel is already full to the brim with precious musical knowledge. This is a treasure trove! Very fast, very dense but dude, I love every second! Thank you for sharing your amazing musical talent along with your great gift of teaching and breaking all this precious information down. I'm in awe :)

I like these vids. Good to see, that a young man has so much knowledge. And the slight smile always on :-). More guitar playing would make it even better.

Thanks! Eye and Mind Opening Stuff!

I’m just so glad to find this channel... great work keep it up!!!❤️

The best! Greetz from Sweden!!

Interesting, I'd love to see some application of this.

*Lydian Chromatic Concept Intensifies*

Brilliant teacher! Loved your contribution to this very rich topic. Thank you.

Very cool👍👍👍

That's a great video man! Thank you so much for the explanation! Helps me a lot for understanding modes

Thank you great video. Have you thought about making a video about improvisation and how to use scales with chords?

Love it! So fun to play through the modes stepwise from light to dark then dark to light. Did you ever create a video for the modes of altered dominant from light to dark?

Wow!

Amazing video!! This channel is just awsome

Very instructive! This is somewhat related to George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept, a weathered copy of which I keep and leaf through every few years. Love your videos - keep up the great work.

Such an elegant way of explaining these concepts. Subbed.

This channel is going to blow up. Phenomenal content.

Mick's stuff is timeless!

Incredible, not that I understood much of it, but great to watch and listen.

Really good analysis! For me the most important evolution for the major scale modes (and the melodic minor also) was looking at each of the modes in there own state. Stopping the relating BACK to the parental major scale to get your interval relations. Thanks for what your doing, I think your the most thorough without the confusion, not an easy task!

That intro is fire💥

this is mint great content here

You can get another insight into modes - the light and the dark qualities - as they apply within a tuning system other than equal temperament. This comes from the changing relationship of harmonies within an interval structure which is subject to change from one key to another rather than fixed over all 12 keys. This is why 'well tempered' tunings are more complex and satisfying (while also being more problematic) than equal temperament.

Very impec content... keep it up dude

Awesome. I feel like I went to music school for free! Thanks much!

good job.. ...man !

I find the bright-to-dark cycle thing really jumps out when playing chord inversions around the cycle. Particularly the point when you get to locrian in a given key. On your next move, the new flat is the root. So, say you're at B-7b5 in C, flat the root and you've got Bbmaj7, i.e. IV in F. And the Bb note is the new flat going from C to F. And that's the transition from the dark end of C to the bright end of F. And so on around the cycle. I've probably explained it badly but it's a cool thing.

Best lighting since CSI, and great video!!

Robbie is a one man institution and one of the greatest players alive: If I am in the position to sponsor, I know where my money will go to. However; This is the only video from Robbie that I do not agree with. Sharps and flats do not represent dark and bright tonalities at all and such a classification is futile unless you suspend all the chords with added sharps and flats by his classification over e.g. a C bass note and then compare them as the added sharps and flats, which are then suspensions and extensions. Reason is, that it is extensions and the major/minor tonality that create bright/dark properties everyone by large can agree on, and not merely the amount of sharps and flats.

So, then basically, to extend this, we should start by asking these questions each time we make a transition. In which key is C 4th or Lydian? In which key is C 1st or Ionian? In which key is C 5th or Mixolydian? In which key is C 2nd or Dorian? In which key is C 6th or Aeolian? In which key is C 3rd or Phrygian? In which key is C 7th or Locrian? Since C is the first note of each mode shape in each case. Then as we return to the beginning of the new cycle with B Lydian, just start the pattern of questions over for that new note; thus creating a massive lesson that forces us to learn all 12 * 7 = 84 such relations as we move chromatically with each new cycle to the previous half-step starting on lydian.

Hey, really intetesting. J.C talks about this light/dark thing too. Is this related to the lydian chromatic concept?

I'm not sure G gets 'brighter' than C by having a note sharpened. Surely, all the major keys are of the same brightness as brighter seems to imply an emotional state. The f# is merely nomenclature that ensures the intervals remain the same.

I’m not sure saying Gmajor scale is brighter than Cmajor has much meaning to me since the major scale is always Ionian and the intervals are the same whereas comparing different modes does have a sense of brightness to darkness comparing intervals. What I find interesting is how Ionian evolved as being the dominant mode in western music when lydian seems like it is the brightest or ‘first’ mode. Also the only intervalic-ally symmetric mode (tone,semitone,tone,tone,tone,semitone,tone) is dorian so maybe that should be the ‘middle’ mode which fits if you order the modes brightness to darkness (or darkness to brightness 😀). So why do we base our music on the Ionian mode, why not an octotonic scale or wholetone scale for symmetry? Or since dorian is the middle mode maybe that should be the reference point from which point modes get either brighter or darker? How did we end up with Ionian? 😀

Thank you! Relating this to visual art at this level can be helpful, especially color theory, color mixing, shading, etc.

Your videos are awsome man!! Keep it up! Also, just wondering, did you go to any school for music? And how much time do you spend studying and practicing?

Robbie got a request: can you please make a tutorial on chords sequences such as circle of fifths with Triton substitutions, secondary dominants etc... Many many thanks!

POSITIONS!!!!!!!!

Just discovered this channel and I am sold where's the subscribe botton

"For this video we're going to assume you know what these modes are....." Aaaannndd I'm fucked. lol.

Robbie.....? "Leave Brittany alone"!!! :)

Lol. Amazing info. I think. Added this to my watch later. Ill see ya in 6 years or some shit

one thing that may raise questions is saying that one key is brigher than another when in our temperement all keys sound the same, one key is only brigher that another if you compare 2 keys and maintain the the same root, ex between Bb and C , C is "brigher" because in Bb we have C doric which is less brigher than C ionian, correct me if I'm wrong ...

Cool new channel!

Hey can u make a video on the lydian chromatic concept I have no idea what it’s about

You have a nice channel by the way

obligatory comment to help the Algorhythm find this one. gold

Very nice cute video

The ordering aspect is good and important to know about, not sure I like the terms brighter/darker though... what's the point? So, (and this is just about the terminology), it just sounds like using different names for something that already exists/is well known (there's already way too much of that in music). We aren't really learning anything new from the terminology (don't we already talk about flats/sharps?), we could easily imagine the terminology being swapped, and what's worse is that a linear brightness/darkness concept is not really a good map for what is supposed to be a cyclic concept. But whatever, no big deal

Very interesting concept ty for sharing this awareness. A question for you what are the best cord progressions to use with modes .

so i thought that in the well tempered keys the flats and sharps have no impact on brightness cause all intervals arr equal

For me everything makes sense in the hierarchy of brightness & darkness up until it gets to Phrygian & Locrian, I overall do agree with the logic of it all and can definitely hear what those two modes are doing relative to both Aeolian & Dorian but often times I end up thinking Aeolian is just the king minor mode/sound, as is Ionion for major. It could be that Phrygian ends up too much sounding like a Lydian inversion, therefore not really standing out too much as a "minor sounding" mode, or for that reason it highly depends on the exact voicing being used to express Phrygian in a chord or phrase, as I do think there are better ones than others. Kinda feel the same way for Locrian, it's undeniably unresolved, but still often end up feeling like Aeolian just has a stronger tension to it. Another abstract way of expressing this is, I know how to feel when I hear Aeolian but for Phrygian & Locrian it sounds like those modes are "trying too hard" to do the "minor thing". In the end I really do think it comes down to voicings and where they're placed relative to a key. Also context matters, sometimes on the iii chord, raising the 9th just feels better and moves nicely up to the IV, other times you just want the flatness of the b9 on that iii even though it's already diatonic to the key. Ahhh music.

where i can find the video about the dominant chord order :-)?

Can you do a Video on Improving Guitar Speed?

Pavel Durov it’s you?)

1:32 I fail to see how G Major is "brighter" than C major, or how it has a "raised scale degree". Did you mean to say C Lydian vs C Major?

so, an augmented chord is brighter than a major chord?

0:10 what is the concept behind this beautiful lines? I want to be able to do play stuff like this too :(