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I'm a self-taught guitarist with zero to little experience in music theory. After marrying a violinist I found that there's a lot to music theory that I know tribally but don't understand the technical or formal definitions for.

I'd like for someone to briefly explain to me what the different modes are (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian, and Ionian) and how they are used.

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music.stackexchange.com/questions/1136/… Have you seen this? –  DRL Jan 23 '11 at 19:59
One of the most interesting and useful classes I took was music theory, tied to its corollary, ear training. Theory gives you the knowledge to understand song structure and how to wind a melody through chord changes. It's important to hear it as we're playing but the knowledge lets you think ahead based on knowing the changes and hear/see it in advance and decide on tonally safe vs. adventurous lines. –  Anonymous Jan 24 '11 at 0:15
@DRL Yeah, I like the conciseness of your answer on there. There's also some good answers on this post too, so I'm keeping it open :). –  Jduv Jan 25 '11 at 12:53
For Too Much Info, see this ebook. –  luser droog Feb 22 '13 at 2:04

5 Answers 5

up vote 18 down vote accepted

Let's take the C Major scale which consists of C, D, E, F, G, A, B and back to C. The bare basic way to think about the modes is: play the scale starting at another note.

So, the C major scale can be played starting at C:

C D E F G A B C (C - C)

or starting at D

D E F G A B C D (D - D)

It's the same exact notes of the scale, you just start at the 2nd note & end at the second note. This is Dorian.

You can keep on going; start & end on the 3rd, then the 4th, then the 5th, then the 6th and finally the 7th.

Putting it all together we get 7 modes of C Major

  • Ionian (CDEFGABC)
  • Dorian (DEFGABCD)
  • Phrygian (EFGABCDE)
  • Lydian (FGABCDEF)
  • Mixolydian (GABCDEFG)
  • Aeolian (ABCDEFGA)
  • Locrian (BCDEFGAB)

Again, you take the basic C Major scale & start & end it on another note. Same pattern, same intervals, just change where you start & end it.

The usage is 100% up to you. If you want to play in C Major (continuing the example) you now have more options. You can play any of the 7 C Major modes and still be in key.

Another great use of the modes is that you can string them together. Since each note shows up on the fretboard many times you can string modes together to help you move up and down the board. Play C Ionian on the 8th fret of the 6th string; when you get to the C octave on 4th string fret 10 you can then slide into 12th fret of the 4th string (which is a D) and start Dorian. Now you're starting up an octave and you've moved hand position up the board by a couple frets. You can continue that all the way thru.

Creatively string together the modes (you don't have to play all the notes each time) yield you a decent little solo =)

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Hmz... I'm playing for 7 years already, and haven't used modes even once... Why you need to start from D note if D chord is playing? What about your ears? I'm ALWAY have good accents while soloing on any chord changes! It's there's any other usefulness of modes beside "right note in a right place" ? This is completely useless for me. I know major/minor scales, and that's it.. Intuition shows the way while playing... tell me more please =) –  Anonymous Jan 24 '11 at 2:00
You did use them, you just didn't know that was what they were called. Musicians who solo eventually learn about modes as they learn new styles of music, especially if you want to play styles that have a Latin feel, or are more jazz-like. You can claim they are useless and learn over time, or go after the knowledge and really learn; It just depends on what you want to do with your music and how successful you want to be. –  Anonymous Jan 24 '11 at 3:01
@holms John Lennon felt the same way! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_a_Second_Time –  Anonymous Jan 24 '11 at 23:41

They are part of our western music tradition. They are no harder to learn that any other scale. You can use them to give a feeling to the music that is unlike anything else. To there uses I can say there use is the same as any other scale. They are used to make music.

This explanation relies on you at the very least knowing what semi tones and whole tones are. I do not think it is possible to learn them without you knowing that. I strongly you urge you to ask a theory teacher to explain that to you.

You should not see them as any different to any other scale. A scale at its core is a set of notes with the semi tones and whole tones in specific places. The Major scale has its semi tones between the third and fourth note in the scale and the seventh and eight. Seeing as the various modes have semi tones in different places they do not sound alike. If you play any popular type music training your ears to recognize the modes would be a tremendous skill to possess.

No matter on which note you start from if the semi tones are at that spot you have a major scale. This is why to a certain degree all major scales sound alike. The distance between the notes are the same in all the Major Keys.

So with that in mind we can use our knowledge of semi tones and whole tones on the Modes so we can learn what notes they have regardless on what note we start from. I will start on C for each example.


Has its semitones between 2 / 3 and 6/7. C Dorian hence has C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb-C


Has its semitones between 1/2 and 5/6 C Phrygian therefore has C-Db-Eb-F-G-AB-Bb-C


Has it semitones 4/5 and 7/8 C lydian has C-D-E-F#-G-A-B-C


Has its semi tones between 3/4 and 6/7 C Mixolydian hence has the notes C-D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C


Has its semi tones between 2/3 and 5/6 C aeolian has C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-c


Has its semi tones between 3/4 and 7/8 C ionian therefore has C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

If the last two looks familiar it is because they are our good old Major and Minor Keys.


Oxford Companion To Music 10th Edition

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Modes are just an indication of where you start in the scale. I think far too much emphasis is placed on modes - I've never found any good practical application for them. They are, in my experience, an unnecessary abstraction. Know your current/active chord; know the tones in the chord; play notes related to those tones; know what chord comes next and tie those mutts together. Bam.

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Good concise answer. +1 and thanks! –  Jduv Mar 7 '11 at 14:46

The thing to realize about modes is that they are simply emphasizing different key notes in the same collection of notes.

Take a scale, any scale, and "emphasize" one note. This will make the "Scale" sound different than if you emphasize a different note.

C ionian and A aeolian are the common major and minor(almost) type of sound. But they are exactly the same notes. What makes them different is that in one you are emphasizing C and in the other you are emphasizing A.

That is, you somehow make the listener lock onto the root note. You do this by setting it up using certain techniques.

For example, if you take CDEFGAB as your "scale" but play a B in the background underneath everything you play, B will seem to dominate(not to be confused with the dominant) the sound. Every note will be heard against that B and your ears will treat B as the "king" of all the notes.

This means if you play a C against it you are playing a min2nd interval. This interval doesn't exist in C major because the 2nd interval is D which gives a maj2nd. The other intervals are just as important and all of them relative to B give that characteristic sound which we call locrian.

Now if you simply changed the root emphasis to A then that C is not a min3rd which gives a minor sound.

For example, if you take a single line solo and play a B bass note it will transform the sound than if you played any other note.

In fact, if you want, you can think of all modes, scales, keys, etc... as simply coming from the chromatic scale and whats makes all the different sounds different is simply emphasis. C major is the emphasis of the note C followed by others less and less so. A min is the exact same 12 notes but we emphasis an A as the root and others less and less.

Effectively we create a hierarchy. You have your king, queen, prince, servants, etc...

The best way to really hear it is to simply play the same scale over a minor chord and then a major chord and hear how it changes.

Note that it is possible to play sort of major sound over a minor chord by emphasizing that a major sound in your solo. e.g., if you play C E G over a static A bass note you'll have a more major sound than if you play C E A. This is because you are outlining(called an arpeggio) the C major chord even when the bass note is A. Depending on a lot of factors you might hear the A note as being part of the C chord rather than the G being part of the Am chord. i.e., you have the notes A - C E G. But depending on context your brain might group them as A C E - G or A - C E G. The first case we have a sort of Am called Am7 and the second we have a sort of Cmaj6. Most likely you will hear Am7 unless the A bass note is very quite.

In any case it doesn't matter much about the theory as you need to learn the sounds. You just have to know that it all depends on emphasis and context. If I'm playing a Cmaj chord and you're playing a Dbmaj chord at the same time what key are we in(assuming that's all we are playing)? what mode? The answer is that it depends.

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Good answer! Thanks! –  Jduv Jan 25 '11 at 12:52

I'll let someone else go into deep discussions, but here is source that it originated from as a framework: Plato, book 3: http://www.piney.com/ClPlatoRep3.html#Next


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