 Hi guys this is Jason here from Nathaniel. In this lesson we are basically going to look at how you can explore the subject of modes, a very commonly studied topic by a variety of musicians using just triads which you may already know or should already know. So if you are watching this lesson I hope you know your triads major and minor or at least a few of them if not all the 12. And I am going to do a lot of videos on modes. This lesson is just to show you how to get a modal sound just to experience the flavor of a mode. So generally we look at modes from a major scale. You have all your 7 modes you know it starts off with the usual right Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian which are all derived or are degrees or built as degrees from the major scale. But the way I like to look at modes very often in my compositions is to look at them as their own scales. Just forget the fact that it came from major. We take all the time in the world to learn our majors, do our exercises and drills. Let's do the similar thing if we like those modes. So I really love the Dorian. I quite enjoy Phrygian which we are going to do today. Lydian is awesome. A lot of guitar players use that like Joe, Sat and the like. So ideally you should try and look at these scales, these modes rather and just as scales or you know ragas or whatever you want to call them. It's just a set of seven notes. So that's what we are going to try and do in a very simple way hopefully in this lesson. So if you haven't already don't forget to like the video, share the lesson, turn on that bell icon for notifications and subscribe if you haven't already. So in this lesson we are just going to look at four of these scales or four of these modes due to the volume of data this whole lesson covers. So let's get cracking with the first one which I really like which is the Dorian mode or the Dorian scale. So we have C major which is all the white notes of the piano keyboard starting on C. To build a Dorian it's quite easy. You flatten the third, flatten the seventh which is B becoming B-flat. This is just a nice way to get the sound of the mode. You know just hold a C, a drone here okay. So to get a nice modal sound we are going to use some triads which are built from the Dorian and pretty much from all the scales which I'm going to share with you in the video okay. But just remember that to form the Dorian flat 3, flat 7 okay. Another way I guess you can look at the Dorian is if you know the natural minor or the Aeolian which is if you are aware of C minor you take the sixth and you raise it as we call it okay. Just remember the fact that it's a major sixth or just a normal sixth right. So now let's look at how you can build triads from the Dorian and this entire lesson is supplemented with all my handwritten notes. I've notated everything in neat circles and shapes and whatnot. So do head over and get yourself a copy while you're learning it or whenever okay. So to build a triad from any scale the first suggestion is always have the scale written down in a neat round circle not in a line C-D-E flat not like that. Write it in a circle because it really helps you get your triads. Triads is nothing but take any note from that circle which is the scale, skip one so I'm skipping the D and playing an E flat not E because Dorian has E flat. Then I skip the next one which is F and then play the next one which is G. So that's the first triad also known as C minor as you may know right. So after we've got ourselves C minor what you do you just go to D form that triad you'll get D minor then move forward you will get the E flat triad or E flat major chord then you go to F you'll get the F major triad okay then you go to G you'll get the G minor triad then you go to A which is the major 6th and you're gonna get the diminished triad which is not so friendly a sound so just know that it exists then you do the 7 flat which is your B flat major okay so to get a really nice Dorian sound you can start by just exploring these triads and as you explore figure out what makes this Dorian sound unique if you ask me it's the combination of a minor third with a major 6th so if you actually create a chord progression which is involving that maybe C minor and F major right you can play either F major with the same drone C bass or you can even move it but that creates a very obvious change of movement in your song so these are very good Dorian mode chords because what did I say earlier what are the unique notes of the mode the unique notes are definitely the A A differentiates it from well minor and then you have the E flat which differentiates it from the C major C major used to have this C minor as that so Dorian has that which is very unique so if you find chords or even if you build your melody to highlight these unique notes your job is going to be really really straightforward you'll always be landing at a very modal sound as we call it okay so C minor will work because it's the home chord so always start with your tonic chord tonic chord is C minor then move up by one the two minors really nice the very good Dorian sound because it has that a in it E flat major is also nice but it's more like a tonic sound because it's more like a C minor seventh okay but this one's very very Dorian so if you take C minor you can do that progression pretty much all the time right you can even do like an occasional B flat you know creates a very brave sound I guess and G minor C minor these are all chords or triads from the C Dorian scale F major over with C D minor back to and if you're doing it melodically follow the same rule stress on that six major six that's the minor third you could even hold down just those two chords C minor with F major or C minor with D minor and you get a very very nice Dorian sound so this is about how you get a Dorian sound what did we use triads right form the scale CD if E flat FGA B flat C then you derive all the available triads and then you have lot of explorations you can start with just a drone C build a very ambient bass with all the modal chords there and then you can even float around the left hand to play the roots of those new chords from the mode very funky right okay so that's about the Dorian and as I mentioned earlier I want to discuss a few more modes not all ideally we'll leave that for lessons to come the next one I would really like to share with you is the Mixolydian mode I have done a lot of lessons on this mode in other contexts like using it with the circle of fifths and building more rock progressions right so let's just look at the Mixolydian again it's basically a seven flat from the C major scale what's your seven flat B flat again the process remains the same write it down in a neat round circle so what makes this Mixolydian mode very unique it's definitely the flat seven as I mentioned but also the major third maybe even the perfect fourth nice Mixolydian sound right there also differentiates it from the Lydian with that we'll come to Lydian shortly so as always the format for creating like a very modal sound using triads you start with the home chord or the tonic chord which in the Mixolydian is going to be C major write down all your available triads let's build it together you have C major then you have D minor E diminished because of that B flat F major A sorry G minor A minor B flat major C major let's do that again C major D minor E diminished FAC F major G minor then A minor B flat major C major okay so what's the unique chord B flat what are the chords which have that particular note B flat B flat major itself which you have there and then you have even maybe a G minor a more milder Mixolydian sound because it's a minor chord B flat major very strong sound so common Mixolydian progression could be the 7 flat major as we call it and the 4 major which is also very important and then back to tonic so you have just C in the base or you could just do C major with a chord which highlights the unique note which is B flat maybe a G minor come back to the major so that you bring back that major third tonality so it's a bit more brave or a bit more epic sounding then maybe the Dorian Dorian is like overcoming something which is more sad and being brave about it right that's Dorian while Mixolydian used a lot of rock songs and gives you that very grand and epic sound which the major scale actually does not give you it's these scales which give you the very thematic or movie like sound so rather than learning this maybe specifically with a jazz context in mind it's good to learn it with hopefully a few other approaches because you people use this in movie themes they use it in rock songs and even pop songs if you think about it so anyway that's about the Mixolydian the process remains the same write the scale in a neat round circle find all the available triads label them template them so you can do it for other scales as well or other other keys as well not only C and then find out the unique notes and then create a chord progression using the normal stable chord which is 135 of the scale and then the unique note unique the chord built out of the unique note so now let's do a couple of other scales which I actually call as exotic scales or exotic modes because they have intervals which are a bit rarely used namely the flat to sharp 4 now how are we going to figure this out let's do it together let's move forward right so now the next mode for our discussion Lydian what is Lydian basically a major scale with a sharpened 4 as opposed to you'll be you have the sharp 4 again I'm looking at Lydian more as a scale not as like the mode of a major scale which we will definitely get to in another lesson for sure because that's another application of modes I guess right so now let's move forward with the Lydian which is C D E F sharp G A B C C B A G F sharp E D C again you're realizing the obvious right what makes this mode unique the sharp 4 because I just told you it's sharp 4 of the major scale we're used to that normal 4 so this so the Lydian is a very dreamy kind of scale it has a very dreamy or ambient vibe so with respect to the C Lydian 2 major 3 minor 4 sharp diminished not a very common sound so maybe you can ignore that but just remember you have a 4 sharp diminished in this case F sharp diminished then 5 major 6 minor then you have 7 minor and then okay so again if you're building unique Lydian chords what will they be well I think you're already guessing it this one right anything with that F sharp and I really think anything around C D major will be like a very traditional Lydian sound you can even add like a E minor over C it'll become like a C major 7th and if you're improvising a melody try to start by improvising over the chord tones right just play your notes of the chord and you can actually compose music with those notes that's a very Lydian option so if you want to just do a 2 chord progression just do C major D major very Lydian right there right the last one for this lesson which I thought of sharing with you well there are so many scales right so if you think about this you have a lot of work to first of all write down the scale figure out what are the available triads then figure out what is the unique note and then try to build chord progressions around what's normal or tonic or home sounding and then what's the colorful option you know available but that process if you keep doing scale after scale you start getting more acquainted or the scale starts coming to you more naturally as opposed to very theoretically a lot of my students over the years whenever we start doing modes and these fancier subjects of music which are like at the last few chapters of a big music theory textbook right the the challenge is we always brand it as an advanced chapter but you could tackle the problem you know while you're learning minor scales or while you're learning anything if you're learning chord progressions learn some chord progressions on Dorian learn some on mixolydian you have a beatle songs like with a little help from my friends which is mixolydian you have Michael Jackson's earth song which is on Dorian you have mad world you have the doors almost every song they've ever written is not on major or minor it's on Dorian right you have Lydian which is played and it's one of the most favorite scales you could save by guitar players like Joe Sat who really loves shredding on that particular mode or scale right so it's also important to listen to music so moving on to the last mode for our discussion on modes the Phrygian okay so this is how you build Phrygian okay really love this sound okay that's the sound so how do we build it flat 2 so the beauty of the scale is it makes a flat 2 which is like a horror movie interval sound really beautiful it really sounds so pleasing to the ear when you flood it with all the other stuff sounds also very calming for some reason okay coming to the chords before that let's finish the scale flat 2 flat 3 normal 4 normal 5 or perfect 5 flat 6 flat 7 root i guess is a very commonly used Spanish scale you find this used a lot a lot of Spanish flamenco music right so you'll find this okay so what are those chords we played right now so we've done let's build the triad so you have C minor again i hope you've plotted it out in a neat round circle you can always pause this video and write it and then follow along the video is not going anywhere neither am i so follow along so you have C minor which is the one minor then you have the two flat major why do i brand it as two flat because D flat is the two flat from the root D flat then you have the three flat major okay so so far we've gone C minor D flat major D flat major okay then you have F minor okay then you have you have a G diminished which is a little weird but just know it's there five diminished then you have six flat major seven flat minor i love that chord just now play around now what's unique the same question what is unique the two flat of Phrygian is obviously unique and one might argue that it differentiates it from the Aeolian or the minor scale in music as i've said in this lesson quite a few times i think the major and the minor scale are the most popular used in like 90 plus percent of music at least most of the music you find on the popular radio stations and that hit search results on youtube so whenever you you you flood the music with a flat two or a sharp four or the Dorian vibe or any of these unique notes it just hits the listener right and i'm sure if you present it with passion people are really going to get your vibe okay so C Phrygian again this is what i would use very commonly with C Phrygian because you have the C minor home base D flat major brings out that D flat can even do a timid D flat minor just play around with the chords and i'm playing all these chords with a C bass sometimes i sneak in that natural E i mean you can do that it's fun okay so all of these triad movements can really serve a very good melody on that particular mode and it also inspires the melody like if you play Phrygian chords even you might just flow easily on the Phrygian scale by composing a melody like for example i can't go out of that scale because i'm playing the modal chords so it really helps you identify the mode right so that's about Phrygian so what have we done so far in this lesson actually we're pretty much done with the lesson we've done we've explored four modes we've explored Dorian, Mixolydian, Lydian and Phrygian right four modes or rather four scales we formed them then we've written them in a neat circle then we've built all the triads then we've located the unique note of each scale and then we've wiped with that unique note around the home tonic chord which for Dorian was a C minor and then a unique chord around that would be F major okay with respect to Mixolydian you have like your seven flat major which is B flat major here with the next one Lydian you can do a two major which is giving you that sharp four F sharp and then for Phrygian you take C minor which is the home bass and you take the two flat major it sounds really interesting really mystery mysterious and then back to the minor which is home you really left home E flat is also nice D flat back to home right so all of these modes could be played ideally with a bass constant bass in the left hand not doing too much movement here that's the point of modes you want to absorb the sound so if the root lasts for a bit longer especially for someone who's new to the subject of modes or who has not heard too much of it it's always good to linger on or to play the drone as we call it in the left hand on the piano hear that with respect to whatever you're doing in the right hand and in this lesson we've looked at triads in the right hand there are lots of other ways people would use their modes in different genres with different contexts in mind we will get to that but for now this lesson is hopefully done to convey what are the important notes of the mode how you build the triads or the chords from these modes how you improvise how you get your chords working together in a progression and yes that's pretty much it so you need to practice this well but i would always recommend write them down use a book pen paper pencil whatever you want write it down neatly stare at it and then try playing it and that's how you work forward don't play until you know what you're playing especially for a topic which might be very new to you so when you're starting like that try to write it neatly and then automatically your brain will start flowing okay guys again this is Jason here from Nathaniel what i'm going to do at the end of this lesson i'm just going to improvise sort of aimlessly so you can get a feel of all the modes and before i get to the improv thing it'll be great if you can like share the video leave us a comment subscribe turn on that bell for notifications and we also have all these notes which are available for all my lessons available on our Patreon page so do head over there for a small monthly subscription you get regular pdfs backing tracks and a lot more right so now let's just jam and end the lesson thanks again for watching the lesson