Church mode

Seven modes from seven notes

If you play only the white keys on the piano from C to C, you hear C major. If you play the same keys from D to D, you hear something else: the same notes, but a different reference point, and so the semitone steps lie in different places relative to the tonic. That is how the seven church modes arise. Ionian is identical to major, Aeolian to natural minor. Locrian remains a marginal case, because the triad on its root is diminished and so forms no stable centre.

The names come from medieval music theory, which took them over from Greek designations, though under a misunderstanding. What the Greeks called “Dorian” is not what is meant by it today. The names are labels from the Middle Ages; Ionian and Aeolian were added only in 1547 by Glarean, and Locrian remains largely theoretical to this day. The medieval system knows eight church modes (authentic and plagal, see Hypodorian); here the subject is the seven modes on the white keys.

The one note that identifies the mode

Instead of learning seven scales by heart, you remember how each mode deviates from major or minor. It is exactly one note each time, and it is also the one you listen for.

Does it sound like major, but the seventh has no pull? Mixolydian. Does it sound like minor, but the sixth is bright? Dorian. Does it sound like minor, and the second note is suspiciously close to the tonic? Phrygian: the semitone above the tonic carries the Spanish flamenco sound. Without a leading tone the cadence no longer aims; it arrives without being pulled. Before about 1600 the leading tone was not a matter of course. More on this on the page The leading tone.

Playing modally

The most effective exercise is to leave a single note sounding as a drone and play the scale above it: a held D, with the white keys from D to D above, is Dorian. A mode does not arise from the choice of notes but from the emphasis. Anyone who plays the white keys over a D drone but keeps ending the phrases on C has C major again, although no note is different.

Common mistakes

• Treating modes as finger exercises: “Dorian is the major scale from the second degree” is true, but leads you to keep thinking in major.
• Losing the reference note: Without a drone, bass note or clear phrasing nobody hears a mode.
• Avoiding the characteristic degree: A Dorian piece without the raised sixth is simply minor.