Mode

The same notes, a different reference point

If you play the white keys on the piano from D to D, something different sounds from C to C: the same notes, but the semitone steps lie in a different place relative to the root. That is how seven modes arise: Ionian from C, Dorian from D, Phrygian from E, Lydian from F, Mixolydian from G, Aeolian from A and Locrian from B. The page on the circle of fifths assigns the modes to the degrees of C major: Ionian on the first, Dorian on the second, Phrygian on the third degree and so on.

The decisive point: a mode arises not from the choice of notes but from the emphasis. Without a drone, bass note or clear phrasing nobody hears a mode; each of these scales tips back into the familiar interpretation. A piece is modal only when the mode carries over longer stretches and the cadences work accordingly. Not every lowered seventh degree makes a piece Mixolydian: in major it also occurs as a brief move towards the subdominant.

Mode and scale

In older music and in folk music you meet modes where no leading tone aims. Dorian is minor with a raised sixth degree, Mixolydian major with a lowered seventh degree. More on the page Church mode and in the article Church modes through familiar pieces. The term is also used more generally as a type of scale, that is, for major, minor, pentatonic or the blues scale.

Common mistakes

• Practising modes as shifted major scales: That produces no modal music, only scales with a shifted starting point.
• Interpreting everything modally: A single lowered seventh degree does not yet make a piece Mixolydian.
• Losing the reference note: Without a centre the mode falls apart.