Scales+and+modes


 * Scale (modes) ---Major **

Have you ever listened to a piece of music and thought it sounded strange to your ear? You were probably hearing modes, which are scales that were used over a thousand years ago! Modes are scales. Some modes sound familiar to our ear while others sound very strange. Here is a picture of the C Major scale. It has eight tones, each tone moving higher than the last.



Modes (scales) are patterns of notes that move by half-steps (2 notes next to one another on the piano) and whole-steps (2 notes separated by a note on the piano).



Can you identify half-steps and whole-steps on this keyboard?


 * Major and Minor Scales **

Do you like ice cream? If you answered yes, you will understand how scales work.

Just like there are many flavors of ice cream, so there are many different "flavors" of scales. You can't taste scales, but you can hear them.

I bet you know the most popular flavor of ice cream. If you guessed vanilla you'd be right! Do you know the second most popular flavor of ice cream? Right again! It's chocolate.

Major scalesare like vanilla ice cream because they are the most popular scales in music. Minor scales are like chocolate ice cream because they are the second most popular scales used today.

Major scale
 * [[image:http://www.kodaly.org.au/images/stories/majorscale.gif width="649" height="69"]]

Minor scale
 * [[image:http://www.kodaly.org.au/images/stories/tools/nat-min-scale.gif width="519" height="77"]]

The difference between these two scales is simple: the minor scale has more half steps than the major scale. Can you hear the difference between a major scale and minor scale? (Hint: Listen closely to the third and sixth tones.)

To play the C major scale, find the note C (to the left of the two black keys) and play only white notes up to the next C.


 * Ancient Modes **

Now we come to modes. Remember that were used over a thousand years ago! They were not very popular during the last 200 years, but they made a comeback recently.

Modes came to us from Greece. They made their way to Rome, where the Catholic Church picked them up. The Church kept their old Greek names. They are Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian, and Ionian modes.

These modes are still used today. To hear an early Church tune that uses the Dorian mode, click here.

Don't get the idea that modes are just for old music. The Beatles used the Dorian mode in one of their most famous songs, Eleanor Rigby.

Let's look at the rest of these strange and wonderful modes.



Ionian Mode (Major) : Do re mi fa so la ti do

Dorian Mode: Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do Re

Lydian Mode: Fa So La Ti Do Re Mi Fa

MexioLydian Mode: so la ti do re mi fa so

Aeolian Mode (natural minor) : la ti do re mi fa so la