A lot of people think the musical modes exist just to confuse guitar players, but the truth is that modes are extremely useful practical tools for any modern composer. Modern music is filled with modal harmony, so here are seven different ways you can actually use the modes to write awesome sounding music.
These ideas all come from a single page within my book, The Chord Progression Codex, which explains how harmony for modern musicians. We’ll discuss a few here in this blog, but to hear and see the other examples you’ll need to watch the whole video. It’s a fun one though so don’t be afraid!
1. Stay Within One Mode
This is the easiest way to write with modes, but a lot of beginners still get confused and stuck at this spot. The idea is simple: only use the notes of one mode, restrict yourself to just those notes, and let that mode’s inherent colors and flavors bloom out of it. Let’s use A Dorian as our example. If I use just these notes, I can create specific triads that are the only ones possible using those notes.
But here’s the thing: just using those notes and chords isn’t enough to sound Dorian – you need to also promote the tonal center. That means that the note “A” and the tonic triad Am need to be prominent enough that they feel like “home.” An easy way to accomplish this is to simply sustain long moments of Am before introducing other notes of the scale.
As an example, here’s a piece that I wrote that uses two measures of Am, then a measure of D (the IV chord) and a measure of Cmaj7 (the ♭III chord). This keeps the focus on A minor by giving us two A minor chords right in a row, so we’re comfortable with A minor feeling like home base.
I arranged those chords as arpeggiated patterns in 6/8 timing on harpsichord and added strings, then lastly placed a flute melody on top. The flute is playing notes of the A Dorian Scale.
2. Write in a mode, but break it’s structure.
Use the mode like we just did, but feel free to break that mode structure if you find something desirable that you want to do. You’re allowed to leave Dorian behind – you don’t have to restrict yourself to it forever!
For example, A Dorian naturally has a G note in it (the ♭7). But you know what sounds really good next to an A minor chord? G# , the leading tone, because G sharp pulls us up and gives us that nice resolution. If we allow G#, we can play an E major chord, and that’s a wonderful chord change – E to A minor.
Let’s introduce an E major to our Dorian progression from earlier and hear how it sounds. Atop that E major however, the flutes will avoid playing any G notes and instead will focus on G# to help match the underlying E chord.
(This is an opportunity to talk about melodic minor, since it’s formed when raising the 7th note of the dorian scale. However, I digress…)
I love that sound – it begins with wistful, nostalgic, adventurous flair, which is charateristic of Dorian. Then with the arrival of the E major chord, we’re also delivered some fiery tension.
3. Relative Modulation
Instead of staying in a mode, we can switch between relative modes. This means we stay within one scale but we change what our tonal center is. You’ll hear this a lot between verse and chorus sections, where a verse section will be in a minor key and then the chorus is in the relative major key.
A good example is Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” The verses have a strong B minor tonality, but all of a sudden the choruses come in and the tonal center changes to D major. It’s like all that darkness is washed away and we’re in this bright, happy, complete tonal shift. But we didn’t change keys – it’s still just the same seven notes, but we’ve cast our gaze on a different tonal center.
For my demonstration, I’ve written a piece that moves between E Phrygian and A minor (aka A Aeolian). You’ll hear the E Phrygian sound at the beginning, then the tonality drifts away from that solid E minor base and becomes ambiguous before things land right into the key of A minor. Your ear will be relieved because inherently, A minor (Aeolian) is just more stable than Phrygian.
What’s still astounding to me, after all these years of making music, is that something like this example can be crafted using only 7 notes: those of A minor / E Phrygian / C major / whatever-you-wanna-call-it.
Other Methods
For the complete breakdown of all seven methods with detailed examples, check out the full video. These techniques come directly from my book, The Chord Progression Codex, a comprehensive guides to songwriting and composition with a focus on chords and progressions.
If you’re confused on some of these topics, or just really enjoyed this blog post, you should consider getting my Music Theory and Songwriting Course to help better utilize these concepts.
Remember, this isn’t a complete list – there are other applications of musical modes. Also keep in mind that we focused on modes of major, so try to expand beyond that by exploring modes of Harmonic Minor or Melodic Minor.
