Tonic and dominant

[Arr0wHead]

Again, parallel vs. relative.

Dorian mode of C major is your 2 chord. Doesn't sound "modal" because relative modes are inherent to the major scale.

But now, say I resort to C phrygian to put a melody over that ii chord or Aeolian? Suddenly things start to sound "modal", due to the context underneath the melody.

[Ogg Vorbis]

Dorian mode of C major is your 2 chord.

What does this mean?

[fmr]

Again, parallel vs. relative.

Dorian mode of C major is your 2 chord. Doesn't sound "modal" because relative modes are inherent to the major scale.

But now, say I resort to C phrygian to put a melody over that ii chord or Aeolian? Suddenly things start to sound "modal", due to the context underneath the melody.

This is a complete nonsense. For things to sound "modal" you need much more than playing notes of a certain mode. When you are playing notes from C major (means the white notes on the keyboard) you are playing notes from ALL the modes, because ALL the modes have natural notes.
And if you play a sequence of notes from E to E, you cannot say that you playing in "phrygian" mode, the same way that if you play a sequence from D to D you are not playing in "dorian" mode - you are still playing in C major, plain and simple. And C phrygian will be an altered C minor - very far from C major.
If these mnemonics help you play what you want, it's fine with me, but theorizing over that is like when middle-age scientists were telling that the earth was the centre of the universe, and the sun was turning around it. They believe it was true, but wasn't.
You need to put modes (including major and minor) apart from harmony and harmony functions. It's two completely different things - apples and oranges.

[piscione]

I'm not sure what either of you are talking about but it is easily possible to play "modally" by playing one of the modal scales. Phrygian particularly is very recognizable, without any chords. So, what was the question?

Randy

[jancivil]

Don't confound D Dorian mode with C major. '2 chord in...' the two modes are only coincidental in pitch content.

For it to work as the mode, you have to have, here D as the TONIC. {edit: NOT the ii. D = I} The character that makes it Dorian owes to the intervals relation to the tonic, and to themselves with the basis of the tonic.

The mode does not rely on a chord.

say I resort to C phrygian to put a melody over that ii chord?

Suddenly things start to sound "modal", due to the context underneath the melody.

No, that isn't what will make it sound modal. C Phrygian needs no help from any chord to be C Phrygian; to be C Phrygian you have the TONIC C. The ii chord - in C? - is not going to do anything for you but make the mode irrelevant, or impossible. The 'context underneath the melody' must involve a strong feeling of the TONIC. So long as you have a bass, or a drone C, you are ready to play in C Phrygian.

I would guess you want the E Phrygian, to have correspondence with C Major? But E Phrygian does not happen in C Major. It is an irrelevant term. Modal is all about the I; if you're going to get cute with chords they are secondary to I. Thinking about the relationship to ii is not useful. ii should be kept out of the way of the mode really.

[jancivil]

recognizable, without any chords.

that's right. chords don't help something sound modal. clueless use of is liable to get in the way or possibly obviate the possibility of modality.

[Trakstar]

recognizable, without any chords.

that's right. chords don't help something sound modal. clueless use of is liable to get in the way or possibly obviate the possibility of modality.

what a lot of pish posh, absolute rubbish

[jancivil]

show us why then!
Evidently you know nothing about it, to say that.

the character of a mode is what makes it the mode. we do not need ANY chords for this character to reveal itself.
Modal melody has existed in, eg., India for centuries. They do not use chords in Indian Classical Music. Same for Arabic modal music described in Maqam theory. There are not chords. The intonation of these rows does not really allow for chords. There is a constant ONE underneath in these types of music.

however, and here's a concrete example, let's take D Dorian. The use of a G7, pushes by the tension B-F it contains to C major; obviating the D TONIC, ie., the Dorian-ness of D Dorian completely. This is known to musicians that are interested in it. You are interested in something else.

[Arr0wHead]

due to the context underneath the melody.

RANT

I already said that.

[Arr0wHead]

Don't confound D Dorian mode with C major. '2 chord in...' the two modes are only coincidental in pitch content.

D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D, over a Cmaj7 chord is ... C major.

D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D, over a dm7 chord is ... D dorian.

Dm7 is the ii chord of C major.
D dorian is a relative MODE of C major.




Now...

D,E,F,G,A,Bb,C,D, over a Dm7 chord is D minor.
D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D, over a Dm7 chord is D dorian.

Dm7 is the i chord of D minor.
D dorian is a parallel mode of D minor.



It goes without saying, parallel modes sound more "exotic".

[Arr0wHead]

show us why then!
Evidently you know nothing about it, to say that.

Your attitude is terrible. Wouldn't you rather make friends, learn, and have fun?

Talking to people like you makes me sad, a little angry, and a lot happy to be me.

[Arr0wHead]

I see: the ii chord thing threw most people.

It's just an example of context. If you play E dorian over the iii chord, it's still dorian. But it would be a parallel mode, not relative. E phrygian would be the relative mode of C.

I get it - y'all hate jazz.

[fmr]

Don't confound D Dorian mode with C major. '2 chord in...' the two modes are only coincidental in pitch content.

D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D, over a Cmaj7 chord is ... C major.

Agree

D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D, over a dm7 chord is ... D dorian.

Dm7 is the ii chord of C major.
D dorian is a relative MODE of C major.

Disagree. If you play D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D, over a dm7 chord you are still playing in C major, using the ii degree chord as a substitute of the IV chord.
AND, consequently, you don't have D dorian, therefore, you don't have anything "relative" to C major, because you never left C major in the first place.

Now...
D,E,F,G,A,Bb,C,D, over a Dm7 chord is D minor.

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on what follows. You can be in several other tonalities - like in F major.

D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D, over a Dm7 chord is D dorian.

Wrong again. To have D dorian, you need much more than a mere sequence D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D (which is very unlikely to happen anywehere in modal music), and, and Jancivil explained, you don't need any chord AT ALL underneath. ctually, you better not have ANY chord underneath, because it will most likely destroy the modality.

Dm7 is the i chord of D minor.
D dorian is a parallel mode of D minor.

Dm7 is a chord. It doesn't belong to a tonality in particular. It may be used in many tonalities. Dorian is as paralell to D minor as it is to C minor, E minor, or any minor. It's a MODE. Minor is also a mode. Therefore, D dorian is as "paralell" to D minor as it is to F major, Bb major, G minor, G major,, E minor, etc. If you consider "paralell" as in using the same "tonic" (admiting modes have tonics, which is debatable - they have a starting and ending note, but not a "tonic"), then you have D minor, D major, D dorian, D phrygian, D lydian and D myxolidian (just to use the four main ancient modes, and using the greek terminology, which, BTW, ir WRONG.

It goes without saying, parallel modes sound more "exotic".

This is completely meaningless to me. The term "exotic" may have many different and even opposite meanings.

[piscione]

Whoa, let's get this rounded up a bit. First, we're all friends here, I think. I'm kinda new so maybe I'm not yet, but hopefully that will happen.

Second, this is a very difficult discussion to have without a piano in front of us.

I've been playing jazz (although probably not really well) since around 1977-ish, and attended Humber College at that time for their jazz course, which at the time was one of the best in the world. The only reason I mention that is to make my final point that in the end, it doesn't really matter. It is good to have a reasonable grasp of the rules so that you can creatively break those rules, but it eventually all comes down to the sound.

So, pour yourself a glass of wine, put your Dorian hat on, and jam over Miles Davis' "So What", or your Phrygian hat on and do the same with Chick Corea's "La Fiesta".

Randy

[JumpingJackFlash]

D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D, over a dm7 chord is ... D dorian.

Not necessarily. You're not looking at the big picture. Tonality and modality don't often change per chord, but are usually reflected in the piece (or section) as a whole. So, what you said might help you when improvising, but it doesn't mean that you've changed the tonality/modality by doing so.

Take for example a classic iim7-V7-I progression in C major. You are unequivocally in C major; it doesn't matter if you play C-C, D-D, E-E, F-F, G-G, A-A or B-B on top, the tonality is still C major. Any talk of "D dorian" or whatever is utterly meaningless in this context and makes just as much sense as claiming to play C "Mela Shankarabharanam" over the top!

Be sure to see the forest, not just the trees.