'modes' in popular music. Lydian examples? ughhh

[HitEmTrue]

"F Lydian scale fits across the song."

I'm not hearing it, then.

EDIT: bullshit.

You wouldn’t play that scale on the G chord. But on the F chord.

I did not say that it is the mode of the song.

[jancivil]

duplication

[jancivil]

"F Lydian scale fits across the song."

I'm not hearing it, then.

EDIT: bullshit.

You wouldn’t play that scale on the G chord. But on the F chord.

Thank_you_Captain_Obvious. Or are you having real difficulties following statements.
I said that I only found the note B agreeing with, or pertaining directly to the G chord. Then it moves to A. Which is beyond any doubt where the melody centers. No one 'plays that scale' here. The melody barely touches B. The guitar solo doesn't do Lydian over F, and if F were a I chord this would be Lydian mode, in that it's static enough.

I did not say that it is the mode of the song.

It "fits across the song" but it is not the mode of the song. Ok, the topic is modes and the question was Lydian mode, for usage.

I'm only posting now for the benefit of the unfortunate potential reader who whom I would hate to have been misled.

[IncarnateX]

Basically: Deciding mode by chords is historically backwards thinking. Roughly, the story goes that first the scales were adopted to the tonal frame and then most of them rejected in favor of ionian and aeolion mode (which was twisted tonally or tonalised as Jan would say, e.g. given a major dominant instead of minor), then church scales were reintroduced with more subtle twistings, so the original modes (or moods) could be achieved once more. Basically if you want to go modal with chords, you should losen yourself to the demand of the usual tonal structure and instead subordinate the chords to the modes, e.g. no major dominant in aeolian, and not the other way around. However, since we still are speaking of chords we are making a historical compromise for modality was originally not related to chords. When we relate it to chords, we are past these centuries where modality really made sense as a core concept of melodies. Today you can take the lydian mode and make the melody sound medieval or jazzy depending on how you frame it with harmonies and twist it to fit those. Thus, the mode is almost down the drain in such cases and therefore, I am not surprised that some the examples in question don’t really come near the original mode.

[jancivil]

"if you want to go modal with chords" - limit the chords. One or two (or zero) is the better idea if what you want is the character of the mode.
We have the modal/quasi-tonal effect from chords in the other thread, eg., the song Nadia.

F and G chords in a vamp is perfectly suitable for F Lydian; in the song Dreams it never happens. F is essentially a substitute for A minor.
Looking for what I finally found, the whole song written out (in preference to hearing the f**king thing even one more time, albeit now I'm seeing the melody and hearing it back in my head) I saw Am and G in guitar tabs more than once.

[IncarnateX]

"if you want to go modal with chords" - limit the chords.

Cannot beat that advice. It will all add up to feelings of the original modes. I have taken the advice long ago in my own electronic music.

[Jafo]

Basically: Deciding mode by chords is historically backwards thinking.

This, although these days choosing modes based on chords has become the standard. (I blame those drab paperbacks in every shred guitarist's case.) Still, it works; and if it sounds good, it is good. So it's definitely good.

However, I feel that doing this makes it easy to miss out on something you might like even better. Modes are more than just a collection of notes to play over chords. A mode is like a raga: each has its own personality and patterns, its notes and tone centers, and has to be approached on its own terms if you want it to feel modal -- that is, different from tonal (major or minor). Alternately, major and minor keys are just two possible modes, and you're trying to invoke a different mode. Think of each as a new friend: you don't want to force them to be like your old friends.

Anyway, if you want the music to sound modal, you have to go beyond the whole Dominant-Tonic V7-I thing, because those chords just doesn't exist in most modes -- not unless you go chromatic, which ruins the modal feel. In fact, V7-I just plain feels tonal, not modal. Instead, you have to find cadences and melodic patterns which work in the mode. You'll hear things like bVII-I or i, II-i, iv-I instead. Yes, II-i: you find that cadence in the Phrygian and the ultra-rare-outside-of-Scandinavia Lochrian modes.

ISTR something also about how each mode had a primary note to be chanted and a final note -- neither of which needed to be either the dominant or tonic. But that's for monks, and a plague on such authenticity!

At least, these were Da Rulez back when we were transcribing onto wax tablets. Modern modal theory may have advanced in the last few hundred years.

[HitEmTrue]

(in preference to hearing the f**king thing even one more time, albeit now I'm seeing the melody and hearing it back in my head)

So I take it that you don't care for the song.

[jancivil]

I don't like it, but more importantly I don't want it going thru my head later. As it did. I have to wash my ears out with something and it was at the end of the day.

[jancivil]

Here's a real good example of a track with some chords {I think about the limit and be effective, albeit mainly it's i and (b)VI} where the melody is certainly modal

[IncarnateX]

Yes, II-i: you find that cadence in the Phrygian and the ultra-rare-outside-of-Scandinavia Lochrian modes.

Excuse me? Locrian has no stable tonic due to the diminished fifth, so how are going to do a II-i with that without raising the fifth by which the mode turn phrygian? And why outside Scandinavia?

[IncarnateX]

Btw. I have made a little eletro piece in locrian, but I had to compromise the tonic, thus it sets of in phrygian but already in the second measure I diminish the fifth for the whole measure to get that locrian feeling. But there is no way locrian’s diminished tonic will put anything to rest. It would be a never ending story, which really has no start point either. Locrian works in monophony and modal polyphony because it has a root note after all, but in the framework of chords, it has been known to be the black sheep. It will not submit to even the most basic of tonality, period.

[jancivil]

I don't know how 'Scandinavian' comes in either. Unless it's some kind of metal practice.

The so-called super locrian scale enjoys some prevalence; in jazz it's the "Altered Scale" and one of these modes of Melodic Minor that forms that kind of theory. Seventh mode of, eg., B C D Eb F G A. Fifth mode of might be called the Ravel Scale as per Ma Mere l'Oye. It's like Mixolydian b6.

I would use the synthetic scales or these modally, homophonically over nothing but drums or maybe a droning something or other.
I actually like 6-note scales. I found in my youth people doing 7 notes in modal playing where one of them (typically the 6th degree) wasn't doing anything good, including (and crucially speaking) myself. I like the sort of elemental 5 to b7 to be pronounced. And things like the 6 to 7 in Dorian (cf., minor blues) treated as a grace, or the natural 4 as an inessential adjunct to #4.

EG: D E# F# G# A C. I like where Indian modality agrees with blue notes, particularly.

[George_Michael]

Pretty esoteric but the music from the floating island in FF6 always comes to mind when I think of Lydian. At least it sounds Lydian, I've never fully analyzed.

[deastman]

Why is it that modes seem like such a simple concept, and yet every time certain people here start discussing them, I end up more confused than before they started?