I finally understood modes

[jancivil]

* First, choose the scale root note:

* Second, choose the tonic note.

Scales are not said to have roots. You’ve described a ‘tonic’ tone twice.
The flavor or aroma of a mode is in the relationship of its members to its tonic.*

“Why we associate and perceive this as so different…”
They are objectively different. An inability to distinguish eg., Lydian from Dorian probably indicates not particularly well-suited to the endeavor.
That sentence regards something that isn’t essential, language about it, as opposed to the thing itself. Sometimes one waxes poetic about it. A poet name of Schubart wrote up a series of emotional states and whatnot, but there was more to talk about pre-12tET, which did away with differences of keys in its democratization.

Schubart: D♭ Major
A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.--Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key.

CF., Tufnel: D minor is the saddest of all keys.


(*: The modes are considered to have “character tones”. For the westerner, a comparison is typically made with major or minor.
EG: Lydian’s #4 in addition to being a *major mode*, meaning its third degree (of 7) is a major third above the tonic, and in addition to 5 other members identical to the major or Ionian scale. #4 is the single difference here.
Dorian’s character tone is, by comparison with minor or Aeolian, its raised 6, its only difference with unaltered minor or Aeolian. Obviously a *minor mode*.
However the differences are not trivial but quite noticeable.)

[Fannon]

Scales are not said to have roots. You’ve described a ‘tonic’ tone twice.
The flavor or aroma of a mode is in the relationship of its members to its tonic.*

Ok, you're right. When you have a D-Dorian, the D also becomes the root. Then I chose a bad term for it. Still, it's the same notes as C-Major and follow the same pattern, just the starting point is different.

And I would not argue that you do not perceive those differences with the scales, just that it's curious that we do so, because they're all following the same pattern, probably just "priming" it differently (spoken in psychological terms).

I'm generally a bit sceptical when people assign to much bloomy language toward this. It's very typical for people to assign very specific attributes to something, but when put to A/B tests they cannot tell the difference at all. I've even seen network cables been reviewed in an audio magazine, where they got assigned certain character attributes. But they only carry 1 and 0, not much character they can have. But don't get me wrong. With different tonics, it's not just placebo. It's always the same pattern, but you start from different starting points and since the pattern is not symetric / even spaced, you'll end up getting variations.

[camsr]

Would Just Intonation have anything to do with why these "scales" are rather known as "modes"? Why transposition of the root is not as easy as it sounds, as changing the tonic whilst using Equal Temperament? Imaging playing a pipe organ.

[camsr]

The notes on a stave don't do a good job describing the instrument being played, or how any note can be modulated to fit into a chord.

[Farnaby]

And I would not argue that you do not perceive those differences with the scales, just that it's curious that we do so, because they're all following the same pattern, probably just "priming" it differently (spoken in psychological terms).

The point is surely that they aren't all following the same pattern, hence the differences.
C major and D Dorian share exactly the same notes and yet the character/flavour of the music will be quite different. This arises because of the different distribution of tones and semi-tones.

[Fannon]

If you think of the notes of the scale as a circle, you'll see that its excactly the same pattern on the same notes, you just start from a different point. Once you realize this, learning scales (only those of the "modes") is trivial, because they're all the same.

Maybe how musicians perceive this is also different. On a keyboard / piano, it feels different because the physical layout is already making a decision for you (The white notes are C-Major, D-Dorian, E-Phrygian, etc.). If you play on stringed instruments, all notes have the same distance and you can see that he pattern is the same.

You can try it out. Play the C-Major, D-Dorian, E-Phrygian scale on your instrument of choice. The notes are the same - and in this particular case also for the keyboard. You just start one key further right, but play the same pattern and same notes.

[fmr]

If you think of the notes of the scale as a circle, you'll see that its excactly the same pattern on the same notes, you just start from a different point. Once you realize this, learning scales (only those of the "modes") is trivial, because they're all the same.

Maybe how musicians perceive this is also different. On a keyboard / piano, it feels different because the physical layout is already making a decision for you (The white notes are C-Major, D-Dorian, E-Phrygian, etc.). If you play on stringed instruments, all notes have the same distance and you can see that he pattern is the same.

You can try it out. Play the C-Major, D-Dorian, E-Phrygian scale on your instrument of choice. The notes are the same - and in this particular case also for the keyboard. You just start one key further right, but play the same pattern and same notes.

This is completely WRONG (in so many ways).

1. "...notes of the scale as a circle, you'll see that its exactly the same pattern on the same notes" What notes? What pattern? What "scale"?

2. "(The white notes are C-Major, D-Dorian, E-Phrygian, etc.)" So? They are also the same notes that make A minor. Yet I see no one saying that A minor and C Major are "the same" except that you start playing one third below (actually, you can start play A minor, or something in A minor starting on other notes besides A, as well as you can start playing something in C Major starting in other notes besides C. The notes that make a certain tonality or mode are just that: NOTES THAT MAKE A CERTAIN TONALITY/MODE. It's the relationship between them, the different weight that some notes have relating to others that make the difference. And in that way, any mode is different from the others, despite the fact that all share the same notes.

3- "If you play on stringed instruments, all notes have the same distance and you can see that he pattern is the same." Is it? I don't think so. I am still waiting for you to define what you mean by "pattern".

Modes are different organizations of pitches with certain degrees that play an important role, while others are just kind of "passing". In that way, Major and minor are just two modes, on a universe that have several others (many others). All modes have their own "tonic" and "dominant", as well as their own cadence formulas and melodic formulas, that make them unique. This is if you want to work with modes as different entities.

If you just want to use the notes of a certain "scale" to play over a certain chord in a certain tonality, then you are NOT using modes, just a mnemonic to help you devise which notes to play, but you are still under the "laws" of the tonal system, with it's own harmonic hierarchy.

[Farnaby]

You just start one key further right, but play the same pattern and same notes.

But it's not the same pattern - which is crucial in terms of the music that derives from the different modes. The major scale is tone, tone, semitone, etc. The Dorian mode is tone, semitone, tone, etc.
The subtly different arrangement of tones and semi-tones makes the music sound quite different. C major sounds nothing like D Dorian even if it appears on a piano keyboard that the notes are identical.

[Fannon]

The notes that make a certain tonality or mode are just that: NOTES THAT MAKE A CERTAIN TONALITY/MODE. It's the relationship between them, the different weight that some notes have relating to others that make the difference. And in that way, any mode is different from the others, despite the fact that all share the same notes.

Thanks, that was a good answer. I do agree with what you state here, so maybe I did explain it in misunderstandable terminology. It's the weight and the "priming" of the notes that you do differently with the scales, even if they are technically the same notes. And that does make a big difference (like you said, e.g. C-Major, A-Minor). Here the typical difference is that when you start a song with A-Minor, it's very unlikely that it's perceived as a C-Major scale, allthough you could mess with that on puprose by shifting the weigths during the song.

3- "If you play on stringed instruments, all notes have the same distance and you can see that he pattern is the same." Is it? I don't think so. I am still waiting for you to define what you mean by "pattern".

With pattern I meant the 2-2-1-2-2-2-1 or W-W-H-W-W-W-H distance of notes pattern. That's what you need to memorize when playing a scale. And if you have that one pattern memorized you can play all mode scales with it. That pattern is repeating / circular and you can just start somewhere else in the circle.

Or concretely, when you play guitar, you memorize the pattern how to play the strings with the distances of the pattern. This pattern you can scale up and down the fretboard when you transpose it. Or you start with a different starting point within the pattern, to play a different mode.

So I think the confusion I've created here is that you think of the pattern as the absolute pattern with the tonic as starting point. I think of the pattern as the single "2-2-1-2-2-2-1" circular pattern and you can start anywhere in that circular sequence.

[jancivil]

Still, it's the same notes as C-Major and follow the same pattern, just the starting point is different.

This sentence is not really meaningful. A C major scale does _not change identity through a mere different starting point than C. It has a C tonic for its identity. E F G A B C D is not through itself anything but C major or Ionian if the tonic = C.

I think of the pattern as the single "2-2-1-2-2-2-1" circular pattern and you can start anywhere in that circular sequence.

So I must reiterate the point, that the tonic is not merely a starting point of the set. It’s not a circle, ‘circle’ is a red herring here. It’s steps and they are irregular.

I'm generally a bit sceptical when people assign to much bloomy language toward this. It's very typical for people to assign very specific attributes to something, but when put to A/B tests they cannot tell the difference at all.

Has someone done “bloomy language” in here? I actually just poked fun at it citing a joke from a send-up. Schubart wrote during a time when Db major vibrated very differently than the white key “naïveté”, though.

Do you do an A/B on Ionian vs. Dorian and find you can’t distinguish the two? Network cables has naught to do with anything.

[Fannon]

Has someone done “bloomy language” in here? I actually just poked fun at it citing a joke from a send-up. Schubart wrote during a time when Db major vibrated very differently than the white key “naïveté”, though.

Do you do an A/B on Ionian vs. Dorian and find you can’t distinguish the two? Network cables has naught to do with anything.

Ok, I shouldn't have set up this smoke argument here. I don't think anyone here has explicitly stated it like that, but in some post there was some bloomy language like that cited.

And don't get me wrong - I did never say that there's no perceivable difference between the modes. Just that they're all using the same underlying pattern and the differences are relative starting points. And that those relative differences are what give the different modes a different feel as the "weights" (like fmr put it) are distributed differently, or you set different focus and emphasis.

[jancivil]

I cited Schubart in response to talking about associations:
“Why we associate and perceive this as so different…”

associations and perceptions are floating up outside of the thing itself.
There’s an objective difference; what you call a single pattern is known to have seven identities, so the assertion is not to my view illuminating the matter.

Another reason for mentioning this was that for Schubart, no key was objectively the same, except for the relative minor to major and vice versa.
“Sometimes one waxes poetic about it.” association and perception…
but 24 keys appear to use a single pattern (leaving alone alterations of the minor) but before 12tET they were objectively different each time.

[jancivil]

“You just start one key further right, but play the same pattern and same notes.”
I do not. C Ionian to C Dorian, what do you do now, find some basis for the latter other than itself? This is a mistake.

I didn’t play piano. I was going to drop the 6th string on my guitar to D and the mode was going to be D fill-in-the-blank mode (or synthetic scale or whatever). I was playing modally, having heard Indian classical music, and rock players like Santana. So it’s about the intervals, and in the so-called church modes here are seven different objects.

[Fannon]

“You just start one key further right, but play the same pattern and same notes.”
I do not. C Ionian to C Dorian, what do you do now, find some basis for the latter other than itself? This is a mistake.

It works for me. But here you need to transpose the pattern as well as changing the relative position where you start playing. On piano, you would now have black keys and therefore also physically need to play a different than before. On Guitar, you can play the same physical pattern.

But let's agree to disagree. I just wanted to put in my thought about it and what helped me. Doesn't need to work or make sense to anybody. But please, don't just throw plain "mistake" or "objectively false" into discussions like that because those are not arguments, they're argument killers as they don't offer a counter explanation, just rejection. Hard for me to learn from that or understand what could really be wrong.

[jancivil]

To say I didn’t offer “counter explanation”… I take offense to that, it’s gaslighting. It’s unfair. In fact, I argued points well enough to see you reform a few things, incl. that ‘mistake’.
Goodbye.