What Are Modes? A Guide to Composers' Techniques

A guide to modes and how composers use them, in great music from Vaughan Williams to Hans Zimmer and beyond.

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Script by Kadin Madgwick
Narrated by Oscar Osicki

0:00 - Introduction to Modes
3:13 - Ionian Mode
3:44 - Dorian Mode
5:39 - Phrygian Mode
7:36 - Lydian Mode
9:15 - Mixolydian Mode
10:52 - Aeolian Mode
12:00 - Locrian Mode
13:48 - Advanced Modes

[MartinRenner]

8:54 so basically, Yoda has a higher fourth than the other characters. The fourth is with him. It all makes sense.

[pepeowen]

How I explain this to newcomers:

- Dorian: Minor after a mindfulness session.
- Phrygian: Minor gone edgy.
- Lydian: Major after visiting Tibet.
- Mixolydian: Major with an adventurous edge.
- Locrian: Unemployed alcoholic Phrygian.


Please do another with other modes from other scales (especially, melodic minor).

[miladeskandari]

As a middle eastern, the phrygian scale is always synonymous with a music that bears great sadness and sorrow. Interesting that in the western music it's often used for darker more intense themes.

[Alpha-fnyj]

Excellent video!!!

You've inverted the degrees I and V at 3:36 :)

[ericleiter]

Great video...I think modes are best understood by examining the new harmonies these altered scale degrees imply and consider each one as a variation of either major (Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian) or minor (Aeolian, Dorian, Phrygian, Locrian) without harmonic context, they appear as random scales, etc

[philippepujol]

Bravo et merci pour cette vidéo. Des explications et des exemples, le tout bien rythmé et accompagné par votre diction très accessible pour des non natifs anglophones. Beau boulot !

[ergbudster]

Excellent discussion. I especiallty like highlighting the notes in yellow as they are being played. Most informative.

[DingleberryPie]

Your work is worthy of praise as well.

[johnnicholls]

Thank you so much for using RVW's Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis as an example of D Phrygian. I had no idea. Such an extraordinary piece which I have heard performed at the great Gloucester Cathedral in England. This was the location for the première performance back in about 1913.

[lawrencetaylor]

I'm a beginner and I've incorporated practicing modes into practicing my scales, but I go in a different order. I start with Lydian, Ionian, Mixolidian, Dorian, Aeolian, Phrygian, and Lochrian, going down the tonal brightness. There is also another scale after Lochrian flattening the fourth (some sort of diminished scale) and you can also flatten the first. That is just playing the scale of the note of the first (B Major starting on C, for example).
I don't know how long it will take me, but I don't want to advance too fast. I tried to learn different things to start out and hadn't mastered my triads.

[Hailey_Paige_]

This was a great explanation! The Mixolydian and Locrian Modes are my favorites! ☺️

[jingle]

You should learn modes on one root note eg. Cionic Cdorian etc instead of Cionic Ddorian
Flydian.
This will really make you hear the different colours
Otherwise your ear will keep gravitating to the major scale with ionian being the tonal center.

[samuelk]

I see Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 2 mentioned, I press like button.

[fbarr]

What an instructive video! Thank you for creating this type of high quality content

[amysscentsandsongs]

Thank you for this lovely video. I love your examples and subtle humor. So instructional and enjoyable.

[ochreJ]

this explanation perfectly demonstrates how modes are not actually a thing, unless you are writing melodies consisting mainly of scale runs. which most ppl dont. so tired of the current fad obsession with (and misunderstanding of) modes.

[danielrivera]

Thanks so much for this video ! Very instructive and done with love for music :)

[julianpaceross]

Thank you for this.. it’s really well made.

[Henri.d.Olivoir]

Seeing Chopin highlighted here brings a tear to my eye, thank you

[Lynkevmusic]

excellent video, thank you for helping us along.