My reactions to each mode

So, I haven't really used modes outside of Dorian, Ionian(Major), and Aeolian(Minor), but I've heard other modes and this is what my reactions are to each mode:

Lydian:

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It kind of just sounds like major to me honestly, like you are starting on the subdominant. Eb Lydian? Sounds like Bb major to my ears. C Lydian? Sounds like G major to my ears. It feels incomplete to both start and end on what sounds like the subdominant, even if it's technically the tonic.

Ionian(Major):

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Bright, happy, peaceful, it's very resolved sounding

Mixolydian:

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Again, it just kind of sounds like major to me, but this time like you are starting on the dominant. C Mixolydian? Sounds like F major to me. I know of some pieces that have the slow movement end on the dominant on purpose to make the transition into the Finale or Minuet/Scherzo smoother(example Haydn's Piano Sonata no. 50 in D major second movement). This is what Mixolydian sounds like to me honestly is ending on the dominant, purposefully incomplete.

Dorian:

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It doesn't just sound minor, in fact it sounds closer to major than minor, like an intermediate between major and minor. Not as dark and brooding as minor can be. Not bright enough to sound like a major key either. This is one of the things I take into consideration when I want to go from minor to major is if I want a Dorian intermediate. That said, I don't think I've ever heard pure Dorian. The Dorian I have heard is more like minor with Dorian inflections than actually in the Dorian mode.

Aeolian(Minor):

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It sounds darker than major obviously, but that doesn't mean it can't sound happy or peaceful, it can, it's just a different nuance of said emotions than you would get from major. If you were to ask me what the most emotionally versatile of the modes is, I would without a doubt say Aeolian, otherwise known as Natural Minor.

Phrygian:

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Okay, now we are approaching the boundary of usability. This is a very dark and brooding mode, even more so than minor. The Neopolitan chord? It originated from this mode, and is used more often in minor than major probably at least in part because of its Phrygian origins.

Locrian:

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Eughh! No! If I want the diminished sound, I'd use the Octatonic Scale over Locrian any day. Locrian feels very artificial, unusable, and like it shouldn't even exist! It feels like someone just made Locrian to fill in the gaps without any consideration on how people would react to the mode that is Locrian. In most modes, especially minor modes, you can at least get a bit of a tonality, have the first chord of the scale feel like the tonic. You can't really do that with Locrian because its tonic is diminished and you can't resolve to the most tense of the triads, you just can't. If anything, that diminished "tonic" wants desperately to resolve to the supertonic, but if you heed that resolution desperation, it's just going to sound like major which defeats any purpose that Locrian had. So why use Locrian at all if it isn't going to sound good or even like the diminished chord is any sort of tonic? Why use the most artificial of the modes?

This is just my reaction to each of the 7 modes.

On 5/19/2021 at 8:47 PM, caters said:

Why use the most artificial of the modes?

Cuz it sounds pretty cool! Tho, I don't think anyone really uses locrian "as is." it's always a modification or some sort, which is understandable.

In my opinion, you misunderstand classic modes. If one insists on listening to them under the tonal scope..., you will get nowhere. In modal harmony there are no subdominants nor dominants. Any mode can sound "happy" or "sad" depending on how you use them.

And of course, all of them can be used successfully. Even locrian.

2 hours ago, SSC said:

Cuz it sounds pretty cool! Tho, I don't think anyone really uses locrian "as is." it's always a modification or some sort, which is understandable.

 

Locrian is nice as contrasting sections, etc...

But you can also find pop songs in locrian.

2 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

And of course, all of them can be used successfully. Even locrian.

I've actually managed to use Locrian in my "Variations on a Chase Scene" after rehearsal A (meas. 62 - 73 or 2:33 - 3:00).

4 hours ago, SSC said:

Tho, I don't think anyone really uses locrian "as is." it's always a modification or some sort, which is understandable.

There are chromatic passing tones added in of course.  But the b5 degree of the scale is pretty prominent and I didn't feel the need to add a natural 5 in there anywhere which would have ruined the effect of having it in Locrian.

11 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I've actually managed to use Locrian in my "Variations on a Chase Scene" after rehearsal A (meas. 62 - 73 or 2:33 - 3:00).

Great piece, I haden't listened to it. Many orchestral colors.

In Spanish tradicional music, locrian often sound:

11 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Great piece, I haden't listened to it. Many orchestral colors.

Thanks!

The piece you posted above is a great example of how even with the occasional major chord thrown in, writing in the Locrian mode can still be accomplished.  (Sometimes I think some of your best work is done when you are writing these kinds of brief examples).  I like how you threw a canon in there - nice job!

@caters I wonder if you hear the excerpt of "Hey Jude" as being in Bb major as mentioned in the video?

Eclesiastic modes lived alone for more than 1000 years before tonal music. They were mainly linear systems, not harmonic. They didn't had anything in common with tonal music. Subdominants and dominants didn't exist.

Now, our ears are so impregnated of tonal music that we're always trying to loo for referencnes there, no matter what kind of music we are listenting to (modal, impressionism, atonalism). And that's a mistake.

If we can't appreciate the flavor of one mode-scale (not only these seven ones), we have to listen to more music of that kind. If a modal piece doesn't give you the feeling of "completion", of reaching to a "home",.... it is not well written,...., or you insist forever on finding dominants where there are not.

Whatever mode you take, you can make it sound in many different ways. The feeling that phrygian is dark and lydian is bright is true in an structural level. But depending on how you use the mode, timbers, rhythms, etc..., it will sound.

Today, we use tha modes in several ways. You can write an entire piece in one mode, or you can insert a modal fragment in other language. Some analysis that take very short phrases or notes and say they are modal..., I don't think so. Just some notes over a chord will give a scale, according to the chord. But to say you are in some mode, you need to establish it (cadential sequences of harmony).

I've written lots of modal music, exploring the 7 classic ones, but also many many others.

This little lydian piece does not sound "happy" as expected.

Yes, don't be too dismissive of the Locrian mode. I wrote a "symphony" in it to break from both tonality and atonality together and came to realise that it can be a basis of a style that lies somewhere between. (I posted the 2nd movement of that work here). I'm talking about mode in its current western usage, not it's historical usage/development - a complex subject loved my 'musicologists'!

Of course it can be abused as triads within it (dubious in themselves but if one's going to harmonise, some kind of chordal work is necessary), can sound like any other mode including major and minor.  Chords VI - II in the Locrian make a perfect cadence in the Ionian or a tierce in the Aeolian. 

However, one big advantage is as noted by Caters, it can't resolve in its own right. Its chord I is diminished. This lets a passage hold its unresolved tension for any length of time, a feature of several of (the American composer) Peter Mennin's Symphonies. To the ordinary listener it accounts for their restless, uneasy energy in the fast movements and luminous gloom in the slow ones.

If I'm stuck during composing, not quite sure how to proceed, I'll likely turn to the Locrian mode to see how that would get me out of trouble. I set up its triads with 7ths and 9ths...it rarely fails.

On 5/19/2021 at 7:47 PM, caters said:

Eughh! No! If I want the diminished sound, I'd use the Octatonic Scale over Locrian any day. Locrian feels very artificial, unusable, and like it shouldn't even exist! It feels like someone just made Locrian to fill in the gaps without any consideration on how people would react to the mode that is Locrian. In most modes, especially minor modes, you can at least get a bit of a tonality, have the first chord of the scale feel like the tonic. You can't really do that with Locrian because its tonic is diminished and you can't resolve to the most tense of the triads, you just can't. If anything, that diminished "tonic" wants desperately to resolve to the supertonic, but if you heed that resolution desperation, it's just going to sound like major which defeats any purpose that Locrian had. So why use Locrian at all if it isn't going to sound good or even like the diminished chord is any sort of tonic? Why use the most artificial of the modes?

A-ha! I gave you a "like" for your observations but take exception to your view of the Locrian. It's there, it isn't artificial and if one isn't careful using it, it can turn into the Phrygian mode all too easily if you avoid it's "final" (note I, B based on modes starting on C).

You're quite right, it has no place in the styles of music that you like and in which you compose. But one of America's "great" symphonists and an utter professional uses it a lot. Others use it to avoid the over-clear definitions given by the Ionian, the Aeolian and its modified minor scales. As Luis says, we've been fed major and minor for so long now that our ears tend to reject anything else as weird. 

But I suppose a composer's search for new ways to arrange 12 notes in an attempt to produce originality has led to an exploration of many other systems of constructing melody and harmony (many of which you probably don't like - neither do I !!). I'm happier working with something weird like the Locrian mode mixed in with my general harmonic procedures than I am with that dodeca-cacophonic stuff.

That's a new word - dodecacophonic. Most apt!

So it's just a question of appreciating that the Locrian mode can be used these days, sometimes with good effect.

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The "problem" here is we are thinking about modes in terms of tonality. And no!

Modes were horizontal-melodic systems. Harmony concepts were imposed lately, in the 20th century, over modes.

It has no sense speaking about tonality, minor, major, etc.... Yes, modes have tonic and repose, in other terms.

Anything we do with modes, apart from that, will be different. It will be based on modality, but no strictly modal music. We can mix any systems when composing: tonality and atonality, modal with tonal. But they will not be purely the systems the are. And it's licit, of course.

Locrian mode is very interesting because of its ¿instability? According to what. Again taking tonal music as the model. It's interesting because it has poor relationship with any other possible chord, and because, in a theoretical field, the main chord (I) is the chord to avoid, too. So, to make the mode sound, we must just almost only the I chord. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol1TOq6wcLU