Scales Vs Modes: What's the Difference?

Hey hey hey YouTube,

what

's up? Today's livestream will be

scales

versus

modes

. What is the

difference

? I get asked this question all the time. There are comments in the comments section, for example, on my Lydian video that I just made and there's always this question of

what

. It's the

difference

between a scale and a mode, so I want to talk about that today. I see it's funny because there are a lot of music teachers, theory teachers, who comment in the comments section and many of them, I'm not saying all, but many of them, because they use classical theory to define these concepts, are really stuck in what I consider an outdated way of analyzing music, which is nothing wrong, but to be so rigid about something, I think the most important thing is it's bad, I think the most important thing is to really know how to use these ideas, how

modes

are actually used, how

scales

are used, the simple definition I have is a scale, a mode is a subset of a scale, so if you take scales if you look at Beato's book for example because that's my book reference that I wrote for my students when I was a college professor because I wanted them to memorize all the formulas anyway we have a discount code in today's live Stream 35% off anything in my store, but if you don't have to If you are without a book, you should get it as a reference guide for these videos.

Read the discount code is RB 16. Okay, 35 percent off. I usually don't do that. 35% discount on offers. I'll do it when everyone has this book, if you don't, and checks out the new ear training course. Billy just reminded me. He will exit training communication from him. It's already available in the first half of There are over a hundred modules right now and we're working on the second half so there are ten chapters but watch the intro video it's really informative and you should definitely watch it and another announcement I'm opening. some more spaces in the Beato Club I don't talk much about the piata Club here because there is a level that has been filled for the fourth month, I don't know the last year and it's a thing where I will make a reaction video to your songs and post them for the Auto Club members who are watching now on the 25th of this month, so you have a little bit later because I will be at NAMM and I will be I won't finish them all before I leave, but I decided to open a few more places.

If you want to get a reaction video from me, your own personal reaction video to your music, you can sign up, it's the Platinum membership, okay, let's go. back, scales and modes, okay, a scale is any set of musical notes arranged by pitch, the term actually comes from the Latin word ladder, okay, so if you think about a major scale, C major scale, This has a certain order of half. steps and whole steps steps whole whole half whole whole whole half is the order of them a mode is a subset of a scale is okay and there is a behavior associated with it, which means that each mode has a characteristic set of intervals that give it a distinctive sound my video about Lydian that I had that talks about how the sharp four is the Lydian sound and there was a great clip in there, a couple of clips or a clip of Thomas Newman, who is one of my favorite film composers, talking about how to live Lydian and him. uses the term hope a feeling of hope arises or when you play the E flat chord lydian B flat to flat talks about it being heavenly or heavenly when I hear it sounds like that it sounds like it's heavenly or heavenly that sound just that chord so so so I hope a second here Billy is all good, great, perfect, I didn't know if it was too loud or not, that chord was killing people's ears or it's okay, it's close to the computer, so the piano didn't know if it was going, so the Four sharp is the characteristic note of the Lydian mode.

Each mode has a number of characteristic notes and they are usually not, they are always where the semitones in the scales are, for example, in a Lydian C Lydian scale, you have your forces sharp 1 2 3 sharp 4 5 6 7 back to 1, so the two places that have the midtones are between the sharp 4 and 5 and 7 and 8, so that's where you get that Lydian sound, it's beautiful, someone says it doesn't sound creepy when you play here, that's because it's six feet under, which is, anyway, you know, or you watch that show, it's a great show, but usually when you listen to Lydian, it's in the movie scores and it's John Williams uses it, all film composers use it, it's the most used mode and it's really associated with film scoring, but one of the examples I gave in the video was from Eric Korngold and it's from his violin. the concerto right at the top is in D Lydian, the violin that the new orchestra plays and when you listen to it, Korngold wrote that in 1945 and he was a famous film composer and a legitimate composer and the things that those early composers did and they filmed Thomas Newman's father, Alfred, is what they did, they took things from the late romantic period, these ideas and created this vocabulary that film composers have been using since then, when I did the John Williams example, in Jurassic Park, you hear this sound in C major. to D major over C and a lot of people say, well, that's just a dominant chord over the right four, so you get C major, let's say it's a four chord in the right key of G, but if you think about the scale that goes above that's where the notes of its melody are derived from that scale, that's why that sound is associated with Lydian, but I also showed that it comes directly from Beethoven in my example of Beethoven's fifth symphony sounded like If I could have done it.

You know, from the John Williams movie or something anyway, so a mode is a subset of a scale. Well, we have five main scales with which we deal with music. The most common one that everyone uses is the major scale modes. common set of scales the major scale is fine, but you also have the melodic minor scale as I like to call it mel-min. I'm just kidding. I never make jokes, never do it. Billy, a very poor attempt at a joke and then you have harmonic minor harmonic men, okay, you also have the harmonic major scale that some people associate with players like Allan Holdsworth and you have the double harmonic major scale.

Each of these has associated modes. Thanks Nate, I appreciate it, some of them have weird names now. the modes of the major scale many of you know Ionian Dorian Phrygian Lydian Mixolydian Aeolian Locrian most of the A melodic minor melodic minor Dorian fled to Lydian Mixolydian augmented sharp 11 or sharp 4 and some people call Lydian flat 7 Mixolydian flat 6 Locrian natural for alter Full tone dominant, super locrian or diminished, whatever you want to call it, there are a lot of names for these things when you get into the harmonic minor, those modes aren't used as much. The ones you're probably familiar with are the minor harmonic, the Phrygian major, but there's a whole series of modes that are Lydian sharp 9 Ionian rise that are associated with the major harmonic, it's funny if I have a video where I talk about it, it's called palindromes. musicals, that's part of the title and I talk about how they scale if you invert the intervals correctly.

If you take a major scale and invert its meaning instead of going a whole step whole step half step whole step whole step whole step half step like this and do the same descending intervals it becomes a different mode ok Dorian up and down is what same ok but all the other modes have a mirror mode look at a mode I'm not going to tell you, give it away but the minor harmonic modes are reflected with the major harmonic modes. It's really fascinating. I go and show this in the video. Look at that musical. palindromes, so it's one of my favorite videos now that a lot of people watch it, it was early on my channel.

By the way, I'm going to redo all the modal videos I made at the beginning of the channel, all the modes of the major scale, melodic minor, harmonic minor. major harmonics of major harmonic when you get to the double major harmonic you get some really strange modes Locrian flat 3d or double flat 3 double flat 7 you know most of the major harmonic scale has like dorian flat 5 phrygian flat 4 flat lydian 3 flat mixolydian - yeah , you know, there are really crazy mode names, but if you buy my coffee mugs that I have, I just thought of this. I never mentioned these here, they have all the modal formulas and I know a bunch of the ones you've bought and you get the set of these 5 major scales and it has all the modal formulas, which means what you do on a major scale to do it, so when you're drinking your coffee in the morning, the modal modes that you don't know from the major harmonic in the double major harmonic or the minor harmonic you can be drinking your coffee and reviewing them while you're looking at it.

I usually have one up here to drink, but anyway it's like this each when I say if there are these scales are a subset, let's talk about the major scale thread here, if I write the C major notes, okay, this is a way to understand this, look at the e G to B, I'll still write the second octave C D G, so I wrote an octave and a half, okay, from C to C or from C to B, it's Ionic, okay D, really do it, let's do it this way, it's easier to understand D a D is Dorian e a e is Phrygian F a F is Lydian G a G is Mixolydian a a a is Aeolian b2b is Locrian, that's what I mean by subsets or are they the same notes but it's a different set of intervals and they all have a characteristic sound if I play this it sounds good, as soon as I hear it I say hmm, that's a dorian sound and I think of that scale, it immediately screams durian, if I play this I think it's an Olien , it's a wind sound, if I play this, I say oh, that's it. a Phrygian sound, my discounts don't work.

I'll fix it right now. Wait, it could be my website. You know it will work. Try again here in a moment. Billy says it works. It can't have space. RB 16 I can actually tell you right now that's all that works, yeah, yeah, if you know, if you're having trouble with it, try again, try again here because it did, it's just Frank, try a different browser, okay , so. I was talking about Aeolian, this right here, oh, and then I went to Phrygian, okay, so Phrygian, let's talk about that. I love the bridge. It's great, excellent sound. Each set, each of these chords has its own order.

You know, it has its own dominant chord. It has its own super tonic chord things like that but that's not important what's important is which notes are important to give you the sound of the mode if I run out of Phrygian the Phrygian mode 1 flat 2 flat 3 4 5 flat 6 flat 7 you need it to memorize these formulas so this is what you have to do in a major scale to get the Phrygian mode ok, the characteristic notes here is the flat 2 that appears when you listen to metal, guys, there are metalheads who flat 2 know everything about the flat 2 I know about that sound, it's a dark sound that takes you towards the tonic, then you have the 5 on the flat 6, those are your key notes in this, so when I think of a Phrygian voice, I'll want to have those notes somewhere or a Phrygian melody, those will be important notes also the third, the flat third because you have to define it as a minor chord, it is a minor sound, so if Ridge Ian, if I think about this, there is my e-minor if I put the F here I go so it's a Phrygian sound I love that there is the right Phrygian sound III I have a size of flat to flat 3 and flat 6 right if I compared it to Locrian because Locrian is the other mode of the major scale that has a flat 2 1 flat 2 cries flat 3 4 flat 5 flat 6 flat 7 so the difference between locrian and phrygian is just that flat fifth to the right, so this is where the semitones happen and this is where the steps from a happen in this mode , these are the important notes right there, also the third is important again because it defines that the chord is diminished and that builds from it, so those are the characteristic notes, that's how you can tell. a Locrian melody from a Phrygian melody, you know there are many Locrian melodies, but you will hear them on my channel, but if I were to compare Ionian and Lydian, for example, Ionian is the major scale one, two, three, four, Five, six, seven, I fight once. again it has the four sharp one two three four sharp right five six seven okay between the four sharp and the five that's your signature sound and then between seven and eight or seven and one are your semitones okay so when you listen to my piece I did it in the end, if you got to the end of my video, you would have heard that piece and I used a bunch of different Lydian sounds, but if I take a C major chord, right, C major sprint, try and just add that F sharp. that's already a Lydian sound right there, I don't even need that up there, I can just use this very, very marked Lydian sound or I can put that major seventh there, beautiful love, that sound is fine, so that's what differentiates it from a larger scale.

C major C Lydia now the interesting thing about this is that I have been using this vocabulary for 35 years with modes, that's why I talked about this is where the idea of ​​Lydian triads comes from when I talk about triads, this is all in my book. he's also in the ear training course okay so when I hear this I know it's a Lydian triad one sharp four five Dada okay onesharp four five, that is an ideonic triad of treatment, it is the one that you take a D scale made D, take the first note fourth it is not a fifth note, it is like a suspended sharp because many times that Lydian triad is used like that.results until the third, in fact, in the tail that I use from the Toy Story claw.

I always cry when I think about it when he plays, place Lydian, try it in inversion, it's got a sharp five on top and He works it out to the major third, so if you think that's like that, then it's a great sound. Thanks P. I appreciate it for the Lydian triad there, when I heard that sound, I immediately knew it was funny because it was the first time. I said it in the video I mentioned in the comments, my kids have seen a movie a hundred times more enjoyable, so you know when your kids watch these movies over and over again, so I once sat down to watch Toy Story straight from the beginning and it blew my mind when it got to that part and when the clock stopped to save them and they played that huge flat key Lydian Coradin, it's a Lydian sound in E flat with the fifth and the root and it resolves to D major. a um it's that otherworldly sound because it's good it's almost like those claws came down from the sky to save them to rescue them I hate I'm sorry if I gave the movie away there but that chord is so beautiful and I asked Dylan We were making fun of this in the comments, but I said Dylan, what a chord that is and he of course rolls his eyes because he hates being asked these things, but you know he's five at the time he says, that's a flat Lydian climb. he played the piano, so he went into the other room and he just went and played that and I was like, okay, cool, I mean, I knew it was that, but it's being able to recognize these sounds when you hear them, knowing exactly what they are.

This is very important when I listen to these soundtracks that I use in my videos when I talk about modes when I do Lydian when I do Phrygian Mixolydian look, you know all these. I'm going to use examples from movie soundtracks or classical music or jazz and I'm going to show you these things because I can tell them right away and you should be able to too when I told Billy we were talking about Joe Satriani and what first thing that came to Billy's mind. flying in a blue dream is all liddie and it's multiple lydian things and he loves lydian steve.

I all these guitarists love Lydian, so thank you and I appreciate that you're not even a musician and you love it, that's great, I love it, but but being able to recognize the characteristics of these modes remember that each mode has characteristic intervals that give it its own distinctive sound. What's happening? Brett. Good to see you. Brett. I'll be in the fifth. I'll definitely be in Boston at Berkeley given that talk. so I will go to the room, send me an email, we will definitely meet. Oh, and I'll be at NAMM next week for the NAMM show for those of you who are going and I'll actually be at this. conference tomorrow in New Orleans speaking is a Network the Gen jazz educators conference.

I'm going to give a talk in the afternoon at about 4:30 or so, tomorrow I'm heading to New Orleans and if any of you were going to that we'll , what's up Eliot George Russell would be happy through those of you who don't know George Russell or for those of you who do know George Russell don't ask me to make a video on the Lydian chromatic concept since it's a book and not you can make videos about books that you can cut you talked about books but you make books 3 hey Peter, happy new year, great to see you Roma and thank you very much for this debate on scales and modes I don't care what your music teachers tell you the modes are scales, people use that term, you can say the Lydian scale is fine as long as you know what it sounds like, that's really the key and you know what it sounds like and how to use it, that's the key.

The most important thing about music is that it does you no good to know it without being able to take it and apply it to yourself correctly. Many of these modes actually play like Lydian mode and film compositing, and they're really easy. go to but there are other modes other scales like the harmonic major scale or the double harmonic major scale like Lydian sharp 2 sharp 6 which is the second harmonic wizard mode double harmonic major at the moment these are modes that people don't ever use or not, most people don't use those modes of the double harmonic major scale, but they sound really good and I call it the darkest scale you should see, it's probably my biggest music theory video I've ever made and I think it's just because of the thumbnail or something people clicked on it but it has a very strange piece that's like 40 seconds anyway and then I made a video with Gnar a Soul which is where we did it, right at the beginning of their channel I just had 1000 subscribers, he was here in town for a visit and he came and we worked and wrote this piece together in one day and we made this video it's called the modes of the darkest scale modes ever created.

I think that's what it was called. modes of the darkest scale ever seen and it has a composition that we did where narra plays the piano and goes through a piece in each of the modes of the double harmonic major scale, all connected in a long piece like three minutes or so , so you should check out the modes of the darkest scale ever made p.m. thank you so much oh it's full what's wrong I couldn't see that and you even capitalized everything so that's what I want to talk about today is the difference between mode and tree scale because I get a lot of comments about this and they're mainly of classical musicians.

Professors of classical theory and, as I say, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you can't get trapped in this rigid way of thinking because jazz musicians have been using modes for 60 years, you know, Miles Davis, George Russell , they have been using it. since the '50s and it's not that people didn't use the mode in the Middle Ages because they did, but jazz musicians developed a whole vocabulary around it and they actually use it to improvise and that's really the people they have . the greatest ease with it and it is more important to have ease with a mode than anything else, how do you know what the characteristic sounds are?

Can you recognize it and can you use it in a melody line if you want to get used to it? Admittedly, look at the external ear training thing. B. You actually just told me that you two mentioned that again. Thanks Billy, okay, so leave your questions in the comments. I'll answer them all, but I wanted to address this because I don't want to. Just so there is no confusion about this, I wanted to tell everyone that I'm going to go over and make a video for each mode of the major scale, each mode of the melodic minor, each mode of the harmonic minor, each mode of the harmonica. major each mode of the major double harmonic that would make a scale.

I'm going to redo all my videos there because I'm better, I have a better camera, and I have a better recording interface. Now I know how to make videos pretty well, I mean. I'm not the best at it, I mean, visually they look good, someone complimented me in the comments section and said Rick, your color grading is really good, like that was the only comment. I read all the comments, it's the only comment anyone writes. about my filming, you know it's like I tried, yeah, I watch videos all the time to try to improve my images here, but I'm also going to do the auxiliary scales, the increased scale, which is a big scale, symmetrical scale. whole tone scale, diminished scale pentatonic scales, so there are major minor pentatonic scales, but there are also melodic minor pentatonic scales which I have also made videos about, but I want to redo all these new correct pieces on them, find new examples that serve them a lot.

Of them are difficult to find, many of them with double harmonic major or double harmonic yes, major scale. They are difficult to find harmonic major. You can find some examples. Allan Holdsworth used the harmonic major scale a lot and I made a video about Allan Holdsworth. and Pat Metheny and speaking of this, actually, what are you laughing at? Billy, okay, anyway, Allan is one of the few people who uses those scales and would use the augmented scale. he uses some of those symmetrical scales. he uses the diminished scale. In fact, he was listening to Alan yesterday.

And I've been thinking that on his Secrets record there's a great whole tone that he plays and I've been trying to find it for free for the last two years and I and I were listening to the record and it came and I was like oh, where is it, it's, it was on the song, oh boy, and I'm not going to be fine, oh yeah, wait, I have the record right here, it's a great solo, let's see here, wait, it sits. in secrets it's on it's like a minute 20 and the sign is oh it's on spokes that's it it speaks cool, cool, augmented or a full tone lick one of my favorites and if anyone can play that on the guitar it's very difficult to play it on the guitar, thanks.

You, Paul, appreciate it, but look at Spokes Allan Holdsworth's album Secrets and try to find that whole tone. It's just a sequence that goes in full steps, but it's amazing, it's really difficult. I can't understand the way he would have played. I can't think it's made with the synth acts, maybe because it's tuned in fifths, if anyone has any idea about that. Thank you, Laura, I appreciate it. Wow, that's great, if anyone has any ideas. about how Alan is playing, I think it's him playing the solo on this one, it's a synthesizer, it could be Alan Pasqua or you know someone who plays keyboards, but put in the comments section, okay, that's all for now, subscribe to channel Billy, let's say discount code Arby's 16 people have not been or happened, okay.

I'm going to create a new discount code right now. Wait, I'll put it in the comments. Wait, I'll do it right now for all of you. I can, man, it says he's active here, yeah, okay, what should I call this RB mode? RB Mode RB Mode ok 35% off and it says it's on right now RB Mode you can get it. It works very well. Some people have used it. I see that it actually is. works for some people, but try RB mode or try it with a different browser. You are incredible. Thank you so much for tuning in today.

See you in a couple of days. I have other videos in the queue ready. to go out so thank you very much modes and scales thank you all for contributing with a super chat you are the best