Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Anybody can help me with Mixolydian key theory?

Hi teachers,

I know the degree of scales in Mixolydian mode, but not really sure how to use this to write songs/composition. What chord brings more tension in this key? the Flat7? What is Vmin chord role in songwriting? Still the chord that build intensity? Any explanation helps, thanks!

pianocoach521

You've read this, right?

https://www.amazon.com/Study-Counterpoint-Johann-Joseph-Parnassum/dp/0393002772

Why counterpoint, Tim?

Is this an assignment for a class?
Was there any instruction that preceded the assignment?

The OP gave a bit of background answering a question of mine, here:
https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthre...ns-beginner-to-advanced.html#Post2820158

Because way back in the 1700s Johan addressed the inherent tension between those who focus on chords and harmony, and those who focus on the scale.

Modern jazz improvisation tends to be very scalar, and that's why I don't listen to it. I prefer the older trad styles that stay more tonal. To my ears. Your mileage may vary.

When someone brings up mixolydian in this context they are usually talking a scalar approach, and then the OP goes right into chord functions, and I think you have to understand how they fit together. That's beyond my knowledge (or interest).

No, Mr. Fux will not be much help, but at least he pointed out the distinction. I first read his book when I was spending time with some Dixieland players who did not like how far outside the chord the modal improvisers were going.

I think your answers have totally - ahem - Fuxed up the conversation, Tim.

Tm, thank you for the answer. With Fux I got as far as successfully completing the First Species exercise after multiple corrections. I was even told by a musician who knew me, and understood counterpoint, that my unique "voice" came out in the exercise. It is a very difficult thing to master even at the first species level, and I can't imagine that the OP could quickly use this. As well, if he is looking for chords, at the time of Fux, I don't think the chords and chord progressions were a thing yet.

In another thread, Pianocoach51 told us that he is a music producer, teaches music production, and helps artists produce songs, and "mix and master". I'd see a more modern way of thinking. The modes do get used in modern times, but not in the way they were in the time of Fux. I'm thinking the question might be asked in:

a) Pianist Corner - Non-Classical

b) Composer's Lounge

Pianocoach51?

Haha Gary D.

Fiat Fux

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZlAHkPE71k

Listen to what this does. To say a mode is only about scales misses the point. For anyone improvising, there will always be main chords, and that's the key to the mode. To establish the sound of a mode you need three triads. Any three triads will use all the notes in the mode.

Here you have a G major chord and an F major chord.

This gives you F G A B C D. Technically E is missing, but it's not exactly rocket science to figure out that's the other note, and by making the F chord an Fmaj7 you have the whole thing.

That's the principle right there. Those two chord establish the mode.

Here is Bartok's take on the same thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0_dBYVuz_0

And bluegrass, VERY common in this style AND in folk songs from the Appalachian area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkEWvBuM9P4

This is simply NOT just a scale thing. It's chords and scales.

Thanks. The examples make a HUGE difference. What a resource!

The utter lack of response here other than what you wrote would lead me to believe what I just posted is either useless, because everyone already knows what I wrote, or that no one understands what I wrote. The thought of the latter is frightening.

I am coming to loathe this forum more every day because of the almost total lack of responses and the utter lack of thanks for anything I write. I find it astonishing that sharing HERE what I charge money for sharing in lessons goes completely without comment.

I am very close to formally asking that my name be removed from this place with the idea of never coming back here.

Tim, because you posted about this elsewhere, I want to make clear what I'm doing and what I do.

For my students I always link to videos. I have not always done this, but I've gone into high gear this year. I also make videos for them in lessons, a newer thing, because I was not utilizing my camera and video options enough on my cell phone. The sound is not great because the recording basically used a condenser mike that keeps narrowing the dynamics, but it's fast and it's person.

When I make videos in lessons I NEVER yack, yack, yack the way you usually hear people do on YouTube. I tell students what I'm going to demonstrate, and why, then I play. I may do some commenting, but I don't take my hands away. It's all in the playing.

There are two videos I recommend for Lydian. This first one is a bit too talky for me, but once he gets going there is some steady playing, and I rather like the sound. He's also using F Lydian, which is handy for those of us who are keyboard players, because F Lydian is the model on piano, using only white keys.


I liked the beginning of it so much I stole it as a theme and wrote a piece with it, but using both hands and then with an ostinato bass. I then took this same theme, moved it to the dominant, put in a middle section with octaves using octatonic, then back to the theme.

The reason I like this kid's playing (or young guy) is that he just plays, and it's good.

Mistake in my last post:

https://youtu.be/PwW5lBd48B8

https://youtu.be/jEbga8rJCsk

The harp player, the guitarist....

Please do NOT leave PW! Your insights are always a breath of fresh air, and I have learned a lot from your posts. I am not a piano teacher, so I don't comment a lot of the time on your posts. However, they ARE extremely educational and I always look forward to YOUR posts.

I read this a couple of times and also listened to the examples.

One thing you stressed is that it is about scales and chords; chords and scales. it seems such an obvious thing but it seems to get missed. Scales and chords interrelate for obvious reasons.

I think where we often get hung up is that in "traditional" or so-called "classical" training,we get taught a complicated thing that is based on something that was done some time in the Renaissance period or a bit before, like some ancient long-gone thing. It is also taught in a complicated manner. Meanwhile composers such as Bartok per your example, and musicians in other genres have used modes all along and it whizzes past us unnoticed.

Why is there so little interest here, in this, among teachers (I can't help wondering).

keystring,
in all fairness, this level of knowledge probably does not become accessible to 99% of piano students, who never reach the level of skill required.

I find it highly interesting, and I would think any working musician would at almost any level. Even hobby musicians like myself have applications if we choose. Piano "enrichment" students who don't practice are not the target.

At the risk of another digression. Oops, too late. I used the phrase "applications if we choose." That isn't fully thought out. Unlike Gary who usually presents fully coherent ideas, I often think out loud here, sometimes to my embarrassment. But something struck me this weekend.

I took my handbell choir to a festival that required them to attempt music, some of which was 3 grades above their normal skill level. I included my adult daughter, who had one year of piano lessons in high school 12 years ago and does not ring handbells. (yes, I forced her to take that year of lessons, after explaining why.) I sightread the concert, no problem, but so did my daughter who attempted the hardest music when some of my ringers sat down. One of the experienced ringers was amazed that she could do this, without painstakingly marking every note she needed to play and working on it for weeks. "Well I took a year of piano lessons so I know notes and counting." But the ringer said "I had many years of piano lessons and it doesn't help at all."

And my point is some people make the jump from the academic to the execution, and most don't. What makes the difference?

Some possible bridges for anyone who started off with the "traditional" "back in ancient times" explanation for modes:

This one is a sample lesson from Gary Burton's course introducing modes before he goes on to chords in another lesson we don't get to see without signing up for the course. He starts off the traditional way, with Dorian being 2 to 2, Phrygian being 3 to 3 etc. which is how we get taught. but he says that for improvisers this is not very useful, and he then introduces another way of seeing modes according to "brightness of sound". If you already know the 2 to 2 etc. version, skip right to 0:41.

In this view, modes are seen according to their brightness, and modes are created by flatting successive notes, always with the same tonic. In the lecture we don't get to see, he then brings them together with chords, which is the other half of the chord-scale equation.

https://www.coursera.org/lecture/jazz-improvisation/the-modes-B24X7

This other video goes from the angle of chords, and we hear a lot of music being played, to give us a feel. You'll notice that he plays a chord type, and then says what modes with fit with that chord.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikENGelZ_5s

Just to give a feel for the thinking and mindset involved. I suppose you can think of it this way: If I have a Cm7, which mode(s) would have a minor 3rd and also the "7" (meaning b7)? What kinds of flavours or moods can I give my music through those choices? (Burton's "brightness")? And then if you move to "classical" music, where the composers used modes, it will also give us insights into written music that we play.

Given the historical nature of the modes, can you separate them from the temperament (or the tuning, if the comma was left unsplit)?

There's an explanation on page 152 of this excerpt:
https://books.google.com/books?id=L...ss%20intervals%20harpsichord&f=false

I watched the coursera video on defining modes by the lowered notes rather than the degree of scale you start on, and that makes more sense to me from an experiential rather than academic view. But that's also what triggered the thought that starting on the degree of the scale assumes equal temperament, and that very well may not have been the case when church modes were the rage.

Tim, the person who knows a LOT about modes is Keystring, and her knowledge goes way WAY back. I don't touch things before the Renaissance.

But I think it is useful to do this:

1. Back to fairly ancient times, when the names and modes are nothing like what we know today.
2. What you are calling "Church Modes". When you start talking about tuning "back then", be aware that everything is based on text. We have no sound. Exactly how and when notes in a scale were adjusted from what we know as EQ is endlessly debated.
3. Modern use of modes, which is far more than jazz. They are all over the place in Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, and so on.

Re tuning, and you may sense my irritation merely because my ear for relative pitch is pretty freakish - which of course I can't prove here.

I started tuning pianos in my teens, so I'm infinitely familiar with the quirks of EQ. Coming from that I merely made note of how people shade notes in other systems, and it pretty much comes down to this. In diatonic music often 3rds are lowered different amount to a max of beatless. Then, using the key of C major, the same thing is done for FA, lowering the A, then GB, lowering the B, and 5ths are kept pretty pure for CG, GD and FC - for obvious reasons.

But these are all intellectual constructs, and the more you borrow from Peter, the more you have to pay Paul. If you have spent as much time as I have working with singers, you know that they are way more off on pitch than instrumentalists because OUR instruments to some extent guide us. There is no guide for the human voice except the ear. So the rules for keyboards are very different from the rules for other instruments merely because in the time of Bach and earlier some keys were unusable on keyboards. Never for singers, who are in practice often horrendously out of tune but POTENTIALLY better in tune than players other than string players, for the same reason - an infinity of possible pitches all equally easy to produce.

So in practical application musicians are much less reliable than they think in adjusting pitch, and this is why EQ is the system modern players start with. It means that potentially you, as a trombone player, only have to tune 12 notes, and all the players you play with do the same. Since very instrument in an orchestra has notes that differ from EQ, often in totally opposite directions, agreeing on EQ is a bit like everyone in a group agreeing to speak English, not because it is superior, but because it is common knowledge.

I won't go into all the out of tune notes on every brass instrument, and I won't even mention woodwind, but it's hard as h e l l to get several different instruments to tune together on one note or one interval in EQ. Yet until you can do that, you can't then adjust.

For advanced players you can then adjust for very diatonic and static music, agreeing how and when you will do it in whatever key you are playing. But you also have to understand that for an instrument like trumpet, if you are playing a high A, with 12, that note will NEVER be flat, always sharp, and there is no way you will play a beatless 3rd over F in that range. So if another instrument does that, there will be a unison off at least around 13 cents, and the result is awful.

In other words, on paper it's a wonderful idea. If you want to use an old system for tuning a keyboard, best for the key of C, and you write something in C, it will work. Modes in that key set will largely work because it's the same system. But when you move much away from the key of C, for instance to Eb, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards, and the key of Db will be just horrible.