Modes in Music: The 7 Modes and How to Use Them

The 7 modes, brightest to darkest

The cleanest way to learn the modes is to line them up by brightness. Brightness comes down to how many notes are raised or lowered compared to the plain major scale. Lydian raises a note and sounds the brightest. Locrian flattens the most notes and sounds the darkest.

The quickest way to see this is on the white keys of a piano. Every mode below uses the same seven notes of C major — only the starting note changes, and with it the pattern of steps and the mood.

The modes you'll actually use

Out of the seven, most producers reach for four.

• Dorian is a minor mode with a bright streak. The natural 6th gives it a hopeful edge, which is why jazz, funk and a lot of house vamps live here.
• Mixolydian is major with a flat 7th. It is the sound of rock and blues and almost every dominant-chord jam.
• Lydian is major with a raised 4th, which makes it sound wide open and cinematic. Film scores and dream-pop lean on it.
• Phrygian is a dark minor with a flat 2nd. Flamenco and a lot of metal use that flat 2nd for tension.

How to make a mode actually sound modal

Here is the trap that catches everyone. If you play D Dorian over a C major backing track, your ear still hears plain C major, because the notes are identical. The mode only emerges when the harmony keeps resolving to the mode's own root.

1. Start with a drone or pedal note on the mode's root and improvise over it. This is the fastest way to hear the flavor on its own.
2. Write a progression that centers the mode's tonic instead of the parent key's. For D Dorian, vamp between Dm and G, not back to C.
3. Lean on the character note. In Lydian, hit the raised 4th. In Mixolydian, let the flat 7th ring out.

If you are not sure what key a track is already in, work it out first with the method in how to find the key of a song, then check the circle of fifths to see how the parent major keys relate.

Modes vs scales vs keys

These three words get used loosely, so it helps to pin them down. A key tells you which sharps or flats are in play. A scale is the ordered set of notes. A mode is a scale with a specific note chosen as home. C major and A minor share a key signature, no sharps or flats, but they are different modes of it: Ionian and Aeolian.

Spotting the parent key is the first step to naming the mode. Once you know the notes resolve to, say, G major but the song keeps landing on E, you are probably in E Aeolian. When you have a modal idea a bandmate needs to hear, drop it in a delivery Room so the full-resolution audio arrives intact.