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Olly,

Understanding this, is the first real "step" towards understanding Modes.  How many people spend years thinking one thing, only to find they were wrong, the whole time?  That's a lot of wasted time.  Once you understand what they are not, you've made the first real step towards understanding.  Why?  Because this puts us at only one possible place, to proceed: 

Use everything you understand about theory to begin to work through what Modes are,  and then, how to put it all together, using your ears, to do whatever it takes to bring that Modal sound out in your playing.  Once you do that, you'll understand why its so hard to just tell someone how to do it, as if it were some sort of set of rules. 

I hope this makes sense.  Its not that we are being intentionally obscure, its that there's no way to understand it, short of doing that.   But where you are now, I would say you are closer to being able to do that than you might think.  Still, the work is yours to do.

Do you see where I'm coming from now?

Instructor

Pretty Much.  The D7 can pull right to G as a Tonic V i.  G Major would be the first, but in reality, it CAN pull to any G,  Jazz progressions do that a lot.  Kind of cool, and an examples where there are no real rules, while at the same time understanding why it "works".  In this instance it pulls back to Gm instead of G major.  Depending on the harmonic movement, a D7 to Gm, could also be registered as a G Harmonic minor move.   In that case you could see the keys changing F major to G minor. 

Good stuff!

The end of the song seems to bear that theory out as you have a V (C7) bVII (Eb) to I (F) return to resolve. 

Instructor

Olly, great job.  In regards to Dorian, I might have said that since Minor is a b6, so in raising that, a half step, you arrive at a Natural 6th.  A #6 would be a half step past the Natural 6th, so I'd want to be careful in using "sharp", and I might say "raised by a half step".

Instructor

I don't know. 

When I hear early blues tunes, the guitars all sound out of tune to me, but there's "something" about those out of tune guitars and the singing that sound pretty good to me.

Instructor

This is awesome.  Pure win.

Instructor

I love Koi and I love ESP.  So this is a Win for me, even though I'm not a great fit with the "Star" shape.  If this was on a Horizon or Mirage, with a hardtail, or string to body, and a satin finish with SD JB/59's....I'd be in pure bliss.

Instructor

I cant post MP3s.

Instructor

My question to you Don, is even thinking E phrygian how do you get it to sound resolved on E?  Because thinking it is one thing, but if you play b2 like its something, but the tonality wants to resolve to C, all you're doing is accenting an F over C, unless you can make it sound like it's resolved on C. 

You are absolutely correct, that you can play it over a vamp, or a pedal tone, as long as it never changes.  But it takes A LOT more to compose music that is modal.

To add to the confusion Like we didnt have enough of it) there are really 3 ways of looking at modes :

Traditional Modal where a Mode is used over a static tonic.  There is no harmony or sound except for the instance of modes as they are played over the Drone. 

Diatonic Modal: where there is Harmony within the mode, using a static Vamp where the modal chord functioned as the I chord, or else composed entirely of chords derived from that mode.  C Major7#11 for example.

Modern Modes: The most difficult because its a mix of chords in a key connected to the mode, and chords that are NOT connected to the mode.  The most obvious question that the average user would be "OK so how can I mix the two then?"   The weight of the knowledge required for a strong and intelligent application of this, is beyond the scope of any article that I can write, and it is a very good reason why I teach Modes LAST of all, because the prerequisite knowledge is pretty thick.

So when you ask about Modes, the answer is there are many ways that modes can be applied, but the first one, Traditional is the most "Sure fire" way.  Vamps that are understood by the guitarist are the other.  Finally, playing a different mode for each chord is another approach.   These are the most accessible approaches for a majority of players.

Instructor

Hi Olly,

The way I'd break this down, is to look at our chords in an E Major Key:

E F#m G#m  A B7 C#m D#o E

The chords we know are from the key of E are E and C#m and the A  - the 1 and the 6 and the 4.

While not being familiar with the piece, I would say the C would be a bVI - which is borrowing from the Parallel E Minor Scale.

Where this gets interesting is in the addition of the b7 in C (C7).

C7 would usually signal a change to the F major key, but as you see, no F.  So why did they use it?

The next thing I'd do is look at the chords in terms of voice leading, maybe there is a common note they share, or a note is acting as a leading tone.

C E G Bb = C7 
E G# B =  E

Now if we look at it, not from a key standpoint, we see something interesting. 

The B moves  to Bb - 1/2 step back
The G# moves to G - 1/2 step back
The E stays where it is.
The C is the remaining note.

What if we took a C and superimposed the notes of an E major with it?  This is where theory gets fun, is these what if's.

C E G# and B -  I'd have a Cmaj7#5.  One might look at the E to C7 as almost a rootless Cmaj7#5 to C7 move. 

At any rate we've drawn a possible connection. We have 2 notes that move a half step back, while the others remain unchanged, thus I wouldn't call these substitutes more than I'd say  creatively borrowed chords to imply movement.

In terms of substitutions, Olly, the chords that are subs usually share common tones with the chord being substituted.  In the Key of C - C being the I chord, we'd see that Em and Am - the iii and the vi fit the bill as possible C subs.  Lets see why.

C E G = C major
E G B = E minor (common tones E and G)  You could say that using an Em implies a Cmaj7 without the C root, can you see why?
A C E = A minor (common tones C and E)  It's can also be a C6, can you see why?

Another common substitution is known as a tritone sub, but thats usually related to Jazz and is built off the tritone of the V.

Now common variations, not subs, are usually chords borrowed from the Parallel Minor scale of a Key.  Olly your example using Fm is a prefect example of that. 

C Dm Em F G Am Bo C
Cm Do Eb  Fm  Gm  Ab Bb

Notice in Cm, The F is Fm, notice also the presence of the Ab, this is where Cogs example is drawn from  (That C to Ab7 or Amaj7)

In C, its not too uncommon to see the borrowed chords from its Parallel Minor. 

Instructor

I'll let your words stand on their own merits.

Instructor

When you say "Modes" do you mean that you're teaching them to play modally?  Or just a shape that you call a mode?

Because 99.9 percent of all music is Major or minor, no modes involved.

Modes come into play over a single drone or a 2 chord vamp that doesn't quite resolve.

Change chords, and not know what you are doing, like calling the V of the Parent Major key, and you've lost the "mode" and are simply playing a major scale extended out.  The reason for this, is a Mode is made or lost on it's Resolution.

If I were playing E Phrygian, if I play Em9 to Fmaj7 back and forth indefinitely I'm fine...but it will never "feel or sound" finished or resolved.  It will hang.  Add a C, or a Bm7b5 or G, Ive just invoked the C major tonality.

If I play over a static drone, I'm fine, I can invoke modal voicings and characteristics, change chords, and you're no longer playing Modes, nor are you playing any modal "scale".   It's just been taken by the Major or Minor Key.

Instructor