Modes in “classical,” rock, and jazz

The Modes are, and have been, a huge number of different things to different people. My best understanding of their early history is something like: the Byzantine octoechos system was somehow merged with less-systematic Northern European tonaries (groupings of melodies according to similarity), then the ethnic names applied to ancient Greek modes and “tonoi” were adopted and misinterpreted, to create a system of melodic classification; then at various points from the late 1300s on various people claimed that this system applied to polyphony in different ways. Confusing to say the least.

The modern situation is, fortunately, a bit clearer. Most people agree on what the modal scales are, relating them variously to rotations of a diatonic (major or minor) scale, white note scales on the piano, or patterns of whole and half steps. But how they’re used still varies drastically from genre to genre.

Take early 20th-century French music, for example–and particularly Debussy’s last major composition, his Violin Sonata. There’s a good recording  of the first movement available free on imslp, and I’ve embedded a Youtube version below.

From about 1:36 (YouTube)/1:24 (imslp), there’s a long section moving through different modes as if they were keys–starting with C Ionian (like C major, but without functional chord progressions), then E Phrygian (to my ear, at least–others have suggested other possibilities) at 1:55/1:41, then C Lydian at 2:03/1:48, etc. Essentially, these modes form static collections of pitches, often confirmed by a static chord rooted on the “tonic” note, for the melodies to move around in. The contrasts between them, along with textural and melodic contrasts, create much of the interest of this passage. Incidentally, the movement as a whole is quite clearly in a fairly traditional G minor.

In rock, the situation isn’t much different, though they’re more often applied to an entire piece and they’re often discussed as alterations of a major scale even if they’re more similar to minor scales. In certain genres particularly–the worlds of virtuoso guitar shredders and metal, for example–there’s a rich tradition of discussing modes as ways of creating different sounds in different songs. (A quick internet or internet video search for “modes in rock” turns up all kinds of fun instructional materials.) One of the more interesting examples, to me, is Oceans, by Pearl Jam, below, which makes nice use of the #4 in the Lydian mode–often juxtaposing the leading tone, a half step underneath the tonic, with the #4, right underneath the dominant. Interestingly, they move the scale around to different “tonics.”

Another interesting example is Metallica’s Wherever I May Roam, which I’ve seen listed as Locrian (minor scale with b2 and b5), a favorite of metal bands. It’s not a pure example, as it includes other notes (including prominent non-flatted 5s), but makes nice use of the colors available in the mode, juxtaposing the “major”-sounding bII (“sounding” because it’s generally just a power chord, with no 3rd) with the “minor”-sounding tonic.

Jazz is a different story. (Disclaimer: my knowledge of jazz is much poorer than my knowledge of art music and rock. Feel free to correct me in the comments.) If modes in 20th-century art music and rock are a bit like keys, in jazz they’re much more explicitly just scales, and often strongly associated with specific chords. (This is also true of the symmetrical scales–the whole-tone scale is often called the “augmented” scale because of its association with augmented chords, and the octatonic is the “diminished” scale.) Sometimes people don’t worry too much about what the central note is. And these modes are invariably described as either white-key notes or altered major scales.

In “modal jazz,” typically there’s a repeated, relatively static chord progression, and the soloist will use a defined modal scale as a source of material for improvisation. One of the most important practitioners and originators of modal jazz is Miles Davis. Probably his most famous example is So What, which is largely in D Dorian (white notes from D to D, or minor with raised 6). In this example, it almost makes sense to call the piece “in D Dorian,” but in others like Flamenco Sketches, there’s simply a very extended chord progression, over which the soloist plays in five scales: C Ionian, A-flat Mixolydian, B-flat Ionian, D “Spanish” Phrygian (has a major third added to normal Phrygian), and G Dorian (according to Bill Kirchner, in the intro to Hal Leonard’s edition of transcriptions of the Kind of Blue album). It’s hard to say that the piece is “in” these modes, though it’s not out of the question–just that those scales are in play in the solo, and implying underlying chords.

There are many different ways to determine what scales go with what chords for the purposes of improvising, as this practice of improvising on modes has moved well beyond modal jazz as such. I’ll merely mention perhaps the most famous, based on George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept.

Oh yeah, and sometimes people will talk about “modal touches” in composers like Beethoven. Usually what we’re talking about is chords that don’t fit well into major-minor tonality, like the bVII chord (a chord that, incidentally, pervades modern rock music).

Modes as analogies to keys vs. modes as scales… the distinction is not always clear-cut, and perhaps that’s why there’s a lot of richness in these concepts. I look forward to any clarifications, corroborations, or corrections anyone can add in the comments.