Modes and Modal Music

Mode

A mode is an early form of scale. To understand what a mode is, you need to understand what a scale is.

Essentially, it is a set of notes that a composer uses to write a melody.

We are used to the major and minor scales of today's music, but early music doesn't use these scales. It uses modes. The overall sound of these scales is described as "modal".

The modal sound is neither major nor minor. It is something between the two, and has a strange, "flat" sound to it.

The best way of getting to know the modal sound is by doing two things:

1. Listening to modal music such as Medieval Plainchants
2. Playing the modes as if they were scales

Here is a playlist to listen to and get the "feel" of a mode:

And now, here is a list of the modes so you may play them on a keyboard instrument.

• Dorian mode: Play all the white notes from D to D
• Phrygian mode: Play all the white notes from E to E
• Lydian mode: Play all the white notes from F to F
• Mixolydian mode: Play all the white notes from G to G 
• Aeolian mode: Play all the white notes from A to A 
• Ionian mode: Play all the white notes from C to C

Play with the order of the notes from each mode, and settle your ears into the sound and sense of a mode.