Those funny names are the different modes of major, along with Ionian (aka major) and Aeolian (aka minor). Basically they boil down to: play all the same notes from a given major scale, in the same order, but with a different starting point. You may already know A minor as the relative minor of C major... they both include all the same notes but have very different emotional and musical feelings.
So play C major's notes and start at D instead and you get D Dorian = D E F G A B C
Play them starting at E and you get E Phrygian = E F G A B C D
and so on and so on
This has wild effects on the "feel" of the music and learning about how they're used in songwriting opened up a whole new galaxy of musical thought for me. Dorian sounds "cool," Lydian sounds "spacey," Locrian "uncomfortable." Of course this only applies to western music concepts and will depend on the individual listener's context as well as the context of anything else going on in the composition. But I think it's fuckin cool and has given me a new appreciation for the magic of music. Took a long time for me to really get it but I do recommend!
Thanks for the info! I keep trying to learn via Youtube vids, but I have a mental brick wall 🧱 in my head on these matters. Hoping to get my electric keyboard fixed so I can learn some over the summer and properly branch out into stuff like medieval music and rock.
and don't even get me started on the C major / A minor scale. only playing the white keys? yeah, I know what that's all about
A neonazis favourite scale? A minor
uh oh
Playing guitar is great because you can talk about fingering A minor and nobody bats an eye.
D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, and B Locrian: nothing to see here
Non of those words are in my tabs books. (They actually are, I just don't know what they mean.)
serious music theory comment incoming (sorry)
Those funny names are the different modes of major, along with Ionian (aka major) and Aeolian (aka minor). Basically they boil down to: play all the same notes from a given major scale, in the same order, but with a different starting point. You may already know A minor as the relative minor of C major... they both include all the same notes but have very different emotional and musical feelings.
So play C major's notes and start at D instead and you get D Dorian = D E F G A B C
Play them starting at E and you get E Phrygian = E F G A B C D
and so on and so on
This has wild effects on the "feel" of the music and learning about how they're used in songwriting opened up a whole new galaxy of musical thought for me. Dorian sounds "cool," Lydian sounds "spacey," Locrian "uncomfortable." Of course this only applies to western music concepts and will depend on the individual listener's context as well as the context of anything else going on in the composition. But I think it's fuckin cool and has given me a new appreciation for the magic of music. Took a long time for me to really get it but I do recommend!
Thanks for the info! I keep trying to learn via Youtube vids, but I have a mental brick wall 🧱 in my head on these matters. Hoping to get my electric keyboard fixed so I can learn some over the summer and properly branch out into stuff like medieval music and rock.
You're welcome and best of luck on your journey. I think having some keys under your fingers will help for sure.
Speaking of YT videos, maybe you've seen them already but Signals Music Studio's videos helped me a ton.
But what if you're strictly playing fortissimo? Just absolutely wailing on the bastards