(Music Playing)
This method which we built from the key of C is also useful in exploring different scale modes to solo with. The step pattern intervals used to find this scales will apply to any key. Remember, it is all about the step pattern intervals between the notes, regardless of whether the notes are black or white.
Most of the scales used by musicians were improvised solos with special names—the Ionian mode, the Dorian mode, Phrygian mode, Lydian mode, Mixolydian mode, Aeolian mode and Locrian mode, or the pentatonic. They all provide there own unique color to the music you are playing. So, when you play the notes of any standard major scale, you are in the Ionian mode (Demonstration) improvise to a sequel. (Demonstration)
I mentioned the Dorian mode earlier. If you take the second note of any major scale and play the notes of the major scale ending on the same note an octave higher—eighth notes—you have created a scale in the Dorian mode. It is the second note in the scale—D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D. The Dorian mode step pattern. (Demonstration)
This can open up your playing options quite a bit. So, if you are in the key of C major, the second note is D in the scale. Start on D and play on up the C scale to the next D note, an octave higher, and you play the D minor Dorian scale. (Demonstration) Although you have only played the notes—in this case it is the C major scale—the D note becomes a terminal center of the new Dorian Scale. You end up with a nice selection of notes to solo with. Try playing a D minor chord and solo with the Dorian scale. (Music Playing)
The Dorian mode is often used by guitarist like Carlos Santana. He also mixes it up with the blues scale. Harvey Mendel is another example, or in jazz, Miles Davis. They played the major scale in any key and try working out the Dorian scales.
Remember to make the second note in the scale to total center and play on up with the rest of the major scale with the same note, but not too higher, which puts you in a minor sounding Dorian mode.
Use the Dorian mode step pattern. (Music playing) You see that the natural minor scale—say, D minor, which is the Aeolian scale—is a little different from D minor scale, but only by one note. Play the D natural minor scale then the D Dorian minor scale.
Let us see how they compare. E flat, the flat 6th is played in the natural minor or Aeolian scale. (Demonstration) And B with major 6th is played instead in the D Dorian scale. (Demonstration) So, you can hear that the one note can create different feel to this scale. (Demonstration)
The important notes in the Dorian mode are the root, which gives the scale and the identity or terminal center. The third, which creates a 6th minor character and the major 6th, which can make a Dorian scale distinguished from the Aeolian natural minor scale. [Music Playing]
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