How to write and play with modal harmony? That’s a good question! Once we grasp the sounds of the modes, how do we actually use them in our compositions and improvisations? Over certain chords in a functional, tonal chord progression? Sure, that works. “The Dorian mode goes over the ii chord and the Mixolydian mode goes…
The Phrygian Mode is the third mode of the Diatonic Major Scale. Let’s look and listen to it with a bit more detail. The Phrygian mode is often described as the white keys on the keyboard from E-E’. This gives us the following intervallic series: h-w-w-w-h-w-w *w=whole step // h=half step* And the notation looks like…
The Dorian Mode is the second mode of the Diatonic Major Scale. Let’s look and listen to it with a bit more detail. The Dorian mode is often described as the white keys on the keyboard from D-D’. This gives us the following intervallic series: w-h-w-w-w-h-w *w=whole step // h=half step* And the notation looks like…
The Ionian Mode is the first mode of the Diatonic Major Scale. Let’s look and listen to it with a bit more detail. The Ionian mode is often described as the white keys on the keyboard from C-C’. This gives us the following intervallic series: w-w-h-w-w-w-h *w=whole step // h=half step* And the notation looks like…
This article is inspired by the old Jazz adage “play what you sing.” Singing along with what you play helps build a stronger connection between you and your instrument, particularly while improvising. Although producing music in a DAW may not be as intimate as improvising on an instrument, there are still great improvements to be made…
Musical woodpiling is the concept of stocking up musical ideas for future songs. Sometimes sessions are devoted to woodpiling, while other times musical woodpiling happens when we hit a roadblock in our creative process. The term comes from the stockpiling of wood for future consumption in a furnace. If our musical creations are our metaphorical fireplace, we…
“Take notes!” This is pretty standard advice in the academic world. Whether it’s in a school classroom or in a self-taught setting, taking notes helps us to internalize what we learn. I talk about taking notes in a music journal in this article. But music is not made with the words we write about it….
A Man. A Plan. A Canal. Panama. This is one of my favourite palindromes (and one of my favourite The Fall Of Troy songs). But there are other palindromes in music as well. In this article, we will discuss palindromic scales and mirror modes. Try reversing or “mirroring” the order of intervals in any given scale. Reversing the…
A Slash Chord is a type of chord symbol in music that indicates a chord played with a specific root/bass note on the bottom. In this article, we’ll discuss the practical applications of slash chords in our writing and the scales that go with each of the slash chords! Building A Slash Chord There are…
This is an article inspired by a great musician and YouTuber named Adam Neely. In the linked video, the discussion turns to the idea of brightness and darkness in chords and scales and introduces the idea of the Dorian Brightness Quotient. Simply put, the Dorian Brightness Quotient describes a scale’s brightness (or darkness) compared to the Dorian…
Musical brightness and darkness is something that has been on my mind lately. This idea of a ‘musical light spectrum’ is really interesting. I call it a spectrum, but it’s actually cyclical and doesn’t necessarily work with absolutes. Brightness and darkness are relative ideas. The concept of brightness and darkness in music theory is applied…
The ’33-minute rule’ is something I have been using on and off in my work since college (2014). It has allowed me to better focus my efforts to get my music written and mixed. And, as of late, it has greatly improved my ability to effectively get blog posts written! I honestly cannot remember where I…
