Sure thing. When one modifies the parallel major scale to make it a dorian scale structure, one flats the 3rd and 7th. To create the parallel aeolian (parallel natural minor), one flats the 6th as well. Thus the major 6th remaining major is a significant characteristic of dorian, giving it a brighter sound relative to aeolian, phrygian, and locrian, each having a darker sound in turn.
Alternatively one can look at dorian relative to aeolian, in which case one raises the minor sixth to a major sixth.
A Aeolian
A B C D E F G
A Dorian
A B C D E F# G
You will come to find that minor scale harmony opens up a lot of flexibility in sound, and that the 6th and the 7th are primary moving pieces.
D Dorian
1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7
D E F G A B C
do re me fa so la te
D Aeolian (aka D Natural Minor, D Descending Melodic Minor, Relative Minor in the Key of F Major)
1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7
D E F G A Bb C
do re me fa so le te
It still gets me that mix of parallel/realative in anglosaxon and german mus. terminology…
Anyway. I may add that bringing up the conception of relative scales we can say that D-dorian is relative to F-lydian. Just like ionian and aeolian combined give us major-minor metascale, we also can speak about lydian-dorian metascale. It actually have some sence. Dorian (as an analogue of minor) sounds a bit sad but not as sad as natural minor. It’s not as ‘straight’ sad (I don’t know good english word for that, sorry…). And lydian is not as ‘straightforward’ happy as natural major, it has more airy quality. This couple often could be found in jazz where melody played in lydian over a major chord and in dorian over a minor chord is a common thing.
So raised 4th in lydian becomes raised 6th in relative dorian.
Certainly helps if one has lydian nailed. (Major scale with a raised fourth–no “avoid” note–if folks are keeping score.) Given how my practice band rebelled when I tried to introduce the raised fourth to them, I suspect most folks here are more comfortable with the major scale as a starting point. I’m not well versed in the Russell’s Lydian Chromatic method (or approach?), but most of the modern chordscale pedagogy owes something to it, or so I understand.
Anyhow, if folks want to bring up the other modes of the major scale, one might want to consider them in their order from most consonant to least consonant:
The best way i’ve found for myself to hear the modes is just vamp a minor or major chord not including the seventh and play the parallel minor sounding scales modes and then major sounding modes back to back with each other. In this way you train your ear to hear the difference sounds that each one brings to the table so to speak.
@RockStarJazzCat After considering your explanation for a few days (slow student ) the D Dorian raising the 6th to a Major is also what Steve Vai and others refer to as “The Blues Scale”. With that in mind, if we take a song such as Crossroads by Cream, Clapton is (kind of) playing a minor scale over a Major 1 4 5 progression. Therefore, was raising the 6th “necessary” to map to the D Major 4 chord in the 1 4 5 progression? Does Dorian need a foundational Major progression to ‘work’?
You will start to see concepts that overlap all over the place, and that’s great.
The Dorian mode exists as a sound on it’s own. It doesn’t require some other foundation.
I would have to see what Steve Vai was presenting to assess properly, but typically one doesn’t describe that particular degree as the blue note that makes The Blues Scale what it is.
Major Pentatonic:
1 2 3 5 6
Minor Pentatonic
1 b3 4 5 b7
Minor Blues Scale
1 b3 4 b5 5 b7
Major Blues Scale
1 2 b3 3 5 6
Dorian Mode
1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7
As you can see, the Major Blues scale and Dorian Mode contain a lot of the same ingredients, but it’s the b3 that I would describe as the blue note in this case. The natural 3rd’s inclusion precludes the Blues Scale as a subset of Dorian, but it’s definitely true that the major pentatonic structures comprise a natural sixth.
And with regard to diminishing the seventh (flatting what is already flat) of a minor pentatonic scale, that yields a natural sixth degree, which is common in the playing of BB King, and many many others, that’s what you sleuthed out in the Clapton. So excellent that you caught that. Slightly different concept, but run with the analysis for sure. This is where applied theory can be a source of great power. (Use it wisely. )
Definitely true that the Minor 6 Pentatonic overlays the Dorian mode…
Minor 6 Pentatonic
1 b3 4 5 6
I recommend looking at your dorian scale structure starting with a minor seventh structure, and filling out the notes in between. Here’s an example in the Key of G:
I’ve read it. Some interesting ideas, but very ideosyncratic.
Basically he gets the idea of building scales by moving up in 5th (the way we get more and more sharps in key signature) but starting with lydian. Then he tries to put lydian as a foundation instead of major, though sometimes it looks a bit far-fetched.
I’d have to see it too to see the context here, but noting that Dorian certainly can be used to play blues (and, like, have it sound fairly traditional, rather than the “I mean, I guess, if you really wanted to, you could use ANY scale to play blues…” sense), I’m not sure I agree.
I guess I look at it from this perspective - a lot of what makes “blues” sound like what it does is the blurring of the line between major and minor. There’s a lot of ways to do this, especially on a guitar where we can quite literally play “blue notes” that are bent to fall somewhere between a major and minor third, but the gist of it is, from my perspective at least, is that when you’re taking a blues solo, start first by thinking in terms of chord tones and then second in terms of whether you want to lean more on the major or more on the minor side of the tonality as an additional way to play with tension in a solo.
So, from that standpoint, I wouldn’t think of the D Dorian scale as a scale to use to create a bluesy vibe in a solo in the key of D (though it certainly is capable of doing so), so much as looking at the major 6th in D as a way to ad a little bit more of a major tonality to the I chord, or as the major 3rd of the IV chord (to a lesser extent maybe as the major 9th of the V chord, as well). You don’t HAVE to play the major 6th in a major-leaning blues vamp, rather whether you do or not should be a factor of how you’re choosing to bend the overall tonality more or less to the major key.
Idunno. One of the worst lessons I’ve read on the 'net presented somethign the author termed the “mixo-blues scale,” which they derrived by noting that blues soloing often uses the minor pentatonic, but with an added major 3rd, flat 5th, and major 6th. I saw it, even like fifteen or twenty years ago where I was a less educated musician than I am today, as a titanic example of missing the forest through the trees, because those added pitches to the blues scale (minor pentatonic but with an added b5) weren’t really functioning as “scalar” notes so much as chord tones from the underlying harmony, and when they were added was hugely important. Like, you wouldn’t do scale runs of this pattern, because it wasn’t like a top-down thing where the harmony was being derived from the scale, it was a bottom up thing where these were outside chord tones being incorporate into the scale.
Heck, even the “blues scale” is kinda a dubious way of thinking about blues, IMO - I took lessons from a rather good jazz guitarist back in college (which, frankly, as a blues/rock and shred guy he was probably wasted on me) whose personal thought was the b5 was incorporated in no small part because that would take a 5 note scale and make it a 6 note scale, which was way easier to play triplet or shuffle runs with. I guess thinking of my own playing I tend to use it more as a chromatic passing note added into a pentatonic minor scale than something I’d ever do as a straight scale run, and maybe thinking of it less as a scale unto itself and more as an outside passing tone is probably an interesting and potentially useful jumping off point to think about adding other non-pentatonic notes into your blues playing.
You are free to speak for yourself, but you are not qualified in my mind to collectively speak for jazz musicians. Indeed, no single person can speak for them, and I suspect that they are more likely than the average musician to have a high diversity of opinion in their ranks.
Finally, while you might assume that I use the word “bored” in a negative way, it reflects how a real jazz musician (he dropped out of computer science PhD and gets paid for gigs and teaching [and sells records]) basically described himself. Are all jazz musicians bored? No! Are some bored? Yes… that is the nature of diversity, and one model does not fit all.
Rest assured, I speak for myself, and not without qualification to speak on the subject. The point stands. Seriously, if you respect jazz, and if it is at all interesting to you, I would suggest you increase your sample size, think twice about referring to “they” and “them,” and please avoid comparing jazz musicians (of which I am but one) to drug addicts*.
Among other things, you wrote, “people like John Coltrane sound like fingernails on a chalk-board to me” in a discussion centered around exploring the Dorian mode! The two most common introductions to the same, Impressions and So What, both feature Coltrane. Without the circumstances in jazz leading to the creation of those works, the chance of this thread existing in the first place is extremely low.
*Folks interested in just how “loaded” doing so can be, may appreciate the discussion of Billy Holiday’s experience as described in Chasing the Scream, about which more can be found here… http://chasingthescream.com
Please remember that the next time you feel tempted to make a disparaging comment about premature improvisation and how guitarists should really stick to learning songs. It’s the nature of diversity, and one model does not fit all.
With all due respect, you’ve crossed the line between having an opinion, and being straight-up antagonistic and offensive here.
Your opinion is that players should not focus on improvisation. This is not a majority-held opinion among musical educators, and engaging in frankly extremely offensive hyperbole is not likely to win you many converts.
Hey I just joined today and I really enjoyed reading this conversation. I wanted to comment on a couple things and if this was mentioned and I missed it I apologize.
First “key” is identified by the key signature and the relationship between the Dominate and the root approaching the cadence.
The group of notes that are used to create C major has no accidentals. Those are grouped because of the relationships around C.
I IV and V are going to find a major 3rd and perfect 5th they are major. Compared to the F major and G Major F has a raised 4th (augmented) G has a minor 7 which is important because of the voice leading explained next.
Since G7 is G B D F and C major is C E G the G7 pulls to the C.
Notes either stay move a half step of disappear in a pleasant sounding progression. G7 moves to C because B becomes C, F becomes E.
ii, iii, vi have a minor 3rd and perfect 5th. ii has 2 notes different from its major scale, vi has 3, and iii has 4. vi is called natural minor but if you take 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 from any of the minor modes you will have the minor pentatonic.
vii is diminished with the flat 5.
These are not new scales they are modes because they allow you to add out of the box notes to season your solo. I think that 6 is natural minor because the b2 is harsh in connection to the raised 7.
Harmonic minor is what had to be done to create the major minor 7 chord for the dominant. The major 3 in the dominant is the leading tone that moves up the the root as the 7 of the dominant moves down to the 3. Harmonic minor is a scale with its own modes but it was created to make the perfect cadence possible which is important to theory nerds.
When you think of modes just realize that you know how a half step after the root adds this tension to the line so you know the flavor of that spice. Jazz guys often play a scale with a b3 and call it melodic minor even though they may never use the flat 6 & 7. Pay attention to how the notes sound so you can use them if you want. Joe Pass said “All the notes can be played, but they all can’t be sat on. Good luck
) the D Dorian raising the 6th to a Major is also what Steve Vai and others refer to as “The Blues Scale”. With that in mind, if we take a song such as Crossroads by Cream, Clapton is (kind of) playing a minor scale over a Major 1 4 5 progression. Therefore, was raising the 6th “necessary” to map to the D Major 4 chord in the 1 4 5 progression? Does Dorian need a foundational Major progression to ‘work’?