I keep beating this drum but it’s 100x easier to visualize the mode intevals changing by learning these with a piano keyboard.
Ionian mode - all the white keys starting at C.
Dorian - all the white keys starting at D.
etc etc
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I know my modes pretty well, for quite some time now.
Your cheat sheet confuses the hell out of me!
Now, I am not saying it sucks, or is bad in anyway, but
The whole LIMDAP, I don’t get it.
The phrases and slogans, sure, I can read 5hem, they are cute.
Where is Locrain?
Again, I probably need to have a little more direction for this th be helpful o me. And if you can give it, it would be a good tool to help others understand modes. And I would bass it on, but, I need to get it to be able to explain it.
Maybe you or somebody can spell it out for me?
Or maybe 5hat Video. I am going to check it out now
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My first instrument was the piano, so whenever I think about scales or chords, I visualize them on a keyboard. I don’t even know if I would have understood any of the music theory using fretboards only.
Having said that, people’s brains work differently. Everyone should use whatever works for them - visualizing keyboards, visualizing fretboards, using mnemonics, cheat sheets, sacrificing goats… If it works for you, then it’a a good method.
For example I made up my own way of remembering how many sharps and flats there are in any key, and which notes are sharp/flat in any key. It only takes me a second or two to find the answer. But I’ve never seen that method mentioned anywhere, so it probably only works for my twisted self-taught mind, and others would just pull their hair out.
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So I like this chart really only as a way to help me remember how each mode is one note different from the basic major or minor scale. When you are reading/watching lessons on modes, it feels like an exhausting amount of information. This chart made me realize that 1) The basics of it isn’t too much info 2) If you know the major and minor scales you already know most of it 3) Cute little ways to help you remember the new info.
The LIM DAP thing is supposed to help you remember which is major and minor but I made my own little corney thing to remember it: “my FRIDGE DOOR has MINOR problems. My MIXER LID has MAJOR problems.” So if I need to play something in Dorian I know it I should take my minor scale and alter it by one note.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but most of the lessons I’ve seen about Locrain is that it is it’s own beast to learn and not a very useful mode. As someone trying to first learn the modes we should be aware it exists and come back to it later if we are curious.
To me what this chart simply helped by organizing the info in a way that seemed manageable. There are seven modes, ignoring Locrain for now makes it 6. The major and minor scales are two of them so now you are down to 4 that you need to learn. Those 4 only vary by one note from scales you already know, meaning if you know the major and minor scales, you are 4 notes away from knowing the modes (at least how to play them if not fully understanding the theory). I took their little sayings to remember those 4 changed notes and made them things I can easily remember.
So I guess while typing this I realized if you want a full and true understanding of the modes, this chart isn’t the best way to learn it. You should learn how it is all built from the major scale and how the interval changes to make that happen… but if you want to learn it based off your existing knowledge of major and minor so you can easily jam along with the different modes, that chart got me there quickly. So other things are better for learning the theory correctly, this was good for getting me jamming quickly, which in turn is helping me see the bigger picture.
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Yes! For me I needed to hear as many different ways of looking at it before a mixture of them all clicked in my own head. Seeing it on a keyboard and knowing D Dorian is just white keys staring from D did help get me the full picture, but it alone sure didn’t get me there. I have no doubt some of you are reading my post and it makes no sense to you, but it works in my brain. Hopefully some part of what I posted helps the puzzle pieces fit into someone else’s brain.
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I’m in this camp too. I learned music theory looking at a piano keyboard so those are the shapes I’m used to seeing and use to remember everything. For me what makes it visually easier to keep track of is the organization of the white and black keys. On the fretboard there’s no visual marker showing me which notes are in the category of sharps and flats.
As @howard points out, the C scale on the piano, all the white keys contains the formula for all the modes. If you start on C and step up the white keys, it’s a whole step every time you hop a black key and it’s a half step when you don’t (between B/C and E/F). So, if I forget the formula for a major scale (Ionian mode) I can just start on C and watch the black keys go by as I go up . . . Whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. I can now start on any note and follow that pattern up to get a major scale anywhere.
If I forget the formula for Dorian mode (starts on the second degree of the scale) . . . I can use the C scale again, all the white keys and start stepping up from D. Watching the black keys go by I get . . . Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half, Whole. I can now start on any note and follow that pattern up and I know I’ll be in Dorian mode. So on bass a whole step is 2 frets and a half step is one fret. I can start on any note on the fretboard and to play in Dorian mode the pattern of notes up from my starting point is, 2 frets, 1 fret, 2 frets, 2 frets, 2 frets, 1 fret, 2 frets.
To get the formula for Phygian, do the same thing by using the C scale and start counting up from the 3rd degree of the scale, E.
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It’s possible that it’s easier for us to visualize it this way because we all have keyboards backgrounds… but I doubt it. I think it is just legitimately easier to visualize on a keyboard 
It doesn’t get you all the way there, but it gets you close.
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I think that’s true. After I learned the major scale shape on bass, that’s how I think of it in that context. I don’t think of the piano keyboard any more for that one. I’d never find the Dorian mode shape on the bass without thinking about it on piano first.
However, when I play the major scale shape on the fretboard, I don’t get the same insight into how it fits into the music theory patterns. Jumping strings causes me to lose context of the whole/half relationships. I don’t know if I ever would have understood the big picture view as well without seeing the entire scale more visually organized in a straight line. I think it could be possibly helpful for some to look a keyboard when learning theory.
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When playing scales (using 1FPF), going from pinky to index on neighboring strings is a whole step. Remembering that has helped me a bit. But yeah, other than that it’s just shape memorization.
To be fair though, even on the piano it’s only simple and intuitive when you’re dealing with C major and its relative modes. If you start on any other key then it’s going to be a mix of black and white keys, and that’s memorization again, same as on bass.
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For me, I have learned and memorized C major on the fretboard (for a 4 string). So I can start from any note in that scale and follow it to the root note again and know I played the mode (relative mode to c major).
Don’t play keys, but white keys being natural notes and black being sharps/flats does simplify things to understand theory, but not necessarily how it applies to bass.
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I’ve read this thread twice so far…and while there is a flicker of light, going off in the distant part of the still dark tunnel that is my mind, the connections have still not been made
I love how many different ways you guys came up with to make it click though!
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True. I only use it as a memory aid for the pattern because I can easily picture it. As @kerushlow points out I still have to translate to a bass shape.
There are so many ways to look at these things. Every time someone describes to me one of their insights or how they think about it I always learn something new.
Another way to think about it is where on the scale are you going to anchor the song, what note is going to be home. The first thing we learn and the most common is to start and end on the first note of the major scale being the root note. It’s always easiest to illustrate with C scale since we don’t have to deal with accidentals.
CDEFGABC are the notes. C is the I (one). D is the ii (two) and so on. This is Ionian mode (major scale).
If we keep the same note set and change where we start and end, it’s a different mode.
For Dorian we start on the 2, so the note set becomes . .
DEFGABCD
Same notes, same order, different starting point.
Weirdly, this matters. It changes the entire mood of the composition.
As an example, Scarborough Fair is in D Dorian. It sounds very different than a tune in C major, but uses the same note set.
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Sure! Here is an example that you can actually apply on the bass.
Play C major on your bass. Ok. After you do that do it again, BUT skip playing the first C. Instead play that first D to start. Just pretend you are playing c major but skipped c and still played the D and you are going to keep playing the rest of the scale. Play the rest of the scale, but instead of stopping on that octave of the C, play ONE MORE note and go to that octave of the first D you played.
If you did this, you just played the mode D Dorian.
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OK, this is perhaps my last ever post here, as I seem to go crazy with the tunings and my ears… for me, this is in E Dorian… I don’t know anymore…
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OK, it might be in this performance. I didn’t actually check it and I don’t have perfect pitch. It’s certainly Dorian! I learned it in D, probably because it’s easier 
And I thought this would be such a clean example. I checked a version on my phone with chord tracker and it came up E as well.
Nonetheless, same notes as a major scale with a different starting point gives different mood.
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So the reason this is easier with a piano keyboard has nothing to do with any scale besides C. No one is saying that learning the modes is easier in all keys on piano. All I said was, this is easier to visualize the modes on a piano than anywhere else.
This is because using the modes of the C Major scale, it is immediately visually obvious what happens to the modal intervals as you change modes.
Just looking at the interval chart here:
You see how the intervals shift as you move up the scale degrees of the modes? That is exactly what it looks like on a piano keyboard, looking at the modes as scale degrees of CMaj.
And those interval patterns are really about the only thing that matters about the different modes. Those are what define the tonal characteristics of each mode and makes them different from each other.
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It’s very interesting. The oldest and most common is Major sounds “happy” while minor sounds “sad”. Kind of a raise your hand if you’ve heard that, kinda thing. The interesting thing is “why?”. Why does major sound happy while minor sounds sad? The answer is in the intervals. I’ll explain.
C major and C minor. How are they different? They share some notes in common. So it is the notes they DON’T share that create the difference. Which notes are those? It is the 3rd (E in major) he 6th(A in major) and 7th (B in major). In C minor those 3 notes are a half step down or made “flat”. So C minor IS C major except it has a flat 3, flat 6 and flat 7!
With that explained, now we can get into the “why” it sounds “sad” compared to major. When you make a note flat (Lower)it tends to sound darker. If you make the note sharp (higher) it tends to sound brighter. By making 3 intervals in the c scale flat, you are making it sound darker.
Alternately you have Lydian. How is C Lydian different from C major? Well it has all of the same notes…except for the fourth (F in major) which is made SHARP (F# in Lydian). Because the only difference relative to C Major is one interval which was made sharp (higher) Lydian sounds brighter and happier than major.
I am explaining it the best I can. Does this make sense?
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Luke from Become a Bassist just posted this handy video about identifying modes by ear. He also offers a downloadable PDF guide to the modes.
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Luke has great videos on modes, he is the first one to get it all to click for me. Thanks for sharing, watching now.
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