Dorian Ideas?

[deeperquest]

I've been learing this mode and I'm interested in hearing about some good dorian applications (chord progressions, etc.)

Some of the Vets gave some ideas over the weekend, I'd like to add some more :)

[evan_02]

dorian=better than aeolian because b6 is halfstep above 5 which is a chord tone. if you rest on a note that is one half step above chord tone, it begs for resolution and sounds shitty IMO
i also use dorian for dominant7sus4 chords because you don't have to worry about hitting the 3rd, which would clash with the 4th
use dorian over minor7, minor6, dom7sus
also dorian sounds nice in blues-just added 9th and 13th to the minor pent...you could add more notes to dorian for a bluesier sound-add a b5, for example.
there is also a dorian b9 scale that i have yet to find a use for (it's the second mode of melodic minor)
~evan

[deeperquest]

Originally posted by evan_02
dorian=better than aeolian because b6 is halfstep above 5 which is a chord tone. if you rest on a note that is one half step above chord tone, it begs for resolution and sounds shitty IMO
i also use dorian for dominant7sus4 chords because you don't have to worry about hitting the 3rd, which would clash with the 4th
use dorian over minor7, minor6, dom7sus
also dorian sounds nice in blues-just added 9th and 13th to the minor pent...you could add more notes to dorian for a bluesier sound-add a b5, for example.
there is also a dorian b9 scale that i have yet to find a use for (it's the second mode of melodic minor)
~evan .... thx ... :)

[Dave Regio]

Originally posted by evan_02
dorian=better than aeolian because b6 is halfstep above 5 which is a chord tone. if you rest on a note that is one half step above chord tone, it begs for resolution and sounds shitty IMO
i also use dorian for dominant7sus4 chords because you don't have to worry about hitting the 3rd, which would clash with the 4th
use dorian over minor7, minor6, dom7sus
also dorian sounds nice in blues-just added 9th and 13th to the minor pent...you could add more notes to dorian for a bluesier sound-add a b5, for example.
there is also a dorian b9 scale that i have yet to find a use for (it's the second mode of melodic minor)
~evan

My primary scale choice over a basic 12 bar blues progression is the dorian scale. To that I add two notes to really spice it up - the b5 and the maj 3rd.

If all I have to deal with is I-IV-V, there's nothing more I really need. Besides, with my added notes, I can derive four scales: blues, minor pentatonic, major pentatonic and mixolydian (though I don't think of it this way while I'm playing, based on my note choices, those scales are there).

[Dave Regio]

Originally posted by deeperquest
I've been learing this mode and I'm interested in hearing about some good dorian applications (chord progressions, etc.)

Some of the Vets gave some ideas over the weekend, I'd like to add some more :)

A great Dorian application is Miles Davis' So What. Miles solo is predominantly the dorian scale.

16 bars of Dmin7, 8 bars of Ebmin7 and 8 bars of Dmin7

Use the D and Eb Dorian scales.

[evan_02]

Originally posted by Dave Regio


A great Dorian application is Miles Davis' So What. Miles solo is predominantly the dorian scale.

16 bars of Dmin7, 8 bars of Ebmin7 and 8 bars of Dmin7

Use the D and Eb Dorian scales.
and Coltrane's Impressions is the same thing! (different melody though)

[deeperquest]

Originally posted by Dave Regio


A great Dorian application is Miles Davis' So What. Miles solo is predominantly the dorian scale.

16 bars of Dmin7, 8 bars of Ebmin7 and 8 bars of Dmin7

Use the D and Eb Dorian scales. I've just pulled "Kind of Blue" :)

[deeperquest]

Originally posted by evan_02

and Coltrane's Impressions is the same thing! (different melody though) Don't have that yet <adds to "buy" list> :)

[Dave Regio]

Originally posted by evan_02

and Coltrane's Impressions is the same thing! (different melody though)

Isn't Impressions at a faster tempo? I've never heard this one. I just bought Coltrane's Love Supreme.

[evan_02]

impressions is a bit faster, it's no countdown though:eek:

[J the D]

I like to go back and forth between melodic minor and dorian modes on the same tonic with my bass lines and when I add inversions I can walk the bass line anywhere you want to go. It gets to be lots of fun.

[evan_02]

Originally posted by J the D
I like to go back and forth between melodic minor and dorian modes on the same tonic with my bass lines and when I add inversions I can walk the bass line anywhere you want to go. It gets to be lots of fun.
be careful though because dorian has a minon7 and melodic minor has a min/maj7

[J the D]

Originally posted by evan_02

be careful though because dorian has a minon7 and melodic minor has a min/maj7

That's why I specified the harmonic minor. You have that same whole step from 7 to 8. Does not work as well when using the melodic minor.

[evan_02]

Originally posted by J the D


That's why I specified the harmonic minor. You have that same whole step from 7 to 8. Does not work as well when using the melodic minor.
I like to go back and forth between melodic minor and dorian modes on the same tonic
?

[Dave Regio]

Originally posted by evan_02

be careful though because dorian has a minon7 and melodic minor has a min/maj7

I know it's not a purely Dorian idea but...

That's actually an idea I was thinking of experimenting with. The maj7 will add tension (make a V-I resolution over a static chord).

[keano]

Isn't it safe to say for memory purposes that to play A dorian you would play E Aeolian? G dorian = D Aeolian right.

[jeffe]

The Allman Brothers' In Memory of Elizabeth Reed is a great tune to jam over with A Dorian...

[keano]

Still confused. If I play a rhythm in Am can I solo over it using Am Dorian? Or does there have to certain chords used along with the Am rhythm to make it right?

[Janglin_Jack]

To play in Am Dorian I believe you would play the notes of the G Major Scale from A note to A note. Those notes over the Am chord would create a Dorian tonality.

Jack

[keano]

Right but would I have to play any of those notes as chords?

[Janglin_Jack]

If the progression was ii V I, (Am - D - G) and you played the notes of the G major scale A note to A note over the Am chord, you get Dorian. You could play single notes or chords. There would be no reason why you couldn't play triads over the Am chord. I am not a theory expert, so maybe I am just adding to the confusion.

Jack

[Factor]

This is just my take on this.

By Janglin_Jack
To play in Am Dorian I believe you would play the notes of the G Major Scale from A note to A note.

A Dorian is A B C D E F# G, which happens to be the same notes as the G major scale (or G ionian). But, just as you wouldn't play the G major scale from G to G to get that major-scale-feel, you are not required to play the A dorian mode from A to A to get the dorian-scale-feel. The Dorian feel is first and foremost established by the F# over the chord Am. That is, the F# is what seperates the A Dorian from the A Aeolian (aka. natural minor).

To use the F# in the melody over a Am harmony creates this Dorian feel.

The modal scales is related to the harmony (underlying chord), and they do not change their important characteristics if you play the notes within them in a set order.

By keano
Still confused. If I play a rhythm in Am can I solo over it using Am Dorian? Or does there have to certain chords used along with the Am rhythm to make it right?

If there's a rhythm/harmony with the chord Am, you can use the A dorian scale (i.e. A B C D E F# G (not neccessarily in that order)). As a solist you aren't required to supply the harmony with additional chords, besides the extentions one generates with the melody (the melody is sort of an extention added to the chord, F# over an Am7 chords yields a Am7(nat13))


Btw: I'm a LTWFTW (Long Time Watcher First Time Writer). Hope I can contribute somewhat to this great environment of learning here at the Lesson Loft.

[Janglin_Jack]

Factor, great post. I think my first post was something about which distortion pedal was best! LOL

BTW - Your post is well stated. I have been really having trouble with theory and I have been making a real effort to learn more.

Which scale to use is what threw me most. If I understand the original question, it would be how to play Dorion over the Aminor chord.

With that said, I believe the "easy" way to understand the melody/harmony relationship is to play Gmajor scale over Am gives you Dorian. If you play Cmajor scale over Am gives you Aeolian. If you play the Fmajor scale over Am gives you Phrygian.

I am sure there is a better way to look at this, but that has been the only way I can make sense of this information.

So, to get Dorian over Am chord, find some cool phrases to play using the Gmajor scale.

Hopefully Factor can add a more refined description. Again, great post Factor!

Jack

[keano]

Wouldn't playing E Aeolian scales give you A dorian?

[Janglin_Jack]

Keano,

The Diatonic scale relationship of the I - vi Major/Minor relationship is what western music is based upon. So the Gmajor scale has the EXACT sames notes as the Enatural minor scale. So if you know the Gmajor scale, (you also know the E natural minor scale) same notes. That scale is Ionian over Gmajor, and Aeolian over Eminor chords. So yes, if you played the Gmajor/Eminor scale over Am it is Dorian.

I think you always want to relate back to the Major scale. So where you say "can I play E Aeolian over Am", you probably should think in terms of the EXACT same scale but in terms of "Gmajor scale over Am".

I think you have the right scale over the right chord for Dorian. I think the traditional way is to relate it to a Major scale.

Jack

[Poparad]

Originally posted by keano
Still confused. If I play a rhythm in Am can I solo over it using Am Dorian? Or does there have to certain chords used along with the Am rhythm to make it right?

To your first question: yes.

To your second question: yes, sort of. First of all there absolutely has to be an Am chord for in order to be in a dorian, but that's pretty self evident. As for other chords, you can use them, but they aren't necessary.

Modal progressions work best with as few chords as possible; usually 1 or 2. More than that and it tends to loose it's draw to that chord as the tonic. For example, if you have a progression that you want to be in A dorian, but it has a lot of different chords, it's going to sound more like G major (and the same goes for any mode of G major). Modal progressions work best when it's just one chord, or alternating between two chords.

Modes don't have to be used for progressions though. While you can have a song that's modal, it's much more common to use modes as a scale choice over a certain chord. When you begin playing a different scale over each chord in a progression (or thinking about scales from a chord to chord point of view) rather than just playing in one general key over the whole progression, then you are taking a modal approach to scale choices. This is common in syles with chord progressions that move around a lot and don't stick to one key.

[Poparad]

Originally posted by Factor
Btw: I'm a LTWFTW (Long Time Watcher First Time Writer). Hope I can contribute somewhat to this great environment of learning here at the Lesson Loft.

Great first post. That was exactly what I was just about to reply with until I read your response.

[Poparad]

Originally posted by keano
Wouldn't playing E Aeolian scales give you A dorian?

Yes, technically. G major, A dorian, B phrygian, C lydian, D mixolydian, E aeolian, and F# locrian all have the same notes. They are all derrived from the key of G major. However, A dorian is only A dorian when the harmony is an Am chord. The harmony is the most crucial deciding factor in determining the right name for a mode, or what group of notes you want to play over that chord. Modal playing is based around harmony and not scales.

The note F# sounds a certain way over a G major chord. That same F# sounds much different on a D major chord, and again it's different on a C major chord. This is what modes are really about: it's how all 7 notes sound against a particular harmony. A aeolian has a different sound from A dorian, and this is why you would choose one over the other. There's only one note difference between the two, but they have a different sound because of this.

[LosBoleros]

Originally posted by deeperquest
I've been learing this mode and I'm interested in hearing about some good dorian applications (chord progressions, etc.)


Try this as a simple example:

Dm/G7

At first you would think that its in the key of D minor but wait... in D minor, the G is G minor not G7. Now the Key of A minor has all the right notes. If we play the A minor scale but using the D note as the tonal center we can call this D Dorian. It's like playing a modified D minor Scale in which we raise the 6.

[Factor]

What really opened my eyes regarding to the whole mode/one-scale-per-chord thing, was to pratice modes, not only in a derivative fashion (A dorian is derived from the G major scale, E phrygian from Cmaj and so on), but also in a parallel fashion.

Learning the modal scales parallelly forces you to examine the intervallic structure of the individual and internalise it in a much more rewarding way. Playing with modes parallelly is to me the _REAL_ modal playing. This way you can jump in and out of A dorian, A phrygian, A Aeolian and perhaps some insane A phrygian dominant, provided that the underlying harmony is simple enough to encompass all these modal scales.

"So What" has been referred to as a great modal piece. Why? The harmony is _simple and slow_ enough to let the solist explore the various modal sounds over a chord (for Dm7, there's D dorian D aeolian, D phrygian and proabably some scale of the melodic minor which I haven't really got into yet). Basically what varies is the 6'th scale degree, between b6(aeolian) and 6 (dorian) and the 2'nd scale degree, between b2(phrygian) and 2(dorian/aeolian).

In fact you could just vary the "insignificant" notes in the scale (ie. 2'nd, 4'th, sometimes even the 5'th, and 6'th degree), and augment/raise them or diminish/lower them as you fit. This is what I percieve as the essence of modal scales.
--

Dm -> G7 is not a modal progression as I view it. Due to the fact that it does not resolve back to the modal tonic Dm.

But if it is slow enough, you could vary the melody over Dm modally, and likewise with the G7. But the chances are that this is not such a progression.

If I were to solo over that progression, I would most likely use C major (aka C ionian). Perhaps I would use a more outside scale over the dominant to create extra tension, but basically I would look at it as a ii - V7 (- I ) progression.

[edeltorus]

Hm.. just a thought:

When I play over diatonic progressions I can play three different minor pentatonics over it. Pentatonic playing is relative easy and we're used to it, so to some degree we feel when things just sounds right, and when not.

In the example we've discussed that would be a choice of a-minor, the b-minor and the e-minor. One of them will feel and sound more natural than the others, In this case the a-minor.


If it turns out, that the pentatonic of my choice is played over the dorian chord I also call the entire progression dorian.

I know it's technically wrong, but it makes sense to me. Anyone else?

[vote4dicktaid]

Here are the two main ways of percieving modal scales:

Originally posted by LosBoleros

If we play the A minor scale but using the D note as the tonal center we can call this D Dorian.


Originally posted by LosBoleros


It's like playing a modified D minor Scale in which we raise the 6.


The latter is, to me, by far the most musical (Factor talked about this in his latest post as well)
:cool: