Originally Posted by doive

just a minor point (no pun intended) but i'm slightly contesting greensleeves being dorian mode. The 'first part' of the melody (before it jumps up to the higher bit) opens using b6's and also include natural 7's thay doesn't strike me as very dorian, much closer to melodic minor where the flattening/sharpening of 6/7's depends on the direction of melodic movement.

I disagree that mixo should be included in it's own dominant setting - the point of the classification between minor/major as far as i'm concerned is as to whether it fits into minor/major pentatonics. mixo fits entirely into major so should be included in major. If you start putting everything in into it's own category of dominant, b5 etc. you are just naming the modes.

i wonder whether including a common vamp that's specific to each mode might help?
e.g. Dorian = Am7 D9

Originally Posted by doive

Yes i agree you should know it as both as well but in the context of this classification introducing something other than major/minor seems a little silly. For example you wouldn't decide when grouping things into animals or plants to include a 3rd category of fish.

Originally Posted by doive

in the same way simply calling dorian Minor doesn't fully describe it, but if you (as i read the original thing) are trying to classify everything into minor/major (with an outsider) then i would put it as major. putting mixo in it's own dominant category defeats the purpose of putting them in categories in the first place, each mode is in it's own category really, it can just help to group them.

Originally Posted by GuitarMunky

No, not exactly the same way. The significance of the b7 over a Major chord is greater than the N6 over a minor in terms of function/categorization. Also, dominant chords are a category. In my experience mixolydian is associated with that category. In school I often heard professors referring to mixolydian as the dominant scale.



So no, referring to mixolydian as being dominant does not defeat the purpose of categorizing modes. It does exactly what it's intended to do.... it describes the type of scale.

Originally Posted by isaac_bandits

But then shouldn't locrian be considered half-diminished?

Originally Posted by GuitarMunky

Are you saying that mixolydian shouldn't be categorized as being dominant? That was the context of my points. If you disagree with my points, in the context I presented them in, I'm open to hearing your reasoning.

And I do understand what your trying to do with the locrian question. I've seen locrian referred to as a minor scale, and as a diminished scale. To be honest I've never seen it categorized on the 7th chord level, but certainly locrian is associated with diminished triads & half diminished 7th chords.

Originally Posted by isaac_bandits

I was just saying that if mixolydian should be classified as dominant, then it follows that locrian should be classified as half-diminished; If you want to call locrian diminished, then call mixolydian major. You should use either one method or the other, not a hybrid.

Originally Posted by The_Casinator

Don't wear suits for the sake of wearing suits, damnit! Wearing suits is for important things only, like binge drinking.

Originally Posted by guitarlord28

So, does the mode depend on the chord progression, not the lead over it?