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Old 12-07-2017, 03:21 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Also check out classic rock tunes written in modes (although - with one or two exceptions - they didn't know it then ):

MIXOLYDIAN

Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows, She Said She Said, Within You Without You (most of it), Norwegian Wood (first section), If I Needed Someone (verse). (Lennon and Harrison both loved that mode. McCartney not so much, although he succumbed in the coda to Hey Jude.)
Stones - The Last Time, Sympathy for the Devil (verse, not chorus).
Free - All Right Now
Them - Gloria
Kingsmen - Louie Louie

Mixolydian is extremely common as a verse groove in rock, while choruses often switch to the parallel major key. Some examples above, but also more Beatles, like Hard Days Night. G'n'R Sweet Child o' Mine.

The practice of "mode mixture" is so familiar, in fact, you might not give it a second thought. How many songs do know in key of E major that also contain a D chord? Maybe a G, C or Am too? Breaking rules? Nope - following a rule, called "mode mixture". It combines chords from the major and minor scales on the same keynote. Almost everybody does it, which means it's a "rule".
It means that rock songs which stick to one scale (or mode) are pretty rare. Rock musicians are not interested in theoretical purity! (Well, except on those rare occasions when they are...)

DORIAN

The classic (pure) dorian examples are:
Santana (Tito Puente): Oye Como Va
Miles Davis: So What
Michael Jackson: Thriller
Beatles: Love You To

Otherwise, you get mode mixture examples, where dorian is combined with parallel minor (much like mixolydian gets combined with parallel major):
Van Morrison: Moondance - dorian vamp and verse, minor key pre-chorus and chorus
Santana: Evil Ways - mostly dorian, but a minor key (major) V chord on the end.
Doors: Light My Fire - mixed modes on A, chorus in D, with a (long) A dorian solo; Riders on the Storm - E dorian, with E aeolian chorus.
Pink Floyd: Breathe; Shine on You Crazy Diamond - both open with dorian vamps or grooves, then mix in other modes later.
Beatles: Eleanor Rigby - mixed dorian and aeolian modes on E.

AEOLIAN

This is really the natural minor scale, but is conventionally altered (harmonic and melodic minor) to create the minor "key". So you could say that any minor key song is an example of "mixed mode". Hotel California, House of the Rising Sun, Sultans of Swing - all classic minor key tunes (not modal).
But there are some examples in rock/pop of pure aeolian, for comparison:

Dylan / Hendrix: All Along the Watchtower
Stones: Gimme Shelter
Kate Bush: Running up that Hill
Sade: Smooth Operator
Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit (vocal melody)
REM: Losing My Religion (very brief move to parallel major in the middle)

LYDIAN

Very rare! You get occasional hints of lydian in some tunes, but hardly worth mentioning. The best example of pure (and deliberate) lydian I know in rock is Joe Satriani's 'Flying in a Blue Dream'. It's mainly in C lydian, but moves to Ab lydian, G lydian and F lydian at points. IOW, this is different from "mode mixture", where you mix different modes with the same keynote. This is using the same mode on different keynotes - which is a common modal jazz thing.
George Harrison's 'Blue Jay Way' has a nice lydian moment, when he sings "I may be a-slee-eep", where the last 2 notes are F#-E over a C major chord. Otherwise the rest of the song combines C diminished arpeggios with C major.

PHRYGIAN

Also very rare, except in a few metal riffs (Metallica's Wherever I May Roam), or the occasional use of an F chord to resolve to Em (Moody Blues 'Nights in White Satin', which otherwise mixes E aeolian and dorian).
Pure phrygian:
Pink Floyd: Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun - mostly E phrygian, moving to A phrygian and back.
Slightly less pure:
Clash: London Calling (phrygian verse, aeolian intro and bridge)
Dr Who theme: (E phrygian moving to G major)
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Last edited by JonPR; 12-07-2017 at 03:28 AM.
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