Modes
The eight modes in the order William Moersch teaches them: by how far each one bends away from the major scale. Pick a tonic, choose a step of the exercise, and press play to hear it at your tempo while the notes light up.
C, one mode at a time
Most books list the modes in white-key order, Ionian on C, Dorian on D, and so on, each with its own pattern of whole and half steps. Prof. Moersch orders them instead by their degree of alteration from the major scale, and adds one synthetic mode, Lydian ♭7, to make an even eight.
Start from the major scale with nothing changed. Lydian raises one note, the fourth. From there the modes grow flatter one note at a time: Mixolydian lowers the seventh, Dorian the third as well, Aeolian the sixth, Phrygian the second, and Locrian the fifth, until five of the seven notes are lowered. Heard in this order the scale bends slightly sharp, comes back, and then darkens step by step.
Everything on this page keeps that progression in view: raised notes are gold and lowered notes are blue, in the grid, in the labels, and in the notation itself. Each pitch level carries the key signature of its tonic's major scale, so the accidentals you see are exactly the alterations Moersch describes.
The exercise is from his handout Modes (Version 3.0) for the percussion studio at the University of Illinois, where Dr. Shuey studied with him. One octave is written in quarter notes, two in eighth notes, three in eighth-note triplets, so every scale takes seven beats; the lowest notes are written under 8vb and the highest under 8va. Set the metronome to quarter notes.
Tonic
Step
Octaves
Spelling
The eight modes, one alteration at a time
Read down the grid: one raised note, then the lowered notes pile up until Locrian has five.
| Mode | Scale degrees, altered from major | Notes in C | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ionianno alterations | 1234567 | ||
| Lydian1 alteration | 123♯4567 | ||
| Lydian ♭72 alterations | 123♯456♭7 | ||
| Mixolydian1 alteration | 123456♭7 | ||
| Dorian2 alterations | 12♭3456♭7 | ||
| Aeolian3 alterations | 12♭345♭6♭7 | ||
| Phrygian4 alterations | 1♭2♭345♭6♭7 | ||
| Locrian5 alterations | 1♭2♭34♭5♭6♭7 |
One mode at a time
The four steps
Begin slowly, within a single octave, going up and down in the same mode before changing to the next. Then, still within a single octave, go up in one mode and down in the next, all eight modes together. Then transpose that up by half steps until all twelve pitch levels have been completed. The full version links everything without a pause: the descending Locrian stops on its ♭2 and strikes it twice, and that second strike is the new tonic, a half step up, so the whole cycle begins again. The goal is to start on C, in eighth-note triplets, three octaves, at quarter note = 120, and eventually to start on any lower-register pitch.