Quote:
Originally Posted by olsonuf
The only difference, then, between C Major and A minor is that in A minor, you'd start on Aeolian mode.
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I think the "same notes" bits are what confuses a lot of folks because they're thinking of modes as an end in themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BCrowell
While it's certainly true that the same notes are shared between different modes, (such as G-Major/Ionian, A Dorian, C Lydian) the tonal CENTER compared to the defining intervals is what's important when you speak of modes.
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Right. I think this is what gets lost when many folks start learning modes. The key is:
Modes mean nothing unless there is a real or an implied tonal center.
If you're playing notes from "The C Major Scale", but the tonal center is "A", you're really playing in A Minor. Likewise, you can be playing nothing but the seven notes that make-up "The G-Major Scale", but if the tonal center is going from G to A to C, what you're playing is going from G-Ionian to A-Dorian to C-Lydian mode even though you're not doing anything different.
Ray