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This week we’re taking our Beginner’s Guide To Music Theory to level 3. Strap in and learn to take your understanding of music theory even futher with a detailed look at modes, suspended chords, voicings and deep dives in to tracks that will bring all this learning together.
As with our previous Music Theory course, this one can feel like a steep learning curve, but vital in getting your tracks to stand out, be more varied and grab the listener’s attention.
Although aimed at beginners, this course is definitely one for all abilities to dive into and guaranteed to help inspire and create more interesting tunes.
Go check it out!
I’m a bit confused. After following James Schmidt’s tutorials, the modes were outlined differently to how they were here:
Ionian Mode - Major Scale
Aeolian Mode - Natural Minor
Dorian Mode - D-D, all white notes (Minor scale)
Raise the 6th (other tutorial said to Lower the 3rd and 7th of any scale)
Phrygian, E-E, all white notes (Minor scale)
Lower the 2nd, (other tutorial said also the 3rd, 6th and 7th)
Mixolydian, G-G, all white notes (Major scale)
Lower the 7th
Lydian, F-F, all white notes (Major scale)
Raise the 4th
Locrian, B-B, all white notes (Minor scale)
Lower 2nd and 5th (other tutorial said to Lower 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th)
Dorian, Phrtgian and Locrian are different here. Are both correct?
Hey Gunkel,
Yes we’re both correct. Taking the example of Dorian in reference to the D scale, in James’ video, he’s talking about how to get from D MAJOR to D Dorian. It’s just a different approach to explaining it. His example shows how to go from the D Major (which features an F and C sharp) to get to the D Dorian which is D-D all white notes, on the keyboard . In that case you would lower the 3rd (F sharp down to F) and the 7th (C sharp down to C). But in my example to find the Dorian of any scale, you start with the minor version of that scale and raise the 6th. So if our starting point is D MINOR, which as all the white notes except for a B flat, all we need to do is to raise the 6th and we end up with D-D, all the white notes on the keyboard. Same result, different ways to explain it. I hope that helps.
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Fantastic, thank you Graham!
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Welcome aboard on the forums ! 
