Here's a copy of another post, where I tried to explain Modal Basics.
I'm not sure we all understand model concepts... lets talk basics... Key of "C", I'll start with 2nd degree or "D", since I think that's where this thread started.
D dorian, we all know the scale... When we decide to call this collection of notes a mode, rather than a scale, we imply a different harmonic controlling system. For now, we'll keep this modal concept simple... Diatonic. The I chord is always tonic and the most important chord in our new modal world and each of the rest of the chords built on each scale degree of D dorian... is a chord on it's own... All modes have a characteristic pitch, (as we all know), in our D dorian example this pitch would be the 6th degree or "B". So in our D dorian modal world, there are chords with this characteristic pitch and those without.
D-7 tonic chord
E-7 has characteristic chord tone
Fmaj7 no characteristic chord tone
G7 Has C.C.T. but has Tri-tone and will strongly imply Cmaj.
A-7 No C.C.T.
B-7b5 Has C.C.T. but also has Tri-tone and will also strongly imply Cmaj.
Cmaj7 Has C.C.T.
In modal music, I'm talking about Jazz, not church modes or rhythmic modes of 13th century, not 19th and 20th century tonal modal idiom desires to imitate tonal language of 16th century sacred music, folksong having modal features or composers reactions against traditional classical harmony... jazz usage.... were trying to imply or force a chord to be tonic in nature, be the harmonic center of our tonal world. There are many functional forces which force intervals and pitches to stay put or resolve to more stable harmonic collections... If you want more info. check out "Acoustics", the science which deals with the physical aspects of music, Bartholomew's "Acoustics of Music", or Lowerys, "A Guide to Musical Acoustics".
In our example of D dorian, the G7 and the B-7b5 chords have the all powerful Tri-tone which very strongly implies the key of C maj. So if we were trying to imply D dorian we would stay away from those two chords, or be careful how we use them. We would imply our mode, D dorian by calling chords with our characteristic pitch, ( B ), our cadence chords, example of cadence would be...
E-7 to D-7 II-7 to I-7
Cmaj7 to D-7 VIImaj7 to I-7
This is only the starting point of what is implied by calling something modal and is much more useful if you take the time to write out all the examples on your own, rather than be told... but if anyone wants more constructive or working details or help in understanding all the modes, every scale can have modal implication, I'll gladly try... Best Reg ( watch for Jazz Police)
Autumn Leaves (Fingerstyle Chord Melody)
Yesterday, 11:56 PM in Improvisation