... it's useful to try and differentiate two different kinds of music, distinguished (mainly) by how chords are used.
Type 1 - the most familiar to fans of classical, jazz standards (pre-1960) and pop - is "functional harmony".
This is music that is written in a major or minor
key (or sometimes both alternately); uses chords built in 3rds (1-3-5-7 etc, known as "tertian" harmony); and strings those chords together in "progressions" with a kind of narrative logic or momentum - chords clearly "leading" from one to the next, with the expectation - after various excursions through dissonance - of finally arriving at the "tonic" (I chord).
Type 2 - "modal harmony".
This is typified by early "modal jazz", and has a lot in common with Indian raga, and various other kinds of ethnic music. Rock music also uses many of its qualities, although often not strictly applied. (One of the problems in analysing rock is the way it combines elements of both these approaches to harmony - as does most contemporary jazz.)
As Chris says, an archetypal example of this kind of music is Miles Davis "So What", on his seminal "Kind of Blue" album. It consists of one chord held for 16 bars, then another a half-step up for 8 bars, then the first chord again for another 8 bars. Except it isn't really a "chord" in the sense of a fixed stack of notes. The main mode is D dorian (with the bridge in Eb dorian), and the chords played (by pianist Bill Evans) are various collections of notes from the scale - most commonly stacked in 4ths and 2nds rather than the 3rds of "functional" harmony. We tend to call these chords "sus" chords of various kinds - but that's borrowing from the language of tertian chord terminology.
(There are examples of classical music with a similar feel, such as Ravel's "Bolero", although describing them as "modal" would not be strictly correct in classical terms. True modal music is the stuff that
preceded key-based classical music, in the middle ages, and had different rules. IOW, when we use "modal" to talk about jazz or rock - or any one-chord groove-based music, we need to understand it's really a misnomer. "Impressionist" would be a better word - but "modal" is what we're stuck with!)
Modal music of this "pure" kind (in the modern "impressionist" sense) has a clearly different mood and feel from functional harmonic progressions. It sounds "cool", or "introspective", with a "groove" or "drone". Think of Indian ragas, which focus on a single mood, and explore it for several minutes. Or of Scots bagpipe music, where the instrument itself sets up its own drone. There is no "progression" in this music; the harmony is "static". The movement is all in the melody and rhythm.
Chords in this kind of music (if there are chords at all) don't have "functions" - in terms of jobs to do in making a progression move forward - because there is no progression! Chords really have no job at all, other than to pick out various notes in the mode for colour.
....
So the point here - in learning how modes are "applied" - is to first identify what kind of music it is you are hearing. Is it modal music? Or is it in a key?
With rock, this question is often impossible to answer, other than by saying "a bit of both".
Take a classic and influential pop song: Martha and the Vandellas "Dancing in the Street", dating from a time (1964) when "rock" music (as we know it) was barely a gleam in Keith Richards' eye....
It begins with a long vamp on one chord, a repeated horn riff giving way to a vocal verse on the same chord. The writers (William Stevenson and Martin Gaye) probably wouldn't thought of it this way, but it is an example of "mixolydian mode": a major chord, with a clear flattened 7th in the riff and vocal melody. Although it's clearly the key chord (tonic), it's not a major key (because that would require a major 7th).
The other thing that makes it "modal" is simply the fact that the chord doesn't change -
for a long time. It's happy to just groove along on that one (E7).
Eventually, tho, it gives way to a
sequence of other chords. To begin with ("all we need is music") it moves to A - and this could be interpreted in two ways: the IV of E mixolydian mode; or maybe that E7 was the V of A major all along, just waiting for its tonic? (If you were really wedded to major key theory, and knew nothing of modes, that's probably how you'd see it.)
The next chord sequence, however, finally confirms E as key centre: G#7 (V/vi) - C#m (vi) - F#7 (V/V) - F#m7 (ii) - B7 (V). That's a classic progression in E major: although it contains two secondary dominants (G#7, F#7), it leads back inexorably to that mixolydian E7 chord of the verse.
This became a common template for rock music: mixolydian groove for the verse (often with a repeated riff), major key progression for the chorus. The advantage of this "one-two, left-right" punch is that you get a danceable, hypnotic groove for the verse, to get you on your feet, then you get a singalong hook for the chorus (because key-based sequences are a good basis for hook melodic phrases). The Beatles did this kind of thing time and again; Lennon and Harrison were both devotees of mixolydian mode (tho they didn't know it had a name of course), while McCartney was more fond of old-fashioned key harmony.
The classic mixolydian rock song is "Gloria" - consisting of only one chord (E) or rather a riff including passing D and A chords. Another is "All Right Now" (Free), in A mixolydian (chord riff includes G and D).
But many others have a strong mixolydian flavour, before bringing in chords from the parallel major key: such as "Hard Days Night", "Satisfaction", "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Sweet Child o' Mine".
Theorist Alan Pollack has coined the phrase "mixolydian major" to describe this common mode-key mixture (neither one nor the other, but both).
....
IOW, when we think of "D dorian mode", associating it with C major is potentially misleading. You can
derive it that way (as Chris says), but the way it
works (as he also says!
) is as a kind of D minor scale.
The common confusion is to think we need to "apply" or "use" D dorian mode when we see a Dm chord in a C major key progression. We don't. In that context, Dm is merely the ii chord in C ionian mode. (Ionian mode being essentially the same thing as the major
key.) The scale is C major; the tonic is C; the chord doesn't last long enough to have a "D dorian" sound.
But if we have a piece of music based wholly or mainly on a Dm chord, then D dorian mode may be an option (alongside either D aeolian or - less likely - D phrygian). I say "may" be an option because most likely the mode will be established by the melody, or chord voicings used.
Eg, in Miles "So What", D aeolian and phrygian would probably sound wrong, but more importantly would be beside the point. The tune is
written in D dorian mode. To say it's "in key of D minor" is not quite right - unless you say "in key of D, dorian mode" (dorian mode on a D keynote). To say it's "in key of C major" (because it uses all the white notes) is quite wrong!
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