People tend to make modes far more complex than they really are.

My first encounter with modes was in a series of articles on music theory as it applies to the guitar in The Guitar Review, a very high quality magazine put out maybe once or twice a year by the New York Classic Guitar Society. The article on modes was clear and concise (the series came out in the the mid-1950s, but I may still have my copies of it around). One article in the series started by explaining the structure of the major scale, then went on to show how the minor scales and its three variations, natural, harmonic, and melodic, differed from the major scale and from each other. The following article did the same thing, but this time with the modes. I added modes to my regular scale practice.

Although the article commented that modes were never harmonized, at least in the modern sense of the word, I figured "why not?" and proceeded to build chords on the notes of the modal scales. Nothing unusual. Just regular major and minor chords. But I came up with some very interesting combinations of chords.

I have a friend who sings with a medieval choir, and every now and then they hold workshops on medieval music, mainly so those in the choir know what they are doing. The word "modal" kept coming up in rehearsals and in the workshops. She mentioned to me that she wished they would hold a workshop on modes. I said, "Well, it's not very complicated. I can explain modes to you in about a half-hour."

"Oh, no!" she insisted. "It's complicated!"

I tried to show her that it wasn't, but she would have none of it. "It's too complicated It can't be as simple as you say it is!"

She approached the choir director and suggested that they hold a workshop on modes. The choir director told her, "It's not very complicated. I can explain modes to you in about a half-hour."

She's very frustrated. She still doesn't understand modes. She's convinced that they're at least as complex as quantum physics and she refuses to believe that if she'd just shut her mouth and listen, she could learn all about modes in about half an hour.

But it probably is a good idea to conduct a workshop on the subject and see if the idea that modes are beyond human comprehension can be dispelled.

Don Firth