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Modal Theory - Do you incorporate modes in your compositions?and how?
I was playing around with this awesome app chordmaps2 and it got me ..
Curious if any AB users are into modal stuff, ie using modes for their compositions and if you find it useful to break out of the box
More importantly , any tips to seamlessly integrate Different Modes in your composition rather than just one chord for example
I have a good understanding of modes, but I rarely find myself venturing “out of the box” , all the sounds in my head take me to back to Major/minor roadmap
I love playing modes as scales (Phrygian Dominant my fav) , but cant seem to come with any meaningful composition
It fascinates me how many virtuoso composers borrow chords from various modes and then you have the genius Max Martin who repeats the same “boring chords” and makes it sound fresh
On a side note ,
The Beatles could even throw in an augmented and make it sound sexy
Comments
Dorian and Mixolydian sometimes as they’re pretty easy to work with. Tons of songs use them, and the color they provide is very pleasing to the ear.
Your comment about Phrygian Dominant inspired me to look into that scale and construct a progression to work from.
I started by selecting C Phrygian Dominant as my scale and used these scale tones for the chords:
1 - 1 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 4 - 2 - 2
Which yields these chords:
C C Db Db C Fm Db Db
The flat-2 to root has the a powerful cadence since the F drops to E, Db to C and Ab to G.
Really strong tensions get resolved with the smallest movements possible. This 1/2 step relationship shows up in a lot of jazz in harmonic substitutions where the substitute is a tritone away from the usual chord and resolves down the half step rather than the somewhat clunky 5th down cadence. When used liberally the voices never have to jump
great distances and the baselines are more subtle.
These chords and that shift of 1/2 step between the root C and the flat 2nd Db are highly typical of Indian, Eqyptian, Klezmer, Eastern European, Central Asian, and Flamenco music.
Playing with the scale tones C Db E F really brings out these ethnic qualities like the classic snake charmer tunes.
That’s quite skillful, nice ideas and your unconventional thoughts on cadence rather than the traditional ones,….the best I could do is Jam to my hearts content , but I could not come up with any meaningful song structure for an entire song
Modal theory when composing?
Yup.
All the time.
I was kinda looking how to move from the simple and use different modes in same song , rather than borrow one chord
In sense you are absolutely right , but I don’t think many of those composers were thinking modes while composing those mixolydian or Dorian songs
For example throwing b7 major chord has been used to death …
Definitely. At least what I know…
Why work with borrowing chords though? Each mode has its own diatonic chords. Write a melody with the mode, write the accompaniment, and just alter chords if they don’t fit at first. Mixolydian is easy - flatten the 7th in the iii, V, and viiº, which gives you a iiiº, v, and bVII.
Modal does not mean one chord; it means one scale, from which all chords are made. The beautiful thing about modal harmony is that any chord in the mode will substitute for any other. Any chord in the mode will progress nicely to any other. You can have all the chord changes you desire, so long as every note in each chord comes from the parent scale.
With this in mind, you don’t need to even think about theory at all. Just build every chord from the parent scale’s notes and anything you do will work. No theorizing! The fun in modal harmony is to find nice voicings that voice-lead in interesting ways.
If you want more complexity, there are several techniques. One is to drop in a chord containing out-of-scale notes in a place where you want tension. Then resolve back to a modal chord.
Another fun technique is bimodal harmony. An easy way into this is to have one synth playing in one mode—say E min pentatonic—and another synth in a different mode—say Bmin pent.
I don’t know that I’d characterize that as bimodal - you’re going to tend to hear it as an overall E minor tonality.
E pentatonic minor: E G A B D
B pentatonic minor: B D E F# A
E minor: E F# G A B C D
A slightly spicier combination would be to mix E pentatonic minor with, say, C# pentatonic minor - you end up with a simultaneous minor third (G) and major third (G#) against the E, assuming you’ve got a pad or bass note that establishes E as the prevailing tonality, which with the other notes simultaneously implies E Dorian and E Mixolydian.
E pentatonic minor: E G A B D
C# pentatonic minor: C# E F# G# B
E Dorian: E F# G A B C# D
E Mixolydian: E F# G# A B C# D
As @Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr says, you need to think of it as a scale just like any other. If you are in C major you use the notes and chords that belong to that particular scale, but if you're in C Mixolydian then you use a slightly different set of notes which then make different chords.
One really easy way to approach it is to start with G Mixolydian: it's all the white keys on the piano, the same notes and chords and C Major and A Minor, but with G as the root note and I chord.
Yes that approach works great for soloing choosing notes as flavors over root chords such as b7 for mix , #4 for Lydian
…and as for a full song I could get past done progs like… C Bb F C , in mix for example ,
Any good modal compositions by AB members to study?
In this song the verses are in A Mixolydian, and the chorus switches to regular D major (which is a related key with exactly the same notes but a different root):
I often like to switch keys or modes like this in a song.
Sure, my example is tame. Here’s another spicier one: Ab melodic minor melody over arpeggios derived from C minor modal harmony.
I tried prodding the keyboard with a carrot
B7? In which key? If it’s in your C example, that’s definitely not mixolydian. The V diatonic chord is usually the dominant 7th in a major scale, but with mixolydian it would be a v7.
If in C it would have a distinctly non-mixolydian feel as it has the leading note from the scale along with 2 notes outside of the scale.
b7 = flat 7 in this context, I think.
I meant flat 7
I'm stuck in Aeolian and Dorian although I do utilise Phrygian and Dorian. I love the sound of Phrygian and Locrian but am really struggling to (a) use them on the fly in improvisation and (b) use them in composition.
I am still confused. Do you mean an equivalent minor 7, or an equivalent Major 6?
Usually you just put a 7 for a minor (aka dominant) 7, you specify a Major 7 as a M7, and a flat 7 would be a minor/dominant 7 lowered a half step (equivalent to a M6). At least the explanation I read said that, but it seems there are different systems for naming chords.
Chord names are as confusing as note-octave names sometimes.
I’m also still confused by the term flat 7. Which chord? Do you mean the quality of the 7th scale note?
@CracklePot A minor 7th is not AKA a dominant 7th. A minor 7th is a minor triad with a minor 7th note, and a dominant 7th is a major triad with a minor 7th note.
A flat 7th note in these cases would be a 6th, but would be a fully diminished 7th rather than a 6th if the triad was a diminished triad.
If I read @hisdudeness correctly, his original comment was about scale degrees, not chord types.
In other words, over a major chord, you’d include the b7 (Bb against C major) to imply Mixolydian, and #4 (F# over C major) to imply Lydian. (You could, of course, include both to imply Lydian b7, which is one of my favorite scales, but I digress.)
I know the minor/dominant chord differences.
What I mean is that the 7th specifically, whether minor or dominant, is the same note. Minor/dominant refers to the triad type that the note is added to, but the note is a minor 7th from the root in both cases, and usually designated as a plain “7”. A b7 would lower that note a half step, making it a M6 from the root
So it is confusing, depending on if you are talking chords or intervals.
If we are playing in Major, but want to switch to Mixolydian, it seems valid to say “play a b7.” But when we start talking chords in the same conversation “play a b7” now is ambiguous.
OK, I get it now. Just flatten the 7th scale degree from major. I think what made me not think of that immediately is that there are so many different reasons to flatten a 7th scale degree.
Sorry for confusion , I meant flat7 ie is 10 semi tones from root ascending
Hence Major sixth would 9 semitones from root ascending
That precisely why I posted this question since there so many choices , you kinda get stuck in composing something meaningful , hence wanted to get some of the box ideas..given the diverse array of musicians in this forum
to clarify your ambiguity, what I meant was…
For example if chord is C for soloing you could use
CMaj, Cmix, Cydian ……and the b7 note , if you choose to use would Bb in all cases , (but logical choice of scale would be Cmix)
But…. if you choose a F based scale to solo over C because your composition demands it then b7 in (over C chord) this case if you desire would be Eb
Very nice 👍. Thanks for this
It would be better to refer to 10 semitones from the tonic as a minor 7th rather than a flat 7th, as a flat seventh could be a flat minor 7th, which is 9 semitones from the tonic. (Sorry if this sounds pedantic).
Yes, soloing over C with F mixolydian will work, as the Eb is the minor 3rd in C, and the other notes will work well.
Here's a simple tip to choose one of the 7 basic modes based on the white keys:
"I'm Dejected, Please Leave Me A-Lone."
Ionian (Major root chord) C note
Dorian (Minor root chord) D
Phyrygian (Minor root chord) E
Lydian (Major root chord) F
Mixolydian (Major root chord) G
Aeolian (minor root chord) H, oops, A
Locrian (diminished root chord * makes it harder to feel like you have arrived) B or I".
So, just use the white keys exclusively and decide which note to focus your attention on and you too can jam in modes. Run your finger up and down the white keys and stop at the root when it's the right time.
Now choosing chords to support these melodies is helpful and "Suggester" lets to set the chord choices by root and scale name. Then you can even jam chord rhythms or use the ChordShapes app. There are many of these type of chord apps. I'm just digging into Suggester (which is NOT AUv3) right now because it allows for a split screen mode with many DAW's when deciding on a chord progression and outputs MIDI for import into Cubasis, Staffpad, etc. Putting the 4-5 note chords through @_Ki's Divisi Mozaic script can split the notes up for input into choirs, brass quintets, orchestral string sections, and SWAM ensembles.
sorry if this is pedantic, but in the context of talking about scale degrees. It is correct to call Bb in C Mix a flat 7, Most musicians I know of use the terms flat or sharp when talking about scale degrees to derive the modes. Essentially, it terminology that uses the diatonic major as the reference.
So, you might see mixolydian written as 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7. Dorian would be 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7. Natural minor 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 . In the context of thinking about the scale, they'll often say Dorian has a flatted third because you are comparing it to the base scale and comparing it to the normal third not thinking in terms of the interval to the root. Or say that natural minor's 6 is flatted. They sometimes will use major/minor, too.
I don’t think I have ever heard ‘flat seven’ refer to a diminished 7.
I agree that it’s correct in scale degrees, particularly when comparing to a major scale, but in absolutes it’s not clear to say flat 7th if you don’t know if it’s the major or minor that’s being flatted. If you know already that it’s mixolydian then no problem, but I think it’s more common to talk about an absolute 10 semitones as a minor 7th.
For those who want an app to help them move between keys or modes
Add to those in the picture CHORDEZ