KORG Gadget - Why modes instead of scales?

Poppadocrock

@espiegel123 said:
Also, Tonality is a great app if you want a reference at your fingertips for seeing scales and modes that go with a chord -- or really anything scale and chord related. Highly recommended.

One of the best, most useful, most used by me, apps out there…

Just realized the other day that you can turn somewhat turn it into a sequencer. If you midi learn each pad to a note, turn on midi thru, turn off midi thru will also play note in settings. You can then use atom 2 or whatever to send midi notes in to play the pads. I’ve done this with a midi controller But never sequenced it like that before. Another amazing feature in this app, that’s literally overflowing with features.

espiegel123

@espiegel123 said:
@bbelo : i jotted down some thoughts. sorry if this is long. hopefully, something in here is helpful to you.

....
For the sake of discussion, let's discuss melodies/songs that have a single key. Let's call the key, the chord that gives final resolution to the song's melody/theme. Let's play around with creating melodies that revolve around C Major and stick with those scales/modes that contain the notes of that chord: C E G.

Record a held C major chord. Spend time playing melodies that use the notes of the C major scale (C D E F G A . Play a lot of melodies get that sound in your ear.

• For this exercise make your melodies end on the C -- they don't need to start on C. The 'key' is what it ends on. You are trying to come up with melodies that land on C.
• Experiment with melodies that only use some of the scale notes and some that eventually use all of them.

Now, do the same thing with the other modes of the diatonic scale (the major scale)

C D E F# G A B [C Lydian]
C D E F G A Bb [C Mixolydian]

That can keep you busy for a long time. If you have a great ear, you may get the sound of those modes in your ear in minutes -- but it might take days or weeks.

....

Here is me doing the exercise. In the video there is a table of contents so you can skip around. I make up short melodies ending on C for a couple of minutes each over C Ionian (C major), C Lydian (same notes as in G major) and C Mixolydian (same notes as F major).