Let’s Play Music #12
Modal Mixture Through Borrowed Chords
Time to Mix Things Up!
In the previous lesson we talked a little about borrowing chords in terms of functional harmony. The modes we used for this were Ionian and Aeolian because they are a related pair. When we talk about keys on the Circle of Fifths we have major keys that use the Ionian mode and minor keys that start with the Aeolian mode. We have a total of seven modes that we can borrow from for various reasons.
The main reason to use a borrowed chord is to create interest. If your song is not interesting, then you may end up being the only person who wants to hear it. We’ve all done it by turning on the radio and flipping stations until something grabs our attention. With that said, if you write a song and can’t do something interesting in the first eight to sixteen bars, then you’ll likely lose the attention of your listener.
Interest can be generated through dynamics of rhythm, tempo changes, timing changes, dynamics of sound, and styles to name just a few options. All these things are great, but if your harmonies and melodies can’t keep up, then you’ll just be playing a handful of chords from one key while trying to create new rhythmic patterns to sound original.
In this lesson we’ll focus on borrowing chords to draw out new sounds. Think of it like starting with seven colors on your musical pallet. You can paint with these colors, but there are five other colors that will help us to shade and texture what we create. Beginning to know which sonic colors to use and why is the goal of this lesson.
Learning the Pallet
To start understanding borrowed chords we can focus on modes alone. Keys and notes are secondary. Above we have the modes in fifths as we’ve seen in previous lessons. Next to that are the major and minor modes on the piano. Each pair of modes is a major sixth interval apart. This interval is true no matter what instrument we use, so we can use the above diagram in two ways.
1: With the modes in fifths, the top major mode (Lydian) matches with the top minor mode (Dorian). The same is true for the middle major and minor modes (Ionian & Aeolian) and the bottom major and minor modes (Mixolydian & Phrygian).
2: You can play any major mode from any note and the major sixth degree will start the matching minor mode. This also means that you can play any minor mode and find the matching major mode on the minor third degree.
Locrian stands out because it is a diminished mode and leads us to a major or minor mode. For more on how Locrian can lead us to the other modes, check out my two part article on the Locrian mode.
Now let’s start mixing!
Mixing Modes
Before you get bogged down on all the information from here on out, just know that focusing on the concept is the key to all of this. Above we have two charts. The top chart shows the seven diatonic chords in each mode. Each mode is played in the same order in that Ionian used the modes Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. Using that specific order, we can go to another mode like Mixolydian and play the same order starting on Mixolydian to get Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian, Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian.
Each chord above matches the same order of modes. If you see “7”, then you know that Mixolydian is played over that chord. “ø” starts Locrian and the Maj7 and m7 chords are for the other modes from the same order.
To put this into some practical sense we can play a chord progression from C Ionian like I, ii, iii and play CMaj7, Dm7, Em7. This sounds boring, so let’s add in the bIII from C Aeolian to create CMaj7, Dm7, EbMaj7, Em7. The EbMaj7 adds some interest by standing out for a moment. It also works great because the chords that come before and after it are from our diatonic set. Think of it like a conversation. We play CMaj7 and Dm7 as two sentences. We add in EbMaj7 to give some context to our story and then return to our main thought with Em7.
We can also use our matching modes to know where we can move the melody for each chord. CMaj7 uses Ionian, Dm7 uses Dorian, and Em7 uses Phrygian. EbMaj7 is the bIII from C Aeolian, so we can go to the b3 degree of Aeolian and find that it is Ionian. (Aeolian’s modes are Aeolian, Locrian, Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian. Since we want the bIII mode, we go to the third mode in the sequence.) Now we know that as we play these four chords, we can play them as CMaj7 Ionian, Dm7 Dorian, EbMaj7 Ionian, and Em7 Phrygian.
Another great thing this gives us are diatonic and non-diatonic notes in the bIII Ionian chord. Eb Ionian uses the notes Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C, and D. When we play EbMaj7 we already have the notes Eb and Bb which will stand out from CMaj7, Dm7, and Em7 because they all use the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. To make an E Ionian melody stand out more we can incorporate the note Ab because it will stand out as another non-diatonic note. We can also use the diatonic notes F, G, C, and D to help an Eb Ionian melody blend into an Em7 Phrygian chord or melody.
Check out this example of how we can make both happen.
Above are the notes for the audio clip with the left panned chords in the top and the right panned melody in the bottom. In bars 5, 6, 13, and 14 we are using the EbMaj7 chord with an Eb Ionian melody even though we are in the key of C, which has no flats at all.
Please note that the software that helps me generate this uses G# instead of Ab. They are the same pitch, but not the same note. I was going to fix this because the note should be Ab, but with the way everything is computerized these days it is good to see that we can have flats listed as sharps simply because a computer was involved. Thankfully we know that Eb Ionian has an Ab, so we can call the sharp note above an Ab.
For bars 5, 6, 13, and 14 I use the notes Eb, Bb, and Ab to create interest. At the end of each Eb Ionian phrase, I finish with notes that are diatonic to the key of C so that the melody flows back into our Em7 Phrygian chord. If I simply played Eb as the last note before Em7, then there would be a “clash”. Clashes occur when the context doesn’t make sense. In this potential clash, Eb from Eb Ionian is squished right up against E and F in E Phrygian. Having three notes so close together makes any melody sound wrong. There are ways to make this work, but EbMaj7 is our borrowed chord, and we are only using it for a few bars at a time. We can always make sense of non-diatonic notes by using borrowed chords and melodies sandwiched between diatonic chords and melodies. Try these four chords out yourself and see how the notes Eb, Ab, and Bb help you to briefly break out of a “diatonic rut”.
Filling in The Gaps
Our first chart of chords left some gaps. We can fill these in with more borrowed chords, but there are a few rules to use.
1. You can borrow a chord from any parallel mode.
2. The borrowed chord’s mode should not be the same as its neighboring chords.
3. TriTone Subs and Diminished Subs can be borrowed.
Above we have nothing to play as a b2 chord in Ionian because there is no b2 degree in that mode. To fill in this gap we need to borrow a chord from either Phrygian or Locrian because both modes have a b2 degree. Both modes have a Maj7 as the chord. Phrygian’s b2 degree starts the Lydian mode and Locrian’s b2 degree started the Ionian mode. Playing C Ionian’s chords with a borrowed DbMaj7 will sound just fine. Try out Dm7, DbMaj7, CMaj7. Listen for DbMaj7 to stand out with some tension that leads us down to CMaj7. This is a great example of a chromatic walk-down because we move the root note down chromatically as we “walk” out notes down from Dm7 to CMaj7.
But what mode goes with that DbMaj7 for melody purposes? If we borrow DbMaj7 from C Phrygian, then we can use Db Lydian. Else we borrow DbMaj7 from C Locrian we use Db Ionian. Right away there is an issue with borrowing from C Locrian because moving from Db Ionian to C Ionian will sound “odd”. It’s like musically saying “Db Ionian… but what I REALLY meant to say was C Ionian.” There’s a loss of context what shifting a mode a half-step up or down.
To make harmonies and melodies flow better we can use Db Lydian from C Phrygian. If we play Db Lydian, we have the notes C, F, and G to focus on as common tones in all three modes. Try playing a four bar progression with | Dm7 D Dorian| DbMaj7 Db Lydian | CMaj7 C Ionian | CMaj7 C Ionian |. Try to also use melodies in each bar and focus on C, F, and G to blend your melodies across all four bars.
When it comes to TriTone Subs and Diminished Subs, please check out my second article on the Locrian mode which starts with these subjects so that you can see how to build them. For this example, we can use a TriTone Sub of Db7 with Db Mixolydian in our four bar progression. Db Mixolydian has the note Cb, which is enharmonically equivalent to B. This all means that a progression of | Dm7 D Dorian| Db7 Db Mixolydian | CMaj7 C Ionian | CMaj7 C Ionian | will have F and B/Cb as common tones across all three modes. These two tones are also a TriTone apart, so playing melodies that focus on F and B/Cb over Dm7 and Db7 will add tension that can be resolved once you arrive at CMaj7.
Borrowing Over Diatonic Modes
Playing a progression in C Ionian like Am, FMaj7, Dm, CMaj7 is OK. Am and CMaj7 function as Tonic chords. FMaj7 and Dm function as Pre-Dominant chords. Everything in this progression has a good flow towards C except for that Dm. Having a Dominant functioning D chord would drive the progression to C instead of limping along to C. We could borrow D7 from C Lydian, but D7 really wants to move to G or Gm.
A better option would be to borrow Dm7b5 from C Aeolian. Doing so would give us access to D Locrian with the notes D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, and C. The notes D, F, and G are all in the other modes used for Am, FMaj7, and CMaj7.
If you checked out my articles on the Locrian mode, Dm7b5 with a D Locrian melody leading to a C major or C minor chord makes sense. A m7b5 wants to move down a whole step to a minor chord, but moving to a major chord works as well because major and minors can both use a fifth degree note. Try out | Am A Aeolian| FMaj7 F Lydian | Dm7b5 D Locrian | CMaj7 C Ionian |. Be sure to play melodies that use the notes in each mode. Common tones like C, D, F, and G will make melodies tie together. Notes like Eb, Ab, and Bb will make D Locrian stand out, but each note can move up or down a half-step to a note that is found in C Ionian.
Practicing Borrowed Chords and Melodies
Below is a completed chart of all the modes with borrowed chords and modes highlighted. Black text modes are diatonic, so they are already part of each mode listed below. Blue text modes are borrowed from the relative major or minor so Ionian borrows from Aeolian, Aeolian borrows from Ionian, and so on. Red text modes borrow from any other parallel mode if they don’t break any of our three rules. Some red text uses more than one mode, like Dorian’s b6 can be from Lydian, Ionian, or Mixolydian.
This week’s practice will focus on C Ionian, but feel free to use the same concepts in this week’s practice for any major or minor mode with C as the first degree note. You can also try this out in any key, but starting off with C Ionian can help you make sense of this.
1: Play all the chromatic chords and chromatic modes of C Ionian, which is show below as an excerpt from the chart above. To do this play CMaj7 and then C Ionian as a scale. Next is DbMaj7 followed by Db Lydian as a scale. Keep going through Bm7b5 and B Locrian as a scale and end with a CMaj7 chord.
As you do this listen for the borrowed chords to “add interest” in between your diatonic modes.
2: Experiment with chord progressions. Use the chart above that shows a chord/mode for every degree and create progressions that have at least one borrowed chord. Your progression can be as short or long as you like and can use tons of diatonic chords/modes. Just be sure to borrow something and explore what that does for you. Take note of what sounds good to you. That way you’ll have more “colors” in your pallet when writing your own songs.
Be sure to ask any questions in the comments. Until next time!