Modes...don't some sound weird?? Discordant?

[paul_c2]

On 23/10/2018 at 18:51, TheGreek said:

I struggled with modes for a while - too much info for both of my brain cells to manage - but with the help of Scott Devine's website and the video Nick Smith recorded for us at the Herts Bash a couple of years ago I finally decided to challenge myself a bit and learn them. 

Not as difficult as I thought, I do find myself slipping back into the major scale if I don't concentrate enough though.

Does anybody else find that some sound weird? I'm thinking the Em7 scale (Phrygian) in particular...

I'm also curious to whether anybody actually uses them and where/how?

As I see it, its simply a case of "you are what you practice" (substitute practise, for listen to, know, blah blah).

"I do find myself slipping back into the major scale" - so you're accustomed to this; so its no surprise that the others will sound weird.

Put simply......use them when you want to "sound weird"! You could analyse the theory and say "for that chord progression, for that chord or phrase or section use this mode blah blah but its more intuitive to kinda just know what a mode would sound like, and if its suitable (or if you want it to sound a bit dissonant etc) or appropriate, so you'd use (for example) Phrygian when the chord only suggested a normal minor (eg aeolian mode) or even major ionian.

In other words, just experiment and do the relatively simple theory task of finding out what the "normal" mode would be over a bunch of chords, then use either that one instead of just major/minor; or deliberately use a different one for effect.