---
title: 'Music Theory Masterclass 3: The Modes in 30 Minutes'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=9MB3lvaCoek'
video_id: '9MB3lvaCoek'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 1965
---

# Music Theory Masterclass 3: The Modes in 30 Minutes

> Source: [Music Theory Masterclass 3: The Modes in 30 Minutes](https://youtube.com/watch?v=9MB3lvaCoek)

## Summary



## Transcript

here we go streaming
what's up everyone happy saturday
today is my third installment
of the music master class series the
first one was on uh i can't remember
what was on basics of music theory
second one was on
scales and chord progressions okay this
one is specifically on modes we're gonna
do modes in 30 minutes
some of you are watching this channel
are like what are you talking about you
guys you talking about modes all the
time i actually haven't talked about
modes in a very long time
and
there's
three basic modal groups that we're
going to talk about today modes are the
major scale modes of the melodic minor
modes of the harmonic minor now i want
to mention a couple things so i have a
second youtube channel that many of you
know about it's called rickbiato 2.
i've been uploading content there for
the last couple months even though it's
been in existence for five years
and i did a video recently about two
videos ago
with the
modes of the harmonic major scale that
we're not going to get to today and i'm
going to upload a video probably
tomorrow on the modes of the double
harmonic major scale
okay
so that will complete this list of the
modal scales you have major scale modes
of the melodic minor modes of the
harmonic minor those are the harmonic
major modes of the double harmonic major
okay
why are modes important
modes are important because they can be
used for writing they can be used for
improvising
there are songs that are written
based on modes for example there's a
song called so what by miles davis
there's a song called impressions by
john coltrane
there are songs that use modes like
norwegian wood by the beatles that is
just all in mixolydians matter of fact a
lot of rock songs are in the mixolydian
mode
let's talk about them what the
characteristic notes are in those modes
and how they sound okay
the discount code for today for our uh
live stream is rb500 so it's 50 off any
of my three educational products if you
want to support the channel and actually
learn something while you're watching
check out my biato book bundle that has
all these things i'm actually going to
be going from pages of
i think 16 17 and 18 in the book i'm
going to be referring to
um but that has all the music theory
that i talk about on the channel in it
with tons of examples the this bundle is
700 page pdf okay 50 off that 50 off my
biato ear training method
50 off my new quick lessons guitar
course okay i talk about modes in all of
these things the ear training course
talks about how to hear them okay how to
hear chord progressions how to your
modal scales how to hear modal chords
okay we'll talk about that in a second i
want to talk about how these scales are
structured how these modes are
structured
we're going to use the the major scale
as the basis to construct the other
modes like what notes from the major
scale are changed to create these other
modes okay
so
the ionian mode is the major scale so if
we're in the key of c ionian
or key of c major
it's just all the white notes okay
that's those are the modes of the major
scale okay
and we're going to call those one
through seven
the reason is
that it's easy to understand
conceptually when you change notes from
the major scale
that you get these other scales but
these are all going to be based off the
note c
okay
now
if i talk about this the sk the modes in
the key of c you'd have
c ionian
d dorian
which is a second mode e phrygian
f lydian
g mixolydian and so on and so forth
but i'm going to talk about the modes in
relation to just the note c so these are
all going to be parallel okay because
i'm going to show you what you do to a c
major scale or the c ionian mode to get
a c dorian to get a c phrygian to get a
c
lydian to get a c mixolydian c a online
c locrian okay and we're going to go on
to the other scales after that okay
the major scale
the ionian mode okay
there are seven chords in this just like
there are in the major scale they're the
same chords c major d minor e minor f
major g major a minor b diminished okay
the important thing is to recognize what
these relationships from one note to the
next are and what a
ionian scale sounds like and it sounds
like
this
can call that an ionian chord i'm
basically pressing all the notes in a c
major scale
but the important notes
that give it
its shape
are the c major triad
the fourth
and the seventh that's
that's the sound of ci of c ionian
[Music]
what's up billy some people say it's a
little quieter quiet billy's gonna turn
it up here yeah
okay so these are
these would be ionian voicings
[Music]
but i'm focusing in on where the half
steps are in the scale because that's
the most important thing you guys that
have followed my channel for a long time
know that i talk about
knowing where the half steps are because
that's actually what defines the sound
of the mode really those notes are
really important ones to key in the half
steps in the ionian mode are between
three and four
and then seven and eight okay
so you've
got
between the third and fourth notes so e
and f and then
between seven and eight so b and c again
so those notes really are
that gives you that sound of that mode
right
[Music]
okay
dorian is a very different sound
dorian is a major scale with a flat
third and a flat seven if i start on the
note c and i flat the third note of a c
major scale
then i flap
the seventh note i get to see dorian
scale so there's the c door
just let that kind of sink in that sound
what does c dorian sound like right it
sounds kind of like this
[Music]
where are the half steps between two and
three
and between six and seven
those notes are really important so if i
take the two and three i'm just going to
play c and g in the bass
then i'm going to take the six and seven
there's
[Music]
that's
dorian right there that gives you that
sound but that that six is really
important and the third
that really describes it right there i
put the
[Music]
those two notes in there and that's
pretty much most of a
most of a dorian
sound
right
whoops
that would be c dorian right there okay
phrygian is characterized by a flat two
right
and
this five flat six those are where your
half steps are
so c fringing is a c major scale with a
flat three or sorry flat two flat three
flat five fl all right
flat two flat three flat six flat seven
okay so it'd be c
d flat e flat f g
a flat b flat c okay so you have the
one in flat two
and then you have the
five and flat six okay so this is
a lot of times you'll hear a phrygian
voicing
would be a
major triad up a half step
that's really the sound a phrygian there
okay because i've got that major triad d
flat major
over c
so it's a minor sound with a flat two
the flat six and the flat two give it a
darkness because the flat two wants to
resolve down to one and the flat six
wants to resolve down to five okay
that's what gives it its melancholy
sound a darkness you hear a lot of metal
sounds that use the phrygian mode
okay
anything that has a flat two
or a flat six
those notes want to move down they want
to resolve down okay whereas the sixth
in dorian actually wants to resolve
upward
that's why dorian is a brighter minor
sound okay
so if i have c dorian
[Music]
that a that six
[Music]
has a natural tendency to rise and it
actually takes a minor mode and makes it
sound brighter okay
uh
lydian
sharp four and five
is where the half step are and then
between seven and eight okay
lydian
lydian has a
celestial sound or
otherworldly
okay see lydian would be
[Music]
there's your lydian sound
major scale with a sharp four
that sharp four
[Music]
wants to resolve up to the fifth so the
lydian mode has a natural lift to it
it's a brighter sound than the ionian
scale the ionian scale has the natural
fore
that wants to move down lydian has the
sharp four that wants to move up
that's why i call it a brighter scale
okay and you hear that in film scoring
all the time lydian mode is one of the
most common mode it has a triumphant
sound to it or
more otherworldly if you hear um
i'm trying to think if i'll get
demonetized if i do this
um
uh i better not play it because if i
play this one chord it's from this the
the show is six feet under it's thomas
newman soundtrack and the first chord is
a lydian triad okay and and it actually
um
is just
that
okay that probably d-minus is my video
just for that because that's actually
the voicing that he uses there and it's
a
when i say a lydian triad it's one sharp
four
five okay as opposed to a major triad
lydian triad
okay
i love the lydian mode i love all these
modes i love all modes period um
the next mode is the mixolydian mode
mixolydian mode has
the half step between three and four and
between six and seven okay
so
c mixolydian is basically c major scale
[Music]
with a flat seven okay so once again
there's your mixolydian sound
[Music]
love that sounds beautiful
[Music]
okay
mixolydian is used in rock
ac dc you name it any classic rock song
pretty much uses mixolydian it's the
most common mode that is used in rock
music rock melodies i would play some
but i'll just tell you norwegian wood is
one that uses it that's i played it in
the video before
but the whole melody is
mixolydian but i can think of a hundred
songs that use mixolydian in the in the
uh as a mode that's written off okay so
basically it's that your tonic in this
case would be c
and everything kind of resolves down to
c but the scale has a b flat in it right
your you people say well aren't you in
the key of f it's like well it's using
the notes f major but it's the fifth
mode and it always resolves back to c
that's the thing about modes is that
they have a natural tendency to resolve
to the
tonic
that
would be the five chord in the major key
so in the key of f c is the five chord
and mixolydian is the fifth mode
but the song can be
in the key of
c mixolydian because it's always
resolving back to c even though it's got
the chords of f major in it right
okay next mode aeolian right the saddest
mode
that has absolutes between two and flat
three and five and flat six once again
that flat six
wants to resolve down
okay and that's what gives aeolian
two three
flat three four five flat six flat seven
it gives it a very dark
sad
i think a sad
that gives it a sad sound
i just love that
[Music]
it's beautiful beautiful i love aeolian
[Music]
that flat
that flat six is just so
sad sounding right you hear melodies um
many great great songs use aeolian
modes one of my favorites is a sting
tune called i burn for you i made a
video called the aeolian mode i've got
videos on all these modes if you look on
my channel
look up lydian look up aioli and look up
locrian leave find them all on my
channel on this channel or my rick beato
2 channel once again
all this stuff is in my beato book
if you want to follow along with these
things and actually know what i'm
talking about discount code rb 500 50
off
that
ear training my ear training course
teaches you how to hear these modal
scales how to hear these modal sounds
right and then i do a lot of
improvisations using the modes in my
guitar course my quick lessons but 50
off all three of those go to my website
for that the last mode here locrian last
mode of the major scale has a half step
between one and two right so it gives
that
darkness to it but then between four and
flat five okay
i found a great locrian tune so low
grain one two flat three
four flat five flat six
flat seven
back to one
that has a real
just
beautiful
so
[Music]
i love that there's a tune called
opening the opening it's on keith
jarrett's intervals
dark intervals record
appropriately called dark intervals
because the first song is in locrian
it's 13 minutes of sea locrian okay it's
beautiful keith jarrett
if you don't know who he is go to
spotify go to apple music type in keith
jarrett look up the first song on dark
intervals came out in 1988
and it's in locrian okay so these are
the modes in the major scale they all
have a distinctive sound when i hear
this kind of a sound
i'm like oh it's lydian i just know this
lydian as soon as i hear that if i hear
this sound
i'm like oh that's aeolian it's an
aeolian sound
they just have such a unique flavor to
them all of these modes have a unique
unique sound to them right this is
lydian
you can hear this
if it was this
i would say hmm what is that
well that's more of a mixolydian
[Music]
but this is
lydian
just a voicing has a complete sound to
it a lydian sound if i think of the
scale when i play that chord
[Music]
i'm singing very poorly a d flat lydian
scale
but i could sing
so i just sang all the notes in the
chord
d flat a flat f g b flat e flat a flat d
flat a flat f g b flat
a flat
so those are the notes
in this d flat lydian chord sung from
the bottom up when i hear that i hear
those notes
in that particular order right but i
recognize the sound of it as a sound
now
the next scale we're going to talk about
is the melodic minor scale one of my
favorite scales that is used more
um
but you get use
melodic minor is used by people like
stevie wonder
um
let's see melodic minor
i'm going to call it mel min okay so i
have to write it all out we have melodic
minor
we have dorian flat 2
we have lydian augmented i'm going to
breathe it abbreviate these
we have mixolydian sharp 11
we have mixolydian flat six
we have uh locrian natural two
and we have altered dominant or all
super low grain we'll call it for today
super locrian
now
melodic minor scale compared to a major
scale is a major scale with a flat third
one two flat three four
five six
seven okay
so
okay now in classical music people go
and then they come down
aeolian that's what you call the
classical melodic minor but we're
actually going to use melodic minor as a
constant structure like a jazz musician
would
great great sound now what do you do
with these other modes well if you know
what dorian is dorian flat too if i
write out a dorian scale
once you know the modes of the major
scale right dorian flat two that's all
it is that's why it's called that they
they basically use the names
of the major scale modes so once you
know them
all you do is you do what the scale
tells you to do okay lydian augmented
i'm gonna write lydian
sharp four five six seven
and augmented when somebody says
augmented augmented chord they're
talking about a sharp five so this is
lydian augmented okay we'll come back to
these mixolydian sharp 11 okay
sharp 11 means sharp four so i'm going
to write out a mixolydian scale four
five six flat seven 7.
i'm going to raise the fourth mixolydian
right sharp 11 or sharp 4.
mixolydian flat 6. i just did a post
on um
on instagram
where i played
the mixolydian flat six scale
and
um
[Music]
and i talked about how when i was in
music school the teachers used to say oh
mixolydian six don't worry about that
nobody uses that it's like what
it happens to be one of the best modes
it's like one of my favorite modes you
want to write beautiful melancholy
music that has a major feel to it
mixolydian flat six
you'll thank me later i'm just kidding
uh locrian natural two locrian normally
has a flat two right so it's basically a
low-grade scale
i'll make the two natural
flat three four flat five flat six flat
seven okay so it's a low green scale
but with a natural two
i'll put a natural here just so you
remember
normally locrian
has a flap but since we're comparing to
the major scale we're just going to go
like this and then
super locrian one of my favorite scales
one flat two flat three flat four flat
five flat six flat seven
okay
the super locrian mode is used with
dominant chords and we're going to talk
about
these um
this is really a
dominant sounding mode it's called super
locrian but most people that i know like
myself refer to it as
altered
dominant
the reason it's called alter dominant is
because if you take
if let's say you're in the key of c
right
[Music]
so
it's a c major has a
major third
sharp five
flat seven
it also has the flat nine and the sharp
nine in it
[Music]
so
anytime you have an altered sound right
that would be more of a jazz voicing
one
sharp nine i'm sorry one flat nine sharp
nine third sharp four sharp five flat
seven that's why it's called the alter
dominant scale because it contains the
sharp nine flat nine sharp five flat
five in the scale
they're just hidden by these things but
if i go like this
uh flat nine
sharp nine
flat five uh flat five
i'm sorry this is the third
hidden and harmonic this is the
uh flat five and this is the sharp five
the flat six and sure five are the same
notes there
this flat four is is what i
which would be is kind of confusing but
really that flat four is the actual
major third okay
these are the modes of the melodic minor
scale these are the uh the formulas for
the modes of the melodic minor scale
now
i have videos with all of these on my
channel each one individually with
pieces that i've written in then if you
look up oh they're between my my normal
channel and my rick be out of 2 channel
go to them and search these names and
you will find videos on each specific
mode so you don't have to actually
wonder i go through all the chords that
are in them and i have a piece that is
written in the particular
modes okay so when you want to hear what
they sound like or you go to page
uh
melodic minor would be page 18 in the
biato book and once again discount code
rb500 50 off you want to support the
channel and you want to learn about
music that's how you can do it right so
you buy i i only make educational
courses
that teach you how to become a better
musician that's that's
that's what this channel is it's a uh
it's a music learning channel but
think of this these things are kind of
the textbooks that go along with you
with them and give you a greater
understanding if i'm talking about a
topic and you're watching a video and be
like what what are we talking about here
what is this alter dominant or that we
just open up the beato book or go to my
ear training course you can hear it or
you just go do a video in here and you
hear me
hear a video with a piece written on it
where i talk about all the scales that
are related to it okay
if you go to page uh example 17 on page
20 we have the modes of the harmonic
minor scale
okay
once again
the modes of the harmonic minor scale
just have a series of no of uh i relate
them to the major scale okay so we have
the harmonic minor scale
harmonic minor scale is a major scale
with a flat third
with a and a flat six and a major seven
so in the key of c it'd be one two flat
three four five flat six
major seven so you have this augmented
second in the middle of the scale that's
real
which really gives it that sound right
so that is um
that is the harmonic minor scale i and i
made a mistake it's on page did i say
page 19 billy yeah page 19 okay
the second mode is locrian natural six
once again you take a low green scale
one flat two flat three four
flat five natural six flat seven okay
it's just memorizing these formulas you
do exactly what the scale says what the
mode says okay the third mode is ionian
augmented
ionian augmented ionian one two three
four
sharp five there's your augmented
six
and seven okay
um so
when you go to this page you'll say okay
i only augmented and you look at it and
you say okay there's an e flat if you're
in the key of c there's a triad e flat
augmented that's based off that mode
uh uh off that scale degree and then
there's an e flat major seven sharp five
chord that's built as a seventh chord
the next mode is dorian sharp four right
and what you do take a dorian scale
three
sharp the fourth
five
six flat seven
um then you have phrygian major
you do exactly what it says one
two
three right
flat two is the phrygian part
four
five flat six
flat
seven
phrygian major so it's basically a
phrygian scale
okay so it usually works with dominant
chords in the key of c
melodic minor
it would be a g phrygian major okay so
that scale
um
uh the flat six kind of acts as a sharp
five
right and the flat two really acts as a
flat nine it's this is used as a
mode over dominant chords okay it's
really gives the flavor like um
uh it gives a flavor of a minor key like
a dominant chord a five chord and a
minor key it's a great great great sound
love phrygian major
um
the
next mode here is lydian sharp nine i
have a great video on lydian sharp nine
lydian short now one of my favorite
scales
it's one
sharp two that's the sharp nine three
sharp four
five six
seven that's lydian sharp nine and then
we have altered dominant
double flat
seven okay so one flat two flat three
flat four flat five flat six i'm rushing
here flat seven i'm trying to do it all
in 30 minutes
that is the formula for altered dominant
double flat seven it's the alternate
scale and i just
double flat the seventh note okay
so
one two flat one flat two flat three
flat four flat five flat six
[Music]
uh double flat seven
[Music]
and there's your augmented second
interval right there at the top of the
scale that's the ultra dominant double
flat seven once again
i have a video called scale wars that i
put two different scales together and
one of the ski in one of the pieces i
juxtaposed the ultra dominant double
flat seven against another scale i can't
remember great video scale wars go back
early in my channel and watch these it's
one of my favorite videos
okay these are the modes of the major
scale melodic minor and harmonic minor
scale
all of this is in my ear training course
all of it is in my beato book bundle if
you want to know more about them and
really study them and learn them
discount code is rb 500
50 off that
um i have a piece on the harmonic major
scale i i actually took the harmonic
major scale and i wrote a piece on all
seven modes
go to my rick beato 2 channel
follow me there or follow me on
instagram at rickbiota1 because i do
improvisations
on instagram as well but there's a
harmonic major scale piece a piece in
every mode i'm going to put up this the
uh a video with a piece in every one of
the double harmonic major modes
okay
you guys are amazing thank you so much
for hanging in there these mode things
are really
a lot of people think they're complex
it's just memorization that's all
that's all you got to do just going to
memorize you got to look at the stuff
write it down and you'll get it
you guys are awesome thank you have a
great rest of your weekend we'll see you