A dorian

[Jon Hall]

A friend played a very simple melody in A minor, simple that is until it landed on a F# note. She asked me to find the chords and after a few minutes I decided on Am - G - Am - F#m b5 - Am. Would these chords be considered an A Dorian progression?

[swampstomper]

I'm not one of the theory gurus but I have been working hard at understanding it, so I'd like to give a try to answer, if I'm off-base I hope a more knowledgeable person corrects me. All the below is mando-tested (on my lap as I type):

A Dorian: A B C D E F# G A (i.e. flatted 3rd, 6th, 7th from the Ionian mode).

A Dorian is the second mode of the G major scale, that's where the F# is coming from.

According to Mark Levine's analysis (The Jazz Theory Book), the i chord here is Am7: A C E G

which can be nicely fingered as 2233. Of course you can leave out the 7th and just play Am.

The G major chord (actually, in jazz it would be Gmaj7 G B D F# 0022) fits this scale, since A Dorian is built on G Ionian. In A Dorian it is the VII chord

Then you put in a F#mb5: F# A C (the b5) E (if you include the 7th, F#m7b5 = F#ø (half-diminished) 2430. This chord resolves nicely to the Gmaj7, but not (to my ears) to the Am7. It is equivalent to a rootless D9 which substitutes for the vanilla D7. These notes all fit your scale, they are the 5 1 3 4(13). I guess you are using this as a vi chord?

But would a v chord fit in the tune? That would be E G B D = Em7. Typically that is used to resolve back to the i. An open voicing is 0020 (3rd on bottom, suggests G major), also 4550 (5th on bottom).

Try this Am7 -> Em7 -> Am7 lick: 4th: 2 5, 3rd 2 5 (Am7), 2 5, 2nd 2 5 (Em7), 0 3, 1st 0 3 (Am7), 5 (root). Does that fit your tune? (for fellow ffCp fans: can be fingered 4:25/3:2525/2:25/3:7/2:37/1:35)

So all 3 chords you list, and Em7, can fit the A Dorian scale. But what the progression is, I can't tell without knowing the melody.

[SincereCorgi]

Sort of? The alternation of Am and G is straight-up dorian in sound (at least as 'dorian' is usually described when it's found in folk music), but the diminished chord is sort of a curve ball since usually you find those more often in 'functional' harmony. Because of that chord, if I heard that progression I'd probably be more likely to describe it as 'modal' than 'dorian'. Both are correct, but it's a matter of cultural context.

[Bruce Evans]

Hope we haven't got the OP buffaloed already. ;-) Let me try this.

Yes.

SincereCorgi: Could you please ramify for me the "cultural context" which would distinguish modal from Dorian?

[Jon Hall]

The Em sounded fine but the G seemed to achieve more of the "modal" flavor for the melody. The melody is so simple that the 7ths seemed unnecessary. I appreciate your comments.

[groveland]

There was a thread on managing minor, HERE (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48702&highlight=modal). It was rated by some as the best thread ever. :) (Perhaps a little hyperbole, but is certainly a keeper.)

Ooooo, and watch the generic usage of the term 'modal' - The colloquialism "modal" (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showpost.php?p=368534&postcount=27)has caused its share of confusion, as it often obscures the meaning of the term. The term is often, I don't know, misapplied? and over-generalized, and sometimes results in heated debate (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29622)over whether a non-technical term 'modal' (as in 'modal flavor') even exists!

(Just wanted to nip that one in the bud.)

[Don Stiernberg]

Jon,

F# is a major sixth in A. Including it with an Am sound yields an Am6. Am6 and D7 are pretty much the same sound. Any chance that any of that is going on with the tune and progression in question? It seems like a spelling question from this distance, not having heard the melody/changes..Of course you can also think of F#mb5 as chord number vi in Am, so..

[SincereCorgi]

SincereCorgi: Could you please ramify for me the "cultural context" which would distinguish modal from Dorian?

Yeah, after I wrote that I thought: 'Anybody has a right to call me out on that'.

What I meant is that, to my mind, calling something 'dorian' implies a strong tonal center based on the '1' chord within that mode. Since a diminished chord has a lot of oomph (harmonic instability) in it, in this case it suggests something more harmonically ambiguous than a simple dorian based heavily on the A-minor chord- it has what some people might call a 'floating' quality that you hear in some jazz and French impressionist music. That sort of harmony often gets called 'modal' as a shorthand for 'using the approximate intervallic structures found in a major scale, but without conventional harmonic function.' That came out way more academic-sounding than I'd like.

[Bruce Evans]

Yeah, after I wrote that I thought: 'Anybody has a right to call me out on that'.
...
That came out way more academic-sounding than I'd like.

S'OK. I understand (I think.) Thanks

[groveland]

All chords in the OP progression are diatonic to A dorian, the notes of the chords spell A dorian (or other G major modes.), so I'm thinking from those chords alone, there is no alternative. What is all the discussion about, folks? Help me out. You lost me.

[SincereCorgi]

All chords in the OP progression are diatonic to A dorian, the notes of the chords spell A dorian (or other G major modes.), so I'm thinking from those chords alone, there is no alternative. What is all the discussion about, folks? Help me out. You lost me.

I'm not trying to open a can of worms, but I think my part of the discussion comes from why somebody bothers to specify 'A dorian' instead of just 'a mode of G major'. I think how you'd describe that progression depends on the stylistic context. It's probably not worth the candle to hash it out, though.

[Doug Hoople]

A friend played a very simple melody in A minor, simple that is until it landed on a F# note. She asked me to find the chords and after a few minutes I decided on Am - G - Am - F#m b5 - Am. Would these chords be considered an A Dorian progression?

Yes and no. And what Don said, too.

If we don't know the melody, it's just a spelling exercise.

Technically, as a spelling exercise, F#mb5 is totally a Dorian chord, as is F#m7b5.

But if the real question is whether it's the right chord for that F# in the melody, well, we'd have to hear the melody.

To the OP... is it a famous tune, or an original? If it's famous, we'll all be able to puzzle it out in a hurry.

We had an exercise like this a week or two ago on the D11 chord, and didn't really answer the OP until we knew what tune he was working on, and, in the end, it wasn't really even a D11 chord.

Finally, with modal music much more than with major-scale music, the choice of chords will change from context to context. With major-scale music, many of the questions about what's appropriate in the progression can be answered without knowing the melody. With modal music, that's a lot harder.

Extra credit: yes, I know that the major scale is a mode, Ionian to be precise, but it's a big enough exception to be treated separately, isn't it?

[John McGann]

Am to Bm would define the mode. This is the basic riff in "So What" (which is in D dorian, Dm-Em).

This is a confusing topic, but one thing to clear up is that F#m7b5 is exactly the same notes as an Am6. Am6 to Bm7 will really give you the mood of the mode...

[Jon Hall]

I wish I had more information regarding the song. My friend said she probably learned it at church camp 45 -50 years a go. She only remembered the title as Blessing. She played it in A minor on the dulcimer and picked out the melody on the mandolin. Other than the unusual F#, the melody sounded like it would be supported by Am and either an Em or a G. We tried Bm, D and D7 to support the F# but none of them sounded right to us. I tried the different triads in G and D but none of them sounded like they supported the F#. Then I thought to try the F#-A-C from the 7th note of the G scale and it sounded good to both of us. I extended it to the diminished 7th but the melody was so simple, as were the Am and G or Em, that we decided the triad worked best. I had never heard a song in G that ended on an Am chord so I begin thinking the Dorian mode might be the explanation. The old time melodies I had heard in A Dorian had only Am and G in the chord progression. Since this came up during a mandolin lesson I was teaching I hoped that I could give my friend/student and explanation for the chord progression. In our next lesson I will write out the notes of the melody and post it in this thread. I don't know that I would have the time to transcribe the rhythm but the notes of the melody should help anyone that would like to offer an explanation. Thanks again for the replies and the interest in my post.

[Pete Hicks]

I betcha the F# goes over a D major chord, common in a minor tunes in Dorian. That's what Carlos Santana uses alot.

[swampstomper]

I worked out the diatonic chords last night, hope this helps:

i Am7
ii Bm7 (as John McG says)
III Cmaj7
IV D7
v Em7
vi F#min5b (F#ø), notes = Am6! so only one note changes from the i chord
VII Gmaj7

Also, sorry I made a mistake in my first post, in fact

A Dorian: A B C D E F# G A (i.e. flatted 3rd, 7th from the Ionian mode) -- with the unaltered 6th

It is a very easy scale to remember from the 1st ffCp: 1 2 3 5 on two adjacent strings.