The Devil’s Interval - Introducing Locrian Mode for Halloween

Last week we began learning about modes.

In a slightly more conventional setup, I would follow up last week’s blog with the introduction of minor modes, however today is 31st October and so I have not only broken that tradition - but also the tradition of posting on a Saturday morning - in favour of introducing the Devil’s Interval and the Locrian Mode to you to celebrate the spooky season!

What is Locrian Mode?

Let’s firstly refresh our memories:

Ionian is our major scale that we know and love.

Lydian is like our major scale except that we raise the fourth note by one semitone.

Mixolydian is like our major scale except that we lower the seventh note by one semitone.

Now let’s consider a little bit of keyboard history:

Modes in History

Once upon a time, at the birth of the first keyboard instruments (not the piano - not even the harpsichord), music was performed on what we now recognise as the white keys of the piano. Therefore, everything could be said to be played in C major / A minor.

However, in order to create different moods, modes were used.

By using the principles of the root scale - in this case C - yet starting on a different note each time, we can perform different modes.

Needless to say, in the key of C major, starting on C is Ionian.

If I played a scale starting on the fourth note - F - and use only white notes as per C major, I get lydian mode.

If I did the same thing but starting on the fifth note - the G - using only white notes as per C major, I get mixolydian mode.

Although not yet covered in these blogs, D, E and A also have their modes - minor modes -, but then we get to B.

And any pupil of mine will tell you that I have a tendency to tell them:

“Ignore the B for now, it’s awkward”.

And awkward it is.

Because if you play a scale starting on B using all white notes, you get Locrian Mode.

Locrian Mode on B

Locrian Mode on B

Locrian Mode Explained

To give a complete rundown of Locrian mode, you have to lower everything by a semitone except for the root / tonic and the fourth.

Therefore, C Locrian would be:

C  D♭  E ♭  F  G ♭  A ♭  B ♭

Locrian Mode on C

Locrian Mode on C

What is a Tritone?

Now comes into play the very crux of the problem of Locrian Mode - at least as far as classical music and earlier goes;

It features an incredibly prominent tritone!

A tritone is - as you can probably guess - the interval made up of a sequence of three whole tones.

So a tone from C - D is one, then D - E is two, but then E to F♯ is three.

Thus, C - F# is a tritone.

C Tritone

We can refer to this one of two ways:

• An augmented fourth

• A diminished fifth

The way in which we refer to it depends entirely on its context. For example, when I refer to the C Locrian mode above, you’ll notice that I don’t mention F ♯ but I do mention G ♭. Although these are harmonically the same note, if I’m referring to it as the latter then I am flattening what would otherwise be C - G (a perfect fifth) thus it is a diminished fifth.

If, however, I were referring to F♯ then I would be sharpening the fourth - F - and turning a perfect fourth: C - F - into an augmented fourth: C - F♯ .

All scales and modes feature a tritone somewhere, however they normally come in a place in which they can resolve easily.

For example, your typical major scale (Ionian) features just one tritone that can be started from the fourth note. So, in C major, this would be F. And the tritone would be F - B (three tones apart). But B is a leading note, so it resolves very pleasantly back to its root / tonic - C!

In Locrian mode, our tonic is the note on which we have our tritone. Worrying! Thus, there is always a sense of apprehension and dissonance within this mode that is much the reason why many classical compositions don’t tend to use it!

It stood against everything that music stood for once upon a time: particularly as music was by and large either a celebratory or religious affair. Therefore, music with such oddity was not at all conventional.

And the tritone did indeed gain the nickname ‘The Devil’s Interval’ although, tragic as this is because the story is fabulous, it was not banned! Just far from the norm.

Music in Locrian Mode

If you wish to go down a rabbit hole and delve into the weird and wonderful world of finding music written in Locrian Mode, I wish you well. Whilst you may come close, you will likely find no examples because it just doesn’t work as well as we’d like harmonically.

If you’d like to hear examples of the Devil’s Interval prominently in action - but not in Locrian - consider a lot of music by Danny Elfman:

• Theme from ‘The Simpsons’

• Theme from ‘Beetlejuice’

• Theme from ‘Tales from the Crypt’

Spot the tritones in both hands of the opening of 'The Simpsons' theme

Or for an examples in the land of musical theatre, consider:

• “Maria” from ‘West Side Story’ (the singing of ‘Maria’ in the chorus is C - F♯ - G)

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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Getting in the Mode - A Beginner’s Guide to Modes in Music Part One: Major Modes

…but first, a disclaimer.

This blog is not for the faint of heart.

And by the faint of heart, I specifically refer to the fact that modes are something that aren’t necessarily taught until a much more advanced level in music or music theory.

Why?

It can take long enough for pupils to learn the scales and key signatures on which much of our classic music is based; the ‘do - re - mi’ scale, to put it a way we all understand.

So until you’re absolutely confident with how these scales work and 100% confident also in all 12 different harmonic key signatures (C major, C minor, C♯ / D♭ major, C♯ / D♭ minor, D major etc.) then this blog may not be for you quite yet.

But if you are on top of all of these - or you just like to live life on the edge - then do read on…

What is a Mode in Music?

I’m glad you asked. After all, that is the nub of the blog.

Take a look at the classic sea shanty below:

Now tell me what key signature it is in.

If you said A minor because you’d deduced it is either that or C major from the key signature, you’d be right on paper.

However, to consider that a piece of music is truly in its home / root / tonic key, it has to at least feature the chord let alone have some sort of grounding in that chord. Yet this score is made up of D minor and C chords exclusively.

Right…so it’s in D minor?

…No.

Although I can see why you’d now shift to thinking that.

See, does D minor (relative minor to F major) not feature a B♭ and - if so - why are we not showing that in the key signature?

Because the B in bar three is a natural. So it's not in D minor!

So, how can we describe the key in which this key is in yet still honouring the notes and not having to resort to one or several accidentals throughout the score?

We describe it as being in a mode.

On paper, these read the same as a key signature, so if you were scoring out the above you’d still notate it as if it were in A minor on the score i.e. marking no sharps or flats in the key signature, but that’s where your description of it being A minor comes to a tragic end.

Let’s remind ourselves of what makes a scale with a fancy subheading…

What Makes a Musical Scale?

A scale is a series of ascending or descending notes that are separated by usually a mixture of tones and semitones.

Of course, you can just use semitones (chromatic) or just whole tones (a whole tone scale) but these don’t really cross into our discussion of modes.

For all other scales you’ll need to know, you just need to know that it is a mixture of both. And by all other scales, I don’t just mean the ones you’ll have learnt so far. I mean all the modes including the ones you’re about the be subjected to:

Introducing the Modes

Ionian Mode

Well, as if my magic, you already know a mode!

Ionian Mode is the fancy name that we give to the major scales we already know and love.

Let’s demonstrate how this is laid out:

C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C

C Major (Ionian)

If we look at the intervals between starting with C - D, our layout would be:

Tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone (back into C)

C Major (Ionian)

This is the mode on which much of our beloved Classical and Baroque music is based, and to much extent music from the Romantic Era. As far as music in a major key goes, it is also the mode that is used most commonly (though not exclusively) in our modern pop / rock music.

But the point of modes is to understand how a piece of music grounds itself. For example, a chordified C major scale would be:

C

D minor

E minor

F

G

A minor

B dim

Yet to say that a piece of music is truly in the key of C, we’d have to have that C major chord featuring quite prominently through. For example, a I, IV, V structure (C, F, G) would be great?

But what if we wrote a song that just used chords F and G?

Or D minor and G?

Or A minor, G, D minor?

What keys are these in?

You would still mark the key signature as appropriate if notating, but you wouldn’t call them C major so much as refer to them as being in their more prominent root with one of the following modes in them.

Let’s explore some more…

Keeping it Major: Lydian and Mixolydian

There are two other modes that are in a major key:

Lydian Mode

Here we take our usual scale structure, such as C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C, and we raise the fourth by a semitone.

The fourth is

C = 1

D = 2

E = 3

F = 4th

In this case, raising F by one semitone makes it an F♯. So the layout of Lydian is:

Tone, Tone, Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Semitone (back to C), C now reading:

C - D - E - F♯ - G - A - B - C

C Lydian

C Lydian

Try playing this scale and hearing the difference. Note you may need to adjust your fingers (thumb under on the G in the right hand works well).

To get an understanding of how this is used in music, chordify it bearing in mind that all our Fs are now F♯s.

C

D

E minor

F♯ dim

G

A minor

B minor

So if we wrote a chord structure from this that bases itself around the C major chord; such as C, D, B minor, C - we would say we have a piece in C Lydian*

*the name of a mode itself already dictates the tonality of the piece, therefore there is no need to specify C major Lydian. Just C Lydian will suffice.

You will note that the scale has one sharp - an F♯ - just like a G major scale. However, there is no G major in our chord sequence. Not even just once let alone with any prominence or grounding, yet on paper we would still mark this music the same way. Therefore it would read as being in G major but we would refer to it as C Lydian.

See why it’s confusing?

Mixolydian Mode

Here we revert back to our original C major scale (Ionian - remember?) and make another small adjustment. Let’s refresh our mind of the C major scale:

C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C

And now explain the slight adjustment required for Mixolydian. This is taking the seventh and lowering it by a semitone:

C = 1

D = 2

E = 3

F = 4th

G = 5th

A = 6th

B = 7th

In this case, the B being lowered by a semitone creates a B♭, ergo:

C - D - E - F - G - A - B♭ - C

C Mixolydian

C Mixolydian

This ones plays a lot more alike to the C major Ionian scale for the fingers, but you’ll notice that lovely little ‘folk-like’ lilt at the end!

If we chordify this, bearing in mind that all Bs are now B♭’s, we get:

C

D minor

E diminished

F

G minor

A minor

B♭

If our chord structure from Lydian were adjusted slightly to accommodate the B♭ and re-naturalise the F♯ we would create:

C, D minor, B♭, C

And there it is: a sequence in C Mixolydian.

And…you guessed it…you’d mark that one flat - the B♭ - on the score making it look just like it were in F major, but we know. We know the truth now. It’s in C Mixolydian!

Differentiating the Two

Again, this all comes down to grounding.

Let’s take a look at a simple riff by the Kinks: ‘You Really Got Me’.

Here, you can see that the piece is written in C major (let’s assume it’s all major from here on out…I know, I know it could also be A minor but stay with me…).

The chords are F and G.

So yes, they absolutely do appear in the C major scale. Technically, it’s fair to say you wouldn’t be wrong for identify the key of the song as being in C major for this reason, however is there something a little more accurate?

Our grounding chord is probably going to be the G here. It’s not the first, but it’s the one that the F resolves to more pleasingly as it is the G that rings out at the end of each phrase.

So now we need a variant on the G major scale that features F♮ as opposed to F♯.

And as it were planned this way, F♯ is the seventh degree of the G major scale, is it not? And what rule did I give above? Lowering the seventh by a semitone creates…Mixolydian!

So is You Really Got Me in G Mixolydian?

I would argue so!

But now let’s just assume that the riff was backwards...:

And that now F major is our chord of resolve…

We can’t surely still consider it G Mixolydian because G is a more incidental chord that now resolves into the F major.

Oh no - what do we do?

We need a mode for which F is the root but G major still exists - thus changing F major’s usual B♭ to B♮. By process of elimination, you’ve probably sussed that this is Lydian but…let me talk you through it anyway!

Lydian raises the fourth by one semitone:

F = 1

G = 2

A = 3

B♭ = 4

And a B♭ raised by one semitone is…B♮!

So our backwards Kinks is…F Lydian!

So, whilst in either of those two examples above all the notes are there to suggest that this could be C major (Ionian), F Lydian or G Mixolydian, consider where the grounding and / or the resolve is within the chordal structure and work with that.

Examples in Well Known Music

Ionian: Ionian is the Do - Re - Mi scale, so if you find a piece of music from the Classical or Baroque Era that is in the major key it will almost certainly be in Ionian Mode. Just to give you a head start, however:

• ‘Winter’ from Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’*

• ‘Overture’ from ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ - Mozart*

• ‘Ode to Joy’ - Beethoven

*of course, many of our Classical and Baroque composers liked to throw accidentals into their music and that doesn’t alter the mode. Don’t let it throw you - just consider when it is an accidental (i.e. appears just a handful of times or - when it does - it resolves to a note with the Ionian scale) or a regular, un-resolving culprit in place of its natural, sharp or flat counterpart that should be in the scale. If the latter. It may be a mode!

Lydian:

• ‘Dreams’ - Fleetwood Mac

• ‘Flying Theme’ from E.T. - John Williams*

• ‘Every Little Thing She Does is Magic’ - The Police**

*Lydian is a mode that is rarely adhered to for it’s entirety. Whilst Fleetwood Mac do indeed ground themselves in Lydian for the duration of their song, the E.T. theme has snippets of theme that are in Lydian mode before it modulates to a new key!

**Similarly here, we could argue that the Police’s song is in Ionian because at the very end of the verse it ends (modulates) to chord I - the tonic. So it’s really subjective as to whether you would consider it this way: because of the resolve it is Ionian - or because the majority of the verse's structure it's Lydian.

Mixolydian:

• ‘Louie, Louie’ - the Kingsmen

• ‘Sweet Child o’Mine’ - Guns & Roses

• ‘She Moves Through the Fair’ - Traditional

In Conclusion

Whew…that was exhausting. But hopefully it made sense for at least as long as you were reading.

I’ve neglected to start the minor modes in this blog because I think that’ll be quite enough to be getting on with, although that does mean you will need to wait until my follow up to learn which mode ‘Drunken Sailor’ is in.

However, do familiarise yourself with them and how they sound for now.

I do, for the record, have a YouTube playlist dedicated to the modes and demonstrating them, so take a look at the first video and head over the playlist to watch them all!

And make sure you subscribe so you never miss any videos of mine about all things piano in the future!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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#musictheory #musiclesson #pianolesson #pianoteacher #musicteacher

Putting Chords into Practice - How Chord Can Help Your Learning of Piano Music

I’ve done several blogs in the past covering chords and how important it is to know them and their inversions, but there is so much more benefit to them than you may initially realise.

Whilst it’s true to say that a lot of contemporary music does indeed have chords written above the melody line, you’d be forgiven for assuming you didn’t need or couldn’t benefit from the knowledge of chords and their positions in other types of music - such as classical.

But - as demonstrated in my last couple of blog posts, including my introduction to chords I, IV and V last week - the structure of much music, such as classical, is based around chords to the point that not knowing them can cause certain limitations to your learning. At the very least, they can slow your progress when learning to play or even read a particular piece of music.

Let’s explore some cases in point!

The Basic Chords: Deluxe Edition

The basic chords are just triad chords: C major, G major etc.

And when we start to learn these chords, we do so by learning three notes. Usually starting with the root and then a third above that and a third above that e.g. C major is C - E - G.

This is a great start.

Then we may start to learn about inversions, which is also great as it introduces us to the fact that there are a few more ways to play this chord across the keyboard:

E - G - C is first inversion,

G - C - E is second inversion.

If you need a refresher in finding chords, read this blog. For more details on inversions, read here!

Now that we have identified what makes a chord, we can start to think of the ‘deluxe’ approach! This is not a technical term, but it certainly is more interesting than just playing a simple triad like those demonstrated above.

When we learn about inversions we learn that there are a fair few ways of playing the chords across the keyboard, however when we know the three notes that make up a chord we learn that the possibilities of how to play them across the keyboard are, in fact, unlimited!

Why?

• Some or all notes may be doubled up.

• Notes don’t always have to go in ascending order.

• Both hands can be used.

So even if I were to take my humble C major chord and continue playing, say, C - E - G in the right hand, I can variate that one of several ways by different approaches in the left hand:

C - E

C - G

C - E - G

C - G

E - G

G - E

G - C - E

etc. - there are loads!

The important thing to remember is that these chords will always be these chords regardless of what order the notes appear and no matter how many times one of the notes appears.

So just imagine that you have an incredible stretch and allow me to introduce you to this:

C - G - E Left Hand

G - C - G Right Hand

See...it's a C major chord (get it?)

Still a C major chord, but definitely a ‘deluxe edition’.

You may be wondering;

“But Jack, this is all very exciting and all…but when will I actually need this very specific layout of chord and how does it help me overall in my musical learning journey?”…

…or words to that effect.

Well, learning about chords isn’t just as important as learning how to find and play a single chord.

It’s about being able to move your hand from one chord to the next as well as being able to develop your ear so that it can perhaps a little better hear progressions.

Even if we don’t focus on the ear, we need to be able to move between different chords. It’s a basic necessity of playing piano. This goes for both hands too - don’t get sucked into the thinking that chords are just for the left hand as they are for the accompaniment alone!

To demonstrate how valuable an asset chords are to our musical knowledge, here are some cases in point!

Cases in Point

Canon in D

One of the most famous openings of any classical piece ever (Baroque, in fact) is that of Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D’. A Canon is a piece of music that repeats the same idea over and over again but adds to or variates on it each time. In many piano transcriptions of ‘Canon in D’, this actually means that the first 4 bars in the left hand are often repeated several times throughout the piece, with only the right hand doing any work!

Anyway, I digress.

We know that Canon is in D. This means D major (remember it’s always major if it doesn’t specify otherwise!).

If we chordi-fy the D major scale, which is made up of the notes:

D - E - F♯ - G - A - B - C♯

We create the triads

D major - E minor - F♯ minor - G major - A major - B minor (relative minor) - C♯ dim.

So unless the score suggests any accidentals (one off sharps or flats in the bar) - which it doesn’t - then these are the chords that we are playing with in Canon.

Take a look at the first passage below and see if you can work out the chordal structure:

Just from the root notes (the notes in the bassline) alone, but using the intervals in the right hand to confirm, you should be able to work out that the chords are:

D - A - B minor - F♯ minor - G - D - G - A

Now let’s have a look at a couple of bars a little later on in the piece:

Can you confirm that the chords are the same?

If so, how can our learning of that chord sequence help us to learn the bars above?

Again, consider the notes that make up a chord and where the chords change.

This is especially powerful if you want to start committing the music to memory rather than just relying on muscle memory (on its own a hugely unreliable thing), but can also benefit the speed at which you learn if you’re happy keeping the score safely in front of you as well: talk yourself through and learn the piece through intervals:

The first bar in this snippet - which starts where our D major chord would be - starts with the note D, rising up to F♯ (logical, as this note is also in the D chord), then when the left hand moves to A, this is identical to the note the right hand has moved to. The next bar starts with the B minor chord and for us we are playing a fifth interval (although not one directly above the other - this is called a compound interval, where the interval is still recognised by the notes but is separated by an octave). This goes down to D, which again is logical as it fits within the realm of the B minor chord that is represented by the left hand root. When we reach where our F♯ minor falls, we are just duplicating the root note of F# in the right hand.

It may seem convoluted, but the more familiar you already are with how chords and intervals work the more powerful this approach to learning music will be.

Prelude in C

Bach’s introduction to ‘The Well Tempered Clavier’ is one of his best loved keyboard works, but despite sounding rather straightforward it is a deceptively difficult one to play well; keeping a regimented rhythm going throughout all those semiquavers can be a nightmare! But regardless of that, the exciting thing about this piece is that it is entirely based around chords!

Once you have mastered the basic setup of the pattern in bar one you have cracked the principle on which the rest of the piece is based, but obviously the notes change in each bar. But where do they change to?

They change to other chords!

Can you identify the chord in the first bar:

This is indeed a C major. Across both hands it is a C major because the left hand gives us C - E and the right hand gives us G - C - E. Altogether that creates a root position, but if you take the right hand alone then the notes it plays is a broken C major second inversion (note only the stems pointing up in the right hand are played in the right hand).

Taking the right hand separately is a really good thing to do with this piece because the left hand doesn’t necessarily correspond to the chord that is in the right, so let’s see if you can identify the chords in the right hand of the first four bars, inversions and all (clue: the first one is C major second inversion - we’ve just done that!):

ANSWERS:

Bar 1: C major second inversion

Bar 2: D minor second inversion (A - D - F)

Bar 3: G7 root* (G - D - F)

Bar 4: C major second inversion

*as I have said what seems like one million times in the past, a seventh chord is typically a four note chord because it is your triad with an extra note on the top. G7 would therefore be G - B - D - F however it is common in music theory (and considered better practice) to drop one of the middle notes. Thus G - B - F and - as in this case - G - D - F - are both viable G7 chords. This is considered better music practice on the basis that it keeps the harmonic voicing consistent with a typical triad chord. Four notes (voices) to three sounds less even than three to three for the simple reason that the latter has the same number of notes progressing / modulating / resolving to…the same number of notes!

Just imagine for one second that you didn’t have quite the genius understanding of chords as you do and imagine trying to navigate your way around this piece:

C - E - G - C - E - G - C - E

C - D - A - D - F - A - D - F

B - D - G - D - F - G - D - F

It just looks like random letters and would very much play the same: random notes.

But because you know how chords are put together, hopefully that can help you to better understand the logic in which notes follow which and even which chords follow on from each other.

Sarabande in D Minor

This piece of classic Baroque music by Handel is almost too perfect to demonstrate chords because it’s opening theme is virtually a masterclass of how chords, chords and chords can make the entire piece!

Take a look at the opening bars below and see if you can work out the first right hand chord of the first four bars (complete with inversions):

ANSWERS:

Bar 1: D minor second inversion

Bar 2: A major root

Bar 3: F major second inversion

Bar 4: C major root

When you know these chords, learning and playing these opening bars becomes a dream! But even if we jump to the first variation, we can use our knowledge of these chords on which the variation is based to work some information out:

The first three notes of the first bar is just the D minor second inversion but played in a specific order (top - bottom - middle: F - A - D), whereas the minims in the second bar are E and C♯ which are - you guessed it - the top two notes of our A major root position. These two principles translate respectively across the next two bars for the F major second inversion and the C major root position.

Eagle eyed readers will, of course, have spotted that that isn’t the be all and end all of these bars, however. The first bar, for example, features those three crotchets at the end: A - G - F. They’re not chord-ified.

Perhaps not, but whilst it’s worth remembering that not every single individual note can be assumed to be from the triad, we can also consider the journey that it is taking. How many notes are we working down?

Three in this case.

And then the first note at the beginning of bar 2 is E.

So the run is A - G - F - E. In essence, we are starting from the top note of a D minor (root position) and then just working down the scale in time to resolve to the E - the top note of our new A major triad.

Similarly, the B in the right hand of the second bar is seemingly unrelated to the A major chord, but when we consider the A just below it in the left hand, it’s actually the note between that and the C♯ that it resolves to in the right hand. This again creates a partial scale of A.

Fun fact: I recorded myself playing this for educational purposes. And because this blog is of an educational persuasion, here is is. Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos of me showing off!

Wrapping Up Chords in Piano Music

In conclusion, having a working knowledge of chords is an incredibly powerful thing to have and to develop and whilst it’s fair to say that knowing them can really help you to develop your learning of a piece of music, it’s also important to say that if you’re less confident it’s worth making a point of trying to identify them within pieces of music so that you feel more confident with them!

As part of your practise, explore different chords and find different progressions (a fancy word for different orders of chords) and try playing them with different inversions, different rhythms and even try creating a more melodic approach such as broken chords in one hands vs. vamping triads in the other. The speed and effectiveness with which you can change between chords is as important to all of the above as the playing itself!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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#musictheory #piano #pianolesson #pianochords #learnpiano #pianoteacher