The Modes by Accidentals and Brightness
- landervast
- Jul 9, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 16, 2023
The list of the modes in order of accidentals and from brightest to darkest scale (Remember that this is a somewhat controversial and subjective subject):

Lydian -- 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7 8 -- C D E F# G A B C
Ionian -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 -- C D E F G A B C
Mixolydian -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7 8 -- C D E F G A Bb C
Dorian -- 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 8 -- C D Eb F G A Bb C
Aeolian -- 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 8 -- C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
Phrygian -- 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 8 -- C Db Eb F G Ab Bb C
Locrian -- 1 b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7 8 -- C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C
The same for the minor melodic and it's modes:
Lydian Dominant -- 1 2 3 #4 5 6 b7 8 -- C D E F# G A Bb C
Mixolydian b13 -- 1 2 3 4 5 b6 b7 8 -- C D E F G Ab Bb C
Minor Melodic -- 1 2 b3 4 5 6 7 8 -- C D Eb F G A B C
Phrygian Natural 6 -- 1 b2 b3 4 5 6 b7 8 -- C Db Eb F G A Bb C
Locrian Natural 9 -- 1 2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7 8 -- C D Eb F Gb Ab Bb C
The same for the minor harmonic and it's modes:
Ionian Augmented - 1 2 3 4 #5 6 7 8 - C DE F G# A B C
Minor Harmonic - 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7 8 - C D Eb F G Ab B C
Mixolydian b9 b13 - 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7 8 - C Db E F G Ab Bb C
Locrian Natural 6 - 1 b2 b3 4 b5 6 b7 8 - C Db Eb F Gb A Bb C
Super Locrian bb7 - 1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 bb7 8 - C Db Eb Fb Gb Ab Bbb C

I did a chart on excel and assigned values to each degree of the scale according to importance to perceive brightness or to perceive darkness. It's not perfect but helped understand the tendencies, so for example a b3 might be more important to perceive darkness than a b7, so my excel will for example give -7 value to the final value for a b3 and maybe -6 for a b7, if the scale has both a b3 and a b7 it will just add -7 and -6 giving the scale a value of -13, if a scale has a major 3rd it might add for example 7 to the brightness value and if it has a major 7 it will add 6, if the scale has both a major 3rd and a major 7th it will add the value of both, in this case 13. Some scale's final values were equal, so in order to distinguish between them I tweaked the value with fractions.
Remember that all of this is subjective, and the database can always be more refined.




Comments