Then they also noted that you could tune one of the strings down (the one physically up from the root) and get the same affect, but with the root in a different place. So if you called that major mode Lydian, you could start from the string three strings higher - physically higher (nete), not higher on a staff, which wouldn't be invented for a few thousand years - and get an entirely different affect. If a lyre was tuned in a major scale, the ancient Greeks noted that you could also play a melody starting from a point under the root of the major scale.

(Note that the number of flats/sharps varies.) (Note that the number of flats remain the same.) Mode Flats/Sharps Corresponding major key signatureĢ) All modern modes corresponding to the Bb major key Perhaps these three tables clarifies this for someone: But this is slightly different since this scale got its name from the key. (Or for that matter that the Bb major scale happens to use the notes of the Bb major key. This is analogical to that the Mixolydian mode on F uses the same notes as are found in the key of Bb but has F as its root, or to that the Ionian mode on Bb, which has Bb as its root, happens to use the same notes as the Bb major key, etc. However since C is its root note, or tonic, it is a C Dorian. The Dorian mode on C happens to use the same notes as the Bb major key and thus uses the same key signature. ) from its first - or root - note, not from the key who's notes happen to match the set of notes used in this mode. This is to say, the specific mode gets its name (C, Db, D.

This set of notes happens to be the same as the ones found in the Bb major key, thus two flats. 'Dorian mode on C' refers to the Dorian scale, or set of note intervals, that start on the note C, i.e. 'Dorian mode on C' does not mean 'the Dorian scale that you can find among the notes that are available in the major key of C'!

D flat major mode