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5.2.3Modes in Music: The Church Modes
When the diatonic order was being sorted out several centuries ago, composers and musicians were working with many scales. But it took quite a while to settle on one or two favourites, for reasons ultimately having to do with simple frequency ratios, harmony, and something called tonality (coming up later in this chapter).
In medieval times, there were eight music modes called the Church modes or Gregorian modes. As the diatonic order gradually became more entrenched, seven “modern” modes were recognized—the seven variants of the diatonic order you just played on the keyboard, each beginning on a different white key.
The seven modes have names. The scale you get when you play the white keys on the piano starting and ending with C is called the Ionian mode. The modern name for the Ionian mode is simply the major scale—your basic familiar “do-re-mi” scale.
The scale you get when you play the white keys on the piano starting and ending with D is called the Dorian mode. And so on.
You can play any of these modal scales anywhere on your guitar or piano (i.e., starting on any note), as long as you preserve the interval order for the mode.