The modes of the harmonic minor scale
The harmonic minor scale heard from each of its seven notes: Harmonic minor, Locrian ♮6, Ionian augmented, Dorian ♯4, Phrygian dominant, Lydian ♯2, Ultralocrian. Each in order of brightness, to hear over a drone, with its colour notes, its chords and the ones that announce it, and a shape on your neck.
A mode is a scale heard from a different home
Play the C harmonic minor scale but start and end on its 2nd note, D, and it sounds like a different scale: the same seven notes, another home. Start on each of its seven notes in turn and you have its seven modes, in their natural order: Harmonic minor, Locrian ♮6, Ionian augmented, Dorian ♯4, Phrygian dominant, Lydian ♯2, Ultralocrian.
The catch: your ear only hears the new home if something holds it down. Played alone, D to D still sounds like C harmonic minor. So every example on this page plays over a drone, a held note on the home. Press a note on the ring to make it home.
Home on C
C Harmonic minor
classical, film, world
R2♭345♭67
The same seven notes as C harmonic minor, C D E♭ F G A♭ B, started from its 1st note.
The order of brightness
Now put all seven on the same root, C, and sort them from the brightest to the darkest by Songling’s count: a point for every note raised above the major scale, one off for every note lowered. Here the brightest is Lydian ♯2 (+2) and the darkest Ultralocrian (−7). Unlike the major scale’s modes, the steps are uneven: some change two notes at once, so every changed note glows. Press a row to hear it, or walk down the ladder.
Seven modes on C, one octave each, over one drone.
The dots wear the site’s interval colours: flats are drawn darker and sharps lighter.
The chords of each mode
Stack 3rds on each note of a mode and you get its seven chords, just as a key has. A mode has the same chords as its parent harmonic minor scale; what changes is which one is home, so the numerals move. On one root, C, each step down the ladder changes the chords that hold the lowered note.
A few chords in each mode carry its colour note. They are the ones that tell your ear which mode it is, so they glow; the quieter carriers (the diminished chord, or a chord holding the colour note as its minor 3rd) are underlined. To write in a mode, stay on home and move to a glowing chord and back. Press ▶ to hear each mode that way.
Each chord wears the colour of its job, as on the key and progression pages: home, the door, the pull, heroic, the lift and the rest. The marks follow Songling: a mode’s colour notes are its tritone pair, and a chord announces the mode when its root or its major 3rd is one of them.
The seven modes
Each on C: its notes with the colour note glowing, its chords, a shape on your neck, what it feels like, and the chords that say it, to hear.
How to hear a mode
- Hold the home down. A drone, a looped chord or a bass note on the root. Without one your ear drifts to the parent major key.
- Lean on the colour note. Play the scale’s pentatonic and touch the glowing note on a strong beat: Dorian’s 6, Lydian’s ♯4, Mixolydian’s ♭7, Phrygian’s ♭2.
- Compare on one root. Play C Ionian then C Mixolydian over the same drone. One note changes, and you hear exactly what it does.
- Use the vamp. Two chords are enough to set a mode up. Loop one and improvise over it.
The other families
The other families, each on its own page: the major scale’s modes, the melodic minor modes, the harmonic major modes, the double harmonic major modes, the major pentatonic modes, the Hirajoshi modes, the octatonic (diminished) modes.
Look it up
The scale pages have every mode in every key and position.
Questions
What are the modes of the harmonic minor scale?
Seven scales, each starting on one of its notes: Harmonic minor (from the 1st), Locrian ♮6 (from the 2nd), Ionian augmented (from the 3rd), Dorian ♯4 (from the 4th), Phrygian dominant (from the 5th), Lydian ♯2 (from the 6th), Ultralocrian (from the 7th).
Which harmonic minor mode is the brightest, and which the darkest?
Lydian ♯2 is the brightest (+2 against the major scale) and Ultralocrian the darkest (−7). From the brightest: Lydian ♯2, Ionian augmented, Dorian ♯4, Harmonic minor, Phrygian dominant, Locrian ♮6, Ultralocrian.
Where are the harmonic minor modes used?
classical, film, world, metal, gothic, fantasy, klezmer, folk. Natural minor with a raised 7th, which leads back up to the root and makes the V chord major. The neo-classical shred sound; the jump from ♭6 to 7 is three frets wide.
How do I practise them?
The same way as the major scale’s modes: over a drone on the root, one shape at a time, leaning on the glowing notes. Then play the home chord and a glowing chord in turn and improvise over them.