Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" is in Dorian, right? Iirc, I got that insight from a televised Leonard Bernstein young people's concert back in the day.
It's one of two Beatles songs (1) that are good songs, but not close to my Beatle favorites ("Wood" not even in the top 5 on Rubber Soul) and (2) that have totally ear-wormed me to the point that I've hummed or whistled or sung it at least once a week (if not more) since the age of fifteen, while maybe in my adult life actually *listening* to it once every five years. (The other one is "If I Fell," which I've hum, sung even more. Don't think it's a mode song (it has a black note, though I don't know if that holds if I made the effort to transpose to other keys).)
“Norwegian Wood” is Mixolydian for the verses (major with a flat seventh, or “all white notes on G”) and sort of(?) Dorian in the bridge (he doesn't sing the raised sixth in the melody but it’s implied in the arrangement of the chords). Also a good example of chromatic movement to match a new chord!
This was initially ambiguous for me. Assume you mean it took you a long time to find a black note, rather than it took you a long time to find a melody that, transposed into the right key, *didn't* use a black note. The first makes sense with how you've constructed the sentence and what you're trying to say, the second doesn't – but it took me three readthroughs to get it. Anyway, recommend you replace "one" with either "a black note" or "a melody with a black note" (assuming I've interpreted you right).
Fixed—yes, took me a long time to find a chromatic note (“black note”). I have now found two (“Showgirl” and “Look What You Made Me Do”) and a few less ambiguous blue notes on Reputation and her debut. Her debut album is brimming with blue notes, comes with the country territory, but she has mostly abandoned this by Fearless.
I read once that Irving Berlin had a piano made with only 5 keys. Probably a joke, I realize now, and not even one that describes his songs, just a dig at the simplicity of pop.
My favourite pentatonic song, dunno what mode, is Drug Lullabies by Angie, which uses three variations within the same pentatonic scale, arranged AABCCAABCCCC
yeah, none of this is a comment on quality, but I really was expecting a LITTLE more variation -- I only wrote the modal stuff as a comparison point! but at this point I've gone through five or six albums and have found only three instances of any chromatic movement (two of them a single note in the bridge of the song), plus a few blue notes
So it is possible by the time that I'm done that she'll have more songs in non-major/minor modes than she has songs with even a single note written intentionally outside of the diatonic scale
Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" is in Dorian, right? Iirc, I got that insight from a televised Leonard Bernstein young people's concert back in the day.
It's one of two Beatles songs (1) that are good songs, but not close to my Beatle favorites ("Wood" not even in the top 5 on Rubber Soul) and (2) that have totally ear-wormed me to the point that I've hummed or whistled or sung it at least once a week (if not more) since the age of fifteen, while maybe in my adult life actually *listening* to it once every five years. (The other one is "If I Fell," which I've hum, sung even more. Don't think it's a mode song (it has a black note, though I don't know if that holds if I made the effort to transpose to other keys).)
“Norwegian Wood” is Mixolydian for the verses (major with a flat seventh, or “all white notes on G”) and sort of(?) Dorian in the bridge (he doesn't sing the raised sixth in the melody but it’s implied in the arrangement of the chords). Also a good example of chromatic movement to match a new chord!
"If I Fell" has a beautiful melody, tons of chromatic movement -- no way to play it only on the white notes.
"It took me a long time to find one."
This was initially ambiguous for me. Assume you mean it took you a long time to find a black note, rather than it took you a long time to find a melody that, transposed into the right key, *didn't* use a black note. The first makes sense with how you've constructed the sentence and what you're trying to say, the second doesn't – but it took me three readthroughs to get it. Anyway, recommend you replace "one" with either "a black note" or "a melody with a black note" (assuming I've interpreted you right).
Fixed—yes, took me a long time to find a chromatic note (“black note”). I have now found two (“Showgirl” and “Look What You Made Me Do”) and a few less ambiguous blue notes on Reputation and her debut. Her debut album is brimming with blue notes, comes with the country territory, but she has mostly abandoned this by Fearless.
I read once that Irving Berlin had a piano made with only 5 keys. Probably a joke, I realize now, and not even one that describes his songs, just a dig at the simplicity of pop.
My favourite pentatonic song, dunno what mode, is Drug Lullabies by Angie, which uses three variations within the same pentatonic scale, arranged AABCCAABCCCC
yeah, none of this is a comment on quality, but I really was expecting a LITTLE more variation -- I only wrote the modal stuff as a comparison point! but at this point I've gone through five or six albums and have found only three instances of any chromatic movement (two of them a single note in the bridge of the song), plus a few blue notes
So it is possible by the time that I'm done that she'll have more songs in non-major/minor modes than she has songs with even a single note written intentionally outside of the diatonic scale