Practice Scales and Modes


Overview

This deck contains the scales and modes that are most commonly used in modern music. It includes

  • Major Scale and all of its modes
  • Harmonic Minor and its Phrygian Dominant mode
  • Melodic Minor and its Lydian Dominant and Altered modes
  • Half/Whole Diminished with its only Whole/Half Diminished mode
  • Whole Tone Scale which has no modes

Melodic Minor refers to "Jazz Melodic Minor", which means it is the same in both directions, ascending and descending.

Cards are sorted by difficulty, where difficulty is e.g. number of accidentals and some other criteria. So, you probably don't want to configure Anki to show cards in random order (unless you really want to).

Example


Description


Fields

  • ModeName - name of the scale or mode, e.g. "D Dorian"
  • ModeType - name of the mode type, e.g. "Dorian"
  • ModeRoot - name of the modes root, e.g. "D"
  • ParentName, ParentType, ParentRoot - Same for the parent scale. The parent scale is the scale that a mode was derived from. For example, "D Dorian" is the second mode of the "C Major Scale", so "C Major Scale" is the parent scale of "D Dorian". Both scales, "D Dorian" and "C Major Scale", share the same notes.

Preview

You can preview the different deck versions here. Preview decks only contain a subset the cards, the original deck contains ~380 cards (Guitar version has ~1100 cards).

Download

These decks are available for download on AnkiWeb site. If you like them, please add a on AnkiWeb, and if you can afford it, why not buy me a coffee  ?

Notation


Gb vs F#

Gb and F# scales refer to the same pitches. Whether a scale should be notated as Gb or F# depends on the context, both notations are valid and commonly used. So, in AnkiJazz I usually notate both of them which results in 13 different notations for the 12 scales.

Modes

Modes are notated using the key signature of the parent-scale that the mode was derived from.

Some Books recommend to notate minor modes with the key signature of their parallel natural minor (where parallel means: same root, not to be mixed with relative which means: same signature). In AnkiJazz, I did not follow that recommendation. For me it is more important to see which key-center I'm in than how the current mode differs from its parallel minor / major. For example, when I'm jamming on a II-V-I progression, I want to quickly see whether the corresponding modes have the same signatures / notes or not.

Non-Major Scales

For these scales I used the following key signatures:

  • Melodic Minor is notated with the key signature of its parallel Dorian scale. In other words, Melodic Minor is notated as Dorian with a raised 7th.
  • Harmonic Minor is notated with the key signature of its parallel Aeolean (Aeolean = Natural Minor) scale. In other words, Harmonic Minor is notated as Aeolean with a raised 7th.
  • Whole Tone and Diminished scales are notated in the key of C using flats.

Result

  • Some scales require an "enharmonic root", e.g. the 7-th mode of F# Major is E# Locrian (and not F Locrian).
  • Some scales can only be notated by using both, sharps # and flats b, for example G Melodic-Minor and D Harmonic-Minor.
  • Some scales require double sharps (notated as Fx), for example G# Melodic-Minor and G# Harmonic-Minor