Seven notes, reordered seven ways — and everything that spills out past them.
A scale is an ordered set of pitches, a ladder of intervals that defines the tonal world a piece lives in. A mode is what happens when you take one scale — classically the major scale — and start it on a different degree, keeping the same notes but shifting the centre of gravity. Play only the white keys from C and you get the major scale; start that same set of white keys on D and you get Dorian, on E Phrygian, and so on. The result is seven distinct colours drawn from a single source. Past the diatonic modes lie the other scales — the minors, the pentatonics, the symmetrical scales — each with its own architecture and mood. The same structures are what pytheory models in code.
The Diatonic Modes
The seven rotations of the major scale, brightest to darkest:
Lydian · Ionian · Mixolydian · Dorian · Aeolian · Phrygian · Locrian
Ionian is the major scale; Aeolian is the natural minor. The rest sit between the fully bright (Lydian, with its raised 4th) and the fully dark (Locrian, with its flattened 2nd and 5th).
The same seven notes, walked from brightest to darkest:
flowchart LR
Ly["Lydian — brightest"]
Io["Ionian — major"]
Mi["Mixolydian"]
Do["Dorian"]
Ae["Aeolian — natural minor"]
Ph["Phrygian"]
Lo["Locrian — darkest"]
Ly --> Io --> Mi --> Do --> Ae --> Ph --> Lo
Other Scales
Harmonic Minor · Melodic Minor · Major Pentatonic · Minor Pentatonic · Blues Scale · Chromatic Scale · Whole Tone · Diminished
Related
- Modes — the mode folder's own index
- Scales — the scale folder's own index
- Musical Keys — the twenty-four keys the scales are transposed into
- pytheory — scales, chords, and tuning systems as a Python library
- Music Hub