The Dorian Mode – Making It Musical

The Dorian Mode

To begin let’s look at the Dorian mode and what makes this mode unique. The Dorian mode is the second mode of the major scale. This means if you can take any major scale and emphasise the second note as home base you will get the Dorian mode. For example if you take the C major scale and start your scale from the second note which is D, you get D Dorian.

C Major	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
D Dorian	D	E	F	G	A	B	C

Currently it still looks a lot like the major scale but starting on the second note. In order see the differences between the two scales you need to look at the intervallic formula that describes the scale. 

Your ear forms relationships between the note being emphasised as home base and every other note in the scale. You hear these relationships as intervals. For example in the C major scale, C is emphasised as home base, therefore you hear every note as being related to C. This produces the following set of intervals.

C Major	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
Interval	Root	Major 2nd	Major 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Major 6th	Major 7th

When you emphasise the second note of the major scale as home base this sequence of intervals changes because you are relating all the notes in the scale to the second note instead of the first. If you treat the second note of the C major scale as home base, you get D Dorian. It has the following intervals.

D Dorian	D	E	F	G	A	B	C
Interval	Root	Major 2nd	Minor 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Major 6th	Minor 7th

Hopefully you can see that the major scale and Dorian mode share the same notes, but their intervallic formulae are different.

C Major	Root	Major 2nd	Major 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Major 6th	Major 7th
D Dorian	Root	Major 2nd	Minor 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Major 6th	Minor 7th

One of the important things about the Dorian mode is the minor third. The presence of the minor third gives the scale a minor tonality. This makes it a minor mode and it’s therefore better comparing it to the natural minor scale.

The natural minor scale is also called the Aeolian mode, it shares the same notes as the major scale but you start on the 6th note. 

A Aeolian	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
Interval	Root	Major 2nd	Minor 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Minor 6th	Minor 7th

When you compare the Dorian mode to the natural minor scale it is easy to see that the Dorian mode is simply a natural minor scale with a major 6th. That is the only difference between the two scales.

A Aeolian	Root	Major 2nd	Minor 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Minor 6th	Minor 7th
D Dorian	Root	Major 2nd	Minor 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Major 6th	Minor 7th

In my experience this is how most musicians end up conceptualising the Dorian mode, it is a minor scale with a major 6th. This conceptualisation is useful because it will allow you to use a lot of the tools you already have, for example the minor pentatonic scale.

There’s still a problem though. If you play the C major scale, and then the D Dorian scale back to back you probably won’t hear any difference between the two.

How To Sound Dorian

How can you hear the difference between these two scales, and any of the modes for that matter? It all comes down to how you emphasise home base. The mode you hear is a product of the harmony that is being implied. If you create a harmony that implies to the listener that C is home base, you will hear C major (a.k.a. C Ionian). But if you create a harmony that implies that D is home base you will hear the Dorian mode.

In my opinion the harmony is the most important thing when it comes to hearing the modes. All modes of a major scale share the same notes, the difference is the relative relationships between the notes. 

Harmony is like the colour of a canvas on which you paint. It could be red, purple, white or yellow. The colour of the canvas will influence the colours of the paints that you layer on top. In music harmony is a product of the chords that you are playing . The chords that you play over will influence the quality of the melody that you create.

Therefore if you want to sound Dorian you need to make sure that you are playing over a Dorian harmony. That is, a harmony that implies that the second note of the key is home base.

Chords In The Dorian Mode

In order to make a Dorian chord progression you need to know what chords are created by the Dorian mode. In the same way that you worked out the formula for a Dorian scale you can also work out it’s chords. Lets look at the chords in the major scale.

In the major scale each note can have a chord built on it. The pattern produced is major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished.

C Major	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
Interval	Root	Major 2nd	Major 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Major 6th	Major 7th
Chord	Major	Minor	Minor	Major	Major	Minor	Diminished

You can number these chords based on the interval in the formula, this is the Nashville number system in action. This gives you a major I, minor ii, minor iii, major IV, major V, minor vi, and a diminished vii chord.

C Major	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
Interval	Root	Major 2nd	Major 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Major 6th	Major 7th
Chord	Major	Minor	Minor	Major	Major	Minor	Diminished
Nashville Number	I	ii	iii	IV	V	vi	viiº

You can extend these chords to become 7th chords, this allows us to easily spot the dominant chord in the key. The dominant chord will be useful for implying home base so you should make it easy to find. G major becomes G7, this is our dominant V chord, ready for when you need it later.

C Major	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
Interval	Root	Major 2nd	Major 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Major 6th	Major 7th
Chord	Major	Minor	Minor	Major	Major	Minor	Diminished
Nashville Number	I	ii	iii	IV	V	vi	viiº
7th Chord	IMaj7	iim7	iiim7	IVmaj7	V7	vim7	viim7♭5

Given that Dorian is a minor mode it is better to compare it’s chords to those in the Aeolian mode which is our natural minor scale. Starting on the 6th note of the major scale gives us the natural minor scale. 

The chords in our natural minor scale follow the same sequence, you just start from the 6th chord . The pattern becomes minor 7, half diminished, major 7, minor 7, minor 7, major 7, dominant 7. Anywhere there is a flat interval you make the Nashville number flat too. These are the chords that are created by the natural minor scale.

A Aeolian	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
Interval	Root	Major 2nd	Minor 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Minor 6th	Minor 7th
Chord	Minor	Diminished	Major	Major	Minor	Minor	Major
Nashville Number	i	iiº	♭III	iv	v	♭VI	♭VII
7th Chord	im7	iim7♭5	♭IIIMaj7	ivm7	vm7	♭VIMaj7	♭VII7

Starting on the second note of the major scale produces the Dorian mode. Therefore you should start our sequence of chords in the same place. This produces a pattern that goes minor 7, minor 7, major 7, dominant 7, minor 7, half diminished, and major 7.

D Dorian	D	E	F	G	A	B	C
Interval	Root	Major 2nd	Minor 3rd	Perfect 4th	Perfect 5th	Major 6th	Minor 7th
Chord	Minor	Minor	Major	Dominant	Minor	Diminished	Major
Nashville Number	i	II	♭III	IV	v	viº	♭VII
7th Chord	im7	IIMaj7	♭IIIMaj7	IV7	vm7	vim7♭5	♭VIIMaj7

Now you can see the differences between the chords in the natural minor scale and the Dorian mode. There are a few of useful differences. Firstly our ii chord is no longer half diminished, it’s minor. Our IV chord is no longer minor, it’s a dominant 7th chord. And finally the flat 6th chord is no longer flat or major, it is now just half diminished. You have three chords that differ from the natural minor scale, and it’s these three chords that you can target to pull out the sound of the Dorian mode.

How To Make Dorian Chord Progressions

The minor i chord

Lets start emphasising the Dorian mode in our chord progressions. To do this you have to imply that the minor i chord is home base The easiest way to do this is to sit on the minor i chord and never change.

In D Dorian the minor i chord is Dm or Dm7. You could play D Dorian over this chord and it would sound fine. However you could also play D natural minor over the top of this chord or D Phrygian because both scales have a minor i chord. It’s not going to sound wrong, it just means that the minor i chord alone does not strong imply the harmony you need. Sitting on a single chord vamp for a whole song is also not that interesting in my opinion so you probably should use some more chords.  

Creating Cadences

To bring out the Dorian mode further you need to take your listener further from home base, to another chord in the mode, and then bring them back to home base again. You can do this by going to a chord that is unique to the Dorian mode and then cadencing you chord progression back to home base in this case Dm.

The strongest way to imply this is to cadence with a dominant chord. This is why we extended the chords to include the 7th earlier. In D Dorian the dominant chord is G, this can also be played as G7 for extra dominant spice. Playing a chord progression that goes Dm7 to G7 to Dm7 sounds distinctly Dorian because the dominant IV chord is unique to the Dorian. This sound always reminds me of Carlos Santana!  

Another way to produce the same effect is to move between the minor i chord and the minor ii chord. This is another Santana esque chord progression that that strongly implies the Dorian sound.  

This is the easiest way to start producing Dorian harmony. Emphasise the chords that make the Dorian mode unique, for example  the movement between the minor I, minor ii chord, and the dominant IV chord.

Taking it further

The previous method can be quite limiting, it makes it hard to play chords that are shared between the modes. If you use a C major chord in your D Dorian progression the listener might start to perceive C as home base because they’re not used to the sound of the Dorian mode. The way to circumvent this is to make sure the note that you’re using as home base is present in every chord you play.

For example if you’re in D Dorian you could make sure that every chord you play contains the note D, so that the sense of D as home base is never lost. This is the trick I was using in the chord progression below. It’s in A Dorian and every chord contains the note A.  

Obviously this takes some figuring out so if would like to learn some chord voicings to emphasise the Dorian sound check out chord diagrams below.

Dorian Chord Voicings

Soloing

The Minor Pentatonic Scale

Now you have the chords that emphasise the Dorian mode, lets talk about soloing. You might think you need to learn a bunch of new scale shapes, however this isn’t true. The first thing that you want to think about is that this is a minor mode and it therefore has minor tonality. You probably already know a scale that works well over a dorian chord  progression. Everybody’s favourite, the minor pentatonic scale.

The minor pentatonic scale contains five of the seven notes from the Dorian mode. It has the root, minor 3rd , perfect 4th, perfect 5th , and minor 7th. Therefore you can use the minor pentatonic licks and shapes you already know to improvise over a Dorian progression This is how you should start, if if you have never improvised with Dorian before, start with minor pentatonic vocabulary you already know.

Add the 6th and 9th

The minor pentatonic scale doesn’t heavily imply a Dorian tonality, but it’s certainly there because of the harmony you are playing over. To sound more Dorian you need add the two notes that are unique to the Dorian mode. These are the major 2nd, also called the 9th, and the major 6th.

These two notes can be added to the minor pentatonic scale to create the full dorian mode. Check out the scale diagrams below to see how the minor pentatonic scale, and the dorian mode, look side by side. The 2nds and 6ths and are represented with the green triangles, notice how they fill in the gaps in the minor pentatonic scale. 

As before you should continue to use your minor pentatonic phrases but try modifying them with the Dorian notes you have just added. For me ending on the 6th is a really good way of implying the Dorian tonality, it’s the key note that emphasises the difference between the minor scale and the Dorian scale, and is therefore a strong choice to end phrases on if you want to sound particularly Dorian. Check out the following section for five Dorian licks that demonstrate the principle of modifying the minor pentatonic scale the the 6th and 9th.  

You can expand the other minor pentatonic scale shapes in the same way to cover the whole fretboard, I use the CAGED system to map out these shapes. It’s simply the case of playing your five pentatonic shapes and filling in the gaps to turn it into the dorian scale. Scale diagrams for all the shapes are in the following section.

All the general ideas you should use for phrasing when improvising also apply here. These are concepts like motifs, call and response, leaving space, articulations. These ideas will help you ensure that what you are playing doesn’t sound too scalar.

If you need some tips on phrasing check out my lesson pack on phrasing here. Beyond that, if you want to be more Dorian, focus on the 6th and the 9th of the scale. If that becomes too dissonant, or you feel you are getting lost you can always fall back on the minor pentatonic phrases you already know.

Have a go at making your own Dorian chord progressions and improvising over them with the minor pentatonic and Dorian scales. If you would like a backing track to use for this you can find it at the end of the lesson pack.

Five Dorian Licks

Improvisation Exercises

Dorian CAGED Shapes

Backing Track