The ability to navigate playing/singing fluently and elegantly in diatonic pitch space (also without notation) is indispensable .
You should be able to sing/play the following modal scale patterns fluently:
- ionian (= major)
- dorian
- phrygian
- lydian
- mixolydian
- aeolian (=natural minor)
The fifth is the "anchor" of each pattern. You move one step beyond the fifth and one step below the starting note: so the pattern is always 1-2-3-4-5-6-5-4-3-2-1-7-1. In this way we mark the different "species of the fifth". (In case you miss the locrian pattern: that pattern is omitted in this context because the locrian pattern has a diminished fifth between 1 and 5, and thus it cannot function as a stable anchor interval.)
The movement around the 1 and 5 of the pattern gives a better musical impression of the scale than moving from from 1 through 8 and back.
Memorize the labels! (So that you are able to do the following: "play/sing dorian and start on e".)
Each half step is indicated with a *.
