One thing about scale theory that you might be able to help me out with here or in a separate thread--
None of it means anything to me unless I know which chords to put underneath. How can I choose chords that have more of the scale's flavour? Or in general, how do the two relate? What I'm getting out of this so far is that for the 8 (or was it 7... I'm a good teacher but a crap student. <laff>) basic modes, the 'shape' is basically the same, except 'shifted' by varying degrees.
For example, a major scale is:
tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. Let's say the first note is a C, just to make things easy. Now we have a C-major scale:
C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
and one of the modes (dunno which... just throwing this out there) might be starting on the SECOND tone-- resulting in tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone
D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D
so that everything's just shifted along. I dunno what the resulting scale would be, but it would be called "D something", no?
Both of those scales will still be in the same key-- C major (or its relative minor, A minor)
(NOW, at this point in time, I may have messed it all up and gotten it 'wrong', in which case the crux of this post is off the mark and should be disregarded:)
So if it's the same key... what the hell is the point of it all? <laff>
Sorry, but I've never ever studied modes before, so I just haven't had that "epiphanic" moment where suddenly I make that first connection that creates the snowball effect that results in learning and understanding it. If you can make the first connection, which for me MUST be the relationship between the key, the chords, and the scales-- then I'll be set.