Q: Great dorian lesson, thanks. But when we see a Dmin7 on a chart while jamming, and thinking whether we should play a pentatonic a mode or whatever, isn't that decision should be strictly related on the KEY of the song? Aren't we risking playing notes completely out of key when we use modes?
A: Great question. It's all about musical context. There are two kinds of harmony
and for the lack of better words let's say that one is functional
harmony and the other is non-fuctional, modal or maybe static harmony (for lack of better words). When we talk
about functional, we are talking about chords that work together inside
of a particular key. So a Dmin7 chord inside of a Cmaj7-Fmaj7-Dmin7-G7
progression is functioning as a "ii" chord. As you know the "ii" chord
is the dorian chord. If you tried to play one of the other minor modal
scales it would sound wrong. You don't even really want to be thinking
modes in this case anyways, I mean it's just a C major progression and
that's all you really to know or consider. We hear the tonal center of this progression as C major.
