The Church Modes, Explained With as Little Jargon as Possible

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he explains the church modes — a set of scales genuinely useful for improvising — with as little jargon as possible.

What Is a Scale, Really?

If you play bass, you’ve definitely heard the word “scale” thrown around. But even players experienced enough to improvise often don’t fully understand what it actually means, so let’s start from the very basics.

A scale is just a set of pitches arranged in a fixed, repeating pattern. Take the familiar major scale, do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do: going from C on the 3rd fret of the 3rd string up to the C an octave higher, you’re moving through a fixed sequence of “whole steps” (a 2-fret gap) and “half steps” (an adjacent-fret gap).

It’s easiest to picture on a piano. The pattern looks like this:

whole – whole – half – whole – whole – whole – half

A scale built on that specific pattern is called a major scale, or an Ionian scale. We’ll use the name “Ionian” going forward.

Scales You Can Use for Improvising

There are countless types of scales out there, but here’s an especially useful set for improvising.

The C-to-C major scale we just covered — whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half — starts on C. But what if you start that same set of seven white-key notes somewhere else?

Starting on D instead and going D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D gives you the pattern:

whole – half – whole – whole – whole – whole – half – whole

This scale, starting on D, is called the Dorian scale.

Starting on E instead, E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E, gives:

half – whole – whole – whole – whole – half – whole – whole

This one, starting on E, is called the Phrygian scale.

Following the same logic:

Starting on F gives the Lydian scale
Starting on G gives the Mixolydian scale
Starting on A gives the Aeolian scale
Starting on B gives the Locrian scale

These scales give you a set of usable notes for each of the seven diatonic chords built in the key of C.

The Church Modes — and a Mnemonic to Remember Them

Together, these seven scales —

Ionian
Dorian
Phrygian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Aeolian
Locrian

— are known as the church modes. A common way English-speaking musicians remember the order is the mnemonic sentence “I Don’t Particularly Like Modes A Lot” — the first letter of each word matches the first letter of each mode, in order.

Each chord in a major diatonic progression lines up with one of these church modes, and approaching your improvising through this lens opens up a lot more melodic variety than sticking to just a 3-note triad or a 5-note pentatonic scale. These are terms worth holding onto, since they’ll come up again in future lessons on improvising.

A Real Example

Take the first 4 bars of “Fly Me to the Moon” as an example for improvising. Based on the theory above, here’s how the church modes map onto those bars.

That said, just running straight up a mode from the bottom like that doesn’t actually sound very musical on its own — getting these church modes to sound genuinely “jazz” and melodic is something I’ll cover in a future lesson on improvising.

This may have gotten a little theory-heavy, but the main thing to take away is simply this: when soloing over diatonic chords, thinking in terms of church modes is one valid approach. These scale names will come up again in future lessons, so if you ever find yourself thinking “wait, what’s Dorian again?” or “what was Phrygian?”, feel free to come back and check.

Knowing the seven modes in theory is one thing — actually hearing which one to reach for in a given moment, and making it sound musical rather than just “correct,” is exactly the kind of judgment a teacher sharpens fastest.

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