Originally Posted by: Jarsew

I understand the importance of knowing what key your in and what not. But going further into it such as Modes? Ick, i cant stand the concept of Modes. I am in the Key of C and have my root note be E. So what good does it do to call it E Phygrian? Why name it? What difference did it make? Supposedly (as I have read) a lot of Irish/Celtic/folk songs are written in Dorian? Well, so what? Does that change anything? I grantee half of those Irish guys didnt know what Dorian was and were writing in it, they simply just liked the sound! It fit their emotion at the time, and thats all there is to it.

fail. modes stem back to the catholic church, circa 1000 AD. why have modes? because each mode, scale, or set of tones has a SOUND to it. someone says "dorian" and i know what overtones the song/riff will suggest. and for the record, musicians hundreds of years ago were totally aware of these just as they are now. did the celts call it "dorian"? maybe, maybe not- but isn't that trivial?

for someone that deals with a string instrument, you should understand how important the relationship between tones can be. a guitar player can not know the name of any note on his fretboard, but someone can say " i want these particular tones played for my scale" the string player can figure that out much easier than a horn player or the like. it's all right in front of us...so why not get to know it?