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   John Carlos Baez (johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 30-Jan-2023 08:38:58 JST John Carlos Baez

   Since I was completely self-taught on piano, starting by noodling around on the instrument in college, I developed a weird system where I focused on the black keys. By themselves they form a pentatonic scale. But I also liked to spice them up by adding two white keys: one from each space between groups of black keys.

   When I started at C# and included the white keys F and C I got a major scale, namely C# major. I probably knew this, but mainly it just sounded good.

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     John Carlos Baez (johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 30-Jan-2023 08:38:56 JST John Carlos Baez

     in reply to

     When I started at C# and included the white keys F and B, I got C# Mixolydian. I used this one less, but now I think it's very nice and subtle.

     I didn't know much about modes back, so I didn't know I was playing Mixolydian, but now I know Mixolydian is one shade 'brighter' than Dorian and one shade 'darker' than the major scale (which is also called Ionian).

     If you don't know about this stuff, you might try this blog article I wrote:

     https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2022/11/06/modes-part-2/

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     John Carlos Baez (johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 30-Jan-2023 08:38:57 JST John Carlos Baez

     in reply to

     When I started at C# and included the white keys E and B, I got a much more mysterious sounding scale. This turns out to be C# Dorian. This was one of my favorites, but I overused it so much that I find it a bit tough to take now. Sort of like a favorite spice that you used to put on every dish, until you got sick of it.

     Still, Dorian is a very powerful tool when used wisely!

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     Jake Hildreth (acorn) :blacker_heart_outline: repeated this.