Is everything Mixolydian or Dorian or just what I like?

[Gone Fission]

Took a couple lazy passes at learning a couple Mazzy Star songs today, Rhymes of an Hour and All Your Sisters. D Mixolydian and D Dorian respectively. Mixolydian is a major scale with a flat seventh, Dorian is like the Aeolian minor mode with a major sixth, so these are both kind of in-between modes.

Lots of psych, shoegaze, and post-punk usage of both. But I can’t tell if I see it more because it’s all over or if it’s just all over the stuff I care to learn because I like those sounds.

(Look, I never said I was normal.)

[dubkitty]

those are both extremely common all over popular and folk music forms. in fact, i would postulate that you can't play American popular or regional musics without leaning on mixolydian like a preacher leans on his pulpit. i'd point specifically to bluegrass and country blues in that regard. Chicago blues is more Dorian but with an ambiguous third that can be flatted or major depending on context. i notice a lot of shoegaze using the major 7th, often shoving that interval on top of other scales in ways my lack of music theory doesn't allow me to describe. one of my favorite shoegaze things is how some 'gaze emulates one of my favorite influences, "Crystal" by Husker Du and the way Bob Mould hammers on Cmaj7 chords to the point that they're dissonant. fucking genius. anything can be dissonant if you have the right attitude.