Fong, don't forget that the song is also in a mode. Look at Bob's example above. It's in the key of C and the mode is MAJOR. He can play a solo over it choosing notes from the C major scale. He could also insist that those notes he chose were actually from F Lydian. He could even say that he changed mode every chord to get those same notes. But, as he says, what would be the point? Musically, that's not what's happening. The key centre is C throughout, regardless of the root of any of the chords, and whether he was thinking in terms of the C major scale, the F Lydian mode or the Indian Sankarabharana scale, all of which use the same notes (CDEFGAB), is irrelevant. The mode of the song is MAJOR and that's what his solo is in.
If he really wants to flavour it with different modes, then he would have to introduce chromatic notes such as he mentioned by using C Phrygian to get an Eb, etc.
But even that's unnecessary - he could just take any 'out of scale' note he wanted from the chromatic scale, without thinking in terms of modes at all.
The bottom line is that modes belong to modal music. Tonal music, such as Bob's example, has no need for any modes other than the major and minor modes - plus the chromatic scale to complete the set.
|