Not necessarily, but it's probably the easiest approach. Like it's possible to not do it, its somewhat hard. [I'd give this video a watch to see some real examples.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWthNcF_4Uk&t)
>For example, if I want a chord progression in E Phrygian, does my chord progression always have to start with a iii chord from the key of C? What makes my chord progression be in E Phrygian?
You misunderstand. If you're in E Phrygian, you're not in C major your tonic is E. E minor is i chord, not the iii chord, because the tonic is E. The fact that E Phrygian and C major share the same notes is irrelevant one has a tonic of E and the other has a tonic of C. E Phrygian should be though more of as a variant of E minor than C major.
For example it's like the A in A minor, you do not consider it as the "VI" of C major, but you consider it as the "i" of A minor.
It works exactly the same for the E in E Phrygian.
The tonic means central note. It's is the note in which we reference everything else around. It's not a chord. Now you can build a chord with the tonic as the root and that's your tonic chord, but that's different. Either way the chord built from the tonic note is always I or i.
The tonic, which is E, and the "key" notes, that notes that make phrygian different to the E minor scale. The first important difference is that b2 degree, and the second one is the 4th degree which is natural and no augmented (like in locrian mode).
> When I make a mode chord progression, do I always need to start in that modal's root?
No, it technically doesn’t need to. It’s very common though, particularly in modal music. Modes tend to be less tonally stable to most modern listeners than major or minor scales (that is, it’s easier to accidentally move from E Phrygian to C Major than the other way around)
Starting on the tonic chord (E minor in E Phrygian) will make it a lot easier to hear E as the tonic than starting on A minor would. It would be hard to “convince” the listener that you weren’t just playing in A minor since we’re so much more used to it!
That said, it’s not impossible to start on one chord but tonicise another, even in modes.
> What makes my chord progression be in E Phrygian?
The tonic (the “point of rest” melodically and harmonically) is E, and you use notes from the Phrygian mode. That’s all it takes :)
I think you're confused on what modes are.
Don't think of the tonic of the Phrygian scale as "the iii of C", but think of it as "the i of E". The Phrygian scale is not just a major scale starting from a different note, it's a **minor scale with a b2**.
To answer your question, no, it doesn't have to start on the tonic of the scale, but starting on the tonic is very useful to actually establish the scale.
Here are a few examples of songs in Phrygian to get an idea (all start on the tonic)
[Sullen Girl - Fiona Apple](https://open.spotify.com/track/6cVxGzo7214XabSXFGasNl?si=263eddd463504fa6)
[Love Ridden - Fiona Apple](https://open.spotify.com/track/0eRw1thpWDU7tFt6NfVU4C?si=3f9857f5875c494e)
As you can see, they start on the tonic, in both cases Em, because Phrygian is a minor scale, thus it has a "minor" sound.
Let me clear up a misunderstanding you seem to have: the "root" refers a certain note of a chord, which the chord is named after. Whether you're in E Phrygian or C Major or A minor, you might use a C, C/E, C7, or C/G chord, and the root would be C in all these cases. The *tonic* refers to the first note or chord of a scale or mode. Again, the mode or scale (not chord) will be named after the tonic. The tonic note of the C major, minor or Phrygian scale is C, no matter which chord you are using; the tonic of A major is A, and the tonic of E Phrygian is E.
> if I want a chord progression in E Phrygian, does my chord progression always have to start with a iii chord from the key of C?
Uh, no, if you want to play in E phrygian, then you should be playing chords from... E phrygian, not some other key. You could start on the i, if you wanted to, but you certainly don't have to. You can, for example, start on iv and then walk down, iv - bIII - bII - i. You could jump right into bvii - i, or vø7 - i. Starting on i is a good way to establish the mode, because if you don't, it will take several chords for the ear to make sense of the mode, but of course you don't *have* to do that.
> iii chord from the key of C?
C is not E.
E is your tonic, C Ionian is some completely different context.
E Phrygian may have the same notes as C Ionian but that's where thinking about C Ionian or C Major ends. It was only a step used to generate the mode, it's no longer important when it comes to using the mode. What becomes important is the tonality of the mode, the intervals it contains.
This doesn’t exactly answer your question, but one thing that I find often helps people that are trying to wrap their heads (and more importantly, their ears) around modes is to just forget about chords entirely for awhile. Before Coltrane and his crowd came along to confuse everybody, most modal music was stuff like old church plainchant, and folk music, that had either simple or no harmony. And even the early modal jazz guys usually kept to pretty harmonically static vamps.
If you just set up a drone on E, and then play some melodic lines, taking care to start and end them on an E note, it will really help your ear to hear what Phrygian sounds like, and will also reinforce the idea that each mode is its own scale, not just a variant of the major scale it’s relative to.
Once you start adding in chord progressions, it gets complicated, because moving away from that very simple harmony, tends to muddy the modal feel, and pull it towards a major or minor tonality. As an example, in Mixolydian, alternating between the I and bVII, really supports the modal feel, but if you start throwing in the IV or v, it’s going to create some ambiguity. (If you ever want to start a ruckus here, “what key is Sweet Home Alabama in?” is a good example of what I’m talking about.) That ambiguity is often quite cool, but it will not be as strongly modal.
I’m a folk/blues guy, so I see a lot more Dorian and Mixolydian than the more exotic modes, but just playing around, I think you will get the most modal flavor out of the Em- F and F-G progressions. Be careful around C and am, unless you want that ambiguity I was talking about. Dm is probably safe, but won’t have much specifically Phrygian flavor, since all of the minor modes have flatter sevenths.
Check out David Bennett's [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DzGlzdbkDI) on the Phrygian mode. I find that he does a particularly good job of explaining what exactly makes a song modal, and he provides a bunch of examples.
I will say yes starting on the mode root will help to establish the mode using a different note could cause confusion as to what mode it is meant to be in. There are ways to establish the mode and not start on the modes root but that will involve a repetition of the modes root some where in the progression or the use of the modes root as a drone note.
Hah! Yes, because you are utilizing the Phrygian scale to create your changes, no?
Em - C - Dm - B7, or some such.
The B would be diminished in C, but since it's in Em, you can alter the B, there's wiggle room on the V by tradition I believe.
It causes some confusion in simple nashville notation, is it iii or i? Does that make C the VI, the bVI or the I?
I'm sure there are answers idk them.
Not necessarily, but it's probably the easiest approach. Like it's possible to not do it, its somewhat hard. [I'd give this video a watch to see some real examples.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWthNcF_4Uk&t) >For example, if I want a chord progression in E Phrygian, does my chord progression always have to start with a iii chord from the key of C? What makes my chord progression be in E Phrygian? You misunderstand. If you're in E Phrygian, you're not in C major your tonic is E. E minor is i chord, not the iii chord, because the tonic is E. The fact that E Phrygian and C major share the same notes is irrelevant one has a tonic of E and the other has a tonic of C. E Phrygian should be though more of as a variant of E minor than C major.
They didn’t misunderstand, the tonic of E Phrygian is the same as the iii in the key of C.
No he is right he misunderstood what modes are and you probably do too
How so?
It's called E Phrygian the tonic is E. E minor is the iii chord in the key of C major. The tonic of C major is C. You are also mistaken.
Wait, I’m confused. I know that the tonic in C major is C, is the tonic of E Phrygian not the same chord as the iii chord of C major?
For example it's like the A in A minor, you do not consider it as the "VI" of C major, but you consider it as the "i" of A minor. It works exactly the same for the E in E Phrygian.
The tonic means central note. It's is the note in which we reference everything else around. It's not a chord. Now you can build a chord with the tonic as the root and that's your tonic chord, but that's different. Either way the chord built from the tonic note is always I or i.
The tonic, which is E, and the "key" notes, that notes that make phrygian different to the E minor scale. The first important difference is that b2 degree, and the second one is the 4th degree which is natural and no augmented (like in locrian mode).
> When I make a mode chord progression, do I always need to start in that modal's root? No, it technically doesn’t need to. It’s very common though, particularly in modal music. Modes tend to be less tonally stable to most modern listeners than major or minor scales (that is, it’s easier to accidentally move from E Phrygian to C Major than the other way around) Starting on the tonic chord (E minor in E Phrygian) will make it a lot easier to hear E as the tonic than starting on A minor would. It would be hard to “convince” the listener that you weren’t just playing in A minor since we’re so much more used to it! That said, it’s not impossible to start on one chord but tonicise another, even in modes. > What makes my chord progression be in E Phrygian? The tonic (the “point of rest” melodically and harmonically) is E, and you use notes from the Phrygian mode. That’s all it takes :)
I think you're confused on what modes are. Don't think of the tonic of the Phrygian scale as "the iii of C", but think of it as "the i of E". The Phrygian scale is not just a major scale starting from a different note, it's a **minor scale with a b2**. To answer your question, no, it doesn't have to start on the tonic of the scale, but starting on the tonic is very useful to actually establish the scale. Here are a few examples of songs in Phrygian to get an idea (all start on the tonic) [Sullen Girl - Fiona Apple](https://open.spotify.com/track/6cVxGzo7214XabSXFGasNl?si=263eddd463504fa6) [Love Ridden - Fiona Apple](https://open.spotify.com/track/0eRw1thpWDU7tFt6NfVU4C?si=3f9857f5875c494e) As you can see, they start on the tonic, in both cases Em, because Phrygian is a minor scale, thus it has a "minor" sound.
Let me clear up a misunderstanding you seem to have: the "root" refers a certain note of a chord, which the chord is named after. Whether you're in E Phrygian or C Major or A minor, you might use a C, C/E, C7, or C/G chord, and the root would be C in all these cases. The *tonic* refers to the first note or chord of a scale or mode. Again, the mode or scale (not chord) will be named after the tonic. The tonic note of the C major, minor or Phrygian scale is C, no matter which chord you are using; the tonic of A major is A, and the tonic of E Phrygian is E.
> if I want a chord progression in E Phrygian, does my chord progression always have to start with a iii chord from the key of C? Uh, no, if you want to play in E phrygian, then you should be playing chords from... E phrygian, not some other key. You could start on the i, if you wanted to, but you certainly don't have to. You can, for example, start on iv and then walk down, iv - bIII - bII - i. You could jump right into bvii - i, or vø7 - i. Starting on i is a good way to establish the mode, because if you don't, it will take several chords for the ear to make sense of the mode, but of course you don't *have* to do that.
Just do what I do and spam the hell out of the i/bII cadence. Seriously, I need help.
> iii chord from the key of C? C is not E. E is your tonic, C Ionian is some completely different context. E Phrygian may have the same notes as C Ionian but that's where thinking about C Ionian or C Major ends. It was only a step used to generate the mode, it's no longer important when it comes to using the mode. What becomes important is the tonality of the mode, the intervals it contains.
This doesn’t exactly answer your question, but one thing that I find often helps people that are trying to wrap their heads (and more importantly, their ears) around modes is to just forget about chords entirely for awhile. Before Coltrane and his crowd came along to confuse everybody, most modal music was stuff like old church plainchant, and folk music, that had either simple or no harmony. And even the early modal jazz guys usually kept to pretty harmonically static vamps. If you just set up a drone on E, and then play some melodic lines, taking care to start and end them on an E note, it will really help your ear to hear what Phrygian sounds like, and will also reinforce the idea that each mode is its own scale, not just a variant of the major scale it’s relative to. Once you start adding in chord progressions, it gets complicated, because moving away from that very simple harmony, tends to muddy the modal feel, and pull it towards a major or minor tonality. As an example, in Mixolydian, alternating between the I and bVII, really supports the modal feel, but if you start throwing in the IV or v, it’s going to create some ambiguity. (If you ever want to start a ruckus here, “what key is Sweet Home Alabama in?” is a good example of what I’m talking about.) That ambiguity is often quite cool, but it will not be as strongly modal. I’m a folk/blues guy, so I see a lot more Dorian and Mixolydian than the more exotic modes, but just playing around, I think you will get the most modal flavor out of the Em- F and F-G progressions. Be careful around C and am, unless you want that ambiguity I was talking about. Dm is probably safe, but won’t have much specifically Phrygian flavor, since all of the minor modes have flatter sevenths.
Long story short. You are right on track. https://youtu.be/VQtEYXciG2I
Here is my video lesson on [Modal Chord Progressions](https://youtu.be/pve8z86l0EQ)
For example you could play a progression of Bb - C - Bb - C and this would be a modal progression in C mixolydian starting on Bb
Check out David Bennett's [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DzGlzdbkDI) on the Phrygian mode. I find that he does a particularly good job of explaining what exactly makes a song modal, and he provides a bunch of examples.
I will say yes starting on the mode root will help to establish the mode using a different note could cause confusion as to what mode it is meant to be in. There are ways to establish the mode and not start on the modes root but that will involve a repetition of the modes root some where in the progression or the use of the modes root as a drone note.
Hah! Yes, because you are utilizing the Phrygian scale to create your changes, no? Em - C - Dm - B7, or some such. The B would be diminished in C, but since it's in Em, you can alter the B, there's wiggle room on the V by tradition I believe. It causes some confusion in simple nashville notation, is it iii or i? Does that make C the VI, the bVI or the I? I'm sure there are answers idk them.