Search the Community

Last year a friend and I started having regular phone conversations to talk about our musical progress and to provide each other with feedback. My friend likes to write songs and plays the guitar, but he's not exactly trained in music theory. So lately I've been putting my training to practice on his melodies. I'm trying to find the right harmony to go with his melody, which leads to the following issue: The song begins and ends on B, and the opening measure outlines the B-minor chord in the melody. So I'm thinking: this song is in B-minor. I learned the difference between natural, harmonic and melodic minor (and when to use what), and that the most usual variant to use for the harmony is the harmonic minor (with its raised 7th degree.) However, several things are occurring in this song. For one thing: the best chords that go with it are from the natural minor, not the harmonic minor. Furthermore, the chorus has a raised 6th degree that doesn't seem "accidental". It goes well with an E-major chord, that doesn't belong to either the natural or the harmonic minor. If I treat the song as being in Dorian mode, I have all the chords I need and don't have to "borrow" or switch between minor variants. Could it be that my inexperienced friend "accidentally" wrote something in Dorian mode? Since the song is very short, I can only go by this simple verse and chorus. The way the song is structured now, there is never really a tight resolution in the form of a dominant-tonic cadence. Could a VII (major) or v (minor) resolving to the tonic be a legitimate way to end a minor / Dorian song? Right now, ending on the chorus would leave us with a IV - i resolution. Ending on the verse gives us VII - i. Random side note: when playing around with Shadow's Theme from FFVI, I came across the same situation with the raised 6th degree. Could that theme also be in Dorian mode or am I completely missing something?