harmony Minor or Dorian? Finding the right scale to go with a melody.

[BloomingLate]

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?

[Bowlerhat]

Writing in Dorian is a completely valid thing to do and nothing to be afraid off. Great job on figuring these things out and jumping into advanced music theory! Definitely don't overthink it too much, if the Dorian scale fits the whole tune and the tonal center is B Dorian then that's probably just what it is.

 

To get a bit into dominant tonic resolutions in Dorian: 

In modal music, such as Dorian, cadences have different functions. If we for example take your B dorian tune, the different degrees look like this:

Im7 B-D-F#-A

IIm7 C#-E-G#-B

IIImaj7 D-F#-A-C#

IVDom7 E-G#-B-D

Vm7 F#-A-C#-E

VIhalfdim7 G#-B-D-F#

VIImaj7 A-C#-E-G#

 

Which makes the V, which normally has a dominant sound in Western tonal music, as you've correctly observed indeed minor. You don't have to go to the I with a dominant chord, like the IV though, if you don't want to. You can approach it in minor from the V or from anywhere else you want. Something I personally really like is approaching it from the IIm7, since that's a uniquely Dorian sound. In the end, in modal music it's more about staying in the tonal center of B Dorian rather than having sub dominants and dominant structures. So the worst thing you can do in a tune that's in B Dorian is take a IV-V-I to A major for example, because you then lose the Dorian sound, despite keeping the same amount of sharps and flats. It's of course still something you can do though, musically speaking, if that's something that you want to do. But for writing Dorian it's a no-go. Play around with these degrees and see how they relate to the I tonic, modes are really interesting and bring many beautiful chordal structures that you lose by thinking too much in old fashioned neo-classical music theory. 

[BloomingLate]

12 hours ago, Bowlerhat said:

Writing in Dorian is a completely valid thing to do and nothing to be afraid off. Great job on figuring these things out and jumping into advanced music theory! Definitely don't overthink it too much, if the Dorian scale fits the whole tune and the tonal center is B Dorian then that's probably just what it is.

That's good to know. My friend was wondering if maybe I was trying to "force" the song to fit the theory, which may make theory seem questionable. I guess I'm trying to teach him that theory is good and that a basic understanding is profitable and desirable.

12 hours ago, Bowlerhat said:

In modal music, such as Dorian, cadences have different functions.

 

12 hours ago, Bowlerhat said:

In the end, in modal music it's more about staying in the tonal center of B Dorian rather than having sub dominants and dominant structures.

I see! I hadn't considered that this could be the case for the modes. I'm learning from the book "Harmony in Context" by Miguel A. Roig-Francoli, which does mention the modes, but doesn't go in depth on them. So I'll have to find another source to get into the specifics on those.
I don't have too much experience with 7th chords yet either so I'll take a closer look into those as well.

By the way: Since B-Dorian can be considered a mode of A-Major, does the song get the A-Major signature (with three sharps) or the B-Minor signature (two sharps) and the final sharp marked as an accidental wherever it occurs? Do you have to somehow tell the performer (on the sheet music) that the song is in this or that mode?

Thanks for your suggestions!

Edited November 15, 2021 by BloomingLate
Typo fix

[Bowlerhat]

On 11/15/2021 at 12:41 PM, BloomingLate said:

I see! I hadn't considered that this could be the case for the modes. I'm learning from the book "Harmony in Context" by Miguel A. Roig-Francoli, which does mention the modes, but doesn't go in depth on them. So I'll have to find another source to get into the specifics on those.
I don't have too much experience with 7th chords yet either so I'll take a closer look into those as well.

 

The theory I used in the above is the one taught at berkeley, although it's definitely more jazz oriented. That's why it included the 7th chords as well. They're negligible for the specific question so don't think too much about it.

On 11/15/2021 at 12:41 PM, BloomingLate said:

By the way: Since B-Dorian can be considered a mode of A-Major, does the song get the A-Major signature (with three sharps) or the B-Minor signature (two sharps) and the final sharp marked as an accidental wherever it occurs? Do you have to somehow tell the performer (on the sheet music) that the song is in this or that mode?

Definitely 3 sharps! You don't have to write down that it's in B dorian though. The moment the musician sees that it has a tonal center of B and 3 sharps they'll know it's dorian.