Originally Posted by: kill em allI read over and over and over and eat and then read again, but I just don't understand why the "Aeolian mode" is not referred to as "diatonic minor scale" and why the "Ionian mode" is not referred to as "diatonic major scale", get my problem? What's the difference in modes and scales and why are there only seven scales ( or am I wrong there? ) turned to modes.

I'm guessing people use Ionian instead of diatonic major scale for a similar reason that they would say Bb instead of A# when playing in F Major. Sometimes you're not working with a Diatonic minor scale, rather the Aeolian mode. Though two different scales have all the same notes in them they can still be manipulated to sound very different. And the differences between one scale and another are the intervals between each note. You can start on F and end on F, but it's the notes in between that determine how the trip will turn out and the notes between the two F notes are determined by intervals. If you've got nothing but major and perfect intervals (major scale) then things, by nature, will sound happier. If you've got a messload of minor and diminished intervals (Locrian mode) between the two F notes then it will come out darker.

Essentially all it takes to turn a scale into a mode is to play it on any note other than the one that the scale is based around. So if we take G major (G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G) and start on B we have B, C, D, E, F#, G, A, B. The same method can be applied to any scale, but the reason why it only seems like 7 scales get that treatment is because it's much easier to keep the attention span of a newbie to start with something simple and easy to digest rather than going off on some abstract 8-note scale right after the C Major introduction. I hope this helps to at least some degree. Let me (or anyone else at that) know if none of this makes sense. Plenty of people here know their material so, after so much reading it'll sort of click.