The Dorian mode on guitar
Minor with a natural 6th — the funkier, less mournful minor sound, and where the one changed note lives.
- Notes
- A · B · C · D · E · F♯ · G
- Formula
- 1 · 2 · ♭3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · ♭7
- Notes in the scale
- 7
Dorian is natural minor with one note changed: the 6th is natural instead of flat. One note, and the whole character shifts from mournful to something more buoyant — the sound of a great deal of funk, jazzier rock, and most minor-key grooves that feel like they are moving forward rather than sitting still.
Because it differs from natural minor by exactly one degree, the fastest way to hear it is to play a minor pentatonic line and then deliberately add the natural 6th. That note is the whole point; if you avoid it you are just playing minor pentatonic and calling it Dorian.
It sits naturally over a minor 7 chord vamp, which is why so many one-chord minor grooves end up Dorian whether or not anybody involved calls it that.
Where it sits on the neck
Inside box 1 the change from natural minor is a single dot. The ♭6 is the F at the 6th fret of the B string; raise it to the 7th and you have F♯, the natural 6th, and you are in Dorian.
Natural minor has a second ♭6 in that window, the F at the 8th fret of the A string, but raising that one puts you at the 9th fret and outside the four frets you are playing in. So within box 1 there is exactly one place to make the move, which is convenient: it means you can flip between the two scales mid-phrase with one finger and hear precisely what the difference is.
- Root on the A string — the open strings to the 3rd fret.
- Root on the G string — the 2nd fret to the 5th.
- Root on the low E string — the 5th fret to the 8th.
- Root on the D string — the 7th fret to the 10th.
- Root on the B string — the 10th fret to the 13th.
What to play it over
Any minor 7 vamp, and above all the pair Am7 to D. The D chord is the tell. A major IV chord in a minor key is only possible because the 6th is natural, and the F♯ inside that chord is the same F♯ that makes the scale Dorian. Am to Dm is natural minor. Am to D is Dorian. If you can hear which of those two a band is playing you can pick the scale without being told.
The chords it builds are Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F♯dim and G.
Where it fails is the Am, G and F vamp the rock side of this site uses. That F chord contains an F natural and Dorian does not have one, so you would be holding F♯ over F, a semitone apart, with nothing to resolve into. The ♭VI chord is the giveaway: if you can hear one, the scale is natural minor.
The common mistake
Playing G major over the Am vamp and calling it Dorian. A Dorian and G major contain the same seven notes, so the fingerings are interchangeable and the temptation is to reach for the major scale you already know. Every note will be right and the music will be wrong, because your lines will keep resolving to G. Dorian is not a scale you play, it is a note you treat as home. Start on A, land on A, finish on A, and let the F♯ be colour rather than a destination.
Where the natural 6th turns up
The rock material here is natural minor rather than Dorian, so nothing on the site is written in it. Two blues licks reach the natural 6th anyway, arriving at it from the other direction.