C major and G mixolydian for example have the same notes, just starting on a different note

So why is G mixolydian so much less discussed in general?

I mean why Major and Minor scales only usually referenced 99% of the time ?


thanks

 

Overall, major and minor scales are simply the most commonly used and best understood scales in Western music.

Cultural preferences: Many styles of music, especially in Western music, tend to use major and minor scales.
This has led to these scales gaining more attention in popular culture and the mainstream.

 

Because a lot of things in music are just due to convention, tradition, and habit. Things have becomed framed around the major/minor dichotomy, but you're right that modes don't get as much love as they should, and the same thing with other "exotic" scales.

A lot of people teach music theory through the lens of "relative to C-major" and the assumption that it is the starting point and everything else is just a modification. Honestly, I think it's bad form, but maybe it's because I view things rationally and I think a lot of tradition is simply cruft.

 

Tonal harmony is all based on major/minor, which is the most common way of writing and/or analysing chords and progressions in the western world.

Look into modal music if you fancy something different, obviously not something of European heritage, but also folk music often uses mixolydian and dorian. Modal jazz is an obvious one and so on.

 

A lot of us- definitely myself included- tend to use various modes more or less intuitively without really thinking about what mode we're playing in specifically. I studied all that stuff once but I'd have to do a lot of revision to remember what they all actually are

 

Buddy, modal music, which has its roots in Greek modes and various exotic scales originating from different cultures (and therefore creates unique and different atmospheres), ended up losing ground in Western music over the centuries due to cultural and structural transformations. With the emergence of the tonal system at the end of the Renaissance and the beginning of the Baroque period, harmonic progressions based on tonic and dominant (circle of fifths, etc.) brought a more direct organization to resolve musical tensions, allowing narrative interpretations based on contrasts of drama and emotion in operas, symphonies, and other genres that gradually gained popularity. Another point was the standardization that came with the rise of the tempered system, which favored major and minor keys to the detriment of other modal scales with 'unusual' chords and resolutions. However, modal music did not disappear; it was redistributed to more peripheral areas of general appreciation categories (folk musical traditions, as well as genres like jazz, heavy metal, thrash metal, etc.).