MusicReasonScales, Keys, Intervals, and Notation
How do these two modes actually differ?
Choose a tonic and two modes. This tool shows exactly which scale degrees change between them and by how much, rather than a vague stylistic description.
Answer and Play
Want to learn more? Scales, Modes, and Tonal Centers
Understand
Differences here are always labeled relative to the first mode you selected, so swapping the two selections reverses the sign of every difference shown. This tool makes no universal emotional claim about any mode; what it can state objectively is exactly which scale degrees changed and in which direction.
Worked example
C Ionian (major) compared against C Mixolydian shows one changed degree: Mixolydian lowers the seventh by a semitone (B becomes B-flat), while every other degree stays identical. Swapping the comparison order instead shows Mixolydian's seventh as a semitone lower than Ionian's, the same fact stated from the other direction.
Method and limitations
Both modes are built from the same tonic using their own formula, then compared degree-by-degree using the shortest signed semitone distance between corresponding degrees. This launch vocabulary covers the seven major-scale modes plus harmonic and melodic minor; it does not compare against modes outside that set.
Comparing on one tonic, deliberately
Holding the tonic fixed and changing only the mode isolates exactly one variable at a time, which is different from comparing, say, C major against G Mixolydian (both use the same pitch classes but at different tonics, a comparison this tool does not make). Fixing the tonic is what lets a difference be attributed cleanly to the mode itself rather than a combination of mode and key change.