Here is a video of a piece of piano music I improvised and named More Than the Waking Sky. The title represents the paradox of a dreamscape or mindscape that is more vast, magical, and sacred than it first appears on the outside, when experienced directly from the inside. Like dropping into a dream, and suddenly an infinite sky opens above you. It is about seeing the boundlessness of the depths, breadths and heights of the mind instead of attempting to quantify them. Surpassing a waking sky is about holding more promise and potential than the dawn of a new day. Darkness starts to give way to light, and we begin to sense that there is more beyond the vast open sky we see above us, and more than the landscape we see all around. The true expanse isn’t the physical atmosphere above us, but the internal sky of human emotion and intuition. It is within this inner vastness that the heart awakens when we open ourselves to true connection, far beyond the limits of the concrete world. 

I started this improvisation in C Mixolydian flat 6. The Mixolydian flat 6 mode has a mysterious half-light effect in its bright major 3rd degree combined with its shadowed minor 6th and 7th. This combination can also create a kind of majesty in its resolute gravity.

I rotated the C Mixolydian ♭6 mode with the D Mixolydian ♭6 mode a few times. This parallel slide between modes was a bit like the shifting shadows of pre-dawn, and the emerging light of the waking sky. 

Near the middle I wandered into C Phrygian whose ancient sounding mystery, pensiveness and darkness depicted the pull of the depths of the dreamscape, with its promise of hidden and old knowledge.  

Modal Table

Mode	Notes of the Mode	Parent Scale	Modal Relationship
C Mixolydian ♭6	C — D — E — F — G — A♭ — B♭	F melodic minor	5th mode of F melodic minor
D Mixolydian ♭6	D — E — F♯ — G — A — B♭ — C	G melodic minor	5th mode of G melodic minor
C Phrygian	C — D♭ — E♭ — F — G — A♭ — B♭	A♭ major	3rd mode of A♭ major

 Interval Formulas List

• Mixolydian ♭6 Mode: 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — ♭6 — ♭7
• (Root, Major 2nd, Major 3rd, Perfect 4th, Perfect 5th, Minor 6th, Minor 7th)
• Phrygian Mode: 1 — ♭2 — ♭3 — 4 — 5 — ♭6 — ♭7
• (Root, Minor 2nd, Minor 3rd, Perfect 4th, Perfect 5th, Minor 6th, Minor 7th)

Further Reading and Listening

Learn more about modes here: Complete Guide to Modes of the Major, Melodic Minor, and Harmonic Minor Scales

A Lyric Without Words — Improvisation in D♭ Ionian (Major) & B♭ Aeolian

Melodies of a Shared Breath — Improvisation in E♭ Major, F Dorian & D Phrygian

Voicing the Inner Frequencies — Improvisation in C Aeolian, E♭ Major (Ionian) & C Mixolydian ♭6