In this video you can hear me playing a piece of music I improvised and named Sand into Glass. The textures, shapes and harmonic colours in this piece of music brought to my mind the motion of sand particles, sometimes tumbling with an unrefined energy, constantly shifting scattered grains, sometimes flowing together in unity like the sands of time through an hourglass. Then pressure and heat acts as a catalyst, and it is transformed into the settled clarity of glass. 

I started this piece of music in F Dorian, and rapidly alternated this mode with F Aeolian. Both modes have a sorrowful minor 3rd degree, but the warm and hopeful major 6th of the Dorian mode is transformed into a darker and more opaque minor 6th in the Aeolian mode. 

Then just before a shift to E Dorian, an alternation between the tonic triad of F Dorian/Aeolian (they share the same tonic triad) and that of E Dorian created a harmonic friction due to the semitone slide between two very unrelated keys — echoing that slipping yet rough feel of sand dunes underfoot. 

On the transition back to F Aeolian/Dorian, an alternation between the tonic triad of E Dorian and chord VII of F Aeolian/Dorian created another harmonic slide with paradoxical friction. 

The disparate fragments of unrelated chords and modes eventually tumbled into a clear, slow and simple coda, like the simple clarity of glass. 

Mode Table

Mode	Note Names	Parent Scale	Modal Relationship
F Dorian	F – G – A♭ – B♭ – C – D – E♭	E♭ Major	2nd mode of E♭ Major
F Aeolian (Natural Minor)	F – G – A♭ – B♭ – C – D♭ – E♭	A♭ Major	6th mode of A♭ Major
E Dorian	E – F♯ – G – A – B – C♯ – D	D Major	2nd mode of D Major

Interval Formulas

Dorian Mode Formula:

1 – 2 – ♭3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – ♭7

Root, Major 2nd, Minor 3rd, Perfect 4th, Perfect 5th, Major 6th, Minor 7th

Aeolian Mode Formula:

1 – 2 – ♭3 – 4 – 5 – ♭6 – ♭7

Root, Major 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

Firefly at Dawn — Improvisation in G♯ Dorian, D♭ Lydian, G♯ Phrygian & A Phrygian Dominant

Holographic Shift — Improvisation in C♯ Dorian ♯4 & F Aeolian

Night Sky in the Ocean — Improvisation in A♭ Lydian ♯2, F Aeolian, F Dorian, E♭ Lydian ♯2 & D Lydian