When talking to my students about modes, I stress that although modal music is often about melodies created from the mode(s) at hand, looking at the matching chord structure of each mode is equally important. For example, the Lydian mode is like a major scale with a #4th step, so C Lydian would look like this:
C D E F# G A B C
Rearrange these into a chord in thirds up to the thirteenth, #4 becomes #11 and you get:
C E G B D F# A C major 7 (9,#11,13)
Notice that the triad on top is D major… hmmm… this type of thinking leads me to all sorts of places, such as: a D triad over a C bass will suggest C Lydian. There are lots of possibilities here. Play around with it and let me know what you discover.
More later!
