Silent silences. Priority silences all except for the app or sound you have set as priority.
Well OK. But I am still skeptical that this change was intentional in 5.0. The only way I have ever used the alarm on my phone is to wake me in the morning. I put the phone on silent and all sounds are off EXCEPT the alarm. If I don't want the alarm I simply don't set it. This is how the rest of my family uses the alarm too. And how everyone I have asked so far uses the alarm for awakening. Also the Google page linked above says that the alarm is always a priority and always will sound if set, even in silent mode. That made me think that the fact that for many people with the new update, because their alarm does not go off if the phone is in silent mode, it must be a bug. But maybe not.
on edit: And since there is no choice to make the alarm a priority, and the Google page states that the reason for this is that the alarm is automatically a priority if set, the fact that is does not alarm if set and phone is in silent mode, seems wrong.
My phone is set on silent and my alarm has worked just as before. Something must have gone wrong with your OTA upgrade.
On my Galaxy S4, there is only a "do not disturb" mode that has the features which you are looking for here. If your Note has the features implemented this way, the point is that you don't put it on "silent", you activate "do not disturb" instead. There are exception settings for the "do not disturb" mode, which I find here:
Settings => My Device => Sound and notification => Do not disturb
You can configure exceptions for Alarms so they always come through, and even set a schedule.
The "Do not disturb" toggle can be found with a two finger pull-down from the top of the screen.
I never messed with these before the upgrade to Lollipop, but perhaps the fact that Samsung already had a "Do not disturb" mode is why these are not named "Interruptions" and "Down time" as on native lollipop.
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