Help with the 7 modes

[WhoThenNow7]

First off, I would like to clarify that I know each major scale pattern and am proficient with them playing in different keys...

I have been looking on different sites all over, and the 7 modes is just confusing me. I know I'm playing major scale patterns the whole time, but whenever I look at different patterns for different modes, a lot of them are identical to just plain major scale patterns. I know they are just different ways of playing major scales, but I guess I'm just kinda wanting to get a better understanding of it.

I've been on The Guitarist's Online Survival Kit (GOSK) (guitarists online survival kit), it's a pretty good site. They show all patterns for each mode on it, but then I'll go to another website and it shows some patterns are different. Anybody have any useful sites on each pattern?

 

[Osorio]

Someone will probably come with a stellar explanation on all of this (probably SW), so I'm just going to give some quick advice: Your first step should be to break the modes down to 3 categories: Major (Lydian, Ionian and Mixolydian), Minor (Dorian, Aeolian and Phrygian) and Locrian (which is diminished).
Get a blues backtrack and use the Major modes. Then use the minor modes... Ear how they sound against the harmony and in comparison with each other.

I have been recently going over this with my guitar teacher, as a refresh, and he taught me something I thought was pretty cool: You can do the Minor or Major pentatonic shape and just use the notes that are "particular" to that mode as add-ons to the pentatonic. For example, in Lydian, try to put some emphasis on the 4#; on Dorian, you can emphasize the Major 6th; in Phrygian you can do the 2b.

(About Locrian: I recall seeing a Govan video where he said: "There are 6 modes and one aberration". Locrian is a mathematical development. It makes sense, but has some very restricted uses. I vaguely remember something about Diminished modes and arpeggios sounding disgustingly pretty over a iiº chord [Dº of C Minor, for example], but that only seems to work on very particular situations -or I can't use it right).

 

[Elliott Jeffries]

Here's a general idea on the topic of modes. Take chords of a key signature, like G Major as an example. The chords would be I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii0, or G, am, bm, C, D, em, f#dim.

Play the G major scale over G, that's Ionian.
Play the G major scale over am, that's Dorian.
Play the G major scale over bm, that's Phrygian.
Play the G major scale over C, that's Lydian.
Play the G major scale over D, that's Mixolydian.
Play the G major scale over em, that's Aeolian.
Play the G major scale over f#dim, that's Locrian.

But wait! What if someone says we're going to jam in G mixolydian? Let's see, if G is the mixolydian and the mixolydian is V, the key is C. If we go C=I (Ionian), dm=ii (Dorian), em=iii (Phrygian), F=IV (Lydian) and G=V (Mixolydian). The scale is C but our root is G. The jam should be in G and you'll be playing the C major scale wth the root in G.

Play along with this example of a G Mixolydian jam track to get a better idea.
You'll be soloing to this with the C major scale, keeping G as the root.

The next step would be to learn the mode patterns of the major scale.

 

[WhoThenNow7]

Thanks for the responses guys that really helped out a lot. Especially breaking them down into majors, minors, locrian, and that jam video, really gave me a better understanding as to why some mode's patterns were the way they were. I'll keep looking into it to better understand it.

 

[celticelk]

I don't know who came up with the idea that the best way to explain the modes to guitarists is to think of them as somehow "the same" as the major scale, but I'd really like to punch them. First, it obscures the fact that the perception of a particular mode is *harmonic* - you can think you're playing in G Mixolydian all day long, but if the chord in the background is Cmaj7, that's coming across as C Ionian whether you like it or not. Second, it encourages an idiotic tendency to just run major scale box patterns against different chords and think that you're now "playing modally".

You're much better off in the long run thinking of each mode as a distinct entity, with its transposability into other modes as an interesting coincidence. Learn each mode as a collection of intervals against the root (Dorian, for example, is 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7), learn to harmonize each scale degree as triads and 7th chords (and quartal chords, if you want to be really hip), and get familiar with the way that, for example, Dorian sounds different from Phrygian over a m7 chord. Practice over a harmonic accompaniment, even if it's just a drone of the root note. Learning to process scales in this way will also serve you well when you start learning scales that are not diatonic modes of the major scale, like the harmonic and melodic minor modes or the limited-transposition scales (whole-tone, octatonic, etc).

 

[Elliott Jeffries]

I don't know who came up with the idea that the best way to explain the modes to guitarists is to think of them as somehow "the same" as the major scale, but I'd really like to punch them.

The topic is a basic introduction to modes, not a dissertation. Playing a C major scale with the root in G over a G chord is mixolydian no matter how doth thou protest. This is simply an example.

 

[Mr. Big Noodles]

I am splitting this post up into two parts, because I want to take a while to dispel a bad habit that is all too prevalent.

Here's a general idea on the topic of modes. Take chords of a key signature, like G Major as an example. The chords would be I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii0, or G, am, bm, C, D, em, f#dim.

Play the G major scale over G, that's Ionian.
Play the G major scale over am, that's Dorian.
Play the G major scale over bm, that's Phrygian.
Play the G major scale over C, that's Lydian.
Play the G major scale over D, that's Mixolydian.
Play the G major scale over em, that's Aeolian.
Play the G major scale over f#dim, that's Locrian.

But wait! What if someone says we're going to jam in G mixolydian? Let's see, if G is the mixolydian and the mixolydian is V, the key is C. If we go C=I (Ionian), dm=ii (Dorian), em=iii (Phrygian), F=IV (Lydian) and G=V (Mixolydian). The scale is C but our root is G. The jam should be in G and you'll be playing the C major scale wth the root in G.

(About Locrian: I recall seeing a Govan video where he said: "There are 6 modes and one aberration". Locrian is a mathematical development. It makes sense, but has some very restricted uses. I vaguely remember something about Diminished modes and arpeggios sounding disgustingly pretty over a iiº chord [Dº of C Minor, for example], but that only seems to work on very particular situations -or I can't use it right).

The topic is a basic introduction to modes, not a dissertation. Playing a C major scale with the root in G over a G chord is mixolydian no matter how doth thou protest. This is simply an example.

This is an approach I would advise you to avoid. It's not modality, no matter how much the internet wants you to think.

You need to understand two concepts: tonality and modality. Tonality is the pitch upon which a passage is centered, where the "key" is. We call that pitch the "tonic". If the tonic is G, then the tonic is G, no ifs ands or buts. Modality is the relationship of other pitches to the tonic, the color or mood of the passage. The confusion comes from this situation: the textbooks say "key of G major", which makes us think, "Okay, G major is a key." Nope. G is the key, because G is the tonic, and major is the mode because major denotes a relationship of pitches to that tonic.

Tonality depends on modality, simply because pitch relationships give us a basis for comparison. In order to decide if one pitch is more important than another, you need at least two pitches to choose between, after all. What we end up doing is assigning one pitch as "#1 best pitch ever" (the tonic) and designing our melodies and harmonies to make the tonic's importance more readily apparent. There is a complex explanation of how exactly we do that, but I'm going to skip it for now. Suffice it to say that if we're calling the tonic 1, then the other pitches in whatever scale (modality) we're working with will follow in the order of their appearance. So, in G major, G is 1, A is 2, B is 3, C is 4, D is 5, E is 6, and F# is 7.

G A B C D E F# = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

If this were another key, the pitches will change but their relationship will remain the same.

C major: C D E F G A B = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
E♭ major: E♭ F G A♭ B♭ C D = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Makes it easy to keep track of the tonic: just look for 1. If the modality (scale) is different, then we still use the same numbering conventions, but add alterations to the numbers where appropriate to indicate the new intervallic relationship.

G major: G A B C D E F# = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
G lydian: G A B C# D E F# = 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7
G mixolydian: G A B C D E F = 1 2 3 4 5 6 ♭7


===========================================


As you may be aware, scales are only part of the picture. We also have these chord things to worry about. We can organize the diatonic scales into a set of seven distinct chords by using pitches within the scale. So, back to G major:

G A B C D E F#

If we wanted to build a triad with G as a root, we'd skip every other letter to get G B D. That's a G major triad (notated 'G'). Going to A, we perform the same process, yielding A C E. This one is different from the first one, because it's a minor triad. You'll see that the major scale contains a myriad of different chord types, because our goal is to say that one pitch (and one chord) is better than all the rest, and if they are all exactly the same, we can't do that. So, that A minor triad will be notated "Am". Next, we go to B. Do the requisite skip, and we get B D F#. The F# is in the key, so it is therefore in the chord. This is another minor triad, Bm. This continues:

G Am Bm C D Em F#° (° means diminished)

Remember that 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 thing from earlier? Turn those into Roman numerals...

I II III IV V VI VII

... and then change the letter case to reflect the major/minor/diminished quality of each chord.

I ii iii IV V vi vii°

Cool. We have now organized our scale into chords. The tonic still remains: if G is 1, then G is I, and if the rest of the scale is 2 3 4 5 6 7 and ii iii IV V vii°, then the modality is major. THIS is where I disagree with "Play A dorian over ii." You can't play A dorian over ii, because A would have to be 1 for it to be A dorian, and A is not 1 – G is 1! All the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and I ii iii IV V vi vii° works to support G major, and as soon as you start talking about "modes of G major", you are no longer talking about G major. I have seen countless articles that say "in a ii V I progression in G, play A dorian over Am, D mixolydian over D, and G ionian over G." Doesn't exist. The entire thing is G major, because all of the pitches in each of those chords is in G major and has a function to point toward the tonic of G using a major modality.

 

[Mr. Big Noodles]

Part II!

How should you look at modes, then? My answer: don't treat them relative to each other. Remember, "modes of G major" does not exist. Next, we tend to think of modes/scales in a linear fashion. We start at point A and end at point B. To a heck of a lot of people, this is what B phrygian looks like: B C D E F# G A B. And they add the extra B on top and call it "8" because they missed the point of calling it "1". Anybody who knows anything about composition will tell you that having a straight scale going up and down and including all pitches is a shitty way to write a melody. Your aim should always be to break the material down into chunks, to organize it. Modal music is very old, older in fact than chords and numeral analysis, back when there was melody and not much else, so we're going to look at how these things play out in melody rather than hammer out a list of letters and numbers, which is something that is more from the era of harmony.

For 413 years (roughly), we have had two main modal flavors: major and minor. There was a fight with all the modes, and major and minor won. Because of that, for about 300 years Western civilization didn't practice the other modes very much, so we are now dealing with a language and culture that is extremely developed with major/minor modality and trying to get its chops back with dorian/phrygian/lydian/mixolydian/aeolian (Not the same as minor, as you will soon see)/locrian. To go back 414 years or more, we need to talk about tetrachords. Sounds like chord, right? Wrong. Chords are those things that you get from skipping every other tone in the scale, what we call "stacking thirds". Tetrachords, on the other hand, are little scale fragments consisting of four notes. Let's do this with the major scale.

G major: G A B C D E F#

If we count four notes in, we get G A B C. That is our first tetrachord. Then, we start where the last one left off: D E F# and G, because the entire thing repeats at G. We are going to call "G A B C" the lower tetrachord, because it contains the lower four notes of the scale, and "D E F# G" the upper tetrachord, because it contains the upper four notes of the scale. Now, instead of dealing with 7 or 8 notes at a time, we're going to deal with 4. I am going to make a couple of short melodies that utilize these tetrachords. If you click on the images, you should get a download link for the corresponding audio file.



Real simple. I start at the tonic, go up the lower tetrachord, back down the lower tetrachord, get back to the tonic, then start at the same tonic, go down the upper tetrachord, go back up it, and get to the tonic again. Listen to how the G sounds like where the thing should end. I'm writing a melody that utilizes tetrachords in order to approach and leave the tonic note.

Here's the same thing, with minor:



Notice anything? In the upper tetrachord, we have some extra notes. On the way down, I'm using F and E♭, but going back up those become E♮ and F#. This is how the minor mode was treated following the tonal period. F and E♭ (♭7 and ♭6, respectively) are colors more endemic of the minor mode, but E and F# (6 and 7) are better for approaching the tonic. So, to get the best of both worlds, we incorporated the practice of "melodic minor", giving us the minor color when we descend down from 1 to 5, and providing a stronger tonal push when ascending from 5 to 1. What you'll find about tonality is that it strongly favors that half step between scale degrees 7 and 1, what could be called the leading tone to tonic relationship. Modal music requires that we reject that half step sometimes. We still like it, but in order to utilize those other modes, we can't always have the leading tone there.

This is what that same minor scale looks like without those alterations. We call this the aeolian mode, or natural minor. This one is untouched. Notice the whole step between degree ♭7 and 1.



There is a reason for Western musical culture ditching the other diatonic modes: if you're running up and down a scale that has the same pitches as six other scales, there is a strong likelihood that you will get lost somewhere in there. Take this example:



Starts with the same G minor lower tetrachord thing that we just heard, right? We're going, going… uh oh, sounds like B♭ major at the end. I suppose it could be both, but where did the modulation occur? Can you point to any one note and say "this is where it pivots from G aeolian to B♭ major"? What if the entire thing is B♭ major and the melody simply starts on G? Maybe it's still G aeolian at the end, and the B♭ is just the third of the tonic chord. Maybe it's some other mode that contains those exact same notes. A lot of ambiguity there. That was taken care of with the harmonic and melodic treatment of the minor scale, which put that leading tone in to indicate the tonic. If there are only two colors to choose from (major and minor) and each one is distinct, then no confusion arises.

Anyhow, you can look at the other modes as similar to their major and minor counterparts. You group them according to the tonic triad quality, as has already been mentioned. You can look at the other modes as brighter or darker versions of their nearest equivalent. For example, dorian is like a brighter version of aeolian. It's brighter because the sixth degree is raised when you compare it to natural minor.



Phrygian is like a darker version of aeolian, because the second degree is lowered in comparison.



The same thing works for the major modes, too. Lydian is like a brighter major scale, because of the #4.



Lydian actually doesn't like this tetrachord thing too much - it works better with pentachords, because that C# is heard more as an accessory to D. Gotta be careful with that, though: this could become D major if not handled properly.



And mixolydian is darker because of that ♭7.



Locrian is the odd one out, because of the diminished triad thing, but I find that it is manageable if you don't try to outline the triad. Our tetrachord approach works well, because you hear what sounds similar to a phrygian tetrachord in the lower part, and the ♭5 comes in after we've already substantiated the tonality. Trying to put 1, ♭3 and ♭5 together in the same phrase is asking to sacrifice the locrian feel, since it's going to want to pull to the relative major key as soon as the tritone is apparent. The tetrachord is good for avoiding such mishaps.

 

[Elliott Jeffries]

Apples and oranges. It's funny how music theory intellectuals forget that when someone asks for an explanation it's not necessarily a request for an exhaustively researched answer to end all further questions. My explanation basically said the same thing as the thesis posted by SchecterWhore. He'll deny this, of course and he is right about learning the fundamentals, but I'm all about shortcuts and learning things easily. Bad advice you say? The end result is I can still play in mixolydian in the jam I posted. And so can you!

 

[Mr. Big Noodles]

The difference is that you're not describing modal music. You're looking at chord changes and saying that there's all this modal stuff happening in there. It's not. Do you think that backing track you posted switches between G mixolydian and F lydian every bar? Why isn't it called "G Mixolydian Mode Backing Track And Also F Lydian Mode Backing Track As Well - Grooovy!!"? Maybe because the guy that put up the video understands that you need chord progression to establish mode and tonic. The scale does not change every time you have a chord change.

 

[celticelk]

The topic is a basic introduction to modes, not a dissertation. Playing a C major scale with the root in G over a G chord is mixolydian no matter how doth thou protest. This is simply an example.

My post *was* pitched as an intro. SW's posts are the dissertation. =)

And you're right - playing the pitches of C major over a G major chord will tend to imply G Mixolydian. That actually goes along with my point that the prevailing tonality is essential in interpreting a particular group of pitches as a specific mode. Try this experiment: with no accompaniment whatsoever - no chords, drones, anything - play a G Mixolydian line that resolves to a G7 chord tone (G, B, D, or F), and then play a C note immediately after that resolution. I'll bet you a shiny penny that the C will sound like a strong resolution, rather than the suspension that you'd expect from playing the 4th degree of the scale.

More to the point, what do you gain from the "playing C major over G = G Mixolydian" approach that's actually *useful* for understanding the music? Does it tell you why those notes should be thought of as G Mixolydian? Or why you'd choose to play C major instead of G major or D major over that G chord? Or why you'd choose those pitches rather than an altered scale or an octatonic scale over G7? If not, why would you bother with this approach, except for the shallow reason of not playing any "wrong notes" when you think you should be "playing modally"?

 

[Osorio]

I don't know how anyone can be against understanding... I was seriously hoping SW would come in and explain all this in his usual detail (I said so on my first post). I know this stuff pretty well, but I damn sure don't know ALL of it and I'm definitely sure I can learn more and become a better musician for it.
Being all about shortcuts is cool. Some of our answers definitely fell on that approach. But if you want to learn more, hey, now we have got an answer for that too.

 

[tripguitar]

Apples and oranges. It's funny how music theory intellectuals forget that when someone asks for an explanation it's not necessarily a request for an exhaustively researched answer to end all further questions. My explanation basically said the same thing as the thesis posted by SchecterWhore. He'll deny this, of course and he is right about learning the fundamentals, but I'm all about shortcuts and learning things easily. Bad advice you say? The end result is I can still play in mixolydian in the jam I posted. And so can you!

No disrespect here, but I don’t think SW meant his post to be an end all answer, nor a one up on your answer. He’s just a knowledgeable dude kind enough to share his wisdom with those of us trying to understand theory on a deeper level.

I for one appreciate the in depth answer provided by SW. I don’t want a cookie cutter solution, I can find those with the help of google. Give me the tools to build my own cookie!

Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish….

 

[Konfyouzd]

I don't know how anyone can be against understanding... I was seriously hoping SW would come in and explain all this in his usual detail (I said so on my first post). I know this stuff pretty well, but I damn sure don't know ALL of it and I'm definitely sure I can learn more and become a better musician for it.
Being all about shortcuts is cool. Some of our answers definitely fell on that approach. But if you want to learn more, hey, now we have got an answer for that too.

Cuz learnin' makes mah head hurt!


No one needs to know anything beyond full barre chords... Folks like SchecterWhore are just overly pedantic and have nothing of real value to share with us...

 

[Solodini]

CelticElk and SW hit it on the head, especially with the instruction to become used to hearing the harmonic differences. Guitarists very easily fall into playing motions and shapes, not sounds. Spend some time with a tonic note pedalling and play the variety of harmony over it. They all have different characters. Many people describe major as sounding happy and minor as sounding sad. If you win a box of chocolates in a raffle are you the same kind of happy as if your aunt tells you she's having a baby? If you find out you've been rejected from a university course, are you the same kind of sad as if your dog dies? One is disappointment, one is grief. If you find out that you have been accepted to your second choice university or that the dog barked and was able to warn your little brother to jump out of the way of the car which hit it then there's another element to the emotion which tinged it with more positivity. These sorts of variety exist in music and the characters of different modes can help to express this so use your ears to learn how they sound and you may start to be able to use them. They might not all be to your tastes and that's fine use what you think sounds good. As someone else said, next time you jam over a minor backing track, chuck in a b2 or #6 and see how that sounds. It might sound off but that might just be because you haven't learned to lead into it and compliment it's character.

TLDR: Ears are your friends.

 

[Elliott Jeffries]

I've got another exercise for you. This is a Dorian jam in the key of Bb. Play the Bb major scale with C as the root or simply play the Dorian pattern starting on C.

Or do the math to figure out the notes.

 

[Mr. Big Noodles]

You sure it's not in the key of C? I mean, it says "C Dorian" in big letters on it. Key is something that happens with our ear, you know. Calling C dorian B♭ major is paper music. Your ear says "C is the tonic" (not root, roots are for chords), and then you fill in the rest of the information as you hear it. If it was B♭ major, then why wouldn't the jam track be "B♭ Major Funk Backing Track"? Why even deal with C dorian if that were the case?

What you're saying works from a pitch level, because these are all relative keys, but it tells us nothing of the interpretation. If I see "F minor", then I already know something about the music without ever hearing a note. If I see "A♭ major", then that tells me something different and just as valuable about the music. If I'm supposed to look at "F minor" and think "A♭ major", then where are we? It makes no sense. The A♭ major information is completely arbitrary. It could just as easily be G locrian. Do you see how ridiculous this is? If you're adding in information that is selected arbitrarily when a perfectly concrete answer is right in front of you, then you can save yourself a step and just not deal with the conversion.

The same thing happens with rhythm: newbies think that 6/8 and 3/4 are the same thing, because they contain the same number of eighth notes. Know what all the music fundamentals books do in the first chapter on rhythm? Talk about how 6/8 and 3/4 aren't the same thing, despite the fact that they have the same capacity of eighth notes. You have an idea of what modes are on a pitch level, but not really the difference between them.

I don't think I'm going to convert you to my way of thinking while we are posting in this thread. I'm not interested in that kind of thing, though you might remember this confrontation later and take my points into consideration, as I will yours (Honestly, I've heard this argument a thousand times before.). I appreciate that we are having this discussion, because it gives me a chance to further elaborate upon the issue I was combating in my first post. Not to be cocky, but I know that the information that I am presenting is accurate; I've been looking at it for a long time and have had education and external criticism from people who are better versed than I am to back it up, not to mention the fact that I have a pretty solid concept of my pedagogical methods. I welcome it when people disprove me, I'm not trying to be the music theory overlord, but know that I put a lot of thought into what and how I post. I really try to avoid empty words.

 

[BeyondAntares]

I agree with everything stated above, however it falls short when you want to apply modes in your guitar playing.

The biggest mistake most guitar sites, instructional videos and even guitar teachers make when teaching modes is to teach by patterns, and not by analysis and examples. A poor example I can give is the terrible lick library series of modes which is a waste of money - it turns into pattern mashing.

I'm going to put forward a tangent to the common ways of teaching modes.

Background:
Just a bit of background for everyone reading this thread who may not know what scales or modes are.

A whole tone (w) will have 2 frets between notes
A Semitone (s) will have 1 fret between notes
Every Major scale will follow the same pattern.
w-w-s-w-w-w-s
C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C
Note that the C major scale is basis of western music and the musical notes are ordered in the way I've shown above, where a whole tone is between every note except for E,F and B,C which differ by a semitone.

Modes should be seen as different melodic flavors that exist within every major scale.

A good introduction to modes is vinnie moors melodic solo writting lesson on youtube



Here he states that if you play any of the white keys on a piano, avoiding the black keys, one would be playing in the C major scale. However the feeling sounds different if you start and end on a different 'root note'. So if you started from A and ended in A, you'll get the A minor scale that exists in the C major scale.

So lets now focus on the C major scale, which goes
C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C

e-------------------------------------------5--7--8----
b----------------------------------5--6--8------------
g--------------------4--5----5--7-----------------------
d-----------3--5--7------------------------------------
a-3--5--7----------------------------------------------
E-------------------------------------------------------
--C--D--E---F--G--A--B--C- --C--D--E--F--G--A--B--C

If we start and end at a different note, we have a different feel to the major scale.

Ionian (natural Major scale)
C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
Dorian (tension building, dark, think cowboy westerns)
D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D
Phrygian (Arabian middle-eastern sounding, heavily used in metal by metalica, Paul Gilbert, etc)
E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E
Lydian (Dream/fantasy like - vai, satriani, John Petrucci use this mode heavily)
F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F
Mixolydian ( Victorious sounding - think Queen - good for resolving scales)
G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G
Aeolian (natural Minor scale, raising the 7th gives us the harmonic minor scale )
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A
Locrian ( dimished / haphazard sounding)
B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B

So whats does this sound like? Try to play the modes above by playing them in the pattern I showed above and then work out if you can play them all on one string. Work up to playing them in two octaves, then try to play them in every position on the neck.

Harmonizing the major scale with modes.
When playing the above you may have noticed that the modes vary between being major or minor sounding. That means that a mode may sound better either over a major chord or a minor chord.


Then the Major scale can be harmonized as follows:

e---3------5------7-------8------10------12-----------15---
b---5------6------8-------9------11------13-----15----17---
g---5------7------9------10------12------14-----14----17---
d---5------7------9------10------12------14-----13----17---
a---3------5------7-------8------10------12-----14----15---
E---------------------------------------------------------
--Cmaj---Dmin---Emin-----Fmaj--Gmaj-----Amin---Bdim--Cmaj--

While playing the chords above, break down the notes. You'll see you're not hitting any accidentals (or Flats(b) [down a half step] or sharps(#)[up a half step]) that exist between wholetones; or a semitone between A,B ; C,D; D,E; F,G; G,A;

Now the next exercise is to do the above for other scales. Grab two scales, say G or E and repeat the above. Make sure to right it all out.

As i'm in the office it's hard to do with people looking over my shoulder - but I'll make a new post regarding breaking down songs and seeing where the modes change and why it fits.

Here are the rest of the scales for reference.
http://www.howmusicworks.org/Image/major5

Lesson plan (notes to myself):

Lesson 1: Identifying modes
- Racer X/Paul Gilbert - Technical Difficulties (level 1)
- Steve Vai - Die to Live (Level 2)
- Steve Vai - Building the Church (level 3)
- Yngwie Malmsteen - Icarus Suite - Identifying modes in arppegiated chords)

Lesson 2: Identifying mode changes
- Joe Satriani- Always with me, Always with you (Level 1)
- Opeth - To rid the disease solo (Level 2)

Lesson 3: Pitch Axis Theory 1
- Joe Satriani Introduction to Pitch Axis theory Lesson
- Exclude the lesson by Guthrie Govan,
-

Lesson 1 - Identifying modes:
Now that you have some familiarization with scales and modes, we need to approach the use of modes in the following manner.

1. Exclude rote memorization of patterns
2. Stop being confined by using the same mode or scale every time you hear a certain a chord.

Now that we know roughly what modes are - lets try to identify them in some poplar songs:

Our method will be:
1. Identify what key (scale) the riff is in. We look for the notes being played and identify the accidentals(Sharps(#)/flats(b)) being used.
2. We note the chord the riff is being played over and the arrangement of the notes being played.

Lets start with an example and then analyse it.

1. Technical Difficulties - Racer X / Paul Gilbert

Intro: drums      Riff A:                                                                      B Phrygian                                                              
|-----|---|---|--||----------------------------------|-----------------------------------------|
|----------------||----------------------------------|-----------------------------------------|
|----------------||o---------------------------------|-----------------------------------------|
|----------------||o-5-----4-----5-----4-----4-5-----|--5-----4-----5-----4~-------------------|
|----------------||----3-3---3-3---3-3---3-3-----3-3-|----3-3---3-3---3-3-----------7-9-10-----|
|----------------||----------------------------------|-----------------------7-8-10------------|

|-----------------------------------|-------------------------------------|--------------------|
|-----------------------------------|-------------------------------------|--------------------|
|-----------------------------------|-------------------------------------|-repeat 1st 2 meas.-|
|-10-----9-----10-----9-----7-9-----|-10-----9-----10-----9~--------------|--------------------|
|----7-7---7-7----7-7---7-7-----7-7-|----7-7---7-7----7-7----------3-5-7--|--------------------|
|-----------------------------------|------------------------3-5-7--------|--------------------|

Chords being played
C Power chord
E Power Chord

Accidentals used: F#
Mode: B Phrygian
Scale(Key): G major

In a meeting for the next 2 hours, I'll try to continue the rest shortly.

 

[Elliott Jeffries]

The biggest mistake most guitar sites, instructional videos and even guitar teachers make when teaching modes is to teach by patterns, and not by analysis and examples. A poor example I can give is the terrible lick library series of modes which is a waste of money - it turns into pattern mashing.

I disagree with what you say about learning by patterns. Patterns are very useful for people like myself who understand visuals better than words. Don't discount something because it doesn't present all the information you feel is needed. I'm not necessarily directing this at you, more to some of the people who overshot this topic by posting overly complicated responses.

Thank you for the posting the Vinnie Moore videos, they are very helpful.

 

[wespaul]

Check out Chris Buono's "Modes that Matter" from TrueFire's site - Guitar Lessons - Modes That Matter - Chris Buono

And if you really want to get involved, you could sign up for his Modal workshop series, which offers one-on-one lessons (for an awesome price, too) - Modal Mother Lode | Alpha - Chris Buono - TrueFire Online Workshops