Modes explained for the theoretically challenged

[Dewar54]

Firstly what do you mean by key centred thinking? Hope you don't mind me being a dumbass

I'll look into it, I'm not after free lessons

[littlegreenman]

Chappers has also done another one that take it a bit further: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiVHEPjtJic

Nice lesson.

And of course, no thread on modes is complete without Guthrie's classic pirate modes vid

[monquixote]

I'm sure that'll be real helpful for me down the line. Part of my problem with theory is I get ahead of myself too quick, don't give myself a chance to soak in the basics before moving on then I get lost and frustrated and give up. I need to do it properly this time, I'm gonna play around with chappers major scale modes from the vid and I'm also looking at intervals. It's hard to know exactly what to look for and what is probably of no use to me, I don't have the time or inclination to learn all there is to know about theory, a lot of it I'm thinking would be superfluous?

Here are a few of my top modal tips: (Proper theory heads will probably dispair at this but it works for me)

Ionian is just major and Aeolian is natural minor so you should already know both of them so that's two of the modes down already. (If you don't learn them before getting on to anything else modal.)

The Locrian mode you will probably never use so don't worry about it so that's three down. (I'm sure clever people have a use for it but I don't)

The next two scales to learn are Dorian and Mixolydian. I think of these as the jazzy minor and jazzy major respectively.

Dorian is great (I use it all the time) it's got all the notes of the minor pentatonic plus 2 extras so you can drop into it in the middle of your pentatonic noodling and it makes you sound all sophisticated and latin jazzy. Anything that starts on a minor 7 chord will usually sound good with the Dorian. Santana is Mr Dorian so you get the idea of what it sounds like.

Mixolydian is just the major scale with the 7th note dropped by one. This means it sounds a bit less twee and it doesn't clash with dominant 7 chords (as in A7). Again if you are doing some major soloing and there is a 7 chord then try a bit of mixolydian.

Phrygian is the eastern mysterious scale (Or you can think of it as the spooky mysterious minor ) Lydian I think of as the Vai scale (or spooky mysterious major) and has that slightly weird other worldly sound. I think they are the most overtly shredy modal sounding scales.

The really cool thing about learning all of your modes shapes is even before you learn how to use them you can use them to learn the major and minor scale all the way up the fretboard. So if you are playing C major you can shift 2 down and start using the dorian shape. This is really cool as you can break out of the box and solo on the whole fretboard which makes you look like a proper musician to other guitarists.

[Sir Axeman]

Chappers has also done another one that take it a bit further: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiVHEPjtJic

Yeah that is good in one way..but apart from a drone he doesn't really teach anything about modal chord sequences..so for me his lesson is missing the point a bit. He telling you effectively how you can choose your desired shape and move it to a certain position and then it will by default be a mode because of the drone...but really you can play 'proper' chord sequences beyond a drone that suggest a certain mode. For example you could have a riff based say on E going to F power chords..this would be screaming out phrygian mode or even phrygian dominant. And like Joe said in the earlier vids the more chords in a sequence the more sewn up it becomes and more locked into a certain scale. Fewer chords and there is some ambiguity and as he said "its mine to play with" So yeah I thought Satch's vids was great - seen that before a few times and still enjoy watching it every now and again along with this other similar one from Joe, even though in this short vid its more or less a mini version of the other 2 vids posted earlier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gSXZRgWzp8

[Ouija]

At the risk of blowing my own trumpet........ (used to be in my sig when i had one)

[Bingefeller]

Firstly what do you mean by key centred thinking? Hope you don't mind me being a dumbass

I'll look into it, I'm not after free lessons

Key centred works something like this:

I assume you know the Ionian scale all over the fretboard.....

Say you have a chord progression that goes: E7 for one bar, Bm7 for one bar and then Amaj7 for two bars. You could safely play A Ionian over this progression. Say the next chord is an A7 for 4 bars.....you could shift your thinking to D Ionian and your lead melodies would sound reasonably safe. This is because the "correct" mode for A7 is A Mixolydian, which is built off the 5th note of the D Ionian scale and D Ionian is like the parent scale from which Mixolydian comes.

If you want to find out what key a progression is in you can do the following:

Look for the Dominant 7 chord. This is usually the V chord so it will resolve to the I, which will be the chord from which the Ionian scale will come from.

If there are two minor chords a whole step apart eg - Aminor to Bminor, then you can usually assume that these are the ii and iii chords in a progression. Just go a whole step down from the ii chord and you'll find out the key centre for the song.

[erictheweary]

I've never really understood why people get baffled with modes. Play the major scale, start at a note other than the first one and bingo modes.

When Adrian Clarke (Guitarist techniques editor) used to post on the forum he politely answered questions about modes on an almost daily basis. I largely assumed he stopped posting on here because about 90% of the questions where about modes and people did struggle to get it. Including me -whilst I got this ^ basic idea in about 5 minutes many years ago the meaningful application of it has eluded me to a great extent over the years.

Maybe I should follow all these links and see if I have a lightbulb moment!

[Bingefeller]

When Adrian Clarke (Guitarist techniques editor) used to post on the forum he politely answered questions about modes on an almost daily basis. I largely assumed he stopped posting on here because about 90% of the questions where about modes and people did struggle to get it. Including me -whilst I got this ^ basic idea in about 5 minutes many years ago the meaningful application of it has eluded me to a great extent over the years.

Maybe I should follow all these links and see if I have a lightbulb moment!

I think it's the actual application of the modes that confuses most people. There are only a few that are useful in pop music IMO - but it's mostly Ionian or Aeolian.

[colski]

Here's modal theory WITHOUT any theory. Once you've nailed this concept, replace the films with the notes of the major scale.

Set aside a free day over the festive period and watch these films in the following order:

Episode 1 The Phantom Menace
Episode 2 Attack of The Clones
Episode 3 Revenge Of The Sith
Episode 4 A New Hope
Episode 5 The Empire Strikes Back
Episode 6 Return Of The Jedi
Episode 7 The Disney abomination

Set aside another day and watch them in this order:

Episode 2 Attack of The Clones
Episode 3 Revenge Of The Sith
Episode 4 A New Hope
Episode 5 The Empire Strikes Back
Episode 6 Return Of The Jedi
Episode 7 The Disney abomination
Episode 1 The Phantom Menace

As above, but in this order:

Episode 3 Revenge Of The Sith
Episode 4 A New Hope
Episode 5 The Empire Strikes Back
Episode 6 Return Of The Jedi
Episode 7 The Disney abomination
Episode 1 The Phantom Menace
Episode 2 Attack of The Clones

Repeat the process over seven days until Episode 1 is back at the top.
Got it?
OK, spend an hour doing the same thing with the notes of the major scale.
Happy Xmas,
The (non) Theory Fairy.

[monquixote]

The Phantom Menace and the Locrian mode have a very similar effect on me.

Finding out blues and jazz tend to have as much (or more) Dorian and Mixolydian in them than Aeolian and Ionian was a big revelation to me.