Hey Friend,
Modes, modes, modes…
A fancy word for a simple concept. It’s not something most guitar players are even aware of, let alone talk about. It’s usually when you’ve advanced into soloing techniques that you start hearing about the different modes of a scale.
You would learn about them if you were in a traditional music program in college, but most of us picked up guitar for recreation, and music is a hobby.
Like any subject, music has its own terminology and language. It really helps when you understand the jargon read in guitar magazines. At least it’s easy to get definitions nowadays.
Back in the day, you couldn’t just pull up Google to get a million web pages defining the concept you’ve just learned about. Many times, the words used by musicians were mysterious, at least to me…
To recap, modes are easy enough to understand. They’re just the different scale positions starting with the various notes of that scale.
Each mode has a name, given to it by ancient Greek dudes. While we only focus on seven modes in modern music there are more than what I’ll highlight here. If you find this interesting and want more info, you can read about modes here.
For the examples, let’s continue using the C major scale because it provides us all natural notes (no sharps or flats in the scale). Here are the mode names:
Ionian (natural major scale) C D E F G A B (C)
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W W H W W W H
Dorian D E F G A B C (D)
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W H W W W H W
Phrygian E F G A B C D (E)
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H W W W H W W
Lydian F G A B C D E (F)
| | | | | | |
W W W H W W H
Mixolydian G A B C D E F (G)
| | | | | | |
W W H W W H W
Aeolian (natural minor scale) A B C D E F G (A)
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W H W W H W W
Locrian B C D E F G A (B)
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H W W H W W W
As you progress through the scale, each new mode has a new tonic. Each of the notes maintain the same intervals because, well, it’s still the C major scale. And while the scale pattern doesn't actually change, it looks different for each mode because of the starting note (tonic).
I’ve only scratched the surface of modes with my explanation here, and the purpose was to give you a little awareness into what modes are in case you come across them.
We could do a deep dive into understanding how to use each mode in the songwriting process, or how artists use different modes to change the feel of a song, but that’s definitely more hard-core. Go to that link I gave you earlier…
Alright, I gotta wrap this up for today. Y‘all have a great one!
Peace~
Dave
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