Hey Friend,
How did your index/middle finger stretches go yesterday? Good?
Good. You’re going to need that flexibility in the days to come! Keep stretching...
When you are playing notes within a key (the scale notes), the notes line up according to a specific pattern across the strings.
The scale has one pattern (remember, W W H W W W H), but depending on the neck position and the note you’re starting on, the scale might LOOK like a different pattern.
But it’s not. The reason it looks different is the starting location.
That’s probably a bit confusing, so I won’t dwell on it now, but you'll see what I mean as we progress.
This is probably a good place to introduce a concept that will help explain this better. And that is modes.
A mode is just playing the same scale, only starting on a note that’s not the tonic (the root note of the scale).
You can think of it like this - each note in a scale has its own mode, which is simply playing the scale starting on that note.
For example, the first mode of a C major scale looks like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (8)
C D E F G A B (C)
The second mode of C major looks like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (8)
D E F G A B C (D)
They’re the same scale notes, but we started on the D note instead of the C note.
The easiest way to see how this works is to play each of the modes in their respective positions.
If we start on the sixth string (E), the C major scale can be found beginning with C note on the 8th fret. That’s the first mode position for the key of C major. The second mode position has you start on the D note at the 10th fret.
You are still playing the notes of the C major scale, just in a different position.
What if you were to want to play the C major scale lower on the neck? Just drop down to another mode.
We Rockers all love the A position at the 5th fret - what about there?
We can play a mode of C major there, to (actually, it’s the sixth mode). The notes are:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (8)
A B C D E F G (A)
You can’t really tell by looking at it here, but this mode (the sixth) is actually the scale pattern for minor scales.
W H W W H W W
There are seven modes in all for each major key. Tomorrow, we’ll do a quick rundown of each mode, just in the interest of completeness (and the fodder for stimulating cocktail party conversations you can carry on).
See you then.
Peace~
Dave
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