The Magic of Modes

Hmmmmm.... Modes.... What's them things then?!

I'll be honest, modes have confused the hell out of me for years, but basically they're just moods really, the first mode for example is simple the major scale. We'll get into it later but another mode is just the minor scale. Another mode sounds a little exotic and eastern and so on.

The thing to remember though is that if you know your major scale, you can play every mode. Basically if you're playing by yourself just doing scales you can't hear the modes. We need a reference for the modes to work, so all through this we're going to assume the bass player is just droning an E note. That droning gives us our context.

What?! But they're different, how can they all be the same scale?! Well, they're the same scale just started in different places. In fact the guitar makes this easy for you. Again though this idea has confused me for years, I just needed a way for my brain to understand it!

The first mode is the major scale. So, a major scale is whole step-whole step-half step-whole step-whole step-whole step-half step. On a guitar that's easy, start on your root note (E in this case) miss a fret, miss a fret, next fret, miss a fret, miss a fret, miss a fret, next fret. That's your major scale :)

Of course that's one octave of the major scale, we then repeat it over and over, so think of it like a circle repeating. Now, if you put numbers over the notes, 1 over the first note, 2 over the second and so on, you have your modes.

Let's forget about the names for now, that's just something to remember the order of, and let's call them Mode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. After that it's an octave and you're back at the start.

To make this easy as a guitarist I'll write the fret you use, so from an E, '2' means play a fret two above, '1' is the next fret.

In E the first note is always an E, and all we're doing is moving the pattern by one each time...

So, mode 1:

2 2 1 2 2 2 1

Mode 2

2 1 2 2 2 1 2

Mode 3

1 2 2 2 1 2 2

Mode 4

2 2 2 1 2 2 1

Mode 5

2 2 1 2 2 1 2

Mode 6

2 1 2 2 1 2 2

Mode 7

1 2 2 1 2 2 2

Octave (Mode 1)

2 2 1 2 2 2 1

See, we're back at the start! First note remains your root note and with this simple method you know all your modes!

Remember though, without context they're nothing, like most things!

Hope this helps some simple guitarist folks like myself...

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