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Modal Theory
for Guitar Players - Part 1
By
Simon Duff
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Introduction
The fact that you are holding this in your hands
suggests that you have got to the point in your
explorations of, and curiosity about the guitar that the
next step is the modes. Maybe it’s because you have read
somewhere that Steve Vai loves the Lydian mode, or you
have listened to music by Frank Gambale and wondered
what he was up to. Whatever the reason, the material you
have here should set you on the road to opening up new
ways to express yourself, to get different sounds into
your melodies and harmonies.
First off you need to know that this material alone will
not have you ripping exotic solos up and down the fret
board, smoke and fire on your fingertips. It will take
the same process and work that has brought you your
level of chops with the pentatonic, major and minor
scales, arpeggios and your own licks. What it will do is
give you the information you need, and the backing
tracks so that you can practice and familiarise yourself
with the patterns of the modes, and get used to the
sounds. |
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Ultimately it’s down to the
time you put in and your motivation to go beyond what
you find within these pages. But if you’re serious about
learning the modes, you knew that already. Anyone
promising you a quick fix, whether conscious or
subconscious, is at the very least pulling your leg.
The second thing you need to know is that a certain
facility and knowledge is assumed. If you find yourself
flailing in a sea of non-comprehension it is hopefully
only because you’re not ready to move on to this stage
of learning, and you need to tuck this back under the
bed and give yourself a little more time with the
basics. You could ignore the theory section altogether.
It’s up to you what you want to do with this now it’s
yours, but hopefully, if you do ignore it now, perhaps
you will come back to it and then it should make some
sense and help you with other aspects of using the
modes.
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Let’s start with the good news. There are
7 modes built on the major scale and you already know
two of them. The major scale is a mode itself, called
the Ionian, and the minor scale is another mode, called
the Aeolian. So, more than a quarter of the work is
done. If you thought that getting to grips with those
two scales wasn’t too complicated, then you should get
on fine with the other material here. If you are in a
state of experience where playing the major and minor
scales in 5 positions on the guitar neck, in any key, is
not something that you are familiar or comfortable with,
back this goes under the bed. Although both of these
modes will be covered you really should be worrying
about the basics at this point. Any half way decent book
about playing the guitar, or song writing, should
provide you with the information to get these two modes
under your fingers. For the rest of you, let’s go.
The Modes
Before we get to anything
even remotely like playing a scale, we need to have a
think about the theory to understand where these modes
come from. It is not essential to understand this to
learn the modes, you could just learn the patterns, but,
knowing some of the theory should help you to know when
the modes could be employed, why they sound different
etc. There are seven modes, named Ionian, Dorian,
Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. The
reason why there are seven modes is because each mode is
built on a different tone of the major scale and there
are 7 different tones in the major scale. If we take the
scale of C Major as an example, so we don’t have to
worry about sharps and flats, this should be clearer. |
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As you are probably aware,
the C Major scale consists of the following tones:
C D E F G A B C
If we think of the major scale as a mode, then what we
are saying is that if we start on the tone C, and then
play all seven tones of the C Major scale, we are
playing C Ionian. The same is true for any other major
scale. If you start on the tone B and play all 7 tones
which make up the B Major scale, you have played B
Ionian.
Another way to think of this is to consider the way in
which this scale is constructed. All major scales are
constructed with the same distance between pairs of
tones. Again, considering the C Major scale, the
distances between the pairs of notes is:
C D E F G A B C
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If we think of the major
scale as a mode, then what we are saying is that if we
start on the tone C, and then play all seven tones of
the C Major scale, we are playing C Ionian. The same is
true for any other major scale. If you start on the tone
B and play all 7 tones which make up the B Major scale,
you have played B Ionian.
Another way to think of this is to consider the way in
which this scale is constructed. All major scales are
constructed with the same distance between pairs of
tones. Again, considering the C Major scale, the
distances between the pairs of notes is:
Note Pair.......Tone distance............Fret distance
C to D..........a whole tone (T)...........i.e., 2
frets)
D to E..........a whole tone (T)..........(i.e., 2
frets)
E to F..........a semi-tone (S)...........(i.e., 1 fret)
F to G..........a whole tone (T)..........(i.e., 2
frets)
G to A..........a whole tone (T)..........(i.e., 2
frets)
A to B..........a whole tone (T)..........(i.e., 2
frets)
B to C..........a semi-tone (S)...........(i.e., 1 fret)
So, we could say that the structure of any major scale,
or Ionian mode, is
T T S T T T S
We can check this. You should check this on your guitar
neck to convince yourself that it is true, but here
we’ll do it on paper. Let’s say we want to construct the
G Major scale.
Knowing that all major scales are constructed using the
formula T T S T T T S, and starting on G we would get
the following:
G up a whole tone to A
A up a whole tone to B
B up a semi-tone to C
C up a whole tone to D
D up a whole tone to E
E up a whole tone to F#
F# up a semi-tone to G
Producing the scale
G A B C D E F#
Do this with other major scales just to check that
there’s no trickery here. If you didn’t know that the G
Major scale has an F# in it, back under the bed this
goes and find a theory book!
Ok, so we can think of the Ionian (from now on the Major
scale will always be referred to as the Ionian, as we
are thinking in modes here) as having a particular
structure. The next theoretical step we’ll take is to
build the other modes on the notes of the Ionian, and
then look at their structures in exactly the same way.
Taking C Ionian again, and only using the tones of this
mode, consider the following.
If we take all the notes from C Ionian, and only those
notes, and we start on C
C D E F G A B
We are playing C Ionian.
Now we’ll look at the other modes, remembering that as
we are building them on the tones from C Ionian, these
are the only tones we can use, i.e., C, D, E, F, G, A,
and B.
If we take all the notes from C Ionian, and only those
notes, and we start on D,
D E F G A B C D
We are playing D Dorian.
If we take all the notes from C Ionian, and only those
notes, and we start on E,
E F G A B C D E
We are playing E Phrygian.
If we take all the notes from C Ionian, and only those
notes, and we start on F,
F G A B C D E F
We are playing F Lydian.
If we take all the notes from C Ionian, and only those
notes, and we start on G,
G A B C D E F G
We are playing G Mixolydian.
If we take all the notes from C Ionian, and only those
notes, and we start on A,
A B C D E F G A
We are playing A Aeolian, also known as the minor scale,
which you know.
If we take all the notes from C Ionian, and only those
notes, and we start on B,
B C D E F G A B
We are playing B Locrian.
If you know your Ionian modes, then you will have
instantly seen that the scales we are producing in this
way are not the same as the Ionian modes you know. For
example, the G Mixolydian we have built does not have an
F#, which the G Ionian does and the F Lydian we have
built does not have a Bb in it, which the F Ionian does.
Noticing these differences means you have noticed one of
the key aspects of the modes. The reason why, for
example G Mixolydian does not sound like G Ionian is
because the relationship between the notes has changed,
the pattern of tones and semi-tones between the notes
has changed and as such the tones in the scale are
different. These changes in the relationships are what
give the modes their characteristic sounds and determine
why they can be used in some instances, and not in
others. But more of that later.
You could now start comparing some of your modes. For
example, you could play a D Ionian, and then play D
Dorian and compare the sounds. You’ll probably hear that
your Dorian sounds slightly more ‘minor’. Part of the
work you need to find time to do is to start to hear
these differences, but when we get to the playing part
of this package you’ll be doing that anyway, so just
hold on one moment. The next thing we will do is look at
the structures of each of the modes, again using as our
base example C Ionian. Below you will find each of the 7
modes built on C, starting with C Ionian, the others
built on the tones which make up the C Ionian mode (C,
D, E, F, G, A, B).
Starting Tone.....Mode Name.....Mode Notes...Mode
Structure
C,.....................C Ionian........CDEFGABC......T T
S T T T S
D,.....................D Dorian........DEFGABCD......T S
T T T S T
E,.....................E Phrygian......EFGABCDE......S T
T T S T T
F,.....................F Lydian........FGABCDEF......T T
T S T T S
G,.....................G Mixolydian....GABCDEFG......T T
S T T S T
A,.....................A Aeolian.......ABCDEFGA......T S
T T S T T
B,.....................B Locrian.......BCDEFGAB......S T
T S T T T
As you can probably see, each of the modes has its own,
unique structure of tone and semi-tones between notes in
the scale. What this means is that if you learn, for
example, that the Locrian mode is constructed by spacing
notes according to the formula of S T T S T T T, you can
play the the Locrian mode in any key by choosing your
start note, and then building the scale according to
this formula.
One final way we can think of the modes shows very
clearly how each mode differs from its own Ionian mode.
Again, taking as our basis the C Ionian, we will number
each of the notes in the C Ionian scale, as below.
C D E F G A B
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Now, we will look at the modes based on C Ionian, and
show how each mode differs.
D Dorian
D...E...F...G...A...B...C
1...2...b3..4...5...6...b7
This merely means that D Dorian differs from D Ionian by
the third degree of the scale and the seventh degree of
the scale being flattened. So, whereas in D Ionian the
scale has an F# and a C#, D Dorian has an F and a C.
We’ll look at the other modes in the same manner.
E Phrygian
E...F...G...A...B...C...D
1...b2..b3..4...5...b6..b7
F Lydian
F...G...A...B...C...D...E
1...2...#3..4...5...6...7
G Mixolydian
G...A...B...C...D...E...F
1...2...3...4...5...6...b7
A Aeolian
A...B...C...D...E...F...G
1...2...b3..4...5...b6..b7
B Locrian
B...C...D...E...F...G...A
1...b2..b3..4...b5..b6..b7
What the previous list demonstrated is how each of these
modes differs from the Ionian mode starting on the same
root node. So, for example, A Aeolian differs from A
Ionian by the third, sixth, and seventh degree of the
Ionian mode being flattened. Once again, you could learn
how the individual modes differ from their Ionian modes
and alter the way you play the Ionian to take account of
this.
By now you have probably got a bit of an ache in your
head from all this theory. It’s not crucial at this
stage that you have got all of this committed to memory
and have it all worked out. Give it a little time, and
when you have had a chance to get a bit of modal playing
done, you can pick the ones that you like, or that fit
your style, and then just get your head around those
ones.
This is end of the main theoretical section. Bits will
creep in, or will seem to creep in when we look at
chords for each of the modes, but really, as long as you
have a basic understanding of music it shouldn’t be any
more troublesome than what you’ve been through already.
I hope.
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Guitarist and therapist:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/newtballon/,
http://www.hypnotherapies.co.uk, though not
necessarily in that order, and not exclusively either.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com |
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