What are Modes?

 

 

modes (sounds scary, eh?) Not really. Music modes explained

 

Modes in music have been around for a long time, they are nothing new. They were formalized in the 1600’s and are used in all types of music and used by a wide variety of musical instruments.

Should I learn modes?

Learning modes allows you to colour any tune you are playing, or improvising, with feeling. It also allows the sound of the song to focus on a differing tonal centre. If your playing is beginning to sound boring and you feel you are stuck in a rut, this could another reason to study modes.

Modes can be seen as scales within a parent scale. Many people use mode and scale to mean the same thing, however, this is not strictly true. A mode can be seen as a scale of it’s parent scale, derived from a different point in the parent scale. All modes are scales but not all scales are modes. The Blues Scale for example is not a mode.

From the picture above, you can see that the C Major scale is shown. (no sharps or flats – more of that later). The mode of C Ionian starts with the note of C and ends with note of C, using all the notes in the C scale.

When the same scale is used but the starting point is the note of D, then the accompanying mode is Dorian. Ie. The mode starts and ends in D, using all the notes of the C scale.

When the same scale is used but the starting point is the note of E, then the accompanying mode is Phrygian. Ie. The mode starts and ends in E, using all the notes of the C scale.

Again, the same scale is used but the starting point is the note of F, then the accompanying mode is Lydian. Ie. The mode starts and ends in F, using all the notes of the C scale.

And again, the same scale is used but the starting point is the note of G, then the accompanying mode is Mixolydian. Ie. The mode starts and ends in G, using all the notes of the C scale.

Also the same scale is used but the starting point is the note of A, then the accompanying mode is Aeolian. Ie. The mode starts and ends in A, using all the notes of the C scale.

And finally, when the same scale is used but the starting point is the note of B, then the accompanying mode is Locrian. Ie. The mode starts and ends in B, using all the notes of the C scale.

Mnemonic to remember modes – I Don’t Particularly Like Modes A Lot

 

Different modes and their sound (we will forget Locrian as this is a Mode on it's own, being a Diminished Mode)

Major Modes

Ionian - Happy Sounding

Lydian - kind of Prog Rockish

Mixolydian - Bluesy

Minor Modes

Dorian - Blues Rock

Phrygian - Exotic

Aeolian - Rock Sad Song

 

Learning Modes from the Pentatonic Scale

As the name suggests the Pentatonic Scale is made up of 5 notes. Depending on whether you are looking at the Major or Minor Pentatonic Scale, will depend on the scale degrees used in that scale. 

  The Major Pentatonic scale is made up of the 1st - Major 2nd- Major 3rd- Perfect 5th - Major 6th, 

The Minor Pentatonic scale constitutes the 1st - minor 3rd - Perfect 4th - Perfect 5th - minor 7th, and you can see a comparison between both scales below. 

 

 

 The obvious thing to say about this is that shape 1 is followed by shape 2, etc. Also, if you look closely, you can see how the shapes match each other as they move along the fretboard, i.e. shape 1 of the Minor Pentatonic is the same as shape 5 of the Major Pentatonic. The only thing that is changing is the tonic, or root note. 

 There is a link below to a great online tool that can help with modes, scales, exercises, etc., please feel free to click and have a look. You can purchase through the link if you wish.

                                     https://6f397dfbveaw3n7mggvgp6wzdb.hop.clickbank.net/

 I am going to go into getting modes under your fingers in another blog but what I would suggest is getting these shapes under your fingers. Notice how there are 3 fret blocks and 2 fret blocks in each individual shape. By remembering where the tonic note (marked in blue) is in each of these individual shapes, this will help in the next step, which is working on modes. Just to confirm this further, the root note in the minor pentatonic scale is the 3rd note in the 3 fret block and the 4th in the 2 fret block. I hope this makes sense, if you look at the illustration above showing the shapes, you should be able to see it. I will go into these shapes and add the notes to each shape to show you how you can turn the pentatonic shape into each of the modes above.

Once again, I hope you have enjoyed this article. If you have please subscribe and comment.