Guitar Modes Explained Youtube

There are few topics in the world of guitar theory which seem to cause as much confusion as modes. I speak partly from personal experience here.

When I first wanted to move beyond playing the minor and major pentatonic and blues scales, I tried to teach myself the modes. For a long time, I had little success. And looking back, I am not surprised that this was the case.

Dorian

The language used to explain the modes on your guitar is complicated. Not only this, but properly using and understanding the modes requires a little more theoretical knowledge.

Guitar Modes & Scales

You can get great results soloing and improvising with the minor pentatonic scale, even if you don’t really understand how it works. The same is not quite true of the modes. As such, if you are starting from scratch on the theory front, I would strongly recommend reading the following articles before continuing here:

I know that you want to get to grips with guitar modes as soon as possible. But please learn from my mistakes. Trying to learn the modes without understanding how they function is very challenging. And it will give you hit and miss results at best.

So even though it might feel like you are spending a lot of time working through the theory – it is worth it. You will be able to use the modes on your guitar much more effectively. In fact I would argue that this approach will actually save you time in the long run too.

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Assuming then that you are comfortable with the concepts outlined in the articles linked above, let’s turn our attention to the modes. In this article I will cover everything you need to get started using the modes on your guitar. This includes:

Before we look at the modes on your guitar, we need to return to the major scale. This is of fundamental importance, because as I will explain in much more detail throughout – the major scale is the ‘parent scale’ from which all of the modes are derived.

As such, if you want to play the modes on your guitar, you first need to be able to play the major scale all over your fretboard. Not only this, but you need to understand how the major scale is structured and which intervals appear in the scale.

An Introduction To Playing The Modes On Your Guitar

The major scale is a heptatonic scale. This is because it is comprised of 7 notes per octave, (‘hepta’ meaning 7 in Greek). The scale ‘formula’ for the major scale is as follows:

Each of the numbers above represents anintervalthat appears in the scale. And in the major scale, all of the intervals are eithermajororperfect. In the key of A, the notes of the major scale are as follows:

Each of the numbers 1-7 corresponds to one of the notes above. A is 1, B is 2 and so on. This is what the A major scale looks like when played horizontally across the 6th string on your guitar:

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When laid out visually in this way, you can see that the major scale is constructed in a series of alternating tones and semitones (or half steps and whole steps). Specifically, the spacings on the fretboard are as follows:

A lot of guitarists find it helpful to repeat this series of spaces when they first learn the scale. And it certainly can be a useful mechanism for remembering the pattern of notes, which has a different sound and feel to many of the scales with which you might be familiar.

As a reminder, here is what the 5 shapes of the A major scale look like when laid out on your fretboard:

What Are Guitar Modes? Guide 2022

As I noted in more detail here, there are different fingerings that you can use to play these scales. However the fingerings included above are those which I think work best for most blues and blues rock guitarists. The notes highlighted in light blue are the tonic notes, which in this example are the notes of A.

Guitar

Now, unlike some of the other guitar scales with which you might be familiar, it is more challenging to use the major scale in your guitar playing straight away.

And in fact, if you are predominantly interested in playing blues and blues rock music, it is unlikely that you will use the major scale in your playing with much frequency. Instead it is much more likely that you will use the modes.

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The modes are a series of scales that are built from the major scale. They contain all of the same notes as the major scale. The key difference is that each mode starts on a different note of the major scale.

This has a significant impact on the intervalsbetweenthe notes in the scale. And this changes the sound and character of each of the modal scales. This is true – even though the notes in each of these modal scales are the same.

This is the key idea you need to understand when learning the modes. As such, it is one that I will cover in much more detail below. However we can run through a quick example here to help bring the idea to life before digging into it in more detail. To do this, let’s return to the major scale:

The Locrian Mode

This diagram shows the notes and intervals of the A major scale. When we start on the note of A and play through the major scale, we end up with the intervals shown above.

Now, if we keep everything here the same, but just change the starting note of the scale to be B, rather than A, you will see that all of the intervals between the notes change:

As you can see, the actual notes included in this second diagram are exactly the same as those in the diagram showing the A major scale. The only difference is that now, the root note of the scale is B, instead of A. This seemingly small change has a knock on effect on the rest of the scale. It alters the intervals between the notes, and this fundamentally changes how the scale sounds and functions.

Guitar Scales Explained

This concept will become clearer as we look at the specific modes in further detail below. However I hope this helps you to appreciate this idea, as it is key to understanding how the modes function on your guitar.

For now though, let’s look at some of the broader facts about the modes before we dig into them in greater detail.

There are 7 modes on your guitar. And each of these is built from one of the 7 notes of the major scale. So there is a mode built from the second note of the major scale, as well as the third note and fourth note etc.

What Are Modes In Guitar? Latest Guide

Part of what makes it challenging to understand the modes at first is that they all have Greek names. The names of the modes and the order in which they appear is as follows:

Thankfully, there are a few easy mnemonics to help you remember the names and order of the modes. Two of my favourites of these are as follows:

You don’t need to worry about memorising the order of the modes right away. However it is useful to begin using the names of the modes as early as possible.

Dorian Mode For Guitar Explained & Illustrated In 5 Steps

This will help you to become more comfortable with the language that is used to discuss them. It will also remove some of the initial confusion which can stem from their unusual names.

For now though, let’s turn our attention to the construction of the modes. This will help you to understand how each mode is structured, the different characteristics of each of the modes, and how you can actually play the modes on your guitar.

As noted above, each of the 7 modes is built from a note of the major scale. The Ionian mode is based off the first note. Dorian is based off the second note, Phrygian from the third, and so on.

The Aeolian Mode

Each of the modal scales is built off a new note and as such, the scale relates back to that starting note.

So even though we start with the A major scale and we technically continue to play the notes of the A major scale (even as we work through the modal scales), we don’t end up with A Dorian and A Phrygian etc. Instead we end up with B Dorian and C# Phrygian.

It is important to understand this point, as it will help you to understand how the modal scales fit together, and how you can navigate and use the modes in your guitar playing.

Ionian Guitar Mode

It is worth noting that this idea applies across all keys. In the key of C major for example, the notes of the scale are as follows: