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Hi Carl,
Thanks for a great lesson , and keeping the three note per string approach as to work towards visualizing the
7 positions ( modes ) . The work you are doing is fantastic and sincerely appreciated .
cheers
tweedguitar

Carl,

Is your website secured if I want to contribute using my Visa card? Thanks

Hello Carl

i can’t believe how good of a teacher you are. i have really struggled trying to learn theory involving the major scale and it’s modes and the pentatonic scale.
you made things clearer than I could ever even imagine.
Outstanding work!

John

Hey Carl,

I really like this lesson on visualizing modes. It is very different from the way that I have started to teach myself the modes. Like you, I started intuitively after I learned the 3 note per string forms. After learning the forms as ‘the root’, the ‘second degree’, ‘third degree’, etc. I just substituted (in my mind) ‘the root’ with Ionian, ‘second degree’ with Dorian, ‘third degree’ with Phrygian etc. I just realized that I knew all the modes with the 6th string roots! Which was exciting. My old guitar teacher that had been playing for 20+ years never even thought of it that way! What I have been doing now is then learning all the mode patters from the roots on the other strings so eventually I will be able to play any mode on the fly from whatever note I am on.

One thing I observed from the 3 note per string patters, when you start the mode from the 6th string is that the 2nd octave root always ends on the b string. So you then know the B string pattern going up the neck. Starting the pattern on the A string, the root always ends on the high E string.

Trying to figure these out of course gets me deeper and deeper into the 3 note per string patterns which is great.

What your method is going to force me to do is understand the underlying theory much more which is going to be a great benefit I can tell. I just need to put some time into memorizing the scales and keys.

Thanks for the lesson!

Kyle

Hey carl. I have been playing for 8 or 10 years now and have very much enjoyed being able to pick lessons back up through your web site and really expand my understanding of what I am playing.
Is there any particular fingerings that are strictly for each mode or are those the same as the seven different ways you taught to play the major scale as in your triad lessons?

im confused. if ur playing in E dorian, and ur playing off the fifth, A, wouldnt u be playikng mixolydian?

Hey Rauca, let me see if I can help clear things up for you a bit.

First off, try to look at modes in a real world context. I don’t think you are going to be finding yourself saying right now I need to play the Lydian mode of D major or whatever. In reality you are going to be thrown a chord or something that would work under a particular mode.
So say you had someone playing a B min7 chord and you wanted to solo over it. Dorian works great over min 7th chords so you could then say I need to play B Dorian over that B Min7th chord. THEN you go back and try to figure out what the parent major scale of B Dorian is and in this case it is A Major. After that I would just think A Major in order to make the visualization across the fretboard easier. The whole thinking of major doesn’t really have anything to do with how its gonna sound because as long as your buddy continues playing that B min7th chord while you are visualizing A Major scales across the neck it is still gonna sound like you are playing B Dorian.

The reason I try and get my students to think back to a particular mode’s parent major scale is so that every time we are thrown a basic church mode we only need one scale type (major) to visualize it all over the neck. I think that is better than memorizing separate scale forms for every single mode. All the notes are already there in the major scale so why don’t we just use that to visualize across the neck every time to make things less complicated.

Just remember, you are visualizing it as a major scale BUT, you are still understanding and hearing it as being a mode.

Hope I didn’t totally confuse you here. Just keep it simple…

Cheers!! Carl..

Really great lessons here, I’ve checked out alot of these “Learn2Play” sites, but never found one with such an easy overview. Many other sites are more like libraries than educational, sure they have all the material needed, and they can demonstrate it too! However, for me its not interesting, I can find a pattern of the pentatonic scale anywhere else on the web..

I already knew alot before i read your PDF’s and watched some of your vids you posted for FREE (wow). But you gave me an understanding, a whole new bigger picture of musical theory, how it’s all connected, and you helped me apply it on the fretboard too!

However, even though you’ve posted the “formula” for all the modes, I wonder if there are any PDF, or more video regarding modes more then the “introducing modes” PDF? (I can’t find a search function on this site either, where the hell is it?)

Great job of deciphering modes……..I can’t begin to thank you…..