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Hi,
Just joined the forum.
Am an Amateur/Hobbyist guitarist. Took it up as Retirement Hobby.
I've found my old fingers aren't very good for chords but I enjoy myself playing melody/solo lines to backing tracks in my little home studio. Consequently, my focus has been/still is on scales and becoming reasonably adept at moving up and down the fretboard in major/minor scales and pentatonics.
I wanted to broaden my improvising skills so my next stage was MODES. Really struggled with it. I couldn't find a learning resource that explained it in a way that made sense to me. So, I wrote my own "Manual" which helped me a lot to make sense of them. (If you are interested see the "MIsc. Sales" section).
I'd like to know how other "newbies" managed to get their heads round MODES, not the playing shapes so much as what they are, how they are similar and different, how they fit into a melody/harmony context etc. In other words, a theory framework that explains them in a logical, systematic and coherent way. Nothing I've found so far does that which is why I tried to come up with my own.
Cheers,
Richard
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Comments
I’d like to see your manual but can’t find it in misc sales - can you post a link to it? Cheers, viz
edit - ah it’s up now, ignore me!
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Each scale/mode has it's own particular sound or flavour - try to familiarize your brain with that sound, and how that works/sounds over certain chords. Noodle around with the scale fingerings, try to find nice phrases and lines - you can also mix in non-scale chromatic passing tones and approach notes, it's allowed. This way over time, you build up a repertoire of nice line ideas, develop muscle memory for the fingers, and train your brain to hear at the same time, which is, in my opinion, essential.
Viz - I came at it from a different angle but got to the same conclusion. "Different drums" and all that.
Megii - Yes, that's what I understand about them now, but it was a struggle for me. I had to start from first principles and build up my own logic as to what they are, why they sound different and how they fit into the melody/harmony context. Hence my "manual".
If you are both interested in having a look at it I am happy to send you the e-version free. I just want to find out if forum guys like you think it has any general merit for others, like me, who struggle in the way I did. It's a fascinating topic.
I got a lot of mileage out of Quist's YouTube channel with its mode specific jam tracks which helped me with getting the "flavours" @Megii mentions.
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In fact I think of all scales, such as the harmonic minor, melodic minor, phrygian dominant etc as additions and modifications of a basic major pentatonic or minor pentatonic framework.
My journey was as follows and my knowledge of scales evolved in parallel with my way of categorizing things I heard.
I started playing nearly 50 years ago and learned by copying solos by ear. I started to identify certain patterns/scales to categorize sounds.
In the early days I called one set of notes a 'country' scale, because it had a 'country' sound to my ear. I could also see it was a subset of the major scale. Years later I found out it was a major pentatonic scale
I called another set of notes a 'minor or blues' pattern depending on whether the notes were played over an essentially minor key or an essentially major/blues key. I later found out it was called the minor pentatonic scale. I could see that the major and minor had the same patterns, but starting on a different note.
Then I heard extra notes that players would add to the basic 5 notes. For example Wishbone Ash used what I called a 'classical minor' scale (because it sounded 'classical' to my ear), which was the minor pentatonic with an added 2 and b6. I later found out that it was the Aeolian mode.
As another example, I heard Carlos Santana and Peter Frampton using a slightly different type of minor scale with 2 and a 6 instead of a b6, which I called a 'Jazz minor' scale because it sounded smoother and had jazzier sound to my ear. I later discovered it was the Dorian mode.
There's a similar process for other scales. For example a Mixolydian mode is just a major pentatonic with an added 4 and b7. For some reason I used to call that my 'Jeff Beck' scale, probably because he seemed to use it a lot. The Harmonic minor scale is just a minor pentatonic with and added 2, b6 and 7 instead of a b7 (i.e an Aeolian mode with a 7 instead of a b7).
For a lot of blues I think in terms of the major pentatonic overlaid on top of a minor pentatonic, which might be categorized as a Dorian mode with an added major third, or the Mixolydian mode with an added b3.
But the names are just useful to categorize sounds for me.
Actually from playing for years I already perfectly understood the concept of relative minors. If a player hasn't understood the relationship between, say, C major and A minor yet, then this approach wouldn't work, but if I'd just had a teacher ask me the following set of questions, I'm sure I'd have got it straight away:
"What's the difference between C major and A natural minor?"
"OK, what would happen if you took that set of notes and made D the root note?"
"What if it so the same thing with all the other notes?"
On the book/e-version front I am not allowed to put a direct email contact in the information. I hope I am allowed to here and not break any rules - it is clearyrich@aol.com.
Best Regards,
Richard
Backgound - The publisher of my paperback version ceased trading in November. I therefore have had to take on the marketing duties myself. My main aim is to maximise circulation to those who might find it useful. I am never going to cover my share of publication costs and did not ever set out to do so in the first place. I have created the E-Version myself without any input from the publisher.
I have sent email and pm.
Cheers
And here's an older one which goes really basic too
Can be bloody confusing though - I take the approach of playing a pentatonic, and then adding in the relevant modal notes as required. Well, in theory anyway....
the 4 and 7 for major penta, the 2 and 6 for minor penta.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.