Guitar Modes... the smart (easy) way!

Learning guitar modes is key to gaining full mastery of the guitar fretboard.

Before finding out the best way to play diatonic modes on the guitar, we must have some basic understanding of modes themselves.

First of all, we need a definition of the word "mode".

For that, though, we need to understand the word scale:

The definition of Mode is now pretty straight forward:

Church Modes: the 6 True Modes

Using this definition, our 7 note major diatonic scale has 7 diatonic modes:

Given their greek names, many people call them "greek modes". However, they are about as greek as pizza!
These modes were developed in the middle ages by church musicians who strove to reconstruct Greek music theory. Having said that, very little of Greek theory has survived, other than names. This means that these are best called church modes.

The Locrian mode never even had a name up until the late 19th century; it was never really used as a mode. We will not focus on the details at the moment: suffice it to say that from now on we will focus on the 6 true church modes.

Before Guitar Modes: Relative and Parallel Modes...

You are one step closer to understanding guitar modes!

You have probably heard about relative major and minor keys. A minor is the relative minor key to C major. The reason is simple. The A minor natural scale contains all the same notes as the C major scale. Actually, C major is the same as C Ionian, and A minor natural is the same as A Aeolian (see example above).

In the same way, the remaining modes in the example above are all "relatives" of C Major. They all share the same DNA: they have the exact same notes, albeit in different order.

In order to facilitate learning modes on the guitar, though, we must look at them from a slightly different point of view. In our initial definition above, we said that a mode can be defined as a specific interval pattern. In the following example, we see the interval pattern for the Dorian mode:

What this means is that we can play the dorian mode with any note we choose as Root. We can play, for instance, a B flat Dorian mode as follows:

...same interval pattern, different start-and-end point.

If we apply this principle to all 6 diatonic modes, using C as our root, and arrange them by sharps and flats, we get the following:

The 6 Parallel Modes (C)

If you look closely, you will notice that the top 3 modes have a major thirds in them...

...and that all 3 bottom modes have minor 3ds in them.

Pentatonic Scales and Diatonic Modes: Learning Guitar Modes the Smart Way

Most guitar beginners learn the following fingering patterns at the very start:

Major and minor pentatonic fingering patterns...

There are many more ways of playing these scales,
however, given the probability of YOUR knowing them already,
we will use them in the following explanation.
However, for the sake of simplicity, we will use only 1 octave of each:

One octave major and minor pentatonic fingering patterns...

Pentatonic scales are no exception to our definition above. They also follow specific interval patterns. As mentioned under the last heading, 3 of our modes are major-like, and 3 of them are minor-like. The following may (or may not) surprise you:

If we overlay the interval pattern of the major pentatonic scale on our 3 major-like modes, all 5 degrees match notes within each mode.

This leads us to one more very interesting fact: only degrees 4 and 7 of each diatonic mode are NOT in the major pentatonic scale. The arrow pointing toward the Ionian mode -in the middle- is there because we will use is as our reference to learn all 3 major-like modes...

Guitar Modes Diagram 1: The 3 Major-like Modes

Presto: 5 birds, one stone... you now know how to play the major pentatonic scale, the Ionian mode, the Lydian mode, and the Mixolydian mode. You also know how to shift between them. I told you it didn't have to be hard, didn't I? ;-)

The same holds true for the minor pentatonic scale: If we overlay the interval pattern of the minor pentatonic scale on our 3 minor-like modes, all 5 degrees match notes within each mode.

Again, this leads to the interesting fact that only degrees 2 and 6 of each diatonic mode are NOT in the minor pentatonic scale. The arrow pointing toward the Aeolian mode -in the middle- is there because we will use is as our reference to learn all 3 minor-like modes...

...& presto: 5 more birds with a single stone... you now know how to play the minor pentatonic scale, the Aeolian mode, the Dorian mode, and the Phrygian mode. You also know how to shift between them.

Guitar Modes: a piece of cake, or what?

There are many more ways of looking at guitar modes... more interesting correlations.

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Other articles on Guitar Modes you may find interesting:

Guitar Scales: Section Overview