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[chetta2323]

hey I'm having trouble learning the major scale and the modes. Like when I was learning the pentatonic scale it was fun because I could do cool blues licks and stuff along with learning it but with the major scale its just boring. do you have any advice?

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[Matt23]

Well just run it up and down and until you know it like the back of your hand. It may not be fun but it will be very useful.

Edit: Find songs that are in a major key and jam along.

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This post has been edited by Matt23: Dec 20 2008, 10:19 PM

[kjutte]

hey I'm having trouble learning the major scale and the modes. Like when I was learning the pentatonic scale it was fun because I could do cool blues licks and stuff along with learning it but with the major scale its just boring. do you have any advice?

Best way is to learn the 7 boxes first, and learn licks in the boxes after.
If you really have to, switch between to spice it up.

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

Yeah exercise in general can be a bit boring, and now you have the 7 positions for modes that you have to learn. It can be a bit overwhelming and you cannot see the progress atm, but just keep on practicing them. Results will come when you least expect them. Don't worry too much cause you can't implement the exercises now in your playing, take your time and do modes step by step systematically. You won't regret later as you start feel a lot more confident in your playing.
When doing modes try to do chords in parallel, every mode builds one chord.

Ionian - Im7
Dorian - IIm7
Phrygian - IIIm7
Lydian - IVmaj7
Mixolydian - V7
Aeolian - VIm7
Locrian - VIIm7b5 (or VII dim)

Start making some simple progressions like:


I - IV
II - III - VI
II - V - I

and just play the modes you have learned on top of the corresponding chord, like this:

I - IV
Ionian - Lydian

II - III - VI
Dorian - Phrygian - Aeolian

II - V - I
Dorian - Mixolydian - Ionian

these simple exercises will enable you to implement modes in you playing in a good effective way, and you will practice harmony behind the modes as well while doing these chords.

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[lcsdds]

Another cool way to practice the modes once you know the 7 boxes is to play the different boxes starting from the same root. Really lets yo hear the differences between say A lydian and A mixolydian. Force yourself to learn the boxes even though it is boring. Knowledge is power!!

Monte

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[Pedja Simovic]

Warning : PRINT THIS RESPONSE

I recommend you practice major scale in couple of ways

1) Playing/soloing in one position
2) Soloing in 5 shapes across the neck (CAGED system)
3) Soloing using 3 notes per string system (7 positions)
4) And soloing trough your guitar neck (combination of everything)

To all this I would add backing tracks of songs that have major type harmony.


Major scale harmony


In any major scale you have following chords on following degrees (lets take C major as an example)


I (C major) II (D minor) III (E minor) IV (F major) V (G major) VI (A minor) VII (B diminished) VIII (C major)

That is called 3 part, 3 note or Triadic type harmony - where we have chords that have 3 notes.
The rule is as following :
Scale degrees I, IV and V have MAJOR CHORDS on them while II, III and VI have MINOR CHORDS. VII scale degree is diminished. And this applies to any major scale!

4 Part harmony

If you want to get "fancy" with chords and chord progression you can extend it to 4 part chords which are :

I (C major7) II (D minor7) III(E minor7) IV (F major7) V (G dominant7) VI (A minor7) VII (B minor7b5) VIII(C major7)

As you see with 4 part chords harmony looks a bit different than with triads.
Scale degrees I and IV have MAJOR 7 chords. Scale degrees II, III and VI have MINOR 7 chords. Scale degree V has Dominant 7 chord (BLUES CHORD). Scale degree 7 has MINOR7b5 chord.


Now in order to practice major scale and its mode you need to know CHORD PROGRESSION for each mode , which in music we call CADENCE (group of chords that describe given mode!).

Major scale modes

Names of modes are following :

I Ionian ( also known as MAJOR SCALE)
II Dorian
III Phrygian
IV Lydian
V Mixolydian
VI Aeolian (also known as Natural Minor scale)
VII Locryian
VIII Ionian (same as I since its the same note).


Modes in C major
So in case of C major scale you would end up with following modes:

C Ionian
D Dorian
E phrygian
F Lydian
G Mixolydian
A Aeolian
B Locrian
C Ionian

From all of the modes mentioned in Major scale, Locryian mode is the only mode that is NOT USED frequently if AT ALL in Music. The reason for doing so is that Locrian sounds very unstable and any chord that goes into it won't help smooth the sound and transition !
So now I will give you Cadences (chord progression) for all of the modes that you can practice !

Modal cadences and chord progressions

C Ionian

I IV V I which means C major (I) F major (IV) G major (V) back to C major (I)
II V I which means D minor (II) G major (V) and C major (I).
Here is how that should look in bars //: C major/ F major / G major / C major : //
Two dots along with double bar line (//) represent REPEAT sign.
So you can play each chord the same duration !
The second cadence should look like this - //: D minor/ G major / C major/ C major ://
So you are resting on C major chord twice as long to create sense of resting point in harmony.


D Dorian

I IV or I IImin
Which means D minor to G major or D minor to E minor. Play both chords the same duration.


E Phrygian

Imin bII maj which is E min to F maj or
Imin bVIImin which is E min to D min or combination
Imin bII maj bVIImin Imin which is E min F maj D min E min
All the chords have the same duration !

F Lydian

I II which is F maj G maj or
I VIImin which is F maj E min or combination
I II VIImin I which is F maj G maj E min F maj
All the chords have the same duration !


G Mixolydian

I bVII which is G maj to F maj or
I Vmin which is G maj to D min
All the chords have the same duration!


A Aeolian

Imin IVmin Vmin Imin which is Amin Dmin Emin Amin
Imin bVI bVII Imin which is Amin F G Amin
Both cadences are played with all the chords having same duration.


B locryian - not used nor applied in music (explained above in text).


I seriously recommend some Loop pedal or recording software (Boss's Loop Station RX-20L is great I have it for 2 years and is awesome for jamming , practicing, songwriting etc). You need to record somehow these chord progressions and then practice improvising (creating melodies riffs licks lines etc) using the scales.

Another thing I recommend is that you learn from early to use SEQUENCE and REPETITION in your solos. Sequence is basically group of notes in the scale that keep repeating or moving onto another place in the scale.
So sequence in C major scale could be C D E, D E F , E F G , F G A etc. Here sequence is playing up 3 notes then going down one and again playing 3 up and so on.

Another very important thing when practicing, soloing improvising is to vary the Rhythm when you solo. That means using combination of all rhythms possible (Whole notes, Half Notes, Quarter notes, Eight notes, Sixteen notes, 32nds even, Half note triplet, Quarter note triplet , Eight note triplet, 16th note triplet and even 32nd note triplet).
It is impossible to use all of these rhythms in REAL SOLO but hey if you practice improvising with these and restricting yourself using certain combination of rhythms mentioned, you will become very versatile player and chances are you will find original voice/sound in music sooner.

Don't forget one last and final thing and that is to use RESTS when playing. Music without rests is just meaningless and doesn't allow listener to absorb and keep nice things in his/her ear that you just played. Moving on from one idea to another without rests causes a lot of chaos and sounds very amateur and unconnected to somebody who is listening.
There are ways how to "avoid" using rests to minimal extent and that is to use SEQUENCE and REPETITION which I mentioned earlier !

So my final suggestion is print this response, read it before going to sleep and when you wake up , and apply it in your daily practice routine.

If you follow everything results should be very obvious and should happen quite soon !

Hope that helps.
Let me know if you have any questions !

Pedja

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[chetta2323]

thansk a lot 4 responder i cant wait to practice. im gunna be starting a practice agenda so watch out for that

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[Pedja Simovic]

thansk a lot 4 responder i cant wait to practice. im gunna be starting a practice agenda so watch out for that

Thats great news man
I will look out for it and glad I could help out. Feel free to ask any questions, thanks

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

thansk a lot 4 responder i cant wait to practice. im gunna be starting a practice agenda so watch out for that

No problem mate, glad to help, and as I said, just take it easy and start simple, there's no need to rush things, the results will come.

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[Canis]

That's going into my holy book of Theory!

Thanks a lot, Pedja and Ivan =)

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This post has been edited by Canis: Dec 21 2008, 03:28 AM

[Ivan Milenkovic]

no prob Canis mate, anytime

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This post has been edited by Ivan Milenkovic: Dec 21 2008, 03:15 AM

[Pedja Simovic]

That's going into my holy book of Theory!

Thanks a lot, Pedja and Ivan =)

Glad to hear that Canis
Enjoy practicing and jamming this is both fun and very useful stuff

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

@chetta2323
Hey mate, I forgot to tell you that if you are interested in some details about modes, and haven't checked out theory lessons here on GMC - now would be a good time to do so:

Here is some basic mode theory divided into lesson 1 and lesson 2.

Here is a useful article about 3 note per string patterns that you can practice modes with.

And here's the list of the all theory articles, if you wanna check them out and do some light reading.

Hope this helps a bit, cheers

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[DragonX556]

Should we learn and practice all the different modes or should we get a complete understanding of the major and minor scales and then learn how the modes differ from the major and minor scales.

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[Pedja Simovic]

Should we learn and practice all the different modes or should we get a complete understanding of the major and minor scales and then learn how the modes differ from the major and minor scales.

I would start with major and minor scales first simply because they are building blocks in today's popular music performance. Once you understand how they work it will be easy to start working on new sounds in your soloing (modes).
If you read what I wrote above you would see that C ionian(major) and A aeolian(minor) are related and come from same scale , so go figure

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

Should we learn and practice all the different modes or should we get a complete understanding of the major and minor scales and then learn how the modes differ from the major and minor scales.

There are only 7 modes mate and major and minor are one of them. You should tend to learn all of them equally well IMO, but as Pedja said more focus on major and minor is cool as well because they are the in most common uses.

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