I have been stressing the importance of learning the major scale, inside and out. I took the time to tab out the major scales running a whole octave, from E to the octave of E, spanning all of the keys. It is important to understand that the root note of a key can be found in many different places on the guitar neck. An example of this would be that if the 1st fret on the low E string is F, there is also an F on the 3rd fret of the D string. So you could start the F major scale from there as well.
My goal was to give you a good foundation. Or rather, to be able to unleash the major scale from any root position on the neck. If you are just visiting this blog, check out the section that I established on the major scales.
I plan on teaching everyone all of the modes. Here's the trick though. When you are playing any major scale, you are essentially playing all of the modes. Yes, they are right before you. It is just a matter of constructing them properly from the major scale.
Before I can show you these modes, you need to memorize the major scales, but as I have said before, the pattern repeats with a few exceptions, making is a breeze to memorize, much like any other scale or mode.
Modes run in a certain order and yes, this is important. You need to memorize this order before I can teach you the first mode.
I am not attempting to be inconsistent with my teaching style. I would prefer to talk a little about theory, technique building and song structure, to make things more fun. I post pretty often and expect to share with everyone, everything that I know about guitar. This blog will be up for a while, hehe.
So memorize this order of modes. Write it down and repeat it to yourself. Shouldn't be too hard.
The order is:
Dorian
Phrygian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Aolian
Locrian
A good way to memorize this is to take the first letter of each mode, and construct a little saying. An example would be "I Don't Particulary Like Music After Lunch". You can customize the saying to your liking if it helps you memorize the order more effectively.
Ideally, the best thing to do would be to print off any bit of theory that I post on this blog, and make a little book for yourself. It is true, you could just go out and purchase a scales and modes book, but when you are doing these things for yourself, like writing things down, your mind is working with you to memorize. If you do this for yourself, you can weave in and out of learning the theory aspect and learning the technique or song structure aspect.
I'm thinking that the next post will be something a bit more relaxing and fun, so stick around. Have a great day!
