Practicing Major Modes

Description

In general, there are 2 ways of looking at modes:

1. Structural: each mode relates to a parent scale. So you are always in one major scale, G major for example, and the various modes are just ways of playing a G major scale, but starting on each note in turn. Often this is used to stay in one key, but play over the chord changes within the key.

2. Ornamental: You just play whichever mode you like the sound of at the time regardless of the key. This requires that you know & apply the scale or mode interval formula.

In this tutorial we focused on the ornamental uses of major modes. I have a separate tutorial for ornamental uses of the minor modes.

Practicing Minor Modes
And I have separate tutorials for the structural uses of the modes.

Modes of the Major Scale

Finally, I encourage musicians (beginners, intermediate or advanced!) to always keep in mind that music is an auditory art. And even those complex ideas you get into later on still have to sound good or they are useless. I hope this has given you some insight into what the modes are and how they work. Happy playing.