Introduction
The fact that you are holding this in your hands suggests that you have got to the point in your explorations of, and curiosity about the guitar that the next step is the modes. Maybe it's because you have read somewhere that Steve Vai loves the Lydian mode, or you have listened to music by Frank Gambale and wondered what he was up to. Whatever the reason, the material you have here should set you on the road to opening up new ways to express yourself, to get different sounds into your melodies and harmonies.
First off you need to know that this material alone will not have you ripping exotic solos up and down the fret board, smoke and fire on your fingertips. It will take the same process and work that has brought you your level of chops with the pentatonic, major and minor scales, arpeggios and your own licks. What it will do is give you the information you need, and the backing tracks so that you can practice and familiarise yourself with the patterns of the modes, and get used to the sounds.
Ultimately it's down to the time you put in and your motivation to go beyond what you find within these pages. But if you're serious about learning the modes, you knew that already. Anyone promising you a quick fix, whether conscious or subconscious, is at the very least pulling your leg.
The second thing you need to know is that a certain facility and knowledge is assumed. If you find yourself flailing in a sea of non-comprehension it is hopefully only because you're not ready to move on to this stage of learning, and you need to tuck this back under the bed and give yourself a little more time with the basics. You could ignore the theory section altogether. It's up to you what you want to do with this now it's yours, but hopefully, if you do ignore it now, perhaps you will come back to it and then it should make some sense and help you with other aspects of using the modes.
Let's start with the good news. There are 7 modes built on the major scale and you already know two of them. The major scale is a mode itself, called the Ionian, and the minor scale is another mode, called the Aeolian. So, more than a quarter of the work is done. If you thought that getting to grips with those two scales wasn't too complicated, then you should get on fine with the other material here. If you are in a state of experience where playing the major and minor scales in 5 positions on the guitar neck, in any key, is not something that you are familiar or comfortable with, back this goes under the bed. Although both of these modes will be covered you really should be worrying about the basics at this point. Any half way decent book about playing the guitar, or song writing, should provide you with the information to get these two modes under your fingers. For the rest of you, let's go.
The Modes
Before we get to anything even remotely like playing a scale, we need to have a think about the theory to understand where these modes come from. It is not essential to understand this to learn the modes, you could just learn the patterns, but, knowing some of the theory should help you to know when the modes could be employed, why they sound different etc. There are seven modes, named Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. The reason why there are seven modes is because each mode is built on a different tone of the major scale and there are 7 different tones in the major scale. If we take the scale of C Major as an example, so we don't have to worry about sharps and flats, this should be clearer.
As you are probably aware, the C Major scale consists of the following tones:
C D E F G A B C
If we think of the major scale as a mode, then what we are saying is that if we start on the tone C, and then play all seven tones of the C Major scale, we are playing C Ionian. The same is true for any other major scale. If you start on the tone B and play all 7 tones which make up the B Major scale, you have played B Ionian.
Another way to think of this is to consider the way in which this scale is constructed. All major scales are constructed with the same distance between pairs of tones. Again, considering the C Major scale, the distances between the pairs of notes is:
Note Pair.......Tone distance............Fret distance
C to D..........a whole tone (T)...........i.e., 2 frets)
D to E..........a whole tone (T)..........(i.e., 2 frets)
E to F..........a semi-tone (S)...........(i.e., 1 fret)
F to G..........a whole tone (T)..........(i.e., 2 frets)
G to A.....
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