A lot of musicians are confused by modes. They seem to reside somewhere in the musical ionosphere, out of reach of mortal musicians. Hang out with the wrong musicians, and you’ll hear phrases like, “Well, we were really being modal” tossed around as a pretentious way to sound more-musical-than-thou.
And when you first start to study modes, it just doesn’t make any sense. F Lydian, for example, has all the same notes as C Major. Why on earth should we call it F Lydian when it’s just those same ol’ notes that we’re used to calling C major?
The key to modes is the concept of a tonal center. That is to say, in any given scale, there is a note that serves as an orientation point, the note that all other notes are thought of as being in reference to. When your tonal center is C, for example, the notes C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C feel major. When your tonal center is F, however, those notes sound different.
If that’s confusing, it’s okay. By the time you get to the end of this two-part article you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
You Already Know Two Modes
Chances are good that you already know two modes – the minor and major scales. Of course, when talking about modes, these we call them “Ionian” and “Aeolian,” but let’s not worry about that.
Play your basic C-major scale on the guitar, starting on the 8th fret of the low E string. That series of notes should be familiar to everyone – Do Re Me Fa So La Ti Do. Now, play the same notes, starting with and A note (7th fret of the D string) playing up to the next A and back down.
Sounds different, doesn’t it. Same notes … different feel? Why is that? Well, it comes back to the idea of the tonal center. When you play those notes starting and ending with a C, the notes coalesce together into something major-sounding. Do it with the tonal center of the A note, and it feels minor.
Pitch Axis Theory
What we’re going to do now is walk through all the modes doing this same idea, using a simple trick to put the tonal center where we want it. What we’re going to do is drone our E-string while moving a major-scale shape around the fretboard to give us the right “E” mode. The idea is that by droning your low E-string, you will keep reminding your ear that “E” is the tonal center of the mode.
The major scale shape we’re going to use is the basic 2-3, 1-2-4, 1-3-4 shape. So for our e-major scale, we’re going to put the root on the E on the A string, 7th fret. So you’re playing the 7th and 9th frets of the A string, the 6th, 7th, and 9th frets of the D string, and the 6th, 8th, and 9th frets of the G string.
Remember that shape, because we’re going to move it up and down the fretboard as we begin our tour of modes in part 2. The idea of moving this shape around the fretboard to access different modes is called pitch axis theory.
