Why are guitarists obsessed with modes?

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  • vizviz Frets: 10647
    @viz Gives you an idea of what I do, one of my four solos, (1 actually done four ways! Cean and dirty, fast and slow! )  starts about 3:10 in.

    Yep, good example of soloing in the major pentatonic. Nice. I often find myself dropping to it when playing major pieces on acoustic guitar or electric with 10s or 11s, because it's hard to play in the minor pentatonic shape and achieve the necessary major 3rds on the top string through bending, so I drop down a minor 3rd and play major pentatonic. It is rather a country style, with those major 3rds and tone bends on the G string - which is why you like it I guess ;). 'Take it Easy' intro by the Eagles is a good example.

    I think the reason many people default to the minor pentatonic is because it's thought of as being more soulful and flexible - you can overlay major tonic chords with that juicy minor 3rd, and if needed, majorise it through judicious bends, whereas you can't minorise the major pentatonic. But it sounds good in your hands. :)
    Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
    Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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  • frankusfrankus Frets: 4719
    edited May 2015

    viz said:

    Yep, good example of soloing in the major pentatonic. Nice. I often find myself dropping to it when playing major pieces on acoustic guitar or electric with 10s or 11s, because it's hard to play in the minor pentatonic shape and achieve the necessary major 3rds on the top string through bending, so I drop down a minor 3rd and play major pentatonic. It is rather a country style, with those major 3rds and tone bends on the G string - which is why you like it I guess ;). 'Take it Easy' intro by the Eagles is a good example.

    I think the reason many people default to the minor pentatonic is because it's thought of as being more soulful and flexible - you can overlay major tonic chords with that juicy minor 3rd, and if needed, majorise it through judicious bends, whereas you can't minorise the major pentatonic. But it sounds good in your hands. :)
    I saw a great sign at CrossFit on Friday night - "Obsession is what lazy people call commitment". I am lazy on the guitar, I get my jollies playing in time with my band, reacting quickly when the singer decides to do another chorus or improvises in a way we all strive to react to. So if I say obsession from now on it's with a tacit acceptance that I may well be lazy, but equally I may percieve the commitment to be misplaced.

    If you wait a little while, all the people stroking their beards and saying "hmm yes... guitarists... not an intelligent species by default...." (implicitly setting themselves above common guitarists by generalising about their supposed motives) these people soon revert to their preferred behaviour (implicitly setting themselves above common guitarists by generalising about their playing).

    When I used to watch Guthrie's Funk band play every Thursday, a friend came along and said "wow what are you thinking when you're playing that bit?!" the reply was "I was thinking how crap it is I can't smoke whilst I'm playing and I have to go upstairs to smoke and can't hold a pint in one hand and a cigarette in the other". Peturbed my mate asked the head of Music Teaching for the county who's great friends with Zak (the saxophonist) "what's he doing over that bit?" - this guy plays and looks like Bill Evans, the reply finally came: "he's playing over Em7."

    If your head is striving to put labels on notes as they sail past (then your heart is not in it), you're basically a butterfly catcher in a meadow... you're in a beautiful meadow, packed with flowers and grasses, butterflies and bugs but you're on a mission and can only see 1% of that and the 1% you want to capture, kill and put in a jar.

    Where I've been taught by the guys who write for Guitar Techniques (about 5-6 of them), modes are about 5% of the discussion; why is that? It's what doesn't get explained to people on a forum:

    The amount of words written to explain modes is directly proportional to the complexity created by using modes, this has NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on the importance or prominence of modes within the performance or creation of music.

    Imagine you got a book on football and 500 pages are dedicated to the off-side rule, 2 pages are dedicated to passing - superficially it's easy to believe that offside rules dominate the game, the truth is offside rule is more frequently something boring people discuss after the match and passing is something that happens throughout the match, has endless nuances but is a very simple concept to grasp initially...

    Modes and scales are a system to describe note selection in western music, if you play enough music you'll recognise the sounds anyway and someone will explain them when you need to know - that is all there is to it. At that point you've a repertoire and an understanding of composition and timing as well - which is very very valuable to other musicians.
    A sig-nat-eur? What am I meant to use this for ffs?! Is this thing recording?
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  • ChalkyChalky Frets: 6807
    Back in the late 90s when I started learning to play sax and carrying across some of my guitar knowledge, a wise sax player said this...

    Can you count to ten on your fingers?
    Yes
    Show me
    I count holding up an extra finger each time
    Now show me 7
    I hold up 7 fingers
    Now 9
    I hold up 9 fingers, and he repeats until I've held up all ten numbers of fingers.
    Right, he says, so the chromatic scale is 11 notes. So you learn a finger position for 11 instead of the 10 you just demonstrated. Its only 1 more! Then all you have to learn is how to jump around between those 11 notes in a way that sounds good to YOUR ear.

    I spent the next 18 months just learning to play by ear on the sax.

    I'm not saying its right for everyone or for you. I will never be a great musician. But me, I find it far more satisfying to play by ear, whether guitar or sax.
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  • koneguitaristkoneguitarist Frets: 4125
    viz said:
    @viz Gives you an idea of what I do, one of my four solos, (1 actually done four ways! Cean and dirty, fast and slow! )  starts about 3:10 in.

    Yep, good example of soloing in the major pentatonic. Nice. I often find myself dropping to it when playing major pieces on acoustic guitar or electric with 10s or 11s, because it's hard to play in the minor pentatonic shape and achieve the necessary major 3rds on the top string through bending, so I drop down a minor 3rd and play major pentatonic. It is rather a country style, with those major 3rds and tone bends on the G string - which is why you like it I guess ;). 'Take it Easy' intro by the Eagles is a good example.

    I think the reason many people default to the minor pentatonic is because it's thought of as being more soulful and flexible - you can overlay major tonic chords with that juicy minor 3rd, and if needed, majorise it through judicious bends, whereas you can't minorise the major pentatonic. But it sounds good in your hands. :)

    I am not sure what that all meant with overlaying tonics etc, but I take it, I do play in a major scale! ;) Do you think what scales to use or do you think in notes when you play? I always know where the root is so long as I start and end there, I know I'm fairly safe! [-O<
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  • vizviz Frets: 10647
    Nope I just play. :)
    Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
    Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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  • bingefellerbingefeller Frets: 5723
    Great lesson from Kurt Rosenwinkel on playing what you feel.  Listen to what he says here:


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  • BarneyBarney Frets: 614
    i think modes can be important depending on how you look at them...for example if Aminor 6 chord was played the mode to fit would be A dorian because of the F# or 6th...looking at a C7 chord us easier to look at as C mixolydian rather than F major because by the time you think about converting it to major the chord has gone....say a 251 prog ...the 5 chords we can play mel minor up half a step.....nah its altered scale from the root.....they are all the same notes as in the parent scale but easier to find

    so maybe if it was looked at as being able to play over different chord types from each root of the scale it would seem more important...but saying that i think arps are where it is at you can outline every chord and even without the chords you can hear the changes...

    i think they are important but not the be all and end all just part of the full picture
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  • bingefellerbingefeller Frets: 5723
    Barney said:
    i think modes can be important depending on how you look at them...for example if Aminor 6 chord was played the mode to fit would be A dorian because of the F# or 6th...looking at a C7 chord us easier to look at as C mixolydian rather than F major because by the time you think about converting it to major the chord has gone....say a 251 prog ...the 5 chords we can play mel minor up half a step.....nah its altered scale from the root.....they are all the same notes as in the parent scale but easier to find

    so maybe if it was looked at as being able to play over different chord types from each root of the scale it would seem more important...but saying that i think arps are where it is at you can outline every chord and even without the chords you can hear the changes...

    i think they are important but not the be all and end all just part of the full picture
    See I look at a C7 and think G Dorian.  Whatever works, eh?
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  • frankusfrankus Frets: 4719
    look at any dominant chord and my head says "runnaraaahnd!!!"

    image
    A sig-nat-eur? What am I meant to use this for ffs?! Is this thing recording?
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  • BarneyBarney Frets: 614
    bingefeller;634831" said:
    Barney said:

    i think modes can be important depending on how you look at them...for example if Aminor 6 chord was played the mode to fit would be A dorian because of the F# or 6th...looking at a C7 chord us easier to look at as C mixolydian rather than F major because by the time you think about converting it to major the chord has gone....say a 251 prog ...the 5 chords we can play mel minor up half a step.....nah its altered scale from the root.....they are all the same notes as in the parent scale but easier to find



    so maybe if it was looked at as being able to play over different chord types from each root of the scale it would seem more important...but saying that i think arps are where it is at you can outline every chord and even without the chords you can hear the changes...



    i think they are important but not the be all and end all just part of the full picture





    See I look at a C7 and think G Dorian.  Whatever works, eh?
    yeah ..thats the way Pat Martino looks at things ...and it works great iff you have time to convert to minor but iff you were reading a chord chart with maybe 2 beats of C7 and 2 beats of A7alt. for example .conversion maybe wouldnt be fast enough ..Because it would be all over by the time its converted so maybe arps would be a better choice .....but i really think all approaches are needed ......but the other side of the coin iff there was 8 bars of C7 ..G dorian would work...or C mixolydian...i really dont think there is a right approach or wrong one but do think you need to use different approaches for different situations....
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  • thomasross20thomasross20 Frets: 4423
    Outside notes are fine but you need a structure so you play notes "inside" too. Chords/arps are clearly the way to go for fast changes. Modes present some nice twists as you can play a number over any major/minor scale. It's all the same thing. I superimpose arps and pentatonics over modal shapes and can start playing the modal shapes with root on E or A string so I never get too lost. E.g. E dorian uses dorian shape at fret 12 or play over E minor shape at 7th fret (or mixolydian to the left of it). I'm comfortable with it but not 100% - just practice. 
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  • koneguitaristkoneguitarist Frets: 4125
    Outside notes are fine but you need a structure so you play notes "inside" too. Chords/arps are clearly the way to go for fast changes. Modes present some nice twists as you can play a number over any major/minor scale. It's all the same thing. I superimpose arps and pentatonics over modal shapes and can start playing the modal shapes with root on E or A string so I never get too lost. E.g. E dorian uses dorian shape at fret 12 or play over E minor shape at 7th fret (or mixolydian to the left of it). I'm comfortable with it but not 100% - just practice. 

    See that is total double Dutch to me, I hit a note and if it sounds right it's right, if it sounds wrong it's wrong. It's black and white, I envy you guys that actually know what you are doing.
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  • vizviz Frets: 10647
    edited May 2015
    Chalky said:
    Back in the late 90s when I started learning to play sax and carrying across some of my guitar knowledge, a wise sax player said this...

    Can you count to ten on your fingers?
    Yes
    Show me
    I count holding up an extra finger each time
    Now show me 7
    I hold up 7 fingers
    Now 9
    I hold up 9 fingers, and he repeats until I've held up all ten numbers of fingers.
    Right, he says, so the chromatic scale is 11 notes. So you learn a finger position for 11 instead of the 10 you just demonstrated. Its only 1 more! Then all you have to learn is how to jump around between those 11 notes in a way that sounds good to YOUR ear.

    I spent the next 18 months just learning to play by ear on the sax.

    I'm not saying its right for everyone or for you. I will never be a great musician. But me, I find it far more satisfying to play by ear, whether guitar or sax.

    I confess I just can't seem to understand this, sorry - am I missing something? I mean, there are 12 chromatic notes not including the 13th repeated one - 7 whites and 5 blacks - so how and why do you miss one out on the sax, and which note is it? I completely agree with the part about developing your own natural ear for music. To me this comes from the 3-pronged approach of listening to music, playing music, and learning theory, all in parallel, but I know that's not for everyone. But to me, if one's goal is to attain the breadth and depth of musical language to be able to speak with your instrument and play by ear, whether it's your own compositions or someone else's, then I think it's a good approach.
    Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
    Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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  • thomasross20thomasross20 Frets: 4423
    Outside notes are fine but you need a structure so you play notes "inside" too. Chords/arps are clearly the way to go for fast changes. Modes present some nice twists as you can play a number over any major/minor scale. It's all the same thing. I superimpose arps and pentatonics over modal shapes and can start playing the modal shapes with root on E or A string so I never get too lost. E.g. E dorian uses dorian shape at fret 12 or play over E minor shape at 7th fret (or mixolydian to the left of it). I'm comfortable with it but not 100% - just practice. 

    See that is total double Dutch to me, I hit a note and if it sounds right it's right, if it sounds wrong it's wrong. It's black and white, I envy you guys that actually know what you are doing.
    I bet you can play progressions better than me!
    I'm more a "learn it first" guy, to be honest. I couldn't just go for hitting any note - without a structure to root me I'd be so scared lol!
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  • BlueingreenBlueingreen Frets: 2582
    edited May 2015
    Don't entirely buy the idea guitar players are obsessed with modes or that horn players typically go beyond them.

    In my experience a lot of trumpet and 'bone players get by on being good readers with good tone.  Their improvisation skills are often rudimentary, and inferior to most half-decent guitarists.

    Saxers are a different story, but you'd expect that.  They picked a jazz instrument.  

    Besides a guitarist who's got past the beginner stage has a bewildering range of options. Acoustic, electric, finger-picking, folk, country, rockabilly, rhythm player, funk, jazz comping, fusion, mainstream jazz, blues, gypsy jazz, bass, effects maestro.  There's a lot of valid goals you can pursue that will make you a better player without helping you to run the changes on "Stella". 

    A saxer on the other hand - he's played in his first band, can improvise a minor pentatonic solo and hold his on in a basic horn section - where does he go from there?  Unless he's classically minded, jazz is pretty much what's available.

    Which doesn't necessarily mean he gets beyond modal playing.  I know plenty of non-pro saxers who've gigged regularly for years and couldn't run the changes to a jazz standard.  Typically playing in soul/disco bands for the crack/a bit of cash and funk-fusion bands when they want to strut their stuff a bit more.


    “To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
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  • frankusfrankus Frets: 4719
    two words - Jack Teagarden.
    A sig-nat-eur? What am I meant to use this for ffs?! Is this thing recording?
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  • bingefellerbingefeller Frets: 5723
    See that is total double Dutch to me, I hit a note and if it sounds right it's right, if it sounds wrong it's wrong. It's black and white, I envy you guys that actually know what you are doing.
    Sounds like an OK approach to me.  
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  • GuyBodenGuyBoden Frets: 733
    See that is total double Dutch to me, I hit a note and if it sounds right it's right, if it sounds wrong it's wrong. It's black and white, I envy you guys that actually know what you are doing.
    Sounds like an OK approach to me.  
    Thinking while playing is dangerous and may lead to blandness..

    Thinking is only for the practice room..     ;)
    "Music makes the rules, music is not made from the rules."
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  • TheBlueWolfTheBlueWolf Frets: 1536
    I tried to make an effort back in the day when I thought I was some kind of Rock God. Considering my Godlike status is pretty much limited to playing shuffle rhythms, power chords and widdling around with pentatonic scales, I don't see why modes get so much attention.*

    *I suspect it's because there are a few ways to approach learning the modes but it all gets sidelined by  those who think they have the 'right' method of learning them.

    Twisted Imaginings - A Horror And Gore Themed Blog http://bit.ly/2DF1NYi


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  • richardhomerrichardhomer Frets: 24793
    koneguitarist;635750" said:
    See that is total double Dutch to me, I hit a note and if it sounds right it's right, if it sounds wrong it's wrong.

    It's black and white, I envy you guys that actually know what you are doing.
    Having watched the clip of you playing, you have what to me is the most important characteristic in a musician; the ability to play 'for' the song. There's a taste and economy in your playing which serves the song. That's what I aim for in my playing.

    Where this approach gets into trouble, is where you try to play through more complex changes - though with practice, I can usually find a way through them. As much as anything it's about being able to 'hear' an unfamiliar change properly.

    As I said earlier in the thread, a lot of what are probably part of some exotic mode, are 'passing notes' to me.

    I still think touch and phrasing using simple harmonic vocabulary always sounds more pleasing to a non-player's ear than screaming through every mode known to man.
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