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The Ultimate Guide To The Modes Of The Major Scale
For Bass
Finally – the modes explained in simple, easy-to-understand terms and a full explanation of how and
where to use them
Hopefully you have a pretty good understanding of the major scale and the modes that you canget from it. However, that doesn’t answer the question of why the modes are important and howyou can actually use them to make music - very important stuff!
Well, funnily enough, it all comes down to chords. You see, you can actually make chords fromthe major scale! Let’s use G major as an example. If you play the 1st note of the G Major Scale,G, skip one (the A), then play the B, skip another (the C this time) and play the D, you’re left withG-B-D.G-B-D. These three notes together make a G Major chord. If you were to go one step furtherafter the D, you’d skip the E and play an F#. This would give you a G Major 7 chord.
This makes sense, right? You can probably make a G major chord from a G major scale. But didyou know that you can make a whole host of others as well? If you follow the same pattern, but start on every other note of the G major scale, you end up with this:
This is almost like the ‘Chordal Universe’ of G Major. All of these chords come from the key of G!You’ll notice that there are 7 of them, in the same way that there are 7 notes in the scale, and 7different modes of the major scale.
Using The Modes Of The Major Scale
This knowledge can be a game-changer for your playing – it has the potential to take it to the next level. How? Well when you understand this, it becomes easy to create bass lines, fills or even solos using these modes. It takes all of the guesswork out and almost guarantees that you won’t play any wrong notes (as long as you stick to the modes). Let’s say for example, that you’re playing a song in the key of C major. The chords in this song are C major, A minor, F major and G major.
|C |Am |F |G |
Using your knowledge of the modes, you can know exactly what’s going to sound the best over these chords. In the key of C:
C – 1st Mode - Ionian A – 6th Mode – Aeolian F – 4th Mode – Lydian
G – 5th Mode – Mixolydian This means you can play these modes over these chords and be almost guaranteed to sound good. Instead of looking at the chords and wondering what to play, you can think in terms of which modes you can use over them, just like this:
| C Ionian | A Aeolian | F Lydian | G Mixolydian | This is how you can make melodies, fills and solos – even write your own songs – using the modes. Can you see how it works? This idea is something that a lot of people get confused about when they first start learning about the modes – they learn what they are, but not how they work, how they’re used and that their sounds are usually linked to specific chords.
Be sure to download the practice tracks and work all of your modes – they can really help you get your head around the whole idea. If you have any questions about anything you’ve seen in this guide or in the video lessons, let me know and I’d be happy to help you out. The best way to reach me is through email – [email protected] Good luck with working on your modes – I’ll talk to you soon. Cheers,