Mode Workshop
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Introduction to the modes

Mode Study Pages
Ionian
Dorian
Phrygian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Aeolian
Locrian

Play-along
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Welcome to the High Country Guitar

Modes Workshop

Reasons to know and understand the modes

    • So that you have all kinds of different tonal possibilities at your fingertips. Want to sound intense and bluesy? Want to sound soaring and beautiful? Want to sound nasty and dissonant? How about dark and exotic? The modes will get you to all of these places. Pretty easily too.
    • So that you know your way around the fretboard thoroughly, and are able to get (almost) any sound you want in any key you want, anywhere on the neck of the guitar. Using the modes, this can be done, believe it or not, with only five different fingerings.

     

    Who uses the modes

    • The modes, or something like them, can be traced back to the earliest forms of western music. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle writes about them, and their potential to affect peoples' moods.
    • Miles Davis is the first musician to be credited with the contemporary idea of using the modes as a basis for improvisation. His album Kind of Blue, and especially the song "So What," are considered groundbreaking in this area.
    • Jazz musicians continue to improvise with the modes to this day, and they have taken the concept to whole new levels.
    • Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead were arguably the first musicians to bring modal improvisation into a rock and roll context.
    • The Allman Brothers, Phish, and many of today's "jambands" still use the modes as the basis for much of their improvisation.
    • In general, the modes provide an excellent "road map" of the fretboard of the guitar, as well as a broader understanding of music and harmony that is useful, regardless of what style of music you play.

If you are new to the modes, or even if you have studied them before, I recommend that you start with the
Introduction to the Modes.

 

If you think you've got it, and you're ready to start trying this stuff out, then check out the
Individual Mode Studies
and Play-Along Files

Each page contains details about what fingerings will work for each song. You can click on the mode names and the appropriate fingerings and positions will appear in the frame to your right>>>>>>

Play the MP3 samples to give you an idea of what that mode can sound like, then launch the midi play-along to give yourself a background to try it with. Click on the enharmonic modes to see all of the fingerings that will work for that mode, and where they fall on the neck of the guitar.

Mode Study Pages

(click mode name to go to a page devoted to that mode, as well as the play-along files. Modes not yet "clickable" will be linked soon)

Play-Alongs available

(more will be added soon)

The play-alongs can be accessed via the Mode Study Pages,
or you can find them all listed on the Playalong Home Page here.
Blue Sky (Allman Brothers) (E ionian)
Harry Hood (Phish) (D ionian)
Elizabeth Reed (Allman Brothers) (A dorian)
David Bowie (Phish) (E dorian)
Phrygian
  
Reba (Phish) (Eb Lydian)
Let it Rain (Eric Clapton) (A mixolydian)
Fire on the Mountain (Grateful Dead) (B mixolydian)
Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin) (A aeolian)
Locrian