Major Scale And Modes On Guitar

The major scale is probably the most common scale in all of Western music. This is literally to the point that standard music notation and even the keys on a piano both basically revolve around the scale C Major. When you add all of its associated modes, you pretty much cover the vast majority of music in terms of the scales or modes used, there are a few others, but they tend to be regulated to a few specific styles of music. Learning the major scale and its modes can give you a very wide range to draw on for your own songs, solos, and melodies.

One thing that causes a lot of confusion between people is the actual difference between scales and modes. For the vast majority of musicians, there is no difference, and all those fancy terms like displaced scales or expressions like derived from the parent scale don’t really matter. The main issue is that the term “mode” is used for several different concepts, and people start to conflate together those ideas into a big mess. If you ever get into a style of music (or more like music scholarship) where the difference is actually relevant, you will have to learn it well before you can use that style of music properly, so it isn’t something to worry about. It is kind of like painting, you don’t need to know how light refracts off the pigment to know whether you need to use red or blue, but if you want to create a very specific shade of paint, then that knowledge may become more relevant.

All of the following use the same intervals between the notes, with the same number and order of whole and half steps. This sequence is a loop, and by changing where in the loop it starts, you can change which scale or mode is in use. The major scale is w-w-h-w-w-w-h. The minor scale is w-h-w-w-h-w-w. If you loop both together, they repeat the same pattern over and over, but in music they sound very different.

For the sake of ease, all the examples are written in the key of A. Each of the following moves the root one step further in the sequence. The order does eventually become important, but for now just learning the scales and modes and how they sound should be your main focus.

Major (Ionian) Scale: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7
The most basic scale, it has a very happy tone, and coincidentally C Major happens to be every natural note in the octave. Very commonly used, and the scale that all the modes are derived from.

Dorian Mode: 1-2-b3-4-5-6-b7
The Dorian mode is almost identical to the minor scale, except with the b6 being replaced by a brighter 6 note. Quite a number of glam rock and hair metal bands used this fairly frequently in what would be otherwise more minor pentatonic rock music. This gave some extra character and brightness that the minor pentatonic scale lacked to a number of songs.

Phrygian Mode: 1-b2-b3-4-5-b6-b7
A slightly darker variant of the minor scale, this can give a little extra darkness quality. This can also give a very sort of generic “Spanish” sort of quality when used properly as well.

Lydian Mode: 1-2-3-#4-5-6-7
A major scale with a sort of dreamy feel to it makes this is a very interesting mode to see used well. The #4 note is a particular hazard to use because it is incredibly dissonant, but it also creates a lot of the interesting aspects of the mode as well.

Mixolydian Mode: 1-2-3-4-5-6-b7
A major scale with a flattened seventh, it doesn’t quite end up being as common as most other modes. It gravitates a little heavily to the major scale, which makes the b7 sound a little too unexpected to work in many cases. Used correctly though it can make for some unique songs.

Minor (Aeolian) Scale: 1-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7
The minor scale is actually proof that the scale/mode difference is fairly arbitrary. Arguably major and minor both can’t be scales since they can be derived from one another, but both are so common they receive the scale designation. A fairly standard sad scale, drop the 2 and b6 and you have the minor pentatonic scale.

Locrian Mode: 1-b2-b3-4-b5-b6-b7
The Locrian mode has a very dark and diminished feel. A pentatonic version with the b3 and b6 removed called the Iwato is quite common in Japanese music.

Keep on rockin'!