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Every morning, I challenge myself to write a modal study. You should try it out for yourself! The basic idea is to push the envelope and discover chord progressions that aren’t generic but still catchy.

The fourth mode of the major key is the Lydian mode, and is named after the ancient lydians who were at their height of power around 600 B.C. The Lydians were the first people to use gold and silver coins as a form of currency, so it’s no wonder that this mode sounds so rich and exotic.

The Phrygian scale is named after the ancient Kingdom of Phrygia in what is now part of modern day Turkey. Phrygian mode tends to sound somewhat exotic due to it’s unique scale structure. Let’s say we’re in the key of G Major, which contains the notes G, A, B, C, D, E, and F#….

In this lesson, we’ll cover dorian mode, the second of the seven modes of the major key. Here’s the scale pattern. Think of it as a movable shape that can be shifted depending on what key you’re in….

In This Featured Lesson, we cover Ionian mode, the first of the seven modes of a major key. Ionian mode is the name assigned by Heinrich Glarean in 1547 to his new authentic mode on C, which uses the diatonic octave species from C to the C an octave higher, divided at G.

In the last lesson, I introduced the note wheel and showed you how it can be used to label all the notes on the guitar. Now I want to show you how something called “intervals” relate to the note wheel to create what I call the “Musical Compass” Intervals are kind of like the inch markers on a ruler. They allow you to measure the distance between notes.

Understanding the major scale and it’s intervals will help you more than any single piece of knowledge….

I could go on for days about modal theory but this article is more about fun and giving you a taste of what modes sound like and how to play them….