Steve Stine Guitar Podcast

Mastering Modal Arpeggios: Understanding What Makes Each Mode Unique

• Steve Stine

Share episode

Send Steve a Text Message

Embark on a journey through the harmonious realms of modal arpeggios as we unwrap the secrets of the G major scale's evocative power. Imagine the raised fourth of the Lydian or the soulful flat seventh of the Mixolydian coming alive under your fingertips; this episode is your guide to mastering these captivating sounds. We'll dissect the construction of seventh chords and their modal offspring - Ionian to Phrygian - and how recognizing and utilizing their distinct intervals can transform your musical expression. Whether it's the bright optimism of the Lydian mode or the exotic allure of Phrygian, get ready to add new depth to your playing with every strum.

Gear up your guitar for an auditory adventure as we weave through the characteristic intervals of A Dorian, compare it to the natural minor scale, and even superimpose chords to foreshadow musical changes. Through hands-on demonstrations and insightful discussions, you'll learn to craft solos that resonate with the emotive quality of each mode and navigate chord progressions with newfound creativity. By the end of this episode, you'll not only have internalized the sound of each mode but also have the tools to make them sing through your strings, giving you an edge in your musical endeavors.

Tune in now and learn more!

Links:

Check out Steve's Guitar Membership and Courses: https://bit.ly/3rbZ3He

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

Steve:

All right, in this video, what we're going to be doing is talking about modal arpeggios, and I think this is really important for you to understand, because so often we get confused on what modes are and what they sound like and how we would use them, all that sort of thing, and there's so many different levels on how to make something musical, how to apply it in a musical sense, and so what I thought we would do today is maybe just look at each individual more, excuse me, each individual mode and how it applies to the chord itself, so you can hear the sounds. So let's say we're in G major. Okay, so I'm going to play a G major scale here, and let me preface by saying this if you don't know anything about modes, this is not the place to start. Okay, so this is assuming that you already understand, you know modes, you understand what Dorian is, that sort of thing, and so I'm going to give you some insight as we go through this. But understand that you know all your modes obviously are based off the parent major scale, the parent diatonic scale in this case being G major. So what we're going to do here is we're just going to take that G major scale and let's look at the seventh chords that are created out of that. So, for instance, we would get G major seven, and then we would get a minor seven. That would be the two chord. And then we would get B minor seven, okay. Then we would get C major seven, and then we would get D dominant seventh, and then we would get E minor seven, and then we would get and it's hard to finger this all the way up here, but this would be an F sharp diminished, right, f sharp half diminished, okay, and then we'd be back on G. So we're getting G major seven, a minor seven, b minor seven, c major seven, d seven, e minor seven, and then F sharp diminished, f sharp half diminished.

Steve:

So the thing to understand here is what makes a mode sound like a mode, right? Well, there are certain characteristics for each mode and that is usually like a note that is different. So let's say, for instance, if we were playing G major, okay, g major gets the root, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and then the root again. If we were playing G Lydian, for instance, g Lydian would be a raised four, and that's what gives it its sound is the fact that it has this raised fourth in it. So every mode has a distinct difference between each one. So, if we think about this, I always like to compare apples with apples. So the major modes we can compare to each other and the minor modes we can compare to each other, okay.

Steve:

So, for instance, if we were playing let's just do this super quick so you understand what I'm doing so G major I'd get. If I was playing G Lydian, I'd get the raised four. If I was playing G Mixley and I'd get the flat at seven. Okay, so I'm looking at G major and simply flatting that seven. That's how I would get Mix Lydian. If I was looking at minor, for instance, let's go up to the relative minor, in this case E minor and if I was playing E natural minor or E Aeolian, I'd get one, two, flat, three, four, five, flat, six, flat, seven, relative to the major, of course, but and then one or relative to major. So if I wanted Dorian, I would have to raise the six, one, two, three, four, five, six. If I wanted Phrygian, I'd have to just flat the two. One, two, three, four, five, okay. So just subtle differences between those.

Steve:

Now, if we're playing in the key of G major, all of this is happening naturally, because we're always using the notes G major, a or G, a, b, c, d, e and F sharp. Okay, so if I play G major, I get G, a, b, c, d, e, f, sharp and then G again. If I play A Dorian in the key of G major, I get A, b, c, d, e, f, sharp, g A. It's the same notes, right? Nothing's changing, it's the same notes.

Steve:

So you always have to remember, when you're talking about modes, either you're talking about it in the context of a parent scale or you're talking about them kind of as A being against each other, like Phrygian, you know, kind of a parallel thing. So you're looking at G major versus G Lydian. Well, we're going to be looking at all of this in simply G major. So if we take those seven chords I just played you and we kind of grow them out and look at all of the intervals that each one has, we can hear mode, the mode that is deriving from each one of those. So, for instance, let's take G major Again, g major, g major, seven, whatever it is you're thinking of there. But that major seventh is very, very powerful because it defines the sound of that Ionian or major scale, right, that major seven. So let's go ahead and make an arpeggio out of this. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go the root, the third, the fifth, the major seven, and right there are the notes of the G major seven. We're gonna keep going here, we're gonna go up to the ninth, the 11th, the 13th and then the root, all over again. So what's really great about learning how to think about this this way is you can hear all of the notes that culminate this G major, g Ionian sound. It also teaches you to think about each interval. So you understand root, third, fifth, seventh, ninth or second. Right, 11th is the fourth, 13th is the sixth. So when you're playing, instead of just soloing and always thinking about doing that, you can think about those sounds that you're creating and really, if you want to add in the sound of that major seven or that ninth, whatever it would be, as opposed to just playing up and down inside that scale. So it's great for visualization, it's great for theory understanding and for tonality being able to listen to this and really hear the sound of that, because as we go through each one of these, they're gonna have their own unique sound.

Steve:

Let's look at the next one. We have A minor, the mode that exists. Here. We're in the key of G major. We're playing the second mode, which is A Dorian. So when we play this, we've got ourselves the. I'll just play it for you first here, just so you can hear this. So I'm playing a five, eight, seven, five, nine, seven, seven and then five.

Steve:

Now what am I playing? I'm playing the root relative to the A here, the root minor, third, fifth, there's my seventh, a flat seven, my ninth, my eleventh and then my thirteenth or my sixth, and this is the big one, because when we think of Dorian, we always think of that major six sound right. Well, this, we can see it right there. So we've got our minor arpeggio with our flat seven there. So as we see those, we could start trying to visualize the minor chord and maybe add that sixth in there and as we're soloing, visualizing those notes and also hearing this sounds like a compass and compass this and make it sound like Dorian, which is super cool.

Steve:

The other thing I want to mention to you too is when you're doing this, what's kind of cool is, and you got to kind of visualize this, but as you're playing each one of these. What you're really doing is you're kind of utilizing the notes of the chord that you're on and the next chord that's going to be reoccurring, right. So if we go back to G major here, let me just show you this so we're back on G major, you're going to have tap for all this, of course. So if we look at that, I'm playing a G major chord and I can see that right here, in the bottom half, right there. But if I look at the top half, those notes right there, those notes are creating an A minor seven chord, which is what's coming up next. And when I play the A Dorian arpeggio, ok, I can see the A minor seven right down here. But if I play the top part, it's creating a B minor seven. However you like to play B minor seven, but that's what it's creating. So it's kind of cool because each one of these arpeggios are actually creating the parent chord, whatever that is, and then the secondary chord that's coming up next. So you can kind of see both of those happening at the same time.

Steve:

And so a nice way to try and learn to listen to this as you do each one is play a few notes, like if I took Right now I can only do so much with my fingers here, but so if I took this, you really get a sense of that Ionian sound. Or if I go to Dorian and do the same thing, okay, and I can start exploring those those sounds over the top and get a sense of what Dorian Really needs to sound like Dorian, okay. So again, you know there's you only have so many fingers to do this, but you get the idea to trill it. Try and really listen to each one. So it's not just a matter of Learning what I'm showing you and just memorize the tab, but really listen to these and see how they're working for you. So we move up to B minor.

Steve:

Now we're in B Frigian, right, because frigid and be the third mode. So as I play this, so I'm playing seven, ten, nine, seven, ten, nine, eight, seven, okay, so it's a. It's obviously based off B minor, seven. But the big thing with friggin, if you know anything about friggin, is it's it's got the flatted to well, we can hear that Right there. And then there's the rest of our chord there, because we're playing the root minor, third, fifth flat, seven. There's our flat nine, 11, 13 minor, six is what that is, and then the root again. So as we listen to this, you see, we can really hear the sound of that friggin by kind of playing some of those, those intervals over the root itself. You know, it's quite strange sounding.

Steve:

The other thing too is, again, looking at this, the bottom half. There's my B minor seven chord. When I get here, the top half is actually creating a C major seven, which is what's coming up next. So I moved to seven. Now I've got my C major seven happening here. Now what happens on this fourth chord? Well, this is the Lydian, so we got the sharp four. Okay, so are we getting that sound as we play this, this arpeggio? It's right there, there's your sharp four, so we've got the root.

Steve:

The third, the fifth major seven, nine. There's the 11th, right there, it's a major 11 or sharp 11, and there's the sound of our Lydian Very pretty sound. Okay, you just got it. Whoops, sorry, c, you just got to explore these a little bit, but you can make some really nice sounding chords as well, a lot of this stuff. So there's that.

Steve:

Then we move on. Now we move on to the top part. Now, if we look at the top part of this chord that I just played. So there's our major seven. There's the top part, okay, what we're actually creating right there is part of a D7 chord, right there. Okay, with the seventh, okay. So let's take a look at D7, which is D mix, a Lydian, right there, okay. So we've got our root.

Steve:

Third, fifth are flat at seven, nine, eleven, thirteen, and then roots again, okay. So, as I'm listening to this, there's all the notes I need right there, okay, and then we move up again. Now I'm on E minor, e, minor seven, which is the E aeolian or E natural minor. So as I play this, okay, I've got my root, my flat. Third, fifth, flat seven, ninth, eleventh, there's my 13th or minor of flat six, the minor six, as opposed to Dorian that had that major six, or that six, we can call it. I've got that flat six in there, okay. So it's just cool how you can hear all these things.

Steve:

And then, if I take those notes, that starts outlining the F, sharp, low Korean or Locrian, however you like to say it.

Steve:

That's coming up next, okay.

Steve:

So there I'm playing 14, 17, 15, 14, 17, 16, 15, 14, so which, of course, we can see right there it's starting to outline the major seventh again of the next chord, which is G major seven, all over again.

Steve:

So if that makes sense, again, this is kind of a higher level theory thing, but it's really, really effective when you learn how to do this, because as you're playing you know if you're thinking Dorian, regardless of all these other things. You know, let's just say you're in Dorian, you could be doing your normal kind of thing, but you might want to throw in that kind of arpeggio to start defining the outline of the notes, to make it sound a bit more like Dorian as opposed to simply playing through. You know, if you throw that over the top of that A, you'll really define the sound of that. So it's nice to know your intervals and then decide from there, because you don't have to just sit and play as arpeggios right, you can at any time drop into something Sorry about that Play the right note there and then you fall back in Sounds pretty cool. So hopefully that helps you a little bit in understanding how you can approach these and think of them as modal arpeggios.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Steve Stine

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

Wong Notes Artwork

Wong Notes

Premier Guitar
Song Exploder Artwork

Song Exploder

Hrishikesh Hirway
The Motivated Mind Artwork

The Motivated Mind

Scott Lynch