How do guitar modes work?

A mode is the major scale started somewhere else

Take the seven notes of C major — C D E F G A B — and play them from D to D instead of C to C. Nothing about the notes changed. What changed is which one your ear hears as home, and that is a mode: D Dorian, the second mode of C major.

Every major scale has seven modes, one starting on each of its notes. They share every note with the parent, so learning a mode is not learning new notes. It is learning to hear a familiar set of notes from a different centre.

The seven modes, from one key

Here are all seven modes of C major. Each is the same seven notes, started one degree further along:

• C Ionian — C D E F G A B — degree 1, intervals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• D Dorian — D E F G A B C — degree 2, intervals 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7
• E Phrygian — E F G A B C D — degree 3, intervals 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7
• F Lydian — F G A B C D E — degree 4, intervals 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7
• G Mixolydian — G A B C D E F — degree 5, intervals 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7
• A Aeolian — A B C D E F G — degree 6, intervals 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7
• B Locrian — B C D E F G A — degree 7, intervals 1 b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7

What makes each mode sound different

Because the notes are the same, the sound of a mode comes from the distances between them measured from its own root. Two of the seven are the plain major and natural minor scales under another name; the other five each differ from one of those by one or two notes.

• Ionian is the major scale. Aeolian is natural minor. Same notes, same order.
• Dorian is natural minor with a major 6th. D Dorian has B where D minor has Bb. That one note is the sound of Santana and most funk.
• Mixolydian is the major scale with a flat 7th. G Mixolydian has F where G major has F#. Blues, rock and country live here.
• Lydian is the major scale with a sharp 4th. F Lydian has B where F major has Bb. The floating, film-score sound.
• Phrygian is natural minor with a flat 2nd, the flamenco and metal sound. Locrian flattens the 2nd and the 5th, and is almost never used as a key of its own.

Each mode's page names its own changed notes in every key: all 84 mode pages.

How to find a mode on the fretboard

The practical trick: each of the seven three-notes-per-string positions of a major scale starts on a different degree, so each one is the natural fingering for one mode. Position 1 starts on the root and fits Ionian; position 2 starts on the 2nd and fits Dorian; and so on. The shape alone does not make the mode, though. Over a C chord, position 2 still sounds like C major; it becomes D Dorian when D is home — over a D minor chord or a D drone, starting and ending on D. So if you already know the 3NPS shapes of C major, you already have the fingering for every mode of C. What turns a shape into a mode is the note you treat as home.

• The seven positions of C major, one fingering per mode
• See D Dorian lit up across the whole neck

How to practise modes so you can hear them

1. Pick one mode and one chord to play it over. For Dorian, hold a Dm chord. For Mixolydian, a G7.
2. Play the mode up and down over that chord, and land on its characteristic note on the strong beats — the B in D Dorian, the F in G Mixolydian.
3. Then play the plain scale over the same chord and notice what you lost. That contrast is the mode.
4. Loop position 2 of C major at 60 BPM, starting and ending on D, and the loop keeps the shape and the tempo for you.