Technical Guitar Skills

JDOD

JDOD

therecordingrebels.com
How many of you a) know your modes and intervals and. b) give a shit about them?

For years I didn't, then (about a year ago) I actually bothered to learn all my mode shapes and found it handy; not in a concious way. I'm not sitting there thinking "hmmm, this song definitely has a Locrian feel".

What I did find really useful was that when I was playing lead in a key that wasn't familar to me; I could immediately start adlibbing lead which had the right feel I was after anywhere on the neck without having to think about it. I also found out what when playing in E minor, I actually already knew all my modes and intervals already but it was just by familiarity and practice!

Aside from that, as I'm not in an active band or anything and like playing the guitar/recording as a hobby I just found it an interesting academic exercise.
 
JDOD said:
How many of you a) know your modes and intervals and. b) give a shit about them?

For years I didn't, then (about a year ago) I actually bothered to learn all my mode shapes and found it handy; not in a concious way. I'm not sitting there thinking "hmmm, this song definitely has a Locrian feel".

What I did find really useful was that when I was playing lead in a key that wasn't familar to me; I could immediately start adlibbing lead which had the right feel I was after anywhere on the neck without having to think about it. I also found out what when playing in E minor, I actually already knew all my modes and intervals already but it was just by familiarity and practice!

Aside from that, as I'm not in an active band or anything and like playing the guitar/recording as a hobby I just found it an interesting academic exercise.
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I think it's really important personally, it helps me to understand how to transribe a lot more music which would be impossible without the knowledge, even though I already had a good ear before knowing them, it helps to connect my ear with the theory, it was also important when doing my degree in music, would've been impossible without it.
 
Btyre2013 said:
I think it's really important personally, it helps me to understand how to transribe a lot more music which would be impossible without the knowledge, even though I already had a good ear before knowing them, it helps to connect my ear with the theory, it was also important when doing my degree in music, would've been impossible without it.
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Yeah, I realised that I already knew some of it instinctively as I'd just gradually worked it all through by practicing, when I started looking at the name of the modes and how you can use them in different intervals I had realised I was already doing it to a limited extent.

Like most guitarists (I think this is true anyway) I was doing most of my lead work in E Minor. This started off with a pentatonic on the 12th fret, which I gradually learned to expand across the whole fret board; just through free playing. When I realised that my 12th fret pentatonic was actually an E Aeolian and that I'd also being incorperating a G Inonian into the same lead passages it all just fell into place and kind of become obvious. Then I just learned the scales parrot fashion and could play freely in any key I liked.
 
Anyway, the point of this is, what next? After leaning the 7 basic modes and how to apply them across the intervals what would you go for next?
 
This sounds like something I need to do because all of my leads are pretty much the same and I can't just improvise on the spot very well. When coming up with a lead I have to sit, trial and error it to death, think about it, come up with something, and then just play the same thing every time.
 
Greg_L said:
This sounds like something I need to do because all of my leads are pretty much the same and I can't just improvise on the spot very well. When coming up with a lead I have to sit, trial and error it to death, think about it, come up with something, and then just play the same thing every time.
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Greg, that's kind of where I was at a few years ago - probably more noticable for me 'cos I'm not playing live, I'm just playing for my own amusement so I suppose I was more likely to get bored! I was getting to the point where my guitar was boring me and I wasn't playing very much. I've never really enjoyed learning how to play songs; music to me has always been about writing and free-playing and I was really running out of ideas for free playing.

This is a really good place to start:
Play The 7 Modes in 7 Days (Tabs Incl.) - GUITARHABITS
You'll find you're probably mostly using the Aeolian at the moment which is kinda like your usual minor pentatonic and you're just using that at whatever fret corresponds to the route note of the key you are in.

I found the next step from here was to find out what fret I could use each of other modal shapes at and still be playing E minor. Then I moved on to trying experimenting with the other modes - when you start playing using Ionian (basically the major scale) everything sounds cheesey as fuck! Almost like nursey rhymes.
 
What I DON'T want to happen is lose my natural raw rock and roll sensibilities. I'd kill myself if I ended up sounding all like classical metal shit.

I'm pretty good with moving my pentatonic box around the fretboard. I need more speed and lick potential. Playing live isn't a problem because I just play the same way every time. I need a better vocabulary for writing leads with less effort, then I can play it the same way every time.
 
Greg_L said:
What I DON'T want to happen is lose my natural raw rock and roll sensibilities. I'd kill myself if I ended up sounding all like classical metal shit.

I'm pretty good with moving my pentatonic box around the fretboard. I need more speed and lick potential. Playing live isn't a problem because I just play the same way every time. I need a better vocabulary for writing leads with less effort, then I can play it the same way every time.
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Bullshit, you'll be waxing your mullet and pouring yourself into spandex trousers before you know it.

You won't start shreading, what it will do is enable you to play your lead licks anywhere on the fretboard so you won't have to move your hand to a fret you feel comfortable playing lead in. From our point of view (lazier style rock/punk guitar players) I find it adds a little relaxation to my playing 'cos it allows me to flip between chords and little licks/embelishments really fluidly so they're kind of just one and the same thing.
 
JDOD said:
Bullshit, you'll be waxing your mullet and pouring yourself into spandex trousers before you know it.

You won't start shreading, what it will do is enable you to play your lead licks anywhere on the fretboard so you won't have to move your hand to a fret you feel comfortable playing lead in. From our point of view (lazier style rock/punk guitar players) I find it adds a little relaxation to my playing 'cos it allows me to flip between chords and little licks/embelishments really fluidly so they're kind of just one and the same thing.
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That sounds pretty good. How much theory do I need to know to implement this shit? I know the notes on the fretboard. I know the names of chords. That's about it. I don't know anything about keys and scales.
 
I don't know modes/scale names, but know my intervals for keys and what works/doesn't work based on the chords in a song. As an example a guy asked me to play with at the open mic I was hosting last week - had never met the guy, and the first 3 songs he chose I had never played before - none were difficult- 4 or 5 chords, and I least knew them from radio play. When I was done, another guitarist who was there said to me 'I had no idea you could play like that!' - I was just throwing leads in between verses, lines, etc. I really didn't think about it, I just played what fit for those chord patterns.
 
Greg_L said:
That sounds pretty good. How much theory do I need to know to implement this shit? I know the notes on the fretboard. I know the names of chords. That's about it. I don't know anything about keys and scales.
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You don't need to know much at all. Try this - stick a quick loop in your DAW of your strumming the Em, Em, D, C sequence from the verse of Nothing Else Matters by Metallica, then noodle over it using your pentatonic (Aeolian) at the 12th Fret. Now, spend 5 mins learning your Inonian (major scale) and repeat the exercise but noodling with G being the root of your Ionian at the third fret - you'll get a very similar result; but you'll just make slightly different note choices so it will have a slightly different feel.

I'm mentioning E minor using the Aeolian and Ionian shapes again just 'cos these are the ones that made the most sense to me when I started experimenting with it.

This works anywhere on the fretboard with the same interval.
 
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What's pretty cool then is work out where the other modal shapes work on the way up the freboard between that Ionion on the 3rd fret and your Aeolian on the 12th and you can dip into them along the way.

Now you can noodle your way up the entire length of the board while wanking off to your signed photo of Randy Rhodes.

I hope this is all making sense 'cos I am just saying what worked for me. I have no musical qualifications - I just learned my 7 modal shapes and worked out how to apply them all to E Minor to start with and worked out from there.

It was after that that I started using the different Modes to imply a different feel. But you probably care most about Aeolian anyway. I didn't try genuinely playing in other modes until years later when I was recording more.
 
I know all of about 4 scales fluently but have been working on picking up more. Wife found me a cheesy book at a garage sale that I pulled out just to use as a reference. I'll have to check out that website you posted, JDOD, that seems like it would come in handy.

I think, in my case, after not really having to work on anything fancy for so long (been out of the band scene for around 10 years), I have noticed a slight regression in my fretting hand. I can still pound out pentatonics and the major scale with ease but the muscle memory and/or dexterity of the individual fingers just isn't there like it used to be. That's what happens when you go from playing 4-6 hours a day to 1 or 2, I guess. All that being said, the focus of my practicing right now is metronome based alternate picking with string skipping and finger independence exercises up and down the fretboard in different patterns.
 
pikingrin said:
I know all of about 4 scales fluently but have been working on picking up more. Wife found me a cheesy book at a garage sale that I pulled out just to use as a reference. I'll have to check out that website you posted, JDOD, that seems like it would come in handy.
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I think I could do pretty quick runs on all 7 shapes if you asked me to and I had a guitar in my hand. If I was playing generic rock lead based around an Aeolian I think I could do that in any key using the whole fretboard. Definitely at in E, B, A and G, probably C too. (basically, where the fretboard dots are!)

If I was trying to play in a different Mode though I would struggle to play it anywhere on the fretobard for the key I was in. I'd have to give it some thought. I think the trouble is I just don't really like the sound of most of them so have no real use for them!
 
Honestly...I don't thunk I've ever considered what "mode" I'm playing in.
I manly focus on the key of the song and the chord progressions.

I'm usually combining multiple scales/nodes when I play...and evolved into a jazz-like mentality...every note on the fretboard works, as long as you hit the right notes before and after it. :D

I learned scale positions along the fretboard using my own logic, though I've compared what I was doing to a lot of the "standard" patterns, and for the most part, I'm always playing within some specific scale/mode...I just never give it any conscious thought.
Like, I don't think about where's the root note, what's this note..etc.
It's become mostly muscle memory...and I just improvise up/down the neck...and I always make it a point to move up/down the whole neck, which in itself makes you play different licks, and find new ways to tie the licks together...so knowing the key/chords, it's becomes simple to move the whole thing up/down the neck.
Of course...it takes a lot of playing.

I'm not saying that staring at charts and learning where all the notes of every scale are on the neck, and the modes, etc...is a bad thing....I just never approached playing in that matter.
It was always an improvisation learning process, that started small and evolved out....but that's how I liked to lean and improve my chops....put on some backing tracks, and then play. I also would use different music styles that called for different improvisational approaches. After awhile I could see the relationships of all the various things I was doing on the neck...and that opened things up even more.

AFA as pure mechanical skills...how fast you can run up/down the neck...that's just a lot of repetition, and also getting that right hand picking in sync.
I can play some stuff fast...but I never aspired to be a "shredder". I always like the melodic flow, even at faster speeds.
Haven't been playing much the last few months...too many other things getting the way...but I'm going to start jamming again soon and get the fingers moving.
 
I started out with a pretty strong understanding of intervals and theory and general, how keys and scales are built, and all that stuff. My first "guitar book" was actually a workbook that went "What note is 3 semitones above F#" and the like, so that part was pretty well drilled into my head, but I had always resisted learning scales and "boxes" on the fretboard, as well as things like "licks" that everybody seems to regurgitate in their playing. It definitely kept me from sounding like everybody else, but it also meant that when I went to improvise, I was forced to always pay attention to what note I'm playing, where that is in the scale, and what intervals were available from that point to go to a new note. That maybe doesn't sound all that difficult, but it does tend to limit speed quite a bit, and lead to either hesitation or wrong notes.

Then I got into a group that was shooting in a more traditional direction, and part of the thing was actually working in some of the cliches that I had always rejected, and also called for me to occasionally play some off-the-cuff lead stuff. To that I end I put a very minimal amount of time picking up some little "licks" and a much more significant amount of time getting familiar with the pentatonic scale and mapping it across the fretboard via the CAGED system. This made a real difference both for the more straight-forward stuff and for my further out stuff. Once I had the pentatonics, it was pretty quick that I figured out where the "other" notes of the scale sat in each position, as well as the fact that the pentatonic for the I, IV, and V actually all fit in the tonic key.

However, I have always ignored and rejected the idea of modes as pretentious bullshit. I mean, I understand how it works, starting from and resolving to notes or chords other than the tonic can add interest, tension, or whatever. I just refuse to call them by mode names. D dorian is C Major is A minor and I don't care what anybody else says.
 
I think the names are just a teaching tool really. They help you to learn what people are trying to explain to you. I didn't start learning this shit till I had been playing for 15 years and basically did it out of boredom but I actually found it useful!
 
I honk what I'm trying to say is that learning this shit can't hurt. It's not gonna turn you into yngwie, but it might add a few extra ideas and a bit of versatility to what you already have
 
JDOD said:
I honk what I'm trying to say is that learning this shit can't hurt. It's not gonna turn you into yngwie, but it might add a few extra ideas and a bit of versatility to what you already have
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Absolutely...100%.

I was just relating my own journey...and not trying to say it was dumb shit to learn that stuff, or anything like that.
Man, I had a lot of years of formal training on the piano and guitar....even had college music courses, and had one of the profs, as my private guitar teacher....he was big into jazz,

The weird thing is...while I understood and practiced all that stuff at the time...it never became part of my conscious playing, other than like I said, to consider the key, and the chord progression of the song.
I got really heavily into improvisational playing both on the piano and guitar early on...and basically, I just loved to jam to almost any kind of music...and from that evolved my playing style, skill and knowledge...and not so much from the theory that had faded away from my conscious thoughts, especially when playing.
Like when I writing, arranging...I think more about that shit...but hardly at all when I'm playing.

I'm sure all the formal training had value, and made an impact...I just seemed to step away from it at some point and went mostly with gut feeling and improvisation with my playing.
 
Yeah, I learned the modes when I was a teenager, but I forgot them long ago and don't care. I know the fretboard well enough to do anything that I'd ever want to do.. no problem improvising etc.. My time is better spent writing songs (shut up).

I played with this guy for awhile, kind of an amateurish bassist but really into the modes. I ended up calling him "Phrygian" all the time because he swore up and down that Phrygian was "the best mode". :laughings:

But I guess I'm glad I learned them.
 
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