 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and I'm here today with MusicTeacher.com and in this video we're going to start a series of videos exploring the modes on the electric guitar. The modes are a type of scales that many guitar players are fearful of at first but over the next couple of videos we're going to demystify these and break them down in a way that is super easy to understand and give you some great practical tips on how you can start using them in your own playing. All the tones you're hearing in this video are coming from my Shergold Provocateur which is plugged into the Blackstar HT20 Mark II which is currently running on the Drive channel. So the modes as I said are a type of scale. In total there are seven modes. Each mode is connected to a different note from the major scale. So the major scale is essentially the gateway to all music theory and all music understanding. If you understand what the major scale is you can essentially turn that into any other theory concept you wish. So we're going to start off by looking at the major scale and then we're going to look at how we can branch this off into different modes. Each mode is essentially a different type of tonality which is sort of a different musical feel or a different musical sound. So you can split the modes up into major modes and minor modes and there is a diminished mode which we'll cover in a later video but we don't have to worry about that for today. So the good thing with tonality is we can use the modes to put it into a major or minor category and then using those different tonalities we can subdivide into different modes to create different textures and feels. Now at first this may sound pretty complex but as we dive through this series of videos I'll show you you will find this quite useful and quite an easy topic to get the grips with. So first of all let's start with the major scale. So I'm going to show you the major scale in the key of A major. So it's going to be like this. So that is the A major scale in the usual typical A major scale shape that we all know. If we break that down into a series of notes we have A, B, C sharp, D, E, F sharp and G and then the scale just repeats so we're back to an A, A, B, C sharp, D, E, F sharp, G sharp, A. So when it comes to music theory and modes in particular we often refer to notes in that scale as numbers. These numbers are known as intervals. In the major scale those numbers are always just one through seven. We literally just give each note a number. So A is one, B is two, C sharp is three, D is four, E is five, F sharp is six and G sharp is seven and then we're back to the one which is the A. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Those are the intervals that go with each note. Now we can use intervals in any key so if I did my major scale as a shape from a C note that gives me a C major scale but I'd still refer to the intervals as the same thing so the third note of the scale is always the third interval. So the reason the intervals are very important here is because as we break this up into different modes and different tonalities those intervals are our variables. So to create different tonalities and different ideas and different sounding modes we vary certain intervals of the major scale. So the major scale itself is actually a mode of its own. This is actually known as the Ionian mode. This is the first mode out of the cycle of seven modes. All the modes are interconnected or you can use them as individual scales. How you learn the modes and how you use the modes really depends on how you want to apply them. I personally come from a rock and blues background so for me the method that I'm going to show you in these videos is the way that I think it's easiest to approach the mode so there are of course other methods you can use to do this. So now that we know the major scale which is the Ionian mode we're actually going to look at how to vary some of those notes and turn this into a scale known as the natural minor scale. This is also a mode this is known as the Aeolian mode. This is actually the sixth mode in the cycle and there is a very important reason why I'm skipping from one to six which will become apparent. Because what I'm doing here is I'm giving you two scales to start with. A fully major mode and a fully minor mode and then everything else we learn in this series of videos is going to bounce off these two ideas. So first of all the major scale as I said numbers one through seven that's very important because what we're going to do now is we're going to start varying these notes. So I said the notes AB and C sharp. So C sharp the third note this is the important of this is called a major third. So to turn this into a minor mode I need to flatten this note. We talked a little bit about this in the chord progression videos on the Black Star channel a couple of months back as well so if you haven't learned about those yet go check those out too because these are also coming from the same idea of these scales. So we've got AB and C sharp so to turn this into a minor I need to flatten the C sharp to a C so I get one two flat three but for the purpose of the scale I'm going to move this note to this position here on the eighth fret of the low E string. The fourth and fifth notes are going to be the same so it's going to be D and E. So we've got A, B, C, D, E. The sixth note of the major scale was an F sharp which I also need to flatten to an F note but once again I'm going to move that to the eighth fret of the A string and then the seventh note which we previously played as a G sharp also needs to be flattened to just a G so that gives me A, B, C, D, E, F, G and then back to A or one two flat three four five flat six flat seven and one and that is the seven notes there of the Aeolian mode that's the natural minor scale we can also carry that on then up the scale so we've got our first octave then our second octave would start obviously from this note here which is the A then we're going to the B note the C the D E F G and then we can carry on ABC on the high E string so that there is our Aeolian mode that's our natural minor scale so this is what we would refer to as a minor scale so it kind of looks like a minor pentatonic you can think of it like a minor pentatonic with a couple of extra notes added which is a B note and an F note or a two and a flat six in this case so the reason I mentioned the minor pentatonic scale is because this is how I want you to envision modes moving forward so you can think of your modes your minor modes in particular as being linked to a minor pentatonic scale so if you know where your minor pentatonic shape is you can find the modal notes inside of that so we've got our first string that note there the B that's our modal note that's the two on the A string it's the five and seven from the minor pentatonic with the modal note on the sixth fret D string is just the same five and seven on the G it's also five and seven for minor pentatonic but we've got this B note here on the fourth fret on the B string it's five and eight but the modal note is this F note here on the sixth fret and then the same thing is true then on the high E as the low E we've got the five and eight which is our pentatonic notes and the B note on the seventh fret which is our modal note so those are the notes we're adding to our minor pentatonic scale to make it a natural minor scale or an Aeolian mode so the reason I find it useful to imagine this with an outline of a minor pentatonic scale is when I'm using this in a practical sense if I'm soloing with a minor pentatonic shape I can simply add those modal notes around my minor pentatonic legs and it just gives me a different text to see used within the scale and we can also imagine the major scale the Ionian mode in a pentatonic form so to do this we're going to be using a major pentatonic we're actually going to use the fifth shape of the major pentatonic scale so the major pentatonic scale will be A, B, C sharp, E and F sharp and then that repeats you may also recognize that as the second shape of the minor pentatonic scale that's the first shape of the A major pentatonic scale so interval wise we've got one two three five and six now what I'm going to do is I'm going to restack those notes starting from an A note but in the form of a first position pentatonic scale so to do that I can actually come this side of the A note so my A note here now is my first note I'm going to go A, B, C sharp, E, F sharp this looks as if I'm playing an F sharp minor pentatonic scale because the key of F sharp minor shares the notes with the key of A major so we've got A, B, C sharp, E, F sharp and I can go down to this F sharp if I want to because that's also still in the same key so if I imagine a minor pentatonic shape from this A note here I can start it from this F sharp note if I want to but just for the ease of understanding this on a note basis I'm going to start from the A so A, B, C sharp, E, F sharp and then if I repeat that I've got A, B, C sharp, E, F sharp, A you see that fits into a first position pentatonic shape this is also the fifth shape of the major pentatonic and I know there's a lot of crossing there between major and minor but this is key to understanding the modes in this method so what I can do is I can now build my mode from that position so A, B, C sharp then I need to add a D then my next note is E, F sharp, G sharp then I'm back at the root so A, B, C sharp, D, E, F sharp, G sharp, A now you'll notice that is exactly the same shape as my natural minor except the only difference is where I'm starting in relation to the A so this is another good way you can think about it you could learn that one shape your natural minor shape A is the root if the first finger is playing the root we're playing this in a minor way if we move this backwards so my little finger is now on the root that's now major which is the Ionian mode so those are two really easy scales now which use the same shape so it's little finger playing the root is major which is Ionian index finger playing the root minor which is Aeolian so those two are going to be our starting point for all of these other videos so go check out the tab that accompanies this lesson over on the Blackstar website there should be a link for that down below in the description you can see how these look written out learn them shapes and then you can transpose them around the guitar so if you take that A note that we said on the fifth fret and you move that up to a C for instance you've got your C natural minor but then if I put the C on my little finger there I have my C major so you can use this all over the guitar but like I said these two scale shapes or this one scale shape in two positions it's going to be the foundation for understanding the modes in all seven forms so we're going to be using variables for this as we go through our journey into modes the great thing with these two shapes is they're both very closely linked to a pentatonic shape that by now you're probably very familiar with already so you should find this pretty easy to integrate new notes into your existing licks let me know down below in the comments how you found this how you've gotten on with this starting point for modes and if you have any questions about the modes and how to use them put those down below as well and we can address those in a future video don't forget to check out the other videos on Blackstar's youtube channel there's a bunch more free lessons just like this covering all sorts of different topics from theory to basic stuff right up to some more intermediate and advanced concepts and if there's anything you'd like to see us make a video about throw that below as well if you're looking for a guitar teacher in your local area please go check out musicteacher.com there's a great network of teachers all around the country waiting to help you guys out thanks so much for watching and I'll see you very soon