To create modal music, a few ingredients need to be present: Clear Tonal Centre Tonic Chord Harmony Established Presence Of Characteristic Note. The characteristic note must be present in any one (or more) of the following elements melody harmony harmonic extensions...
The Following is a list of broad stroke concepts. There are many ways to practice scales and integrate them into your playing and writing. The way you practice them will drive what you want to get from them. What you want to get out of them corresponds to why you want...
In my “Unsolved Music Mysteries” blog entry, I set out a basic framework for what modes are and how they are used in general terms. In this blog entry, I’ll deal with this topic in higher resolution. Each mode/scale creates a series of intervals...
Updated May 2026 If there is one subject that seems to pop up on almost every guitar blog and forum… it’s modes. They’re useful for writing music and improvising over chord changes. They can be used in any music style. Unfortunately, they’re usually...
