Modes (September 2010)
Have you been playing for a long time and wish you had learnt your modes years ago.
I was the same.

The idea came to me to figure out why I did not learn the modes. The major draw back now that I understand was:

There are 2 concepts involved when learning modes. It is common to find a person who is not receiving formal lessons, trying to understand modes as one concept therefore becoming confused.

The more I look at it the more I am finding the importance of explaining Parallel and Relative approach to modes.

This concept reveals the answers to many of the difficulties.
One situation is where a student hits the brick wall when they arrive at say E Phrygian. The inevitable question, am I playing in E Phrygian or in C Major starting at the 3rd degree?

A teacher will see the 'question' in this manner but the student does not know how to ask the question. They are just confused. This is where P and R approaches are so important and need to be expressed in simple terms at the beginning of modal lessons. (GuitarModes method provides the explanation in the first lesson).

23 Sep 2010