I forgot to mention that all those modes can be played in any position, and as long as you keep the Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian etc, in realative posistion, like starting Ionian in A, as long as you keep the modal progression, you will stay in key when you start moving around the fretboard during a solo.
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Nihilist, all of those modes ARE within the major scale though, as are all their relative minors. I think it's just easier for a beginner to understand that...
I absolutely agree, he should learn the Ionian in every position he can, and memorize the notes that would be in any position. Once he can do that, everything else afterwards is much simpler to learn.
I don't think we should get into a discussion of #/b 5ths, 6ths or 7ths in this thread, that would surely confuse Cybermax, and it surely is testing the limits of my rather limited understanding of theory. But, I would like it if we started a more advanced thread on theory. That would be great for me, and I'm sure a lot of others too. heh. I can do all the question asking.
I'm trying not to get too technical for a player who doesn't know much thory, which is why I only posted the major scale in the standard position.
I will say, that it helped my understanding some, playing both three-note and standard posistional modes. It helped me to realize in practice, that the scale you are playing, can be played any number of ways, in any number of positions, not just the standard posisitional way they are represented (like keeping a scale within the confines of the 3-note example above). Of course, once you know your scales, learning to #/b certain notes to change to change a major mode into a melodic minor, or to string modes together to form scalar runs are both two difficult hurdles to get past.
(edit) I also forgot to mention, it is also good to learn how to play your modes on a single string... That can help you build more complex leads and help you keep rooted in more complex leads, without having to struggle to realize exactly where you are going, but this is another topic of intermediate discussions(/edit)
The hardest thing I am finding is to break off from the standard ascend/descend in one mode (3/4/5 note seqencing), and flowing through several others following the same sequence, and end it without it sounding like I am obviously doing that.
I agree Pentatonics are kinda worthless in the music I play, but are easy to learn and apply for fast results.
I'm just starting to learn 3-note per string blues scales, and I think they're interesting, and offer a good stretching and movement to my excersize routine.