Welcome to the Advanced Melodic Concepts workshop with your new teacher, Phil Dyer. This isn’t a shortcut or “5 easy modal licks”, it’s a fundamental understanding of how the modes are used and how to apply them in your playing.

In this lesson, Phil goes over all of the modes in the major scale: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. He also covers every interval in an octave, as intervals are going to be referred to frequently throughout the course.

In this lesson, Phil covers the correct Latin names for all of the intervals. The Latin names are often used in more classical or written settings, and they’re quick to learn.

Once you have learned intervals and the modes, building chords becomes second nature. In this lesson, Phil covers not just major 7 chords, but major 9, major 11, major 13, add 9, add 11, add 13, sus chords. All of the chords that sound like they’ve got crazy names are going to be broken down and demystified.

Using a triad or a major 7 chord as the basis for this lesson, Phil covers how to build inversions by using the 3rd, the 5th, and the 7th as the root. By applying this knowledge to other chords, you should be able to figure out chord inversions for other chords all over the fretboard.

The minor pentatonic is a great place to start when adding modal notes to your playing. By taking the CAGED system and applying it in A major, Phil breaks down how you can find a pentatonic box shape over each chord, and you can use this to add other intervals to the pentatonic box shapes you already know to integrate modal notes or target colour tones in the chords you are playing over.

Diving deep into each mode now! Phil kicks things off with the Ionian mode - the major scale, the most important scale in western music. Its intervallic structure is root, maj2, maj3, 4, 5, maj6, maj7. This scale is used as the baseline for all the other modes, so when we look at the Dorian mode, which has a min3 and a min7, we’d write the same scale formula as the Ionian mode, but amend the 3rd and 7th notes accordingly. 

Phil takes you through building an A maj7 chord, and then covers 3 different scale patterns for the Ionian mode, as well as showing you how to you can apply the relative minor pentatonic to access notes from the major scale all over the neck.

Moving onto Dorian, which is the A major scale played from the second note, B, Phil breaks down 3 different scale patterns for the Dorian mode. The Dorian mode is a minor mode that is often referred to as a sweet-sounding minor mode, because of its maj6 interval. The formula is root, maj2, min3, 4, 5, maj6, min 7. When you build a chord from the Dorian mode, you build a min7 by stacking thirds.

Onto Phrygian now, which is started from the third note of the A major scale. Phil covers 3 different scale patterns and then looks at building a min7 chord by stacking thirds. Phrygian’s intervallic structure is root, min2, min3, 4, 5, min6, min7. The min7 derived from C Phrygian is our 3 chord in A major, as C is the third note of the major scale.

Lydian is the 4th mode of the major scale. Phil breaks down the 3 scale patterns and builds a Dmaj7 chord by stacking thirds. Lydian’s intervallic structure is root, maj2, maj3, #4, 5, maj6, maj7. It is often referred to as the dreamy sounding mode, as it is the least tense of all the modes. Its characteristic sound is the sharpened 4th. Dmaj7 is the 4 chord in our chord structure in A major.

Mixolydian is the 5th mode of the major scale. As we’ve been working in A, Phil covers the E Mixolydian mode. Mixolydian’s intervallic structure is root, maj2, maj3, 4, 5, maj6, min7. By stacking thirds to build a chord, this gives us a dominant 7 chord. A dominant 7 chord is a chord that contains both a maj3 and a min7. It’s the 5th chord of the major scale, which in A major is E dominant 7 (often written as E7).

It’s important to note that “E7” doesn’t mean you can play a minor 7 or a major 7, it means you should play a dominant 7 chord. Dominant 7 chords are commonly referred to as “5 chords”. The dominant 7 chord is important because it provides resolution. The two characteristic tones in E7 - the min7 and the maj3 - resolve when you move to Amaj. It gives you a feeling of arriving "home".

Aeolian is the 6th mode of the major scale and is commonly referred to as the minor scale, or the natural minor scale. In this lesson, Phil is looking at the F# Aeolian mode, which would make F#min our 6 chord in the key of A major. The Aeolian mode’s intervallic structure is root, maj2, min3, 4, 5, min6, min7. If we build a 7th chord by stacking thirds, we’d get an F#min7 chord. Every major scale has a relative minor, and every minor scale has a relative major. F# minor is the relative minor of A major. This means that you can play your F# minor pentatonic over an Amaj chord.

Locrian is the 7th mode of the major scale, and as we’ve been working in the key of A, Phil is using G# Locrian for this lesson. Locrian’s intervallic structure is root, min2, min3, 4, dim5, min6, min7. Locrian is often referred to as a minor scale, but more accurately it is a half-diminished scale. A true diminished scale is made up of alternating half & whole steps and so is comprised entirely of minor 3rd intervals and would give us a double flat 7th. In the Locrian mode, we don’t have a double flat 7, we have a min7, which gives us a min7b5 chord when we construct a chord by stacking thirds from the mode.

Harmonic minor is a very important scale when we are looking at tension and resolution. The harmonic minor scale is simply a natural minor scale (the Aeolian mode) with a maj7. Its intervallic structure is root, maj2, min3, 4, 5, min6, maj7.

The reason we have harmonic minor is that if we harmonise the natural minor scale, our 5 chord, which in A minor would be Emin7, doesn’t give us a satisfying resolution back to Amin7 in the same way that E7 does to Amaj7 in the key of A major. A lot of classical composers discovered this, and their workaround was to raise the min7 to a maj7, which in A minor would raise G to G#. This would change the 5 chord from Emin7 to E7, providing a satisfying resolution. 

The ripple effect of raising the 7th note in the minor scale to achieve harmonic minor means that the harmonic minor scale also has a series of modes derived from it. In the key of A these would be A harmonic minor, B Locrian natural 6th, C Ionian #5, D Dorian #4, E Phrygian Dominant, F Lydian #2, and G# Super Locrian flat flat 7.

By utilising the 3 note per string scale shapes for all of the modes, we can build arpeggios through 2 octaves by taking the root, 3rd, 5th and 7th. There are 4 different types of arpeggios we can build from the modes: major, minor, dominant, and min7b5 (half-diminished). Phil breaks down how you can build these different types of arpeggios, and how you can link patterns together to construct long arpeggiated passages that flow from one end of the neck to the other.

In previous lessons, we’ve looked at how we use intervals to build chords, and by stacking thirds from each mode of the major scale, we’ve harmonised the entire Amaj scale with 7th chords. When we’re playing certain chords, the relevance of the note we’re playing over each chord changes. When playing over an Amaj7 chord, C# is the major third. However, if the chord changes to Dmaj7, C# becomes the major 7th. Although C# is in both of the chords, it has a different value or relevance in each chord. It’s important to remember this, as when we’re playing, the relationship between the note we’re playing and the chord we’re playing over is more important than the overarching key.

When you’ve learned the modes and chords that can be built from them, it’s not uncommon to feel trapped, thinking you can only build chord progressions using these chords. This is why people often say that learning the modes and the theory behind them stifles your creativity. Modal interchange describes what happens when we borrow chords from other keys. If we take the key of A major, we have the following chords: Amaj7, Bmin7, C#min7, Dmaj7, E7, F#min7, and G#m7b5. If we parallel this with A minor (the relative minor of C major), the chords of A minor are Amin7, Bmin7b5, Cmaj7, Dmin7, Emin7, Fmaj7, and G7. We can use A major as our key centre, but we can borrow chords from A minor.

When you’ve learned the modes and chords that can be built from them, it’s not uncommon to feel trapped, thinking you can only build chord progressions using these chords. This is why people often say that learning the modes and the theory behind them stifles your creativity.