Learning To Use The Modes In Your Writing And Playing

To put all this knowledge to good use, you'll want to start using these scales to write original music, improvise solos any time you want, and play along with any cover song you choose.

In order to do that, you'll have to understand how everything fits together. We'll start off by assuming we are writing a new song using our scales. Pick a scale that you like, in any key you want. Lets say I am going to write a song using E aeolian. Have a look at the E aeolian scale below.


Aeolian - Key Of E

I can use any of these notes to construct my song. Try playing an E minor chord here or a G major, you'll notice all of the notes needed for these chords are present in the scale. I'll go into chords in more detail in the chord lessons, but for now just know that you can use any of the notes shown in the E Aeolian diagram above. Remember, in order for our song to be in E aeolian, the E note here must be our root note.

Lets say my song uses E for the root note, and it also uses a G, A, C, D. You can put any of these notes together in any way you choose to make up your rhythym. As long as the notes you choose are part of this scale, you are on the right track. If you want to know if a particular chord will work, just try it and see if it contains the proper notes. You'll notice that with this scale you can use the E minor, G major, A minor, C major and D major, they will all work here without stepping out of the scale notes. The reason why it is a mixture of major and minor chords will be covered in the lessons on chords.

Once I have come up with some riffs and rhythym parts using these notes, I know I have a song that follows this scale. That means that I can now solo at will over it using this scale, because all of the notes in my rhythyms match perfectly with all of the notes I am using to play leads. The beauty of this is that I can now play all over the guitar neck at any time, and with proper phrasing technique, almost everything I do will work perfectly.

Being able to improvise leads freely over a rhythym without ever making a mistake : priceless...

You should also be able to use any of the available notes here to find harmony and melody ideas that will work perfectly. Experiment a little and I think you will be amazed at the possibilities, especially because you will understand what you are playing and will be able to come up with new things more easily and improvise things on the fly successfully.

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