We’ll start with Dominant seven chords, (1, 3, 5, b7) refer back to my earlier post about harmonizing scales.

The most important notes to play in these four note chords for a guitar player are the 3rd and the 7^th, the reason being that the 1 and 5 are strong enough that if you leave one of them out the listener can fill in the blank. Also the bass player will generally cover the 1 and the 5, filling out the chord.

So we’re going to play the 3^rd and 7^th on our 3^rd and 4^th strings, notice that no matter which one you put on top gives you the same shape

E—A—D—G—B—E
|—|—|—|—|—|
|—|—X—|—|—|
|—|—|—X—|—|
|—|—|—|—|—|

Now, alone these shells sound rather bland, so we’re going to add either the root OR the fifth on the fifth or sixth string, filling out the sound, we now deal with two shapes.

E—A—D—G—B—E
|—|—|—|—|—|
|—|—3—|—|—|
5—R—|—7—|—|
|—|—|—|—|—|

E—A—D—G—B—E
|—|—|—|—|—|
R—|—7—|—|—|
|—|—|—3—|—|
|—5—|—|—|—|

Now, provided you can find the root on your fifth or sixth string, you can play and dominant seven chord. Now what do you do if you want a major 7 chord? Simply raise the 7^th, lower the 3^rd for a minor 7^th, lower the 7^th for a 6 chord, etc.

In it’s simplest form a mode is a scale that starts and ends on a different note.

A common misconception is that this is all there is to modes. However, if we sing the scale: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do. What modes do is change where the ‘do’ or the root of the scale is, changing the type of sound produced.

Why learn modes?

Music written using modes creates different “feels” then tonal music (music written using the major scale).

What are the seven “church” modes?

These are the seven most common modes, starting and ending on all seven notes of the major scale.

In the key of ‘C’:

I C – Ionian (same notes as the major scale)

ii D – Dorian

iii E – Phrygian

IV F – Lydian

V G – Mixo-lydian

vi A – Aeolian (same notes as the natural minor scale)

vii B – Locrian

Now let’s examine the differences between the modes

Ionian – all major

Dorian - b3, b7

Phrygian - b2, b3, b6, b7

Lydian - #4

Mixo-Lydian - b7

Aeolian - b3, b6, b7

Locrian – b2, b3, b5, b6, b7

This means that to form Dorian off of Ionian you lower the third and the seventh a half-step.

Modal vs. Tonal music:

Most modern rock music is Modal, whether the writer of the song realizes it or not, the difference is how the chords move, Tonal music moves in a way discussed [here]. However, modal music tends to have relatively little chord movement in it’s progressions. For example the song “So What” by Miles Davis has two chords across 32 measures: Dm7 and Ebm7.

Let’s look at the example of the standard “My Favourite things.” The first 16 measures go as follows.

Em7 | F#m7 | Em7 | F#m7 | E Dorian

Cmaj7 | % | % | % | C Lydian

Am7 | D7 |Gmaj7 |Cmaj7 | Tonal

Gmaj7 |Cmaj7 |Fm7b5 |B7 | Tonal

Notice how the tune switches back and forth between Modal and Tonal progressions, play through these chords and you can hear how the amount of movement changes, the tune continues to switch between modal and tonal ideas throughout.

C D E F G A B C

To create a C major chord off this scale, we take the root, third and fifth: C E G. Now let’s move everything up one degree to the second, forth and sixth, D F A, which makes a D minor chord. Continue moving up the scale in this fashion and you get:

C Dm Em F G Am Bdim

I ii iii IV V vi vii

We then give these chords numbers based on what degree of the scale the root is. These are the common triad chords in the key of C major. Now let’s turn them into a chord progression, by moving along the cycle of fourths, meaning we move up in fourths, which will give us each chord once and only once before coming back to C.

C F Bdim Em Am Dm G C

I IV vii iii vi ii V I

This by definition is the strongest chord progression you can form, the chord switches also get stronger as you move towards the right, V-I is the most common progression, and is so strong that when we hear the V chord our ear WANTS to hear the I chord, to the extent that going to any other chord will sound harsh.

Now obviously playing one chord progression all the time will get boring, so here are some simple guidelines to add variation.

I is the strongest chord, so it can go to any other chord and still sound good.

iii and vi can sub for I

ii and IV can interchange

V and vii can interchange

 Remember that ALL rules have exceptions, and we’ll examine them later.

The Explanation:

The reason for these substitutes actually comes from the four note chords rather then the triads, let’s examine I, vi and iii

A

C C

E E E

G G G

     B B

        D

Both chords share three notes in common with the chord they can sub for.

The guitar is by far one of the most popular instruments to learn to play, however, guitarists are famous for not knowing a thing about music theory, most of them can’t even read standard notation. As a teacher I’ve stressed that aspect of music, understanding the theory behind what you’re doing, in the long run you’ll find the instrument more fun, and it will even be easier to play songs from tablature, since understanding how the music was written will make it a lot easier to play.

I started my music career at the age of ten, I got a state of the art Yamaha keyboard for Christmas one year and my parents enrolled me in piano lessons. I reached RCM 5 (I think, it was a long time ago) before picking up a guitar. I was into hard rock and metal at the time, there wasn’t much place for a pianist in those bands.

My first guitar instructor was also the first person who showed me what theory actually meant and how it was put to use (sure I knew how to play a ton of scales and arpeggios but had no idea what they were actually for.) I was taking lessons for a few years when I saw an ad from a small studio looking for a guitar instructor, it looked desperate and I was unemployed, so I gave it a shot and sent in a resume, three days later I was given a contract.

It was then I realized (with as little offense to my colleagues as possible). That most teachers should not be teaching, hell I shouldn’t have been teaching but I could throw simple theory ideas out there and baffle all the guitar teachers, the students I acquired from other teachers spent all class practicing Yankee Doodle, a style of teaching that would drive me insane.

So I made this blog in an attempt to help get some of that theory out there, a lot of what’s online is dumbed down concepts of the ideas that will only get you so far.

My style is jazz, however the reason I teach things in terms of jazz no matter what is that I strongly believe that with the exception of classical guitar (which as far as I’m concerned is another instrument) the same concepts used in jazz can be simplified to be used in any style of music, which I will often demonstrate with examples.