The Dorian Mode + Minor Pentatonic Pattern 2

This is the jetlag modes bomb lesson! With the Christmas period and a trip to LA, Lee’s structured practice has gone out the window. But he has grabbed a guitar at every possible moment and done some exercises to keep his fingers working. The enormous modal explosion kept him on his toes. :)

Notes On The Neck

We’re looking at learning the notes on the neck and using it in blues guitar. While you can target notes like the b3rd, 3rd, or b5 using visual patterns alone, it’s easier and quicker to know the note names in different keys and immediately find them on the guitar.

For instance, the b3rd in A is C. Useful C notes for blues lead are found at 4:10 (fret 10 of string 4), 3:5, 2:13, and 1:8. How about the beloved blue note (the b5)? In A, this is the note Eb; we find this at 4:13, 3:8, 2:4, and 1:11.

Knowing this means you can target notes all over the neck without knowing positions. And knowledge of the positions will boost your understanding.

Here’s an exercise you can do during dead moments in the day. Grab your guitar, choose a note, such as C, and find all the C notes on each string, starting from string 6. Or choose a fret and name all the notes on the fret from string 6 to string 1, then back up.

🎸Master the Fretboard – In Practical Music Theory Module 4.3, we dive into several excellent note-finding exercises.

Spend one month doing exercises like this for five minutes a day, and you’ll be able to instantly name all the notes on the guitar.

Why Study Music Theory?

Lee is struggling to study his music theory. He isn’t sure what it is or why he should study it! This was his problem the last time we discussed theory.

In short, music theory describes how music works. So by studying the theory, you better understand how music works. And by knowing that, you can be more creative and adapt the music to you.

💡 Car Analogy – if you really love cars, there comes a point when you want to understand how the engine works. This makes you much more adept with cars.

For blues and rock guitarists, one critical area is knowing the chords in the key. If you can figure out the key of a song from the chords, you can use the right scales and licks to accompany the song. You don’t need to figure it all out by ear.

To Lee, that feels like a long way away. But it isn’t as far as he thinks. His issue is that reading the theory course on the site feels detached and separate from his guitar playing, meaning it hasn’t stuck. That shows me I need to connect the theory to real guitar playing as much as possible!

Minor Pentatonic Pattern 2

We also explored Pattern 2 of the Minor Pentatonic Scale. This is the TAB:

|----------------------8--10--8--------------------------------------------------|

|---------------8--10------------10--8-------------------------------------------|

|---------7--9--------------------------9--7------—------------------------------|

|--7--10--------------------------------------10--7---------------------------7--|

|----------------------------------------------------10--7-------------7--10-----|
-
|-----------------------------------------------------------10--8--10------------|

Exploring String 1

The note D at 1:10 makes for an excellent tone bend to an E. This is part of a fundamental blues lick:

|--10b12--8---------| 
|------------10-----| 
|-------------------|
|-------------------| 
|-------------------|
|-------------------|

You can also bend a semitone to get the blue note, Eb. A classic blues trick is to curl the b3rd. In this position, 1:8 is the b3rd note. On string 1, frets 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are all useful in an A blues!

Bending From String 2

First, let’s look at which notes we can bend (in the key of A). One root note is at 2:10. You can bend this one tone to the 9th. If you like big bends, try bending it a tone and a half to the b3rd!

Warning – your bending on this note has to be perfect. This is because you pass through the note Bb, which is the b2 degree. Get it wrong, and it’ll sound horrible.

At fret 10, we have the note G. You can bend this one tone with finger 1, but it’s tricky. All in all, you’re unlikely to bend from this string. You’d switch positions and use a different finger!

String 3 Tricks

We can bend the note E at fret 9 one tone to F#. It sounds great, but it’s rare. And we play the note at fret 7 with finger 1, meaning it’s a horrible bend. Again, you’d switch positions.

You do have the blue note at fret 8, which can make up for the lack of bending options.

Use The Best Of Each Minor Pentatonic Pattern

Each position has its pros and cons, so take the useful bits from each one and switch positions when you run into difficulty. And you’re unlikely to use the lowest three strings from any position!

🎸 Boss the Blues – Learn these bends and more Pattern 2 licks in Blues Lead Guitar.

The way we practice blues soloing is different from how we play in the real world. During practice time, it’s great to stay in one position and solo there. You might just discover something new, like a lick or a bend. You’ll never discover these things unless you force yourself to stay in one position.

But in the real world, you want to move seamlessly between Patterns 1 and 2. Your goal must be to move between all positions as you solo.

Jamming with Vamps

Vamps are used as intro or filler music. They became popular among musicians as a tool for improvising, particularly as simple backing tracks. To create a vamp, all you need is one or two chords.

I asked Lee to play an Am vamp, and he started all tense. When he relaxed and started tapping his foot, it sounded loads better.

When you’re playing rhythm, you have to keep your time, not rushing ahead or falling back. And it’s crucial to notice how the dynamic of the jam changes. You’ll need to drop right down at some points, like during a long solo.

Try to practice this at home before you find yourself in a jam! That way, you’ll be prepared for it.

The Dropping Of The Atomic Modes Bomb!

And BOOM! The modes bomb has gone off. :) Lee created a vamp with Am and Bm, and we established that we were in G Major.

But when it came to his turn to solo, he got super confused. Should he use G Major to solo over the Am and Bm or the A Minor Pentatonic scale? Or some other scale? Don’t we use G Major over Em? So many questions – my word did he open up a rabbit hole!

Let’s demystify modes.

The A Dorian Mode

First, while the vamp is in Am, the chords come from G. It’s the only Major Scale with both Am and Bm as diatonic chords. This means that G Major is the parent major scale of the Am to Bm vamp.

Using the G Major Scale over Am (chord II in G) sounds wicked, especially for blues. It creates what we call A Dorian, which sounds different from E Aeolian (G Major over its relative minor, Em).

In fact, when we play a Major Scale over chord II of that scale, we get the Dorian sound. If you’re not convinced, record an Am vamp and play notes from the G Major Scale over it. Then try the C Major Scale over the Dm chord (chord II in C). Both sound bluesy – awesome!

💡 Remember – when we're in A Dorian, we’re still using the G Major Scale. We call it A Dorian because it has a characteristic sound common to all Major scales played over chord II.

G Major Modes In Series

The chords in the key of G are G, Am, Bm, C, D, and Em. The G Major Scale works over any progression that uses those chords, or any single one played as a vamp. When we solo with notes from G Major over one of them, we give the scale a modal name.

Using G Major in an Em context gives a classical sound. This is true for all scales over their relative minor chord. Which scale would have a classical sound when used over Am? ;) See below!

🎵 Modal Musings – Modes theory is no more than a help. The ear always wins! We have to listen for good notes and forget whether they fit a particular mode or scale.

When we play the G Major Scale over C, one note grabs the attention: F# (the #4). This is the only note different from the C Major Scale, and it gives a unique sound. We call this the C Lydian mode, and the #4 is the characteristic Lydian sound. We get a Lydian sound whenever we solo over chord IV using the parent major scale.

Again, by calling it C Lydian, we make it clear that C is the home chord while G is simply the parent major scale. The same goes for the vamp we played. It’s not a G Major vamp, it doesn’t sound majory, and G isn’t the root note.

It’s an Am vamp – an A Dorian vamp! So when you jam an A blues using G Major, you have to think in terms of A, not G.

🧐 Blues Modes – If you’re a blues guitarist, remember that the Major Scale one tone down from the root note sounds wicked over a blues. This creates the Dorian mode, which is simply the good old Minor Pentatonic Scale with the 6 and 9 added. This is essential blues knowledge.

What if we play the G Major Scale over the Bm chord? Do a Bm vamp, solo over it using G Major, and see how it sounds. You could try similar experiments same for D and even F#dim! In each case, you find a new modal sound. :)

Am Modes In Parallel

So far, we’ve spoken about the different modal sounds we create when we use G Major over its diatonic chord. Let’s change it up. What happens if we stick to an Am chord and change the scale we use to solo?

We already know that If we play an Am vamp and use the G Major Scale over it, we get a Dorian sound. We get this flavor because Am is the II chord in G Major. This Major Scale sounds killer over a blues – the one a tone below the key of the blues.

🎸 Minor Pentatonic Plus 2 –The G Major Scale with A as the tonal center (A B C D E F# G) is the Minor Pentatonic (ACDEG) plus the 6 (F#) and 9 (B). You automatically use A Dorian whenever you play A Minor Pentatonic and add B and F#.

If we wanted an Aeolian sound, we’d need to use the notes from the C Major Scale. We have an Aeolian sound because Am is the VI chord in C Major. This is a very minory sound used by bands like Metallica. It’s A Minor Pentatonic with B (9) and F (b6) added.

But Am appears in three keys! So in which key is Am chord III? That’s right – F Major! What if we play the F Major Scale over Am? We get another sound, and it's called the Phrygian mode. This is A Minor Pentatonic with Bb (b9) and F (b6) added.

So when we say a song is in Am, we have three possibilities: A Dorian, A Phrygian, and A Aeolian. They’re all minor modes with different sounds. All are the Minor Pentatonic with two extra notes added. Our choice depends on the kind of sound we want to create.

Creating An A Dorian Vamp

If you create a sequence using Am followed by chords from the key of G (Bm, Em, G, C, D), you get a Dorian sound. Over the other chords, you’ll need to target different notes from G, but the sound will remain Dorian because A is the tonal center of the song.

💡 Justin’s Eureka Moment – I found modes really, really tricky when I learned them. I tried a music encyclopedia. I tried a famous book called “Modes: No More Mystery”, which only made matters worse. Eventually, I learned a Miles Davis song in D Dorian mode. I realised that though the notes were from the C Major Scale, D was the tonal center! Hooray!

At the end of the day, modes are just a change in tonal center. It’s really simple once you understand it, but you might have to fight and struggle until it eventually clicks! Every time I try to teach modes, I find so many blocks preventing people from grasping them.

And beyond learning modes, if it sounds good, it is good. Lee was using modes without even knowing it, simply because he was listening. Never, ever, let theory get in the way of your ear!

Guitar Wisdom

Lee and I got all philosophical at the end of the lesson! He brought up the words of a great guitarist who said that his job was to “keep the shop,” to hold a steady rhythm. This is the undervalued component of a band. It’s not super flash, but without a steady groove, there is no band.

This reminded me of a Steve Ganz quote I saw on Instagram. He said something like: “Licks for show, rhythm for dough”. It’s so true. We all love jamming with guitarists that can hold down a groove!

Poor Lee, I hope he’s recovered from that modes overdose! That’s more than enough on modes for now. But if you really want to get into modes, explore the exercises mentioned in this lesson. From Justin and Lee, laters! :)

🎵 Master Major Scale modes. Phrygian, Mixolydian, Dorian… Demystify the modes with my Major Scale Modes series.

Lee’s Homework

Pattern 2 of the Minor Pentatonic Scale – Explore it over some A Blues backing tracks
A Minor Vamp Jamming – Make a vamp in Am, adding another chord or two if you like. Explore the A Dorian mode with Pete.