(blues guitar)
- Hi everyone, Zane Carney here.
And today we're going to learn three new modes
to add to our blues solos.
Now, this is great, because the more vocabulary we learn,
the better chance we have at developing
our own unique improvisational voice.
So real quick, before we dive in,
my name is Zane and I have a jazz quartet album
called "Alter Ego" that just came out recently,
it's streaming everywhere.
But before that, I toured and recorded extensively
with different artists across different genres.
And what I found was that in every gig,
like rock, alternative, R&B, blues,
I was asked to do a guitar solo over blues chord changes.
And my experience was that, if I only use the licks
that I love from my childhood, the SRV stuff,
the Santana stuff, the Jimi Hendrix stuff,
I kind of sounded a bit like a mimic or an impressionist.
But when I learned the architecture
that those licks were built upon, AKA the modes and scales,
I learned that I was like,
"Oh, I'm kind of maybe having a chance
at expressing my own voice, my own true self."
So that's why we're going to learn these three modes today.
We're going to learn Dorian, Mixolydian, and Aeolian,
and the way we're going to learn these three modes
is with the Fender Tune App.
So you go to the scale section
and choose pattern three of nine for all these.
We're going to be learning them in A, okay,
patterns three of nine.
So let's start with Dorian.
The Dorian mode is very similar to
the minor pentatonic scale,
which is why it works so well over a blues.
So here's our minor pentatonic scale.
(guitar scale)
That's our A minor pentatonic scale.
Here's our A Dorian mode,
and read along with me in the Fender Tune App.
(guitar scale)
So if you noticed, the Dorian mode contains
the entire amount of pentatonic scale.
All we're doing is adding a two...
(guitar note)
And a raised six... (guitar note)
And that's it.
The rest of it's minor pentatonic.
Let's see how it sounds over blues changes.
Here we go.
(blues guitar)
Notice how it sounded like it fit like a glove.
That's because we're really using the minor
pentatonic scale, and then just adding the second and sixth.
So this Dorian mode immediately makes you sound more
Grateful Dead, and more jam bandy, and more jazzy actually.
So that's the Dorian mode, okay, that's mode number one.
Mode number two is Mixolydian.
This is going to work best over our one chord,
but here's how the Mixolydian mode looks on the guitar.
Again, pattern three of nine.
(guitar scale)
So all of that is you're adding the major third,
which is a really important note 'cause Blues scales...
(blues chord) I'm sorry,
blues chord changes have... (blues chord)
a major third. So... (blues chord)
we're allowing that major third to happen.
So here's how Mixolydian mode sounds over blues changes.
(blues guitar)
Especially if you slide in chromatically.
(blues guitar)
Okay? So all we're doing is we're adding
that resolution note.
(guitar note)
We're adding the actual major third of the one chord.
So that's our Mixolydian mode.
Our third and final mode is Aeolian.
This can get a little tricky.
Carlos Santana is a master at using this mode
over a regular blues,
but let me first show you how to play it.
So...
(guitar scale)
There it is, our flat six, that's our key note.
(guitar note)
So it's very similar to the Dorian mode,
except it's a flat six instead of a raised six.
(guitar scale) Flat six.
Okay? Albert Collins would use this a lot.
You can use this for little trills.
I'll show you right now how it can sound over a blues scale.
I'm sorry, blues chord changes.
(blues guitar)
It's very dark.
(blues guitar)
So that's how that sounds.
The Aeolian mode is very dark,
probably the hardest mode to use over a blues.
But if you just kind of sneak into that flat six note
and come off of it, you're gonna get a really dark sound.
Jonny Lang actually does this so well.
So, those are the three modes we had to learn today:
Dorian, Mixolydian, and Aeolian.
Now a few tips to use them, I would say, combine them.
Use the Dorian on the four chord.
Then when the one chord comes in, use Mixolydian.
Then on the five chord use that Aeolian mode,
just try mixing and matching.
And one other thing I would say is,
I highly recommend using the CAGED system
to learn these three modes all up and down the fretboard.
The Fender Tune App is a great resource for that.
You can go patterns one through nine,
and just learn these scales, or these modes rather,
all up and down the fretboard.
So that's our lesson for today.
We just learned three new modes that we can add
to our blues solos immediately to stand out from the pack.
My name is Zane Carney.
I hope you enjoy "Alter Ego," it's now streaming everywhere.
And I'll leave you with this...
(blues guitar)