Modes of the major scale.

It's surprising how many people stumble on these and I think it's a lot to do with the way in which scales are preached in magazines and books. Often these salient points are omitted when telling people to play scales and they should be published with every scale diagram.

1) Learn the degrees of the scale, so on the root note say "root" on the next note up say "2". In this way you'll remember the degrees so much easier. Then you can intelligently select notes.

2) Compare the scale to ones that you already know. What the nearest neighbours, how many fingers do you need to change to get to that scale? Which degrees of the scale did you need to change or omit?

3) Compare to chords. What chords sit nicely in this scale? Don't think literally of just the ones with the root notes on the same root notes, within the position think of other alternatives. Extra points for finding non-diatonic chords.

4) If the scale doesn't begin or end on the root note then start from the root note and play back till the end of the pattern and then return, then carry on till the end and then play back to the nearest root note.

People love those 3 note per string scales for legato playing, but masses of people who play them fast before they figure out what they're playing. A lot of these people then see the notes as a blur and only really grasp the pattern. The pattern then gets used instead of the notes within it.

Add to this the fact that people play to the extremes on either E string, and rarely return to the root notes wherever they might be, means people hear modes in all the wrong places. THEN the patterns become synonyms for modes.. you'll hear the phrase "The lydian position" or "phrygian position" and at this stage you know someone has invested a lot of time playing fast and probably has a passing knowledge of modes, their usage and how to make them.