The Easiest Lesson To Understand Scales & Modes (By A Beginner, For Beginners)

In the guitar world, there’s a lot of talk about ‘modes’. Although I took music all through school, it was something I’ve never heard about until I picked up guitar as an adult. I’m a logical learner, so I knew there had to be some kinda trick to all these scales, and I managed to unlock the code.

This is going to be the most simple way I can put it so that you can understand it too. By the end of this 3 step article, you’ll be able to create any scale in any key!

Once you feel confident in scales, be sure to check out my article on chords and what makes them major and minor, and then you can read my article on chord progressions and song writing 🙂

Step 1: Understand The Chromatic Scale

I’m going to make sure this is easy to process, so before anything. Make sure you know the letters of the musical scale, aka the Chromatic Scale (that’s actually where I got my band’s name from). This is every single note between A and G.

A – A#/Bb – B – C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G – G#/Ab – A

Between every letter, there is a # (sharp) or b (flat) except between B & C, and between E & F. You will end up with 12 unique notes.

This is easier to see on a keyboard as you can see below.

There’s a reason why the 12th fret is special on guitar. It’s because that’s when everything repeats again since there are only 12 notes.

Step 2: Understand How The Major Scale Works

The first thing you need to do to understand any other scale or ‘mode’ is to understand how the Major scale works. Every single Major scale follows the same pattern.

W = Whole Step (2 Steps/Frets) | H = Half Step (1 Step/Fret)

The Major scale is: W – W – H – W – W – W – H

The reason why the C Major scale is so popular is because, when you follow this pattern, you end up with no sharps or flats. Look!

C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G – G#/Ab – A – A#/Bb – B – C

From C, you do a whole step, so you skip C#/Db and go to D.
From D, you do another whole step, so you skip D#/Eb and go to E.
From E, you do a half step, so you go to the next note which is F and so on.

Let’s try this on the G scale as well!

G – G#/Ab – A – A#/Bb – B – C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G

From G, you do a whole step, so you skip G#/Ab and go to A.
From A, you do a whole step, so you skip A#/Bb and go to B.
From B, you do a half step, so you don’t skip anything, and go to C.

Thus, with this pattern, you can figure out any scale you need on your own. Even one’s that seem hard or difficult.

Let’s do this one more time with D# Major.

D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G – G#/Ab – A – A#/Bb – B – C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb

From D#, you do a whole step, so you skip E and go to F.
From F, you do a whole step, so you skip F# and go to G.
From G, you do half step, so you go to G#, and so on.

I would recommend trying this on your guitar. Start with any note, any fret, and then apply this pattern on the same string. It can be hard to see patterns in a box shape, so start off with one string. Listen to it and understand how a Major scale sounds and is made.

Major Scale on Guitar: 2 frets – 2 frets – 1 fret – 2 frets – 2 frets – 2 frets – 1 fret

Step 3: Learn To Shift EVERYTHING Over

If you’ve been learning the Major scale and the Minor pentatonic scale on guitar, it may be hard for you to see that they are the different sides of the same coin. All modes are derived from the same scale, just starting on a different note, and thus, it can be hard to see that they use the same box patterns too, just starting from a different position.

You can partly blame advance guitarists for this since a lot of them love to learn and teach things blindly instead of considering the theory behind it or showing you how things connect. That’s how they learned so they encourage others to learn the same way, but that can take ages when you’re just starting out.

Once you learn this though, you’ll realize you only need one scale, you just need to start on a different note.

And if you want to make a pentatonic scale, you just get rid of 2 notes (the 4th and 7th degrees of the Major scale, which would be the 2nd and 6th of the Minor scale), so you have 5 notes (penta) instead of 7 like a normal scale.

This will speed up your learning tremendously and help you memorize things faster!

I highly recommend looking at a scale across the fretboard instead of just a single box shape and seeing where these scales align with each other.

So let’s go and understand why this is. We’ll go back to the C Major scale for this tutorial. We now know how the pattern is made and what notes show up in it.

Scale: W – W – H – W – W – W – H
Notes: C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C

The reason why the A minor scale is so popular is because it’s the ‘relative minor’ of C, and thus it has the same notes, just starting on A: A – B – C – D – E – F – G – A

Why is that?

Well instead of trying to look at each note and scale differently, start with one Major scale, and then figure out all the modes of that same scale.

C Major/Ionian = D Dorian = E Phrygian = F Lydian = G Mixolydian = A Minor/Aeolian = B Locrian

This is the trick: When you start on the second note of the C Major scale, aka D, all you have to do is shift the order of the scale as well. Instead of doing W – W – H – W…etc, you’re going to start on that second W and loop it from the start when you run out.

While understanding modes, it’s best to practice writing these things out on paper so you can create these on your own at anytime.

Let’s look at the D Dorian in more detail.

Scale: W – H – W – W – W – H – W

D – D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G – G#/Ab – A – A#/Bb – B – C – C#/Db – D

From D, you do a whole step, so you skip D#/Eb and go to E.
From E, you do a half step, so you go straight to F.
From F, you do a whole step, so you skip F#/Gb and go to G, etc.

Thus in the end, you also get a scale with no sharps or flats like C, it just starts on D.

Therefore, if you ever want to play the D Dorian scale, you can use the same scale/box pattern as C, but just start and end on the second note. D becomes your ‘tonal center’ (what sounds like home) instead of C.

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Let’s shift the pattern 3 more times so we can make the G Mixolydian scale.

Let’s look at it in detail!

Scale: W – W – H – W – W – H – W

G – G#/Ab – A – A#/Bb – B – C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G

If you remember the G Major scale we did at the beginning, that scale had the F#/Gb in it, but because we are using a different pattern, we end up with a F instead. This one has a half step (H) then a whole step (W) at the end, instead of a whole step (W), then a half step (H).

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Finally, let’s go to the A minor scale, aka the Aeolian scale. From G, we will shift that pattern by one.

Let’s look at it in detail once more.

Scale: W – H – W – W – H – W – W

A – A#/Bb – B – C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G – G#/Ab – A

You should be able to see how and why this works on your own. It’s not as hard or as complicated as they make it sound, right?

Summary

So to summarize, first you figure out the Major scale. Let’s use E for example this time.

Major scale pattern: W – W – H – W – W – W – H
E – F – F#/Gb – G – G#/Ab – A – A#/Bb – B – C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb – E
E Major scale: E – F# – G# – A – B – C# – D# – E

Next, we can figure out all it’s relative modes:

E Major/Ionian = F# Dorian = G# Phrygian = A Lydian = B Mixolydian = C# Minor/Aeolian = D# Locrian

Now, starting with F#, you just need to shift the Major scale pattern by one as you go along the scale.

The Ionian/Major scale pattern: W – W – H – W – W – W – H
The Dorian scale pattern: W – H – W – W – W – H – W
The Phrygian scale pattern: H – W – W – W – H – W – W
The Lydian scale pattern: W – W – W – H – W – W – H
The Mixolydian scale pattern: W – W – H – W – W – H – W
The Aeolian/Minor scale pattern: W – H – W – W – H – W – W
The Locrian scale pattern: H – W – W – H – W – W – W

Thus, even though you are starting on a different note, all the notes will end up the same as E Major/Ionian as you can see below.

E Ionian: E – F# – G# – A – B – C# – D# F#
F# Dorian: F# – G# – A – B – C# – D# – E
G# Phrygian: G# – A – B – C# – D# – E – F#
A Lydian: A – B – C# – D# – E – F# – G#
B Mixolydian: B – C# – D# – E – F# – G# – A
C# Aeolian: C# – D# – E – F# – G# – A – B
D# Locrian: D# – E – F# – G# – A – B – C#

This is why you can use the Major scale for every single one of it’s modes. All that matters is that you line up the Major scale key/root note (in this case E) with the E’s on the fretboard.

Once you have an understanding of what modes are and how they are created, it will be a lot easier to figure out and remember the differences between E Major, E Dorian, E Phrygian and so on.

Instead of looking at them as the E Major scale with flats added randomly, you’ll instead think of E Dorian as a mode of D Major, or E Phrygian as a mode of C Major.

Once you can figure that out, you can shift the Major scale pattern to D and start on the 2nd note to get the E Dorian scale, and same with shifting the Major scale pattern to C and starting on the 3rd note to get the E Phrygian scale.

It may take a bit more time to notice and figure these out at first, but once you get it, you’ll unlock every scale and every mode in every key instantly!

Conclusion

Hopefully this article has helped you make sense of modes. I didn’t get it at first, and I was about to spend years trying to memorize all these patterns (I actually took out a thick book on scales from the library back then since I didn’t have internet), but then I realized, that’s a waste of time! It’s all the same, just starting on a different note! Once it clicked, I was free!

If all of this makes sense to you, as mentioned earlier, you can check out my next articles on how to make major and minor chords, followed by how to create your own chord progressions!

I understand that music theory may seem complicated and intimidating to those who never learned music or theory growing up, but honestly, it’s going to help you SOOOOO so much when it comes to creating music and making sense of what you’re playing. If you’re curious about other benefits, read my past article on why you should consider learning theory.

If you have other questions you would like me to write about in an easy to understand matter like this, leave a comment below! Be sure to subscribe so you can be alerted when my future theory articles come out!

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