If you've been playing guitar for any length of time, you've probably heard people say you need to understand modes to get the most out of the instrument. I think the whole modes conversation is a bit overblown. But you can get some really interesting sounds out of modal playing, especially in songwriting.
This isn't super theory heavy. The good news is you can just get on with playing and hear how it sounds. The bad news is you might have to go back and figure some of it out for yourself. Here's a basic framework to start with.
The chords you've probably been using ▶ 1:06
If you've been writing songs with diatonic chord progressions, meaning progressions that only use chords from one key, you've probably been working with six main chords. In C major that's C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major and A minor. There's a seventh, B diminished, which you can use as a passing chord, but that's about the limit. And you can feel quite boxed in by those six.
If you don't know which chords are in the key you're playing in, look it up. If you've put some chords together and don't know what key they're in, look at a chart of all the chords in every key and work it out by trial and error. It helps to know roughly what key you're in, but if you're very much a by-ear player you can still use these ideas.
Borrow a chord from outside the key ▶ 1:54
In my opinion, to get that properly modal sound, you need to pick a chord or a note that's outside the key you're already in. In other words, borrow from a parallel mode. That's what gives you the novel, intriguing change of tone in a song.
Compare that with something like Wicked Game by Chris Isaak: B minor, A major, E major. That's sort of in B Dorian, so yes, it's modal, not just a plain major or minor key. But all three chords belong to B Dorian, so nothing sounds that weird. It's interesting, but not unusual. For the more distinct modal sound, you take the chords of the key and replace one of them with something else.
Trick one: swap major for minor (or minor for major) ▶ 2:49
Creep by Radiohead goes G major, B major, C major, C minor, back to G.
It sounds unusual straight away, because there's no key with two major chords two full tones apart like G and B. C major is in the key of G, but C minor isn't.
What's happened is the third chord of G major, B minor, has been replaced with B major. For anyone interested, that's called a chromatic mediant. But all you really need to know is that you took a chord and played the major instead of the minor.
You can do the opposite too and put a minor chord where a major one should be. You Know My Name by Chris Cornell goes B minor, G minor, D major, back to B minor.
In the key of B minor you'd expect a G major chord, but it uses G minor. The B that would normally be in a G major chord gets flattened, so the G minor chord has an A sharp in it. That gives you the sound of the B harmonic minor scale. It's not technically modal, but it gets that same kind of unique sound.
You don't necessarily need to know exactly what's happening theoretically. You just need to know that you've swapped the chord.
Trick two: move a chord up or down one fret ▶ 4:31
The other simple trick is to take a chord you'd expect in one place and move it up or down one fret. There are loads of ways to use this. For example:
- G to C# major instead of G to C. Normally you'd go from chord one in G major to chord four, C. Push the C up a fret and it sounds quite unusual.
- G to A flat minor instead of G to A minor. Instead of going from chord one up to chord two, A minor, drop it a fret to A flat minor. Also quite unusual.
Do I know exactly which mode I'm in, or the full technical explanation behind these changes? Kind of. I could probably figure it out. But what matters is that you understand what you're hearing and can put a little melody over the top.
Use modal sounds sparingly ▶ 5:28
One quick warning. These parallel mode sounds are quite unusual, and I worry a lot of guitarists see modes as a silver bullet that will suddenly make them an interesting songwriter. I don't think that's the case.
They're really good for a substantial change in a song, or for grounding a song in an unusual harmonic backdrop. But novelty creates tension, and music is about tension and release. If your song feels tense all the time because it's built from modal chords most listeners can't quite grasp, they'll probably skip to the next song.
Be careful and try to be tasteful when you do use them.
So be picky about when and how you use them. I'd say they're best used for a section of a song rather than the whole thing.
Watch what it does to your melody ▶ 6:17
Something I find a little annoying when I listen to a lot of modal playing is that it can force the melody into movements that follow the chords very strictly. Take G major to A flat minor. It's not impossible to build a melody around that, but writing one that moves freely is quite difficult when the chords really clunk together.
Go and try it
Take a progression you've already written and try both tricks on one chord: flip it from major to minor or minor to major, then try moving it up or down a fret. Keep whichever sounds best, use it for one section, and see if you can get a melody to move freely over it. The chord finder is handy if you need a shape for a chord you don't normally play.
