Following the recent series of blog posts on modes and modal chords, this post gives you two octave patterns for all the modes rooted on the E string so that you have more potential for creativity and can also compare the differences between each mode.
I’ve produced them in this ‘chord box’ type of format because they may be easier for you to remember than tablature, I certainly find this format easier to remember. The square indicates the root note.
The idea is that you play each of them off one root to hear the differences i.e. C Major, C Dorian, C Phrygian etc. The rhythm and picking patterns aren’t that important but try to play each pattern ascending and descending without stopping.
They are movable so you can work them out for all keys very easily, all you need to do is move the starting root note to the appropriate fret. You could play through them using a circle of fourths or fifths rather than chromatically if you fancy more of a challenge.
I am very grateful to QwikChord (www.qwikchord.com) for these diagrams, I have been after software to do this for a while now and QwikChord is easy to use and free although I had to copy these into Word and then convert to jpg to get them into this blog post.
