Major modes master exercises Guitar Lesson – Step 8

Major Scales Guitar Lesson - S8
In this final step, we use a master exercise that if practiced regularly will enable you master all the major modes!


The Quickest Way To Master All Major Modes


These final modal exercises will change the way you play the guitar forever.

By taking you through every mode, starting with the Major Pentatonic, you teach your hands how music works on the fretboard, it’s all about the intervals!

Music will soon come through you, not just from you.

The routine to master the major modes moves like this:

  • Maj Pent – add #4 -Maj Pent – add maj7 – Maj Pent – Lydian
  • Maj Pent – add 4 – Maj Pent – add maj7 – Maj Pent – Ionian
  • Maj Pent – add 4 – Maj Pent – add b7 – Maj Pent – Mixolydian

Once this is completed, in all five CAGED shapes, move through the remaining eleven keys.

When you can do this, stop practising the major modes, and start practising the minor modes!



Master Major Modes Guitar Lesson | Related Pages


Major Scales | Step-by-step guitar course

The major modes master exercise is the final step in the Major Scales Course.

Using the CAGED system and Major Pentatonic as our foundation, we can build all our major scales on the guitar.

The self-eliminating practice routine takes care of this in 8 steps. All you have to do is put the time in.


Advanced Acoustic Course

In the Advanced Acoustic Guitar Course we use all major modes.

In the Advanced Acoustic Course, we find huge chord extensions and unique chords using open strings. A few solos are incorporated as well.

Perhaps most importantly, we create 2nd guitar parts for most of these tunes, enabling you to play along with me and the singers as if we were a band.



Major Pentatonic | Major Scales

The Major Pentatonic is the foundation of Mixolydian, Ionian, and Lydian.

This is where it all starts, you must learn how to play the Major Pentatonic in all five shapes and don’t cheat by thinking of them as minor.

And let’s not name these shapes 1-5, let’s call them by their CAGED name, and let’s practice them not just in A as the videos show!


Dom7 | Arpeggios

Make sure you visualise the dom7 arpeggio inside the Mixolydian mode.

In step 3, we practice the dom7 arpeggios in all CAGED shapes. This is easy if you have completed the previous step, the maj7 arpeggios.

Video lessons are available starting on an A. To complete this step, you must play starting on the remaining 11 notes as well.



Maj7 | Arpeggios

You should visualise the maj7 arpeggio in the Lydian and Ionian scale shapes.

Let’s practice the maj7 arpeggios in all CAGED shapes. This is relatively easy as long as you know your CAGED maj7 chord shapes.

Video lessons are available starting on an A. To complete this step, you must play starting on the remaining 11 notes as well.


Guitar Chords | The CAGED System

To understand the major scale shapes, you must connect them with the CAGED guitar chord shapes.

With traditional music theory, the stave, and a piano, you’ll get easy-to-understand chords but they will not help if you want to play chords on the guitar.

Instead, on the guitar we use chord shapes derived from the five open-position chords, C, A, G, E, and D, hence CAGED.



Chordacus

Chordacus can show you all major modes shapes in all keys.

Spytunes chords, scale, and arpeggio software, Chordacus is a refined version of the so-called CAGED system.

Now available as both a chromatic (original version) and “within a key”, developed with the help of a Spytunes student.


About me | Dan Lundholm

Dan Lundholm wrote this guitar lesson about mastering the major scales.

This was a guitar lesson about a major modes master exercise, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and learn guitar with Spytunes.

Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.



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