Several years ago (2016), I wrote a post called Practicing with
No Time, part 1. Although I followed up with part 2, I’ve
decided to present a more comprehensive plan, one that draws
on the posts I’ve presented over the years and allows you to
achieve your goals in 20-30 minutes a day, 4-5 days a week.
People are busy! When I first wrote this post I was aiming at
busy adults with jobs, kids,etc. but now even the kids are over
booked! My first instinct is to tell you to stop working so much
(this is why I play music), but this may not be practical for
everyone. For most people the demands of a job, family,
classes,etc. leave them almost no time for a daily practice
routine. That leaves an hour or two on weekends, where it’s
easy to resort to the same old stuff. Although breaking out of
this routine can seem impossible, my years of teaching
stressed out adults have shown me ways to deal with this. It’s
challenging, but not impossible! This post emphasizes the
same 3 points I made in the other one, because the basic
realities haven’t changed. (The next post will outline the
complete plan.)
1-START SMALL: I have no magic bullet; you must lower your
expectations, at least for the short term. If you don’t practice
8 hours a day, 6 days a week you will not be making major
changes any time soon! However if you practice 20-30 minutes
a day, 4-5 days a week (plus that hour jam on weekends) you
can make small changes and small changes add up! You could
be several levels higher in a year or two with a focused
routine. Does that sound too long? How many years have you
already wasted fooling around? Life is a journey, you might as
well relax and enjoy it.
2-MAKE A TIME TO PLAY: This is easier if you start small (10
minutes). If it’s important, you can at least come up with 10
most days at a time when you’re still functional and can
negotiate some peace. Try for the same time every day or
schedule it with an event, like around a meal. It doesn’t have
to be every day; 4-5 days a week is plenty (plus that week
end jam!).
MAKE A PLACE TO PLAY: Most people don’t have separate
music studios. Find the quietest corner of the house, maybe
a bedroom. Get a small headphone practice amp and shut
the door. Keep your guitar on a stand if possible. (If you
have small kids you may need to keep it in a locked case
under the bed). Make it as easy as possible to start playing.
You should be able to start or stop in a couple of minutes.

The reason why I’m starting so small and emphasizing such

basic and obvious points has to do less with becoming an

overnight sensation and a lot more with building a habit. The

first few weeks it doesn’t matter so much what you play, only

that you play. That 10 minutes a day of playing at the same

place and time needs to become a habit, like brushing your

teeth. You probably spend 10 minutes a day brushing your

teeth, but it’s no big deal, you just do it because it’s a habit.

Once a behavior becomes a habit it’s much less of a hassle.

The first few weeks are the hardest and you will probably use

every excuse in the book to quit, but keep at it! Set a timer for

10 minutes and you’re done. It will get easier after a few weeks

and after a few months it will just be something you do, like

brushing your teeth. (If you are not brushing your teeth, get

that down first.)

What can you do in only 10 minutes a day, 4-5 times a week?

Not a lot, but something! And if you can increase the time to

20 minutes (or even 30, gasp!), I’ve developed a core

curriculum that can have you playing; hundreds of chords,

scales over half the neck in any key, taking 6 easy riffs and

turning them into 100’s of solos, all in a year (maybe 2) of

20-30 minutes a day, 4-5 days a week.  Like I said in the

beginning, if a year or two sounds too long, just contemplate

how long you’ve wasted fooling around! The next post will

lay out the syllabus for this.

(Portions of this post are taken from my book “Take Control:for
guitar”, available on Amazon). In the last post, I explained the
basic concept of modal harmony (modes are the same scale/key
but based around different degree roots). Although the concept
of getting 7 different sounds from one key is great, it’s not
very practical in actual use. This is because the song itself needs
to be written in the desired mode to really get the modal sound.
Since most popular songs are written in either major(Ionian),
minor(aeolian), or blues keys, it seems the rest of the modes
are useless, unless you come across the rare popular song
written in a different mode. However it is possible to solo with
exotic sounding modes over “normal” songs by superimposing
them (a fancy term for “dump on top of”). This is because all
modes, even the exotic ones, are considered basically major or
minor in tonality (except Locrian which is diminished). The table
below list the 3 common modal song tonalities; major, minor
and blues followed by the other modes that fit those categories.
I have done this for an E root, since E is a popular key in rock
music. Since modes are just major scales played from a different
root, I put the related major keys in parentheses along with the
scale degree number to play toget the modal sound. In the
table below, “E lydian (B/4)” means you need to play a B major
scale from its’ 4th note (E) to get a Lydian sound. You could
just jam on a B major scale and get decent results, but your
riffs will sound better centered around the E root. Also since
blues harmony contains both major and minor tonality you
get twice the fun! This means you can solo in E mixolydian
(A/5) over a song in E blues like Purple Haze or Pride & Joy!

A word of caution, once you superimpose modes you are

playing a scale that is outside of the original key, whether this

sounds cool or ugly is subjective. Until you do this enough to

get a sense of what will work and what won’t (Lydian is not

good for most country music) I would save this concept for

experimentation.

 

TONALITY                  MODES/KEYS

E Major                E major(E/1) E lydian(B/4) E mixolydian(A/5)

E Minor               E minor(G/6) E dorian(D/2) E phrygian(C/3)*

E Blues                 All of the above, but I have the best luck with

dorian, mixolydian and minor modes.

* Although phrygian is nominally a minor mode, its’ sound is so

distinctive/weird that you can try it over anything, the same with

E Locrian (F/7). Who knows until you try?

 

To sum up the above table, if your song is in E blues tonality,

besides playing an E blues scale, you can also try; D,A, and G

major scales (hopefully centered around the E root). While

none of this is guaranteed, it does open up a lot of possibilities.

 

 

 

This post and possibly another, is about real world use of

modes. This assumes you already at least sort of understand

what modes are, which is asking a lot. This post is taken in

part from a short appendix section in my book “Take Control:

for guitar”, published on Amazon. However I will add a short

general explanation about modes in the beginning so the rest

of the post will make more sense. As always, you can refer to

my book for a more in depth explanation and actual examples

if my limited explanation isn’t enough, it really isn’t that hard.

A lot of people are put off by the Greek names, which are

beside the point. Just focus on the concept, not the names!

THE BASIC CONCEPT: A mode tells which chord or note of

the key you’re in is the root of the song. All keys contain; a

scale with 7 notes (melody), 7 chords built from those notes

(harmony), and 7 modes. All a mode does is tell you which

chord/note is the root of your song,(what your chord

progression is based on). I will use the key of A as an example

KEY OF A MAJOR

SCALE        CHORDS          MODES

A                    A major            A Ionian/Major

B                    B minor            B Dorian

C#                 C# minor         C# Phrygian

D                    D major            D Lydian

E                    E major             E Mixolydian

F#                 F# minor          F# Aeolian/Minor

G#                 G# dim.            G# Locrian

In the key of A, if the root chord of your song is an A major,

(the 1st chord in the key), you are in A Ionian mode. Your

song can go to any other chords in the key; E,F# min.,D etc.

you’re still in A Ionian mode. If the root chord in your song

is B minor (2nd chord in the key), you’re in B Dorian mode.

You can go to any other chords in the key, you’re still in B

Dorian mode. Same thing if you play a scale; play an A major

scale from A to A, you’re playing A Ionian mode. Play the same

A major scale from B to B and you’re playing B Dorian mode.

The mode names are always in the same sequence for any key.

The first mode is always Ionian, the second mode is always

Dorian, etc. Pros use the term “degree” to describe a notes’

place in a key, so you will often see Ionian mode referred to as

starting from the 1st degree of the key, or Phrygian mode as

starting from the 3rd degree of the key. Degree equals the

number in the scale sequence. Easy!

SO WHAT’S THE POINT?

If it’s the same scale and group of chords and all I’m doing is

changing the root why do I care and why do I have to give it a

hard to spell Greek name? I’m glad you asked! By basing the

chord progression or scale around different degrees you get 7

entirely different sounds. Try playing an A major scale from A

to A; (A,B,C#,D,E,F#,G#,A). Now play the same scale from C#

to C#; (C#,D,E,F#,G#,A,B,C#), it’s almost like a different scale.

The modes are always in this sequence for any key; the 1st mode

is always Major, the 2nd mode always Dorian, etc. Each mode

has a different sound and understanding and using modes allows

you to get 7 different sounds from the same scale! In fact, if you

are playing over modal chord changes (with the correct root

chord), all you need to do is play the scale, the chords will give

you the modal sound. If you are playing the scale by itself, or

superimposing it over a different song, you will have to start &

stop your riffs on the correct root. After all somebody has to

do it. The easy way to do this is to count up the correct number

of notes from the root of whatever scale you’re playing. In the

key example above if I wanted  C# Phrygian sound I would just

start and stop my riffs on the 3rd note of the A scale. The more

I emphasize the C# root the more Phrygian I sound. If somebody

asks me to jam in C# Phrygian, I just play an A major scale and

locate my riffs around the C# note, 3 notes above the A major

root.

This has been a basic overview of modes, just enough to get the

idea (modes are the same scale played from different roots).

While all of this is nice to know, you really don’t have any

practical way to use this information. Most popular songs are

in either Major, Minor, or Blues keys. Unless you have a song

written in a different mode, (Dorian, Lydian, etc.), it seems the

other modes are useless. Hang on, part 2 of Superimposing

Modes will show you how to use exotic modes over “regular

songs”. It’s easy!

 

 

 

(This was taken mostly from my book “Take Control: for

guitar”, available on Amazon)

 

Many rock songs consist of power chords built off of pentatonic

and blues scale roots. This is a style I first became aware of in

the early 70’s when I tried to figure out Black Sabbath songs.

All you do is pick a scale and play power chords built on those

notes. Since a power chord is just a perfect 5th interval and not

a complete chord, you don’t have to worry about those pesky

major and minor chords! Also songs in this style are mostly

played with lots of volume and distortion, so power chords are

plenty huge sounding. Generally the more “normal” the song

is, the more it sticks to pentatonic roots. The more “outside”

tunes add more extra blues notes. As you might guess with a

blues scale having so many options, the only way to keep the

key obvious is to keep hitting the root a lot. This explains why

so many heavy songs are based on E, you have to keep hitting

the root or the song turns into garbage. This means it’s easy to

tell what key the song is in (what note do they keep hitting?),

but a pain to figure out with all the options. Really heavy bands

do this trick with weird scales like diminished, whole tone,

synthetic modes, or whatever perverted  sequence they can

dream up (Slayer). As for soloing, use whatever scale or note

sequence the power chords are built on, based on the root

they keep hitting. If all else fails, the pentatonic scale is your

friend. There are only 12 notes and it has to be one of them!

The diagram below shows an E pentatonic minor/blues scale

written on the 6th string.  The extra blues tensions have an

asterisk beside them. Pick some frets, play them with power

chords and go crazy! Remember to keep hitting the root!

E PENTATONIC MINOR/BLUES SCALE

fret#         string 6 note      * blues tensions

0                     E

1

2                    F#                              *

3                     G

4                    G#                              *

5                     A

6                    A#                              *

7                    B

8                    C                                *

9                    C#                             *

10                   D

11

12                   E

 

 

 

 

In the last post I introduced the concept of harmonic

categories and used the key of C for an example. I also

used both chord and degree names to make it easier to

change keys. In order to understand this post you have to

have read the first post! Also if the idea of keys or

degree names is fuzzy to you, stop and read my book “Take

Control:for guitar” available on Amazon. Before we go

further I will list the 3 categories and their chords again,

for reference. ( Again this is the key of C).

Tonic-C major (I), E minor (iii), A minor (vi)

Subdominant- D minor (ii), F major (IV)

Dominant- G major (V), B diminished (viiº)

The terms tonic, subdominant, and dominant refer to the

harmonic function the chords perform in their respective

categories. Over the years, the way I’ve come to explain

this concept is with my “famous” field metaphor. Pay close

attention, it’s stuff like this that rakes in the big $.

 

(see the diagram below the explanation)

THE FIELD METAPHOR: Picture a key as being a big field, and

the fence closest to you is the Tonic fence. This area

contains the root chord (I-C) and the two related chords,

(iii-E minor and vi-A minor). These 3 chords are like home

base in the key, either the root chord C, or the 2 chords

closest in sound, E min. and A min. You can play all 3

of these chords and hear how similar they sound, there’s

not much movement between them sound-wise. That’s why you

can substitute these chords for one another, there’s not

that much difference in sound. Now on the far side of the key

“field”, visualize the opposite fence, that’s the Dominant

fence. This area contains the V chord (G or G7) and its’

related chord the B diminished (viiº). These 2 chords are

the most distant in sound from the Tonic chords. Play a

G to C or B dim. to C and hear the jump in sound, especially

compared with A min. to C (same category). Jumping from

Tonic to Dominant to Tonic is as much sonic distance as you

can cover in a key (and is called a cadence). These two

categories can completely define a key and the simplest

songs contain one chord from each category, generally

the I and the V, the most common members of their

categories. Songs like Jambalaya (C-G), only have 2 chords

because that’s all they need! The boundaries of the key are

set. Other I-V 2 chord songs are Tulsa Time and Achy Breaky

Heart (but those are in different keys). Finally, in the

middle of the key “field”, along with the daisies and cow

patties, are the Subdominant chords. These chords occupy the

middle ground in the key, further away harmonically from the

root than the Tonic chords, but not as far away as the dominant.

( see diagram below)

———————DOMINANT FENCE—————————-

(V -G and viiº-B dim.)

 

——————-MIDDLE OF THE FIELD———————-

(ii-D min. and IV-F maj.)

 

———————–TONIC FENCE———————————-

(I-C maj., iii-E min., and vi-A min.)

PRACTICAL USES: Like I said in the previous post, you can

substitute chords inside a category; if a song goes C-F-G, try

C-D min-G, or A min-F-G. This can add a lot of creativity. This

knowledge also helps me when I’m figuring out songs; a chord

will sound close, but not exactly correct. Often it turns out

to be another chord in the category. When I’m playing with

another guitarist or keyboard player, I can play different

chords against them inside the harmonic category (I can play

an A minor or E minor against their C major.) Whether I’m

composing, jamming, or figuring out songs, my knowledge of

harmonic categories gives me an edge.