
Originally Posted by
Auggie Doggie
What I have noticed over many years is that 'modes' have become some bizarre rite of passage for guitarists. They feel that by having some knowledge of the modes, they have passed some kind of milestone. Oddly, this 'milestone' is often reached before the player has any concept of tonality or functional harmony.
Adding fuel to the fire is that 'modes' are taught (and I condemn every text and teacher who repeatedly enforces this myth) as a series of fingering patterns on the fretboard. Fingering patterns are easy to memorize (often mistaken for knowledge), and they have names. People LOVE to name things; if we have a name to call it, we own it, or we know it. Legions of guitarists memorized a bunch of scale patterns, called them 'modes', and feel they have reached some major evolutionary step. Even worse, the modes have Greek names...and when someone starts speaking of things that have foreign names, they feel especially important, even if they're blowing smoke out their posterior.
Guitar books, magazines, teachers, and especially message board users always seem to give the advice "learn your scales and modes and you will become a better soloist". Then they perpetuate that myth by feeding a bunch of dot diagrams to the player, teaching them the fingerboard by completely misusing a theory concept...and even worse, they also perpetuate the idea of 'use this pattern over this chord and you will be a soloing genius', with no mention of things like melody, harmony, or rhythm. Is it any wonder so many players think of a solo as a time to run their scales?
I've heard a lot of players stake a claim to 'modes' as a basis for bragging rights. I've seen entire books about modes for guitarists, written by authors who honestly have NO F'ING CLUE what modes really are (or ever were). I've read analyses of music that mention a change of 'mode' every time a chord change occurs, while the same analyses never actually mention harmony! I've actually heard people speak of modes as if they are the pinnacle of music theory, and if you know the modes, you know all there is to know. All of these things are a damn shame.
In reality, modes are a small (and in MANY cases, a completely nonexistent) issue. In modern practice, modes are merely a subset of the tonal system; in their original form (I even wrote a thread about it) they were MUCH different from how we view them now (as was music in general). Guitarists are obsessed with modes (as is clear by the number of threads about them), but somehow it doesn't occur to them that a working knowledge of the tonal system pretty much explains all there is to know about them. Modes are touted as some sort of musical holy grail, usually by the people who know the least about them.
So, to summarize, modes are given WAY too much importance and emphasis...they are generally taught in a completely incorrect and horribly incomplete manner...and they are damned by virtue of their having names. One cannot just say 'I know harmony' or 'I know voice leading' or 'I know counterpoint' or 'I know melody'...those are broad yet abstract topics. However, one can say "I know the modes" (even when they usually don't know them), and back it up with a modicum of tangible evidence ("Lookie...I can play the Phrygian mode on my guitar if I play on these dots!"). That ties modes into ego, and there is your smoking gun.