Modal mastery II, Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

This article provides some good background, I think.  It talks some of the relationships between modes and chords.

https://www.guitarnoise.com/article.php?id=387

Honestly, modes don't make any sense to me. When it all boils down to it they're just major scales with fancy names, but everyone swears by them.

That's true but I think Modes, just like scales, are a tool of organization.  On a guitar with 24 frets, you have 150 notes.  If you dismiss the value of Modes, you might as well forget about pentatonic scales because they are major or minor scales merely missing a couple of notes.  I think it is much easier to play in key or a certain style i.e. blues by using a collection of scales.  Scales and modes are also ways to communicate musical ideas to other players.  I.e. the solo to Fade to Black is in B minor.  Get the idea?

Yes, but I don't understand why I should learn the fingering of say, the C Lydian mode, when I can just play the G major scale centered at the C.

That's the question everybody asks.  There are many answers but my answer is that 1) once you learn the other patterns it's easier, 2) the other patterns give you more range due to the way the guitar is designed, and 3) because you want to mentally focus on the mode you are in so it sounds, well . . . modal.  For example the Eminor pentatonic is the same as the G major pentatonic but if you play the scales over chord changes in the key of G you hear the G theme coming out.  So, you focus and think G G G G and your fingers gravitate around the Gs and thus you produce a brighter (major sounding) solo in G.  The same for the key of Eminor or if you use the Em pentatonic over G chord changes you start feeling all mellow and bluesy.  You slip and slide all around the Es in the scale.  So take a sip, kick back, and give it a try. 8)

Quick follow up:  After 15 years of playing, only now am I realizing that playing guitar is 99% mental focus and 1% memoriztion and physical skills.  Learning modes, scales, chords, etc. are only means to helping you express what you feel.

Yes, but I don't understand why I should learn the fingering of say, the C Lydian mode, when I can just play the G major scale centered at the C.

I don't pretend to be able to answer your question, but the link I posted up there ^ in the other response talks some about those kinds of questions.
                                   

Last week with my teacher we worked on playing through chord changes and staying in the same position though. Often the changes involved key changes too. When changing chords, the idea was to land on a note of the destination chord (various 7th or minor 7th chords). Knowing where the notes where in our arrpegio made that step easy and it made a world of difference rather than just landing on any note in the scale. Also it seemed as though playing in the one position sounded a whole lot better than changing it up to a different position for the knew chord. Just took a little more thinking.

Learned it with just a two chord progression such as C7 and F7 (F7 replaced as F9 very often) to begin with. Find the C7 arrpegio, find the scale for C7 (mixolydian). Get that under control. Then in the same position find the F7 arrpegio and the corresponding position shape. In time the improvising was sounding a whole lot more impressive.

Yes, but I don't understand why I should learn the fingering of say, the C Lydian mode, when I can just play the G major scale centered at the C.

Hmmm... you don't need to learn the fingering for the Lydian mode, because it's exactly the same as for the major scale. If you can play the major scale all over the fretboard, you'll be able to play any of the modes all over the fretboard too.

The tricky thing about modes isn't the fingering pattern. The tricky thing is getting to know their sound, to give you access to a wider palette of moods in your playing.

Now, maybe your question was actually: why should I bother learning the major scale in more than one place on the fretboard? The answer would be - efficiency. Imagine being one of those guitarists who only played power chords with the root note on the low E or A string. Any time you play the 'D' chord you'd be up at the fifth fret, whereas a more efficient guitarist would still be down at the zero fret.

Once you learn the fretboard your left hand will have to cover a lot less distance when you play.

Rayman: I more or less know all my scales (major, minor, h minor, m minor) across the fretboard. People come up to me and say "Learn your modes, learn your modes" and I honestly can't find one practical application for learning the names of 8 different patterns, at least not when it's faster for me to just play through from a different starting point. It's all Greek to me.

And just for the record, I prefer to play a D powerchord with the root on the 5th fret of the A string. Why? Flexibility. If I wanted to play a C# I wouldn't have to (1) move my hand up 4 frets and down a string or (2) change my fingering. With drop-D tuning you can even span 2 octaves comfortably, from the bottom up to the 17th fret on the A-string. Plus the thinner strings simply don't sound as ballsy.

Well, I personally think that those people who say Learn your modes, learn your modes" are dead wrong.  

Only in pop/rock guitar circles will you ever hear modes mentioned at all.  Oh yes, and in Gregorian chant groups.  Why rock guitarists decided to embrace this out-of-date way of organising musical theory is beyond me.  

Anyway, there are ways to create "modal" music but they are not as common as some people would have you think.  

Argus - If you know the main scales all over the fretboard, there's no real point in applying modal labels to them. The advantage of learning modes for me was getting to know the fretboard. Once you've got a handle on that you can throw all of the labels out the window, and let your ears guide your playing. When it comes down to it, who really cares what mode you're using? The important thing is that it sounds good. You may naturally use the Dorian mode when writing and playing. You may jump into the Lydian mode from time to time because you think it sounds good. Being able to analyse what you're playing won't make it sound any better.

As for the D power-chord - I guess it depends on the situation. My point wasn't that you should always play the D chord at the zero position. My point was that it's better to be able to play the D chord at several positions on the fretboard, rather than only being able to play it in one spot. Once you throw in all of the possible inversions of the 'D' triad, using any combination of strings, there's a huge number of ways to play a D chord. The more you know, the more efficiently you'll be able to play any song you want to play. You'll also have a wider palette of sounds, because every D chord sounds different.

And don't Jazz guitarists talk about modes? I'm not saying they all do it, but lots of them do...

I think this analogy says a lot:  

After 15 years of playing I started guitar lessons last week.  My teacher gave me a handout with about 50 different right hand fingerpicking patterns and he gave me an exercise to learn that consisted of about 30 different chords (i.e. A+, CMaj7(b5), and stuff like that).  I thought "I don't want to learn this jazzy #$#@%."  But I went home and worked on them for about 15-30 minutes a night.  Now I know several new picking patterns and about 30 new chords.  I know them cold.  So now if I am drinking some Jim Beam and jamming some blues with the boys, I'll occasionally throw in an "unusual" chord.  The moral of this story is that it take a little effort to learn new things, but once you do you will always have them.  You will never know how useful something will be until you learn it and then try to apply it.

blutic1:  I understand your analogy and I agree if what you're saying that there are lots of complex and rare things that it is good to learn, even if you don't use them every day.

Where I disagree is about modes.  IMNSHO, modes do not enlighten, they obscure.  What is basically a dead simple and logical system for organising and naming notes, chords and intervals becomes needlessly obfuscated and complicated by the addition of the pseudo-Greek names with no compensating benefit at all.  

Somebody who adds modes to his knowledge of music theory (as I have) adds nothing.  He just adds words (lots and lots of new words) but derives no benefit.  There is nothing he can do now that he could not do before (and probably better because his mind was clear, not muddied up by irrelevancies.

Modes are like learning seven new names for each letter of the alphabet and expecting to be a better writer.  

Learn new chords, by all means, learn to recognise and play any interval, learn to think of, then play, any melody.  Learn to convey a mood in notes.

Modes, forget about them.  They are so unnecessary, it's not funny.