Modes, Scales and Russian and German Gals

Modes and scales

A few days ago I had a couple of side conversations about guitar solos and how to do them. One was a German language teacher girl who also plays piano and the other was a Russian lieutenant, also a girl, with whom I became friends when she was here in Mexico invited by the government and I served as a "liaison" for the language (although by my Russian language level it was the same as if they had called Masha and The Bear or Mickey Mouse, hahaha). But, well, the thing is that I became friends with the lieutenant partly because... that's how I am (Hahaha) and partly because she also plays piano and guitar.

Both have bought my album, Rooted Time, and the German one asked me if I used any other scales apart from the well-known pentatonic scale and the Russian lieutenant asked me almost the same thing but she focused on harmonization based on the modes and their starting point.

I noticed that one of them, the German gal, confused scales with modes because she mentioned two songs in particular: "Spoiling Myself" and "Behind The Storm" in which I didn't use pentatonic scales (five notes) but diatonic ones (seven notes -Dorian Mode in the first one and Harmonic Minor in the other-) and I explained to her the same thing as I did to the lieutenant: Scales and Modes are two different things.

In colloquial terms, many guitarists like to name scales and call them "Exotic", "Arabic", "Hungarian" and weird names like that but in reality they are simply diatonic scales altered according to the way musical cultures use them in different countries. But in reality there are only two types of scales: diatonic and pentatonic.  The modes are the ones that change and there are seven of them: Ionian mode, Dorian mode, Phrygian mode, Lydian mode, Mixolydian mode, Aeolian mode and Locrian mode.

The other "Scales" that many publish to make courses and publish videos on YouTube, are actually fashions created by commercial guitarists who decided to call themselves "Masters" so they can sell their courses. In any case, the harmonic principles of a musical piece are determined by the type of piece and the construction of chords and sequences that indicate the alteration at the beginning of a score.

It is funny that they want to create a world of scales on something as basic as two scales and seven modes. But that's how business works. Right?.

Messy Blues