That's easy.  Just read it anticlockwise!!     (I'm multilingual!)

What if you're just backwards?
Am is as Am does

Beepster
You have not changed keys, none of notes have changed... the only thing that has happened is you are moving the root note you are using. That's all modes are. Taking the Major scale and starting on a different note.

+1
Modes used to make my head spin .... I could never understand them and thought they were just another set of scales I had to learn.... UNTIL someone explained them the way you do above. That happened about 25 - 30 years ago and I still consider it the biggest hurdle I have ever crossed. All music made sense to me after I wrapped my head around that.

codamedia

Beepster
You have not changed keys, none of notes have changed... the only thing that has happened is you are moving the root note you are using. That's all modes are. Taking the Major scale and starting on a different note.

 All music made sense to me after I wrapped my head around that.

Even Zappa?

codamedia

Beepster
You have not changed keys, none of notes have changed... the only thing that has happened is you are moving the root note you are using. That's all modes are. Taking the Major scale and starting on a different note.

+1
Modes used to make my head spin .... I could never understand them and thought they were just another set of scales I had to learn.... UNTIL someone explained them the way you do above. That happened about 25 - 30 years ago and I still consider it the biggest hurdle I have ever crossed. All music made sense to me after I wrapped my head around that.

It was the Mountain Dulcimer that made me understand modes. Indeed the dulcimer is all about modes, I love tuning to Dorian mode, a dark and celtic sounding.

My break through with modes came after I watched this video

 

Just as bapu only plays in Am, I only improvise in Dorian mode. Blues scale - bah. That's for poseurs and jazz organists. If I don't get a cramp in my wrist by the end of the night, I've been slacking.

bitflipper
Just as bapu only plays in Am, I only improvise in Dorian mode. Blues scale - bah. That's for poseurs and jazz organists. If I don't get a cramp in my wrist by the end of the night, I've been slacking.

When I am using the "blues" scale I actually base it on Dorian more than Aeolian (nat minor). The major VI is useful bluesy color. Then I can occasionally flop over to Aeolian (minor VI) to twist things up a bit (more of a "Little Wing" feel). Dropping into mixolydian/mixo-blues to access the major III takes it into "happy" mode but remains bluesy.
 
Doing any of that breaks the key. So all those modes happen with the same root (eg: A Dorian, A Aeolian, A Mixo).
 
For metal I'll use that type of key bending action except with Aeolian, Phrygian, Locrian, Harmonic minor (I) and the dominant scale of Harm minor (V).
 

codamedia
 
+1
Modes used to make my head spin .... I could never understand them and thought they were just another set of scales I had to learn.... UNTIL someone explained them the way you do above. That happened about 25 - 30 years ago and I still consider it the biggest hurdle I have ever crossed. All music made sense to me after I wrapped my head around that.

Same here except I mapped it out myself on graph paper because I could see some kind of pattern emerging on the fretboard but it was incomplete. Pulled out the graph paper, mapped out what I knew then filled in the rest using my scale books as reference.
 
Once I saw it in it's entirety it sure was a serious forehead slapping moment... especially after 15 years of grunting it out the hard way. lulz...

Hi,
 
When I start playing regularly, I have to FIRST wrap my head around ... the COFFEE HOUSE ... c'mon, who else can make learning as easy as the kindergarten?
 
I still think it's a bit too mathematic for me ... but I'm OK with it.

I understand Am, but don't know much about theory. I just look for notes and chords that sound good together.