Author name: Sion

I thought it was worth blogging my answer to this question asked on ‘Customer Questions & Answers’ on my Amazon product page:

Question: How is this different from a chord wheel?

The short answer:

Think of The Mode Decoder as a chord book and solo guide all rolled into one – with extras!

For all diatonic keys and their modes (all 84), the Mode Decoder shows visually:

1. The main major and minor chords plus the half diminished chord
2. Additional chord variations (with ‘easy bar chord’ diagrams on reverse.)
3. Chords are in sequence I ii iii IV V vii viii
4. Solo with the minor pentatonic and minor scale in any key/mode
5. Focus on modal character / target notes both for chords and solo
6. Transpose keys easily or transpose a song between modes – make a sad song happy!

The long answer:

There’s so much more to the Mode Decoder than a regular chord wheel. Because it is a visual system, you don’t need to learn any theory or do any working out to be able to see which chords go together and you don’t need to learn all the modal scales either – just use the regular minor pentatonic scale (and optionally the full minor scale) for all keys and modes.

Chords

The Mode Decoder will show you not only what chords are major and minor (and half diminished), but also a handful of variations for each . For example, as well as C major, you can see that Cmaj7; C6; Csus2; Csus4 and a C5th powerchord are all playable in the Key of C major (there are simple bar chord diagrams for all these chords on the back page). Simply use one of these alternative chords in place of the main chord to instantly sound more jazzy or to add colour and light and shade to your playing and composing. Additionally, these chords are colour coded so you can see instantly which ones go best with each mode you are in e.g. if playing or composing in Mixolydian, try choosing the chords marked with a blue dot first.

Soloing

On the inside, The Mode Decoder will show you which frets to start the minor pentatonic and minor scale pattern so that all the notes are within your chosen key or mode. There are 3 places the minor pentatonic scale will fit and a further possible 3 past the 12th fret for all diatonic keys and modes of these keys (That’s 84 scales). So you can easily solo up and down the guitar neck in up to 6 places in any key or mode using only the minor pentatonic (and optionally, the minor scale).

Transposing:

Unlike a normal chord wheel which is usually based on the circle of fifths diagram, The Mode Decoder is set out in a logical sequence from I ii iii IV V vii viii . This makes transposing easy by just counting. If you have a song in C major with the structure I IV V (C F G), you will see C in the first window, F in the fourth window and G in the fifth window. To transpose this from a major (aka Ionian) progression to be a C Dorian progression for example, just turn the Mode Decoder so ‘C’ is in the Dorian window and then count 1,4,5 to reveal the new chord progression (cm F gm). Great fun for changing the sound of well known songs! You can also easily transpose songs in the traditional way eg to transpose the above to F, just put ‘F’ in the window that C was in (The Ionian) and count 1,4,5 again (F Bb C). Because it is sequenced in a line from 1-7, this also works very well with Nashville Numbers.

Background

I created the Mode Decoder for myself and out of necessity because I didn’t and still don’t have much time to play. I was frustrated that all that time was mostly taken up trying to learn a particular song or scale. Then, once I had learned something, I had to remember it and by then I probably felt like learning something else! My skill level was and is quite low – I can play a handful of chord shapes, cowboy style and bar chord style plus the minor pentatonic scale. Because my job is being a graphic designer, I had the skills to design this product and get it printed and constructed – so that’s what I did 3 years ago. Since then I have been selling on Amazon and taking it to guitar shows around the UK. The response has been fantastic and many have fed back to me with feedback such as “It was a game-changer for me’ and “A light went on and I could suddenly play along to any track”

The Mode Decoder is a compact, but a very powerful way to ‘see’ music and is useful as an aid for writing and analysing songs and for enabling you be able to to solo to most songs without hours of learning scales or music theory! Eventually, you won’t need to even find the key – just find where the pattern fits! Its a must-have because it remains useful whatever skill level you achieve.

I have to admit – I’m not very good at playing my guitar. However I do enjoy playing immensely and so after many attempts at following systems and tutorials have created my own system which allows me essentially to turn on the radio and play along with whatever is playing. Watch how I apply it to Albatross by Fleetwood Mac. Hopefully it will help you to do the same!

This time I play along to ‘All the little lights’ and othet songs by Passenger, using a mixture of bar chords and solo notes. I explain how, no matter what the key, you can apply the same pattern to every song And play along quickly and easily. 

This is a record of how I explain the Mode Decoder at guitar shows. I asked a passing visitor to the Mojo Formby Guitar Show if he would kindly film me as I explained the Mode Decoder to him in exchange for a free one. I forgot to ask his name but thank you anyway to the kind stranger! Its a very good record of what I normally say to people at these shows.

See how quickly I can play along to random music tracks. You too can do this with The Mode Decoder and hardly any learning.

I thought it was worth blogging my answer to this question asked on ‘Customer Questions & Answers’ on my Amazon product page:

Question: How is this different from a chord wheel?

The short answer:

Think of The Mode Decoder as a chord book and solo guide all rolled into one – with extras!

For all diatonic keys and their modes (all 84), the Mode Decoder shows visually:

1. The main major and minor chords plus the half diminished chord
2. Additional chord variations (with ‘easy bar chord’ diagrams on reverse.)
3. Chords are in sequence I ii iii IV V vii viii
4. Solo with the minor pentatonic and minor scale in any key/mode
5. Focus on modal character / target notes both for chords and solo
6. Transpose keys easily or transpose a song between modes – make a sad song happy!

The long answer:

There’s so much more to the Mode Decoder than a regular chord wheel. Because it is a visual system, you don’t need to learn any theory or do any working out to be able to see which chords go together and you don’t need to learn all the modal scales either – just use the regular minor pentatonic scale (and optionally the full minor scale) for all keys and modes.

Chords

The Mode Decoder will show you not only what chords are major and minor (and half diminished), but also a handful of variations for each . For example, as well as C major, you can see that Cmaj7; C6; Csus2; Csus4 and a C5th powerchord are all playable in the Key of C major (there are simple bar chord diagrams for all these chords on the back page). Simply use one of these alternative chords in place of the main chord to instantly sound more jazzy or to add colour and light and shade to your playing and composing. Additionally, these chords are colour coded so you can see instantly which ones go best with each mode you are in e.g. if playing or composing in Mixolydian, try choosing the chords marked with a blue dot first.

Soloing

On the inside, The Mode Decoder will show you which frets to start the minor pentatonic and minor scale pattern so that all the notes are within your chosen key or mode. There are 3 places the minor pentatonic scale will fit and a further possible 3 past the 12th fret for all diatonic keys and modes of these keys (That’s 84 scales). So you can easily solo up and down the guitar neck in up to 6 places in any key or mode using only the minor pentatonic (and optionally, the minor scale).

Transposing:

Unlike a normal chord wheel which is usually based on the circle of fifths diagram, The Mode Decoder is set out in a logical sequence from I ii iii IV V vii viii . This makes transposing easy by just counting. If you have a song in C major with the structure I IV V (C F G), you will see C in the first window, F in the fourth window and G in the fifth window. To transpose this from a major (aka Ionian) progression to be a C Dorian progression for example, just turn the Mode Decoder so ‘C’ is in the Dorian window and then count 1,4,5 to reveal the new chord progression (cm F gm). Great fun for changing the sound of well known songs! You can also easily transpose songs in the traditional way eg to transpose the above to F, just put ‘F’ in the window that C was in (The Ionian) and count 1,4,5 again (F Bb C). Because it is sequenced in a line from 1-7, this also works very well with Nashville Numbers.

Background

I created the Mode Decoder for myself and out of necessity because I didn’t and still don’t have much time to play. I was frustrated that all that time was mostly taken up trying to learn a particular song or scale. Then, once I had learned something, I had to remember it and by then I probably felt like learning something else! My skill level was and is quite low – I can play a handful of chord shapes, cowboy style and bar chord style plus the minor pentatonic scale. Because my job is being a graphic designer, I had the skills to design this product and get it printed and constructed – so that’s what I did 3 years ago. Since then I have been selling on Amazon and taking it to guitar shows around the UK. The response has been fantastic and many have fed back to me with feedback such as “It was a game-changer for me’ and “A light went on and I could suddenly play along to any track”

The Mode Decoder is a compact, but a very powerful way to ‘see’ music and is useful as an aid for writing and analysing songs and for enabling you be able to to solo to most songs without hours of learning scales or music theory! Eventually, you won’t need to even find the key – just find where the pattern fits! Its a must-have because it remains useful whatever skill level you achieve.

Here, there and everywhere from the album ‘Revolver’ by The Beatles.

A showcase of the theory behind this beautiful Beatles song using The Mode Decoder in an easy to understand tutorial. Because once you see the structure, its easy to play!

It demonstrates the move between the two keys of G Major and g minor and also shows how chords may be ‘borrowed’ and a clever trick with a secondary dominant chord.

The intro chords are all in the key of G major except for the chord Bb major. I show how Paul McCartney mixes up the modes here by temporarily switching from G major to g minor to add in a Bb major. You can see how this works by simply moving the ‘G’ from the Ionian window to the Aeolian window. Bb major is ‘borrowed’ from the g minor key.

G  bm [ Bb ] am C7

Secondary dominant trick:
Moving completely into the g minor key for the bridge a very clever device is used by ending on a C7 chord. This is clever because it is part of the G major scale, in fact the dominant 7th chord wants to resolve to a G. The C7 is also a secondary dominant 7th chord for the g minor key too, so its an excellent common chord to pivot around.

This song also unusually used chords from eb=very one of the 7 notes of the G major scale including the much avoided m7b5!

I recently uploaded a cover of ‘The Chain’ by Fleetwood Mac, and Andrew made a very reasonable comment that it would be more useful for me to demonstrate how I used the Mode Decoder to do this.

It also allows me to show you how to pick out the melody (mainly from locations 2 and 3 on your guitar neck).

—————

The first step is to find out the key the song is written. You can do this in 3 ways

    Ask Google! Often you can find out the key a song is played in by Googling the name of the song + ‘key’. This works best for more famous songs.
    Find the chords used in the song from a guitar tab website and then turn the Mode Decoder until the chords match. If there are only a few chords, this could be more than one match, so you’ll need to test each one
    If you have been using the Mode Decoder for a while, you can probably find where the pattern fits in by ear.

The first part of the song I go through is the beginning picked chord. On the tabs I have seen, this looks like an unusual fingering and rather complicated picking, so I use the notes in location 3 to make a simpler version. All I’m doing is barring at the 7th fret and pressing the third string down, 2 frets further up. The notes then just fall into place – plus you can embellish them!

The second part shows how I pick up the melody (and how you can apply this technique to any song) in locations 2 and 3.

Thirdly I show how the ‘Formula 1’ phrase and famous, simple solo fit into location 1 and 3.

Great fun!

Here’s the original cover I’m responding to:

Do you know what is unusual about Bob Dylan’s song ‘Don’t think twice, its alright’? I analyze the chords and modes and show how the Mode Decoder can easily help you to expand your soloing ability. Knowledge is power! NB I’m using a James Tyler Variax set to Acoustic guitar.

The Chords of this song are

C G Am F

C G Am D

So the song is mostly in C major (C Ionian). The only problem is that D major is not part of the C Major scale – the correct chord is Dm. However all this does is place this part of the song into G majoe (G Ionian).

For soloing, this gives us an opportunity to expand our soloing by adding a note not available to the rest of he. We can see which note this is by changing the Mode Decoder from C major to G major and back again. From this we can see that the 5th fret and 12th fret are common – so we can solo with the minor pentatonic in both modes. However, using the 2 additional notes which, when added to the minor pentatonic, make the minor scale, we can see that because the 5th fret is firstly in location 1 and then in location 2, the position of these 2 notes change as the mode changes – ie when the D major is played.

Practically then we can see that this means that there is a new note available to play on the 5th string only when the D major is played.

Listen to the recorded version on Soundcloud below:

Here I run through how you can wrote songs in any Mode and Key without any musical theory knowledge – just reading off the chords which can be played together. I also show how to solo over the chord progression.

This example is in F# Aeolian.

This tutorial shows how The Mode Decoder helps me bypas modal theory  but be able to change the mode of ‘Praise You’ by Fatboy Slim from its original G Mixolydian mode to E Phrygian mode by carefully selecting from the palette of chords displayed.

Since the melody contains notes of the G Mixolydian scale (GABCDEF) by moving the root note emphasis away from G and onto E, the whole character of the song can be changed from a happy bluesy character to a Spanish / Egyptian sounding one!

Further to my earlier posting about the modulating modes of Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe, here is a re-working of the chord structure of the song. Its an interesting chord progression as the first half of the progression is in E Aeolian and the second half is in Fsharp Aeolian. They share a D Major chord which allows the progression to pivot around this chord.

Hey Joe chords are:

C G D A E

E aeolian part:

C G D

F sharp Aeolian part:

D A E

So to mess about with this, using The Mode Decoder ®, I have created a chord progression modulating between E Aeolian and B Aeolian (which pivots around the chord Bm instead – like this:

First 3 chords – E Aeolian

C G Bm

Last 3 chords – B Aeolian (which shares the Bm chord – and pivoting on it instead of the D as in the original)

Bm Fsharp min A

To solo to this, solo with our old friend ‘minor pentatonic position 1’ on frets 12, 5 and 7 (as you would for for E Aeolian) but end the phrase on a Db note!

Finished progression:

C G Bm Fsharp min A

Setting The Mode Decoder ® to E Aeolian:

Setting The Mode Decoder ® to B Aeolian:

Here is a re-working of the chord structure of Hey Joe, made famous by Jimi Hendrix. Its an interesting chord progression as the first half of the progression is in E Aeolian and the second half is in F# Aeolian. They share a D Major chord which allows the progression to pivot around this chord. At the end of the analysis is the studio version I use in the demo.

Hey Joe chords are:

C G D A E

E aeolian part:

C G D

F sharp Aeolian part:

D A E

So to mess about with this, using The Mode Decoder, I have created a chord progression modulating between E Aeolian and B Aeolian (which pivots around the chord Bm instead – like this:

First 3 chords – E Aeolian

C G Bm

Last 3 chords – B Aeolian (which shares the Bm chord – and pivoting on it instead of the D as in the original)

Bm F#min A

To solo to this, solo with our old friend ‘minor pentatonic position 1’ on frets 12, 5 and 7 (as you would for for E Aeolian) but end the phrase on a Db note!

Finished progression:

C G Bm F#min A

Stmpathy for the Devil is a fairly straightforward song using mainly 3 chords.

We start on E major, which is our root note.

This means that, as E is major, the song could be in either the Ionian, Lydian or Mixolydian mode.

The next 2 chords are D major and A major with a Bminor in one section. This makes the song Mixolydian.

The structure is:

I – VII – IV  with a V section

E – D – A             Bm

On the front of the Mode Decoder ® you can see a palette of 31 chords Mick Jagger could have used to write the song. Its good fun to use them to create your own sections – a middle 8 that never was!

We could use the mode Decoder to do this simply by picking different nimbers 1-7 e.g.

VI – II – I

Reading from the choices on the Mode Decode ®, these could be 

Csharp min7 – F sharp SUS4 – E

Though you could also have

Csharp SUS4 – Fsharp Min9 – E11

…and then back to the song.

To jam along to it look for the 3 neck locations on the Mode Decoder® – These are

Location 1 – F sharp – 2nd and 14th fret

Location 2 – B – 7th and 19th fret

Location 3 – C sharp – 9th and 21st fret (thought the 21st probably won’t be useable)

A recording from Sion and Colin’s Jam Night. We are doing Hey Joe as Col has just bought a beautiful 60th anniversary Fender Strat – which means playing a lot more Jimi Hendrix!

About Hey Joe’s modulating modes

Hey Joe is an Interesting composition as it doesn’t remain in one mode or key, instead it modulates between overlapping closely related modes during the repeated chord progression:

The first 3 chords C G D are VI VII III  in E minor while G D A are also VI VII III  but in B minor and D A E are also VI VII III but in Fsharp minor. These modes are closely related because they are a fifth apart and the progression goes from one to the other via common chords (first GD is common, then DA is common – the movement pivots around the D major chord which is common to all).

The progression happens so fast over the chord changes though, that its most sensible to just take E minor as the first half and Fsharp minor as the second part.  For soloing take the tonal centre to be E minor at the start – so here I’m soloing over this progression in minor pentatonic on frets 12, 5 & 7. As the modes are closely related, this works well over the second half too as almost all the notes are common – and you can easily use your ear to select the best and worst. However you can use the Mode Decoder to see that its also possible to solo minor pentatonic over the overlapping parts in F sharp minor when these are played. Practically, all this would mean moving up 2 frets during the second part of the progression. The frets to solo minor pentatonic for F sharp minor are 14(and 2), 7 and 9. This movement give you acces to the two notes which are not in the E Aeolian mode but are in the F sharp Aeolian scale – Ab and Db.

By moving up like this and looking at all the notes of the Aeolian scale we can see that the note on the 13th fret of the G string is now available -Ab (and also 16th fret on the Estring)[click here for a backing track]. Bending up to the Ab from the G on the top e string is also a good way to get to the Ab note (bend 15th fret E string up). The Db is nice to play just before the Ab ar the end of the phrase. Db is on the 14th fret of the b string. Note however how these notes sound terrible when played during the first 3 chords though – this is because during these chords we are back in E Aeoian.

The great thing about the Mode Decoder is that you don’t need to learn the names of the notes – just where they are in relation to the minor pentatonic shape! I had to look up the names of the notes Ab and Db on a fretboard guide for this explanation once I’d found them with the Mode Decoder!

Another interesting thing you can do to hear the modulation between modes is to play an E minor in place of the start chord C. Eminor is in the E Aeolian mode of course, and E major is in the A Aeolian mode, so moving from the last chord E major to the first chord E minor highlights the change – normally you couldn’t play amajor followed by a minor of the same root note.

In this recording I’m just playing E minor pentatonic though as we just launched into it!  I used the The Mode Decoder ® to work out the Ab and Db notes afterwards!

E Aeolian:

B Aeolian

Fsharp Aeolian

Well, the day started off with a slight hiccup as I thought we’d arrived without our wristband passes, despite having checked they were in the box many times! But they were found right at the bottom thankfully though.

Once up and running we were in a nice spot upostairs in Hall 4. Big thanks to Gail and Peter, the organisers, who made it very easy – binbags, electrical sockets and table with paper tablecloth included.

Noise levels were a lot better than in other shows – didn’t have to turn things up too much to demo but plenty of guitary background ambience. We were near the ‘cigar box’ guitar stands which can be loud but weren’t this time!

It was great to interact with all levels of guitarist at the show and find that the Decoder has something for everyone. This was my 4th show with the Mode Decoder and me and my jam buddy (and stand manner) Colin really enjoyed chatting about, and demoing the Mode Decoder to everyone we met. The response was overwhelmingly friendly and sales were very good as usual. Better than sales though was finding out that the word is slowly starting to get around.. Several people came by to let us know how useful they found it and we saw many new people and witnessed the ‘lightbulb’ moment during the demoing. The feedback was very brilliant again – very positive and encouraging.

Unlike previous shows, I think I have now relaxed quite a bit as the anxiousness that no one would ‘get’ or ‘like’ the Mode Decoder has well and truly vanished!

Comments were along the lines of

• “That’s a really clever way to show information”
• “I like it!”
• *heads nodding*
• *smiles*

I usually might ask if someone played guitar – which was probably a fairly safe bet since we were at a guitar show! But the answer was often ‘a bit’ or “I strum a little’ or ‘so-so’, which was good for me as being no great guitarist myself, I was able to show how it was possible for someone like me (and them) with little knowledge, to use the decoder to play along to pretty much any music.

Specific comments I remembered were:

A customer who hadn’t bought from me in Birmingham, but had spoken with me about it there but whose friend had bought one. They both came to the stand with a group of some friends and I was so pleased that having seen his friend write a song with his, now thought it was wonderful I smiled broadley as he said to the group “This guy is a genius!” and then explained the whole idea to them. Very satisfying indeed. I think its fair to say that many musicians have had this experience with the device and it is wonderful to think you can cut through the theory and still play great guitar!.

Another customer was an experienced guitar teacher who said that yes, he knew how to play the modes – no problem…then he paused and with a big smile said “But I’ve just got to have one!!”

By far the most suitable person to have one that sunday was Kevin, who was currently learning the modes with his guitar teacher and had been tasked to write a modal solo. He said that this woul help him to see how the modes worked and he was going to use it to write the solo … but not tell the teacher just yet and see if he could amaze him with his new ability!

Had some nice comments about my Fender Marauder too – still love it and am quite pleased that it has been discontinued!

Sadly as I arrived home I found we had to call out an emergency electrician and the days profits were wiped out!!

Never mind! – See you next show. 🙂

Sion.

Demonstrating the ability to transpose one song from one mode into another with The Mode Decoder®. The original song is in Db mixolydian and has been transposed to Db Aolian. Bit of a rough take, but you get the idea.

Normally this is a very complicated thing to do as chords and solo notes need to be worked out with traditional music theory – but its no sweat with The Mode Decoder® – just read off the chords and notes.

If you’re wondering, the change means that the penultimate note of the familiar refrain is down a half step from F to E and the Db chord is changed to a Db minor and the Fsharp changes to Fsharp minor – but you don’t need to work any of that out – the Mode De-coder will just make it obvious!

To play the original song, Slash simply detuned his guitar down a half step to Eb and played the familiar D, C and G chords.

As a side-note, The Mode Decoder® allows you to play along with songs recorded down a half step in Eb without having to detune your guitar.