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At this point I want to quickly go over inversions and drop 2 chord voicings. Inversions are triads, or seventh chords where the or 1st note of a chord is anything but the root. In other words, you would move the root to the end of the chord, and now the third is the 1st note thus:

3-5-7-1 or F#-A-C#-D would be your first inversion

a second inversion would be when you move the root and the third to the end which would give you

5-7-1-3 or A-C#-D-F#

and last but not least your third inversion would be

7-1-3-5 or C#-D-F#-A with the seventh at the bottom and the rest moved to the back.

Next we have to be able to make these chords playable on the guitar, and to do so we use a drop 2 chord voicing. This means that you take whatever note comes second in the chord and move it to the end, thus:

Dmaj7 1-5-7-3 or D-A-C#-F#

1st inversion drop 2 chord voicing 3-7-1-5 or F#-C#-D-A

2nd inversion drop 2 chord voicing 5-1-3-7 A-D-F#-C#

and 3rd inversion drop 2 chord voicing 7-3-5-1 C#-F#-A-D

Now it is acceptable to add notes up to a 13th, these additions are called extensions and they really help to dress up a chord.

So before we had

D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8

Now we've added what are called compound intervals to our scale, which we can use as extensions, and gives us:

D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G-A-B

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13

Lets add a 12th to our Dmaj7 inverted:

You would play something like

D-A-C#-F#-A
1-5-7-3-12

Which could be some thing like:

-----5-----
-----7-----
-----6-----
-----7-----
-----5-----
-----x-----

Last I want to cover what a power chord is. Power chords are made up of a root, a fifth and an octave. They are stripped of all the notes that define diminished, major and minor intervals, which leaves only the dominant. Hence the name "Power" chord.

They are structured as follows:

1-5-8 or D-A-D

Every now and then you would add in a third (technically a tenth) at the very top, this is an example of another drop 2 chord voicing or extension. It looks like this:

1-5-8-3 or D-A-D-F#

It would tab out to be either of these:

-----x----- -----x-----
-----x----- -----7-----
-----7----- -----7-----
-----7----- -----7-----
-----5----- -----5-----
-----x----- -----x-----

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A mode is a diatonic scale with seven notes, where one of the notes acts as a starting point. Major and minor scales are some simple examples of modes.

Why are modes so important?

Every mode has a specific sound quality that is related to an emotion, some are sad, some are happy. When soloing or composing, you are going to want to express yourself emotionally and modes are a great way to do so.

7 Greek modes

In western music, there are seven modes. These were named by the greeks and are used by almost every composer, and songwriter today. Each of these modes are scales derived from the major scale, they use all the same notes as in the scale, and each of the seven notes of the scale marks a starting point of a different mode. Here are the names of each mode and the notes they begin with.

Ionian mode (the major scale) Happy

Dorian mode (starts on D) Sad

Phrygian mode (starts on E) Mysterious

Lydian mode (starts on F) Happy

Mixolydian mode (Starts on G) Happy

Aeolian Mode (Starts on A, is also the minor equivalent to C major) Sad

Locrian mode (Starts on B, leading tone, used to build tension) Tense

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