The topic of music modes on the guitar has been a cause of panic to me as I was starting to explore about music theory and scales on guitar. Time flies fast, today I just noticed I have been playing for about 20 years. I gained some useful experience along the way.

Today I will share with you some personal perspective on this mode, The Dorian Mode.

Listen to the following backing track, it has a chord progression of two chords. Here is the most important rule whenever you play a solo, it don’t matter what key, what scale or what style you are playing. The golden rule is to always follow the chords.

With this backing track we can play two scales mainly. Minor pentatonic and Dorian mode.

We will see how closely related they are and how to switch between them along with the simple chords we have.

Start by looking on the root note E fret 7 on A string then start your improvisation normally using the minor pentatonic scale.

Lets focus on fret 7 we will play both scales on this position. Start with a simple phrase with the chord Em7 then when it changes to A7 mix your phrase with the note C# fret 6 on G string or fret 9 on the high E string as shown above.

One of the best ways to understand and feel the unique taste of each scale is to compare it to a similar scale.

Now lets recap in an applied example.

1- Feel the rhythm of this jam track (drum beat)

2- Play first 3 notes of the scale to get familiar

3- Hum a simple 2 or 3 note-phrase by mouth or in your head, make sure it plays well with the beat

4- Use techniques like slides – bends – vibrato to make your phrase sound more interesting.

You can express yourself EASILY along with all our backing tracks.

Dorian mode backing tracks On Spotify

Dorian mode backing tracks on Youtube

Root notes method

4 Steps To Unlock The Fretboard video.