Chords and modality, please explain!

[u10ajf]

I've never understood how modes fit in with chord progressions. Am I right that short melodies usually stick within an octave and the lowest note and highest notes are octaves, define the root of the melody and set the mode? To play a chord progression in a particular mode do you have to invert some of the chords to keep the notes within the same octave? Just to clarify here's an example ,
not CEG, FAC, GBD (where the D from the G major is 1 tone too high to stay within the mode)
but CEG,FAC, DGB?
Please someone put me out of your misery!

[TheDirt]

Notes within a mode aren't limited to a certain octave. Take your C, F, G progression. The tonal center is C (as the G chord pulls toward the C and the progression would nicely end on the C chord). The appropriate mode is C Ionian (C, D, E, F, G, A, B). One way you can get this from taking the noets of each chord C, E, G, F, A, C, G, B, D. Now order them, eliminating doubles, starting on C, since that's the tonal center. C, D, E, F, G, A, B, that's C Ionian.

Now that you've got your mode, using it... Loop the C, F, G progression and play over it usnig the notes from C Ionian. You can use any C, D, E, F, G, A, or B on the fretboard, regardless of the octave its in. The essence of a mode lies within the harmony. As you can see, this boils down to simply playing in C Major over a C Major chord progression.

You're talking about inverting chords - that has to do with voice leading to get the most pleasing sound or easiest fingering for chords. For example, it sounds kind of weird to play a bar-8 C Major, then a bar-1 F Major, then a bar-15 G Major. It makes more sense to have the chords close to each other on the fretboard, such as open position C Major, bar-1 F Major, open position G Major. Notice that the C chord is in 1st inversion, since it has the 3rd of the chord (E) on top. This sounds good because the next melody note is an F in F Major, then it goes to the G in G Major. Small movements in the melody notes between chords are usually the most economic and also *usually* sound best.