Originally Posted by: axe2i know you have all this down,but its pretty cool for ppl who are just learnin mods scales ect.

Oh, I don't have this all down yet by any means! :) I recently got a book called "Modes for Guitar" by Tom Kolb (you can check it out on Amazon by clicking here ). Its pretty much exactly what you describe... included is a CD that has all the audio examples of what he shows in the book, played at both half and full speed. It also includes a play-along backing track for every mode. Really a great resource.

One tool I've found helpful for learning modes is simply knowing the 7 three-note-per-string patterns. Each pattern represents a mode, so when you know the seven patterns, you can use them to instantly figure out a mode. Want to hear what G Lydian sounds like over a backing track? Just play pattern 4 with root note of G, and you're off to the races.

Eventually, the goal is to see each mode you're playing across the entire fretboard without having to "extrapolate" by thinking of it as another scale... for instance, instead of thinking "A Dorian is just like G major...", just be able to look at an A note, and see the Dorian scale around it. That takes time. Jamming to backing tracks helps tons. I think one misconception with modes is that they are these magical "plug-n-play" devices... they're not. The backing track is everything. If the chords you're trying to solo over are not compatible with the mode, its probably not going to sound the way you want. You can write chord progressions that are tailor made for a specific mode, which is exactly what the pros do. It is fun at times to see how far you can push different modes over a chord progression or bass line. The less defined the chords or bass line, the easier it will be to fit different modes over it, but it also lessens the impact of the overall sound... kind of a trade off. Fun to experiment with though!