hmm I thought I kinda knew what modes were supposed to be about but both of you kinda confused me in this thread. I always thought the best way to learn new modes was to take a major(ionian) scale for example the G ionian scale and then the A dorian. This way if you learned this everywhere on the neck and in all the other modes you would know all the notes in that key. If like you said (noticingthemistake) you learned the G ionian then G dorian,G mixo etc etc etc... if you used this in a song wouldn't you be playing out of key?? I'm kind of a beginner but I'd think the best way to get out of a box is to learn to "continue" that pattern on another place on the neck then you'd learn all the notes that are in the key on the fretoboard and would have no limits really. Am I totally off track here or what?