Major or Minor?

Part of my confusion was caused by tutorials that always take C major as their starting point for discussing modes. Admittedly, it’s easier to talk about intervals and scale degrees without having to deal with sharps and flats, but C major is, well, kind of bland and boring. It’s not particularly guitar friendly either. Why waste time messing about with happy major tonalities (GHAY!) when you can cut straight to the dark and evil sounding stuff? That’s why the discussion below starts with E natural minor(or E Aeolian in modal terms). Of course, Nigel Tufnel has conclusively demonstrated, D minor is the saddest of all keys. But E minor is definitely the most metal. It sure doesn’t hurt that it’s (arguably) the most guitar-friendly as well, at least in standard tuning.

Modal tonalities vs. scale positions

Here is the key (snort!): if you play, say, a C Lydian “pattern” over a backing that has a pronounced E minor flavor, it’s still not going to sound like the Lydian mode. For instance, if you start your melodic line on the 8th fret (C) and play the Lydian “pattern” over an E minor chord, it will still sound like plain old E minor (Aeolian)!

Herein lies the confusion — understanding the difference between static scale positions on the neck and the sound of true modality. Modes have distinct tonal flavors as a result of the intervals that they are made up of in relation to their tonic note and the tonic of the backing. If you’ve graduated from Metal Guitar 101 you can play E-minor scale patterns in positions all over the neck. Play them against an E-minor backing, and they will all sound like the Aeolian mode (E minor). To achieve various modal flavors using those same scale patterns, you need to change the tonic flavor of the backing to establish the modal mood you are after. The difference is far more difficult to explain than it is to hear. If your are confused, play around with the demo and listen to the different moods…that should clear things up.

About the demonstration

You need Flash Player 6 or higher to view the demo. If you haven’t done it already, then click here to open it in a new window.

The example begins with a diagram of the notes from the E (natural) minor scale (E Aeolian) from the open position to the 12th position. (Please note that the actual sound samples are in E flat minor because I tune my guitar down one half-step.) If you click on the mode names, you will see the different modes shown in a 3-note-per-string pattern covering all 6 strings. They are superimposed on the extended pattern (olive green) for reference. The root note of each mode is highlighted in turquoise.

You’ll can listen to two sound samples for each mode. Each sample features the same guitar part, but one is played over the “modal” backing note, and the other over an E. This lets you hear the same melody taking on different modal flavors due to the harmonic context within which it appears. The take-home point is that modes are context-dependent moods or flavors, not static scale positions!

Although the visual demo highlights only one 6-string pattern per mode, the patterns can actually be extended up and down the neck when you play. In fact, in the sound samples I don’t stick to the illustrated patterns, but extend the melodies up and down the neck. I’ve not included any sound samples for the Aeolian positions, because the other modes’ samples over E backing all sound Aeolian anyway!

I hope this will help you understand modes a little better. If none of this makes sense to you, just try to remember that modes are a sound, not a scale position. That’s really what it’s all about in a nutshell.

Note: This post originally appeared years ago on my static website at lorilinstruth.com. I never bothered to move it over to my blog, probably because I didn’t think the sound samples were clear enough and I couldn’t be bothered to re-do them and reauthor the Flash. Thanks to Alan and other readers who have written to ask about it, giving me a reason to dust off the cobwebs and upload the old demo to my new site. The perfectionist in me hates the sound of the old samples, but WTF. Sorry it took so long for me to pull my thumb out and get around to it!

Many years later, when my guitar passion had mysteriously faded away (probably disillusionment, but that’s a topic for a separate post), bicycling took over. I was completely in love with the idea of bicycles and bicycle touring. I rode my bike EVERYWHERE, rain or shine. (I lived in Sweden at the time, so it was mostly rain, very little shine.) I ended up riding solo from southern Sweden to northern Norway and back, camping in my tent along the way. I did that two summers in a row, on a bike whose wheels I had built myself. I’ve always liked cycling, but it was reading Josie Dew’s first book that turned it into a passion. My lifestyle doesn’t permit me to indulge my bike touring passion anymore, but to this day I have a hard time throwing away plastic bags (a touring cyclist’s BEST FRIEND) and my heart jumps a little when I see touring cyclists on the road.

In the 46 years I’ve been on this planet, interests have come and gone, which is what I meant the self-indulgent babbling above to illustrate. What I REALLY want to talk about is my latest obsession. It’s dogs. Lately I’m all about dogs. Seriously. Dogs and dog training are pretty much all I can think about. Why dogs? I’m not really sure. I’ve always liked dogs (and most animals) but not like THIS.

To back up a bit, I spent the better part of this past autumn in yet another bout of depression. I won’t overshare with the gory details, all you need to know is that one of the fun things that come along with depression is something called anhedonia: basically, even the things you normally enjoy give you no pleasure. Nothing is interesting, nothing is fun.

Through the years I’ve learned that one sure sign that a depressive episode is passing is that when I least expect it, something becomes INTERESTING again. There is nothing like an all-consuming new interest to get your thoughts off yourself (and everything that is WRONG with you) and onto something else.

This time, it was the video below that did it.

And it wasn’t just that it’s the cutest thing ever…I was immediately struck by the amount of time and effort that must have gone into training Jesse to perform all of those behaviors, and how willingly he seemed to approach his tasks. This couldn’t be a dog being trained with choke chains and the other aversive methods I remember reading about back in the 1980s.

Reading the information on Jesse’s Youtube channel introduced me to the idea of training based on “positive reinforcement.” Before I knew it I was ravenous to learn more about it. That led me to two amazing Youtube channels run by positive-based dog trainers who freely share their knowledge with the public via their videos. I don’t often get girl-crushes, but I’m totally SMITTEN If you have a dog and are interested in positive methods, trust me: you want to get to know the women I’m about to show you below.

Here is my favorite clip of dog trainer Emily Larlham (known as kikopup on Youtube) having fun with her border collie Splash:

Emily had hundreds of instructional videos on her channel, covering everything from tricks to basic doggy manners to “how to’s” for solving common behavior problems using positive methods. Here’s a particularly useful one in which she demonstrates how to use positive methods to encourage dogs learn loose leash walking:

As it turns out, Emily is friends with another trainer in her area – Pamela Johnson, who goes by Pamelamarxsen on Youtube. Like Emily, Pamela also has hundreds of instructional videos on her channel demonstrating positive-based training solutions to common dog behavior problems, as well as tutorials about how to teach agility, tricks, frisbee, and other fun things you can do with your dog. The video below, which covers teaching your dog how to be calm and quiet when the doorbell rings instead of going crazy and barking its head off, is a stand out:

To sum up, I have to thank whomever originally sent my partner the video of “useful dog tricks.” It was my partner who showed it to me and (unintentionally) sparked this new interest. It’s been many years since I had an interest that did not involve needing to spend hours on end in solitary practice (like guitar) or involved staring at glowing rectangles. I don’t have a dog of my own (yet, haha!) but have realized that co-operative interaction with other living creatures, out in the fresh air, can only be a good thing! Additionally, seeing how Emily and Pamela generously make use of their Youtube channels to educate others was inspiring. I hope they can inspire you as well

[Edit: Other awesome trainers who share their knowledge: Katie Buvala of 3LostDogs.com, she’s 3LostDogs in Youtube — she’s awesome! Another one I’ve found notable is the guy from Trainingpositive.com, who goes by Tab289 on Youtube (I couldn’t find his real name anywhere). These are just a few — I’m discovering new ones every day!

I’ve trained at home for the past few months (for reasons that deserve their own post), but not by choice: the best place to strength train is at a properly equipped gym. However, when you are a woman training at a commercial gym full of typical man-type creatures, you need to have laser focus on why you’re there and what you’re doing. Otherwise the desire to pour hot lead in your eyes to avoid seeing the man things loudly engaging in UTTER STUPIDITY can be an unwelcome distraction from your own workout.

The video below makes my Best Of list for this year because a perfect illustration of what I’ve observed so many times in the gym. Watch and RELISH Christine’s hundred-percent unbridled girl power OWNAGE. Note: Both she and the guy are squatting THE SAME WEIGHT:

It wouldn’t surprise me if the group of man creatures subsequently came over to the squat rack and asked Christine if they could work in with her for a few sets of lame-ass biceps curls. At least they didn’t come over to OFFER HER UNSOLICITED ADVICE (another topic worth its own entire post) and tell her that she’s going to HURT HER KNEES if she keeps squatting like that.

Yes, I’m totally generalizing. Not all men in the gym are hapless fucktards who are there to “really blast those bis and tris” and flex in the mirrors. But my empirical experience gathered from training in gyms around the world suggests that the average woman — once she’s had some qualified guidance and realized that getting off the elliptical and into the squat rack is where the magic happens — tends to work out much smarter and with vastly better form than the average guy.

It’s New Year’s resolution time and I’m aware that many people’s resolutions involve vowing to get more exercise. So for any female readers out there with fitness-related resolutions — whether you’re starting from square one or are already exercising but want to venture away from the cardio equipment and into the weight room — Christine’s site is a nice place to start. She also plays guitar and likes metal — what a shame we’re not neighbors!

This video is about a year old, but as of today it’s had fewer than 10 000 views (It SO deserves more), thus I’m betting that many readers here haven’t seen it yet. It’s not safe for work, though, so unless you have a cool boss (i.e., one who understands the difference between using profanity because you’re too lazy to think up a better word and using it you think it’s the best way to make your point) you’d better wait until you get home:

When times have gotten hard over the past year, when I’ve been faced with scary or odious tasks that — even though I TOTALLY don’t feel like it — still have to be done, I think of Colleen’s boulder song and it helps me. Seriously. Then I just set my timer for a 10-20 minute “get started” interval and hop to it, rather than expending valuable mental energy worrying endlessly about how the heck I’m EVER going to manage. I have a permanent entry on my Astrid to-do list, just to remind me if I forget.

The boulder is always on my to-do list

The Boulder song was my gateway into Colleen’s world. Her newsletter and RSS feed are two of the few things that have survived the Great Media Cleanout of 2010. Two strategies I’ve learned from her have been part of my regular self-motivational repertoire over the past few months:

Annual goals daily

Colleen’s not-so-stupid Stupid Reading Hack

Now that I “get” the concept of just pushing the confounded boulder, one of the most important questions I’ve been trying to answer for myself recently is this: out of the universe of possible boulders, which ones are ACTUALLY WORTH PUSHING? Admittedly, I don’t really find the concept of “New Year’s Resolutions” particularly useful. But even so, at this time of year it feels natural to review and assess the past year, and look forward to the year to come.

In the next “best of” post I’ll be presenting one of my totally-not-guitar-related boulders for 2011.

I started writing on the web about my passion for guitar 2003, and moved from a static website to this blog in 2006. In 2007 I went through a major depressive episode (or burnout or nervous breakdown or whatever you want to call it). Bouts of depression have dogged me pretty much as long as I can remember, but the Great Darkness of 2007 was worse than anything I could imagine. It was truly life-changing. I won’t bore you with the details: the important thing is that I got better.

Even so, three years later it is finally sinking in that I crawled out from the darkness a very different person. Some things have changed for the better, some for the worse. Some things are either better or worse depending on how you look at it.

One of the things that changed is that playing guitar no longer gives me pleasure. I’ve fought against this fact for three years and it’s brought me nothing but stress and guilt — I KNOW what I should be doing to “rekindle the flame.” But I don’t WANT to do it. And because I can count the times I’ve played guitar this year on one hand (with fingers left over) I no longer identify as a “guitarist.”

How can you write on a “guitar blog” when you no longer consider myself a “guitarist?”

The truth is, I can’t. And I won’t. And that’s the real reason I’ve not written more the past couple of years.

Fortunately there are still plenty of things that interest me, and plenty of things I want to write about and share. But because of the guitar focus of my blog, I’ve not felt “entitled” to write about them here. I’m sure most would agree that it’s a crappy situation when someone feels that they can’t be themselves on their own f’n blog! So I’ll be reworking this one as a personal blog, and it will no longer be guitar centered.

I still HAVE my guitars, and who knows, I may become passionate about guitar again one day and write about it again. My last “guitar sabbatical” was 10 years long, and when I started playing again a few years ago I was keener than I’d ever been before. But until that happens, I’ll be focusing on other things.

So go on then, unsubscribe. I will understand, really!

What is the Astrid Mascot, anyway?

But one thing is totally bugging me: WHAT THE HECK IS THE ASTRID MASCOT SUPPOSED TO BE?

Yes, I typed that in all caps because the question is SCREAMING in my head.

Is she a little octopus? A melted eraser? A character from Gumby who ended up on the cutting room floor?

I suppose life is pretty cushy when it’s questions like these that are your main source of anxiety.

EDIT: I audaciously tweeted the folks who created Astrid and they got back to me with the definitive answer: Astrid is a SQUID: “Astrid is an adorable little squid. We thought with all those tentacles Astrid would have some major multi-tasking skills!”

Whew! Mystery solved! And kudos to the folks at Todoroo for taking the time to answer even silly questions like mine!

The Sanyo Pedal Juice

HOWEVER, the Sanyo Pedal Juice looked like a quality product that would actually help me solve a real-life problem I was having, so I agreed to have Sanyo’s kind representative send me a unit to evaluate. Here is the info that piqued my interest (bold text my emphasis):

One Pedal Juice battery can provide up to 50 hours of continuous, stable power for a single analog pedal or up to 20 hours of continuous power to three digital pedals. Because the eneloop 9V rechargeable lithium-ion battery eliminates the need for AC power, the output voltage is more stable for longer periods of time without the possibility of AC ground looping noise. The battery can be recharged hundreds of times, thereby eliminating the waste and inconvenience of disposable 9V alkaline batteries. With two DC outputs, Pedal Juice can power multiple devices including pedals, multi-effect units, and portable recorders. Pedal Juice provides portable battery power to a single pedal or can be used to power several pedals at the same time.

So what is this problem I’ve been having? Well, space is at a premium in my practice room because it doubles (quadruples?) as my business office, my computer room, and the headquarters/packing station for the ArjenLucassen.com official store. It’s a pain to keep in any kind of order, particularly when things get busy — like during an album release cycle. So anything that can help me keep my work and practice area tidy is good in my book! As you can see below, I was in dire need of help in that department:

Ugh - Mess!

For me the main appeal of the Pedal Juice was that it might help clean up the demotivating MESS of cables in my practice space by eliminating 2 unwieldy AC adaptors. The Pedal Juice did not disappoint — behold the new pristine tidiness:

Order is restored

The Pedal Juice can be charged hundreds of times (it takes about 3.5 hours for a full charge) and colored LEDs tell you the charging status. It automatically stops charging when the battery is full, so you can just plug it in to charge and then forget about it. With other “non intelligent” chargers I would have to set a timer to remind me to unplug the charger once the charge cycle was complete (lest much badness ensue). I’m happy for any chance to reduce the things I have to remember to do, or that I have to program my phone to remind me not to forget to do. Seriously.

When you’re using the Pedal Juice, its 3-stage LEDs tell you how much power you’ve got left to play with: green at 60 percent power remaining, yellow between 30 and 60 percent, and red at under 30 percent. (I think you clever readers can figure out what happens at 0 percent power remaining.)

The Pedal Juice has an on-off switch — if you just switch it off when you’re done playing, you don’t need to unplug your effects like you do when you use normal 9-volt batteries. This may seem like an inconsequential feature, but when you’re in a massive creative slump (like I have been since 2007) you’re thankful for every little thing that reduces the hassle factor by even a nanosecond.

Another useful feature is that the power level of the Pedal Juice remains consistent at all charge levels. So you never need to throw away batteries that still have life in them because you don’t want them to run out midway through an important playing event. And if you’re one of those tone junkies who think you can hear the difference between a fresh 9-volt battery and a not-so-fresh one, then the Pedal Juice removes at least one source of “tone anxiety.” You can then go back to worrying about how much the solar flares and current barometric pressure are messing with your tone.

The unit is also shockproof and water/coffee/beer/blood-proof, which is a bonus if you’re playing in the kind of environments where your pedals might encounter water, coffee, beer, or blood (the first two are all that apply in my case). It’s got a solid, robust construction that feels decidedly sexy (in a gadgety kind of way, if you’re into that kind of thing). All in all, the Pedal Juice is a well-made piece of gear that does an excellent job at what it’s designed for. At first glance it may seem rather pricey, but if the features appeal to you I would not hesitate to say that it’s money well spent.

Disclosure: I was sent a Pedal Juice free of charge for the purpose of review. However, had I not liked the Pedal Juice and found it useful, I wouldn’t be writing about it.

Go here to read the rules and find out more.

Carl Begai gets me talking about Guilt Machine, my lack of tabbing skill, and why my elementary school teachers were right when they marked “works well with others” as one of the skills that “needs improvement.”

ShredThisWay.com 20 questions about guitars, guitar playing, and my infamous distaste for jazz

Gearwire.com interview about my Luna Andromeda

Gearwire.com interview about my Vigier Excalibur

The Gymboss 2009 dual timer is my most recent source of consumer joy. It’s designed for use in the gym (duh), to help you keep track of intervals, rest periods, metabolic circuits, or whatever special timing your workout involves. But the dual timer function is also useful for reminding you to do other repetitive tasks. Even with the best of intentions, it can be tough to remember to do certain things regularly throughout the day. Here are some off-the-top-of-my-head examples:

Avoiding desk fatigue with scheduled mini breaks (this is a big one for me):
Timer 1: 45 minutes (work time)
Timer 2: 2-5 minutes (get up, stretch, rehab exercises)
Repeats: 2-3 (then take a proper break)

Tracking billable freelance hours:
Timer 1: 15 minutes (time spent doing billable work)
Timer 2: 15-30 seconds (short break to note down billable period on time sheet)
Repeats: 3-4 (then take a proper break before you get back to your billable work)

Guitar Practice:
Timer 1: 2 minutes (practicing a particular exercise)
Timer 2: 60 seconds (rest, stretch, setup next exercise).
Repeats: Say, 10 for a 30-minute practice session.

Kicking procrastination’s ass a la Merlin Mann’s 10+2*5 method
Timer 1: 10 minutes (doing productive work)
Timer 2: 2 minutes (dicking around as a reward for doing productive work)
Repeats: 5. Congratulations, you’ve just worked a productive 50 minutes!

The Gymboss is easy to learn to use, and offers the following useful options:

- 1 or 2 timers
- Manual or automatic repeats (either infinite or a set number of repeats)
- Alarms: High beep, Low beep, Vibrate, High beep + Vibrate, Low beep + vibrate

I bought my Gymboss solely for use in the gym a couple of months ago, and by now I don’t know how I ever managed without it. What I didn’t expect is that this clever little timer would make it so satisfying (in a geeky kind of way) to program my “intervals” for other everyday activities. When something is more fun and satisfying as opposed to just “good for you,” you’re more likely to actually do it.
And in case you’re wondering, yes, it comes in PINK.

Gymboss on Amazon (aff link)