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Comment by mattgreenrocks | Hacker News Reader

I need to memorize the shapes of seven modes on the guitar. (A mode is kind of like a scale.) The image here shows them starting from F: https://www.anyonecanplayguitar.co.uk/three-note-per-string-...

Is this a good fit for this technique? I'm not sure how to decompose it further than "G Dorian." I'm also not sure if the time would be better spent just playing them more.

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If a subject took psilocybin in between focused repetitions, do you think they would be effectively spaced?

Here you have F, G, A, B(flat), C , D, & E. The full alphabet in the key of F.

Each pattern actually goes up the entire neck but for teaching it looks like this site emphasizes the notes that are more common between these different modes.

You could look at it like a guideline to help you hit the right notes during improvisation or composition.

Alternatively it could be just as useful to avoid hitting the wrong notes.

Instead of having targets for the fingers, you could just as logically have patterns of notes to avoid.

Either way when you go up the entire neck you're covering a lot more ground.

One objective might be to develop the ear simultaneously with the conventional modes, so that eventually just hearing the key the tune is played in will instinctlively lead your hand to a favorable position to begin with, making it easier to go from there into whatever modes might be appropriate.

Hey, I spent some spare time noodling on a specialized tool for fretboard flashcards a few months back. I haven’t built decks for learning modes yet, but I’d be curious to hear what sort of format you’d find useful and I’m happy to give it a whirl. You can check it out at https://awhitty.me/fretcards/

I’d be really happy to hear any other feedback as well. So far I’ve implemented a crude per-session spaced repetition algorithm, but I’ve had a mind to build more decks, offline support, local-first spaced repetition, and some extra doodads.

I agree with other commenters - playing is the best way to get this stuff truly dialed in. Have fun with it, too! Drilling scales saps energy, imo. Best to eat a balanced diet.

Practice what you want to learn. If that's to use them while playing, develop muscle memory and practice with music.

Maybe you could use Anki to prompt different modes you could then practice over music though.

One could, but I think there are better ways that involve doing the thing. In other words, practice patterns on top of the modes (up 2 tones, down one, [repeat], etc.) Also, there are more simple ways to conceptualize these patterns that make them much easier to digest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGmj2kuHojQ

Having done this myself I recommend two things:

- 4 notes per string (there are fewer, bigger shapes to get into your head), helps you break out of the caged boxes

- thinking of the guitar as a pentatonic instrument and using that as your framework (notice how the open strings are a pentatonic scale). Check out the miles okazaki book, it's all about this

& Anki is a great tool. Good luck!

Definitely! You can use the image occlusion addon to hide parts of the images and try to recall it.

Edit:

Here is a link to the mentioned add on: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1374772155

Create screenshots of your seven shapes, then redact parts of it.

Play them more, your fingers need to learn the shapes not your brain.

You can use SRS to prompt the review, but do the actual "review" physically on the guitar. But yeah I think you need to build kinetic memory here, not just visual memory.

I can't learn guitar looking at fretboard diagrams like that. They completely confuse me. The only way I learn shapes like that is by repeatedly playing them.

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