About

THE TUTOR


Peter Koppes -

Founding guitarist formerly with the Australian international touring and recording prog/pop band The Church, renowned for their innovative guitar style as well as the alternative hit song ‘Under The Milky Way’.
He also taught Diploma Of Music at Australian colleges and guest lectured at Queensland University of Technology.
Websites: www.peterkoppes.com thechurchband.com

Photo credit: Malcolm Viles

THE COURSES

Traditionally there has been two approaches for guitarists to find Scales to create melodies for a musical piece:
- identifying the Key or Root Scale
- or identifying the Modes for each chord as for Jazz and Bass guitar
Both require extensive knowledge of Music Theory.

But the INTRODUCTORY LEVEL COURSE overcomes this by using:
- a simple ‘Box’ method (based on Modes)
- beginning with an easy Scale Shape of four Notes on the E and B strings only
- then one Note is added to each string on one of two frets inside the ‘Box’, to identify more of the complete Scale by ear, and the Mode of the musical piece
- just the first chord is needed to locate the Scale Position on the fretboard

And the Scale or Mode usually remains unchanged throughout a piece except for any ‘special’ Major chords or Key Changes requiring a slight modification.

The INTERMEDIATE LEVEL COURSE uses the G, B and E strings to complete a full octave of the basic Scales/Modes and the following ‘special’ Major chords:
- Secondary Dominant
- Borrowed
- Major V and Major III.

Includes revolutionary Scales for Diminished and Augmented chords, identified as Altered Modes with the seven Notes based on Stacked Thirds and No Consecutive Semitones.

The ADVANCED LEVEL COURSE extends all Scales and Modes across six strings plus many useful Blues/Jazz Scales including BeBop.
Featured also is the Altered Mode for the Dominant 7#9 ‘Hendrix’ Chord.

THE MODES

Modal theory is the course foundation and more easily explained using these exclusive illustrations as a metaphor.

THE HOUSE OF MODES ILLUSTRATION

This illustration of a House represents the seven chords in the Key of C Major with its relative A Minor and their seven Modes. These two Root chords are the Rooms on the ground floor.

But a piece of music can commence in any Chord Room of any House.

Modes are just scales starting on different Notes of a Major/Minor scale, and different Rooms in the House.

On guitar, a Mode is the easiest way to find the correct Notes rather than figuring out the Root Key scale.

  • There are three Major Mode chords, cheery sounding, on the sunny left side of the House.

  • There are three Minor Mode chords, somber sounding, on the cloudy right side.

  • The seventh Half Diminished chord is the rare and darker sounding Minor Flat 5th chord of the Attic.

Two of the Minor chord rooms have a light switch to artificially brighten the room to become a ‘special’ Major chord called a Major V or Major III chord, and represented by light rays outside window (as one Note in the Mode has changed from belonging in the House).
This can sometimes be the first chord in modern music which can even begin from a room in another House.

Diminished chords are represented by the Storm Cellar alongside the House due to some Notes that do not belong in the House.

Augmented chords are represented by the Fire Ladder on the front of the House for the same reason.

The extra Notes in Blues/Jazz Scales are represented by leaves around the Treehouse that is alongside the Mixolydian Room (an ambiguous Major chord called a Dominant) at the third level of the sunny side.

This House exists in a neighbourhood of twelve Houses illustrated below, representing all the possible Root Keys in music, and a Spiral Slide representing Notes moving up or down in pitch called Portamento.

NEIGHBOURHOOD OF MODES ILLUSTRATION