Understanding Scales & Modes Made EASY 

*EDIT* I forgot to add a few notes to the charts segregated positions, here is a FIXED link to the chart: www.patreon.com/posts/scales-modes-27076995 *UPDATE!: PART 2 is now live, click here to check it out: **ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-31u-0lnLGXQ.html*

Does anyone else run into the problem in music theory that when you learn something it just raises more questions than it answers and you just fall into a deep rabbit hole

Nik: Talking about all this complicated stuff Me: *0-3-5*

You can tell he has dealt with people who don't understand things lol.

No wonder this dude is a guitar teacher, he explained literally everything perfectly and I wasn’t confused for even a second.

Nik: "Drop whatever you like." Me: "Drops a guitar."

No Russian accent? Nik is getting serious for us!!

Sorry I'm late for class. After 20 years of playing, this is essential information for a guy who finally is in a place to learn theory and wants to advance his playing. Thank you, Nik.

"Drop whatever you want" Drops my standards

Nik: Its blues it's sounds like blues, continues to shred it in a metal tone.

Massive help Nik. You broke it down better than anyone.

“You can’t play notes out of key or it’ll sound weird” Jazz: ‘Hold my beer’

Dude lemme tell you, as a kid who learned to play through metal core. You teaching the Dstring separately was exactly how i learned to write just without any of the note names involved. So you choosing to teach it this way really resonates with me and is much more compatible to my playing style when learning scales. Feel seen af rn thank you.

I learned more from one Nik video than a full year of guitar class in highschool.

As someone who has struggled with understanding music theory, I appreciate you explaining it logically, most music teachers jump ahead and start using terms that make things more confusing than it needs to be. I've never understood how to write or perform in key but I had a huge smile on my face even just playing a basic riff in D Minor, could you possibly do a video explaining time signatures too, I feel that topic is very similar to this, easy to understand but explained poorly usually. Thanks Nik, much love.

This, is absolute gold for a beginner. I’ve been playing for about a month or so, just really learning songs and chords without feeling like I’ve learned much. This has basically condensed so much theory for me into the space of less than half an hour. Thanks so much!

Dude, I’ve seen so many videos on this subject and none of them have ever explained this as well as you have. You’ve made it so simple and easy to grasp. Seriously, thank you.

Bought my first guitar and amp 2 days ago. Definitly will be grinding out for years to come. Always wanted to learn since i was about 7 years old. I'm now 34, better late than never.🤘 thanks Nik!

5:25 I know Nik is fast but the Tool album isn't out for a couple of months and he's already dropping riffs from it.

Nick! Dude, after 25 years I finally get it! Hit me like a ton of bricks after this. Bravo on your teaching skills man. Seriously, Wow! Damn glad I clicked, and you should definitely give yourself a pat on the back bro!

I found this video around the time it came out and it truly jump started my music theory journey. You explained the fundamentals in a way that feels so deliberately limited, but the subjects and emphasis you leave in are the perfect level technically for mass instruction. You've shaped the foundation of where I'm taking my life. Thank you.

You have no idea how stoked I am about this video, even before watching it haha thank you so much for making this my dude!

Anyone else feel like they learning more just cuz nik is awesome

Been playing from my elementary school days yet still cannot find easiest way to understand scales and pattern easily. Now u just broke it down for us and i couldn't be more grateful. RU-vid is awesome place to learn thing, especially when we have a gud trustworthy guy like you teaching 👍

This is honestly one of the best tutorials on this subject i've seen. You break down the very fundamentals like how a pattern can be moved anywhere and be used in different keys.

this is probably the best intermediate guitar lesson I've ever seen, thank you so much Nik

Mate, this is so unbelievably helpful. I've been bullshiting my way through "lead" stuff for years now and just done it by what sounds right, turns out I was playing the minor scale all along. This has opened me up to understanding the entire fretboard and how to access different things in different keys. More of these types of videos would be amazing!

Been 3 years and this video is still helping people all around. This has helped me a lot more than anything else on the internet. Thank you Nik, you make great content and tutorials such as these should be recommended to everyone’s front page. You’re a king 🤘😎🎸

Love the way you explained that. I know this is a old video but man your channel always comes in clutch when im trying to get my guitar playing to another level. Always love your work bro

Nik thank you so much. We need more educational videos. Not only from you sir but from all of musician youtubers. It helps to understand important theory just within few minutes which people learn for years. And It also encourages people pick up the guitar and play.

OMG it's easily to understanding... thank you so much! I've been playing guitar for 10 years, I was just reading the tabs and trying to figure out those patterns, but I'm starting to studying this kind of stuff now! ty again

The way your explaining it is literally perfect for me to understand. I've been stuck in that rut that most beginners get stuck in where you wanna just be able to play all over the neck and not need to think about what your playing or where your hands are on the fretboard for over a year now and I wanna get over that bump, but the way your teaching it is just so simple and straight forward. Thank you Nick!

Really clear and understandable. This is what i learned with a guitar teacher in 2 months back in time, and forgot pretty quickly. But condensed in 22 minutes and explained way more efficiently. Gold.

5:20 that already sounded like a tool song

You'll never know how grateful I am for this video. I've been self teaching myself to play since I was 14 (6 years ago) and I've never been able to understand scales until now. I've watched countless tutorials on it and spent hours on RU-vid videos that just talk about exact notes and numbers and it was always too complicated for me, not having a single guitar lesson in my life. I got taught tabs by a school friends older brother and that's what allowed me to learn all of the songs I can play to this day. Finally!! This is so easy and simple to understand and I'm finally progressing for the first time in a couple of years. I'll forever be grateful nik! 🤟❤

I love you so much dude I’m about to cry like not even joking. How have I seen every video on RU-vid about scales and theory but the one that makes the most sense. You put this in such simple easy to understand terms. You are the best!!!

Been playing for just over 20yrs, and have known this but theory is one of things you can learn well enough to never think about again, but it's always good to refresh your knowledge! This is one of the clearest explanations I've ever heard for a guitarist!!

This helped sooooo much @Nik Nocturnal. I remember my guitar teacher trying to explain modes to me and not understanding it. This video has helped more than I ever would've imagined. Great video and I'd love to see more like it!!!!

Thank you so much! Been waiting for this video

Awesome video! Thanks man! Nice guitar as well. I just bought my first Schecter the Hellraiser Hybrid C-1 FR S UV and I love it! Keep on rock n!

Hands down one of the best videos on RU-vid about this topic. You made it stupid simple, and personally, I needed stupid simple. Too many folks unintentionally rush through things, such as basic definitions, but you broke it all down and made made light bulbs turn on in my head. Thank you!

Thank. You. So. Much.!!!!

out of all the theory vids ive watched, this has to be the best. got a better understanding in the 20 minutes of watching this than listening to any other teachers. please keep these kinds of vids up. its great!

I'm telling you people if you haven't subscribed I strongly recommend doing so. I spent months putting together what he's describing with respect to the modes in this video. You can find information about the modes ALL OVER the internet. However, if you're a metal guitarist, then what you need to know is what Nik begins explaining @ 12:08 in this video. The modes give you patterns that allow you to play THE EXACT SAME NOTES (this means you stay in key) relative to a scale degree (note 1-7 of a diatonic scale). This 💩took me FOREVER to really figure out, and had I been a subscriber I'd of probably seen this video long ago, and not wasted months of my lilfe watching countless hours of videos trying to figure it out lol. I think it's awesome you do this @Nik for beginning guitarists, and/or self-taught bedrom rockstars (like myself) who lack the musical theory knowledge which you have to have a fundamental understanding of to create music that doesn't sound like cats fighting lol.

holy smokes bro this is some of the best videos ive seen in a long time of someone teaching not sure how i found your channel but i'm so happy right now. See my problems is knowing the names and i know lots of chords but im bad with the names of them also.

This is like when you finally figure out how firelink shrine is all connected

You honestly explained this in a way that really just made me understand it so well. Thank you for the informative video!! Love your vids

Dude Nik... I've been following you and your music for sometime. 1. You're incredibly talented 2. I've been playing guitar for about 20 years kinda learning on my own here and there but never really picked up music theory. And thanks to this video a lot of things I've learned over the years have clicked thanks for sharing this

I've played for 16 years and this is by far the best most concise breakdown I have ever heard for comprehensively internalizing scales. This knowledge is gold.

Thank you Nik, I'm not even a metalhead, but thankfully this showed up in my feed. This is the first time all of this has actually made any sense to me, you are a great teacher. Please, please, PLEASE do more lessons and THANK YOU!

This has seriously helped me more than any other video. I've been playing guitar off and on for the past 20 years and I've recently started taking it more serious and this helped me improve my playing faster than anything else. Thank you

@NicNocturnal thank you! This was the first video I could find to help me understand how to learn to play a scale without just reading tab. I hope there is more to this series!

This is extremely helpful. Thanks a lot for the video dude. You rock

You should like the video before you even start it. It’s clearly gonna be a good one

This is INCREDIBLY helpful! I'm subbed for sure!

Bro this is like the only video everybody should watch and boom.. Thank you Nick 👌🏼

Me: I need to go to bed for school Me at 3am: watching a Nik video Ps. Love your videos nik

i feel like unlike the other youtube videos teaching guitar, you are teaching in an uncut way, the same way a teacher would do to a student in person, definitely gonna check out your channel and watch everything

Can we just appreciate that he even not put ads on this video?

Just one portion alone helped me more than anything I've seen over the years. Thanks.

Pleaso do more Videos like this! Helped me out soooooo much! Great Video dude! Love your channel

Holy shit Nik, thanks. After years without motivation to go into this, finally you motivated my ass in a helpful, understandable and fun way. You're great, really.

Thank you!!! i've been playing for around 15years and always was terrified about this stuff and never felt like i was really progressing but watching this has given me confidence that I can get better! thanks!

Huge Thank you Nik ! Helped alot , i was searching for so long now for a good explanation, but it was you that helped me to understand it.

easy to understand.. this is what I'm really looking for.. nice job man

Literally after 15 year of trying to play and teach myself I finally understand modes and how to build the scales out.. Your an awesome teacher thank you!

This is incredible! Thanks a lot dude! You've opened my eyes and ears!

I must say man, you're an incredible teacher! Thank you for putting this video up, ive only watched it once and you've already helped me understand things a lot better because even though there's a million letters and numbers flying at you like any other guitar lesson, I actually understood this one. Good work dude!

I've been handed the keys to the Ferrari, now I just have to learn to drive it!! Bros... you have no idea how much this helped me. Thx so much!!!

Finally I can learn this properly now. Thanks Nik

I knew immediately realized what you were going for with the dropped D & I totally loved it! Subscribed

That was awesome, i love the way you broke it down for us , I've been playing since 1983 and your the first person I've seen that makes it easy to understand, thanks to you i can now break out of the box lol , love your song lucid your amazing!

You have no idea how helpful this video is THANKS❤️

Amazing cover man! That was crazy quick

Hey Nik, I have watched about half of the video and this was already inanely helpful, thank you so much!

This just changed my life, thanks for the straight forward breakdown here. Stoked for part 2 🙌

Could you do a video for building various chords in a scale/key? Say adding which notes makes it what kind of chord, and why?

This video has made me understand soooo much more. I played the intro riff to Unholy confessions and was able to see how it was built from the D minor scale

Thank you. Iv been looking for this for years. Makes total sense. Thank you

every once in a while I come back to these tutorials, thanks Nik !

Maybe it’s due to my crippling ADHD but imma have to hear ALL that again

Harmonic minor is for me the "Egyptian Scale" because it sounds middle eastern and wel Egyptian and makes for very thematic songs!

Man, this helped tremendously. Thank you for sharing!

this actually helped! Most other tutorials and lessons go over my head when they dwell too deep into music theory while throwing in chord diagrams and scale (charts?). It's not like they aren't helpful, but Nik's way made me understand how to figure out positions without giving up in the middle of a practice session! THANKS MAN! Really appreciate your help! XD

Where is the SWEEP PICKING lesson...please do one:)

Nik: ".....It'll never sound wrong. That is really the 'key'."

I am in the exact position you described at the end of this video, this really has helped me to understand clearly and it all makes complete sense, thank god you did this video, this is going to help me more than ever before, thankyou

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video from start to finish.

Thanks for getting me over this 15 year slump of not knowing anything but by ear. Been giving it some practice and can feel it unlocking a part of my brain. I also have a better understanding of whats going on in songs I already know how to play well. Thanks bud.

You know you're metal when you refer to the Aeolian mode as the first mode.

definitely the fastest way to learn modes so far in youtube. this is gold. thanks bro. 👌

In 20 minutes you just summed up something ive been studying and failing to comprehend for 2 months. Greatly appreciate you.

" DROP WHEREVER YOU LIKE." me: jump straight to the window.

I love your content Nik, and if this understanding of theory works for you then that's cool, but if you're gonna start teaching this to people (esp if private students are paying money), and I know I've mentioned this before on your channel, but please correct yourself on a few areas as they can be very misleading. For starters, playing in key and playing in a scale are two different things, just because I play a note outside of the D minor scale doesn't necessarily mean I'm leaving the key of D minor, or even entire chords can exist outside the scale but out of key, be it the V7 or +6 or Neapolitan chord etc. The blues scale is when you add a "blue" note to the minor pentatonic scale, not the minor scale. It has 6 notes, not 8, the blues scale skips the 2nd and 6th. That's not to say you can't play them, of course you can, but it wouldn't be the blues scale, it's something else. And I know you and (I'm assuming) your students mostly play metal, but learning the minor scale before the major scale is like putting your shoes on before your socks. Music academia isn't perfect but it's figured this one out pretty well. Major is the easiest place to start and is what many other concepts relate to, so not teaching it first will just make it harder for beginners. Almost all books I've read, sites I've seen, and uni teachers I've talked to, all teach these concepts in the same order and for good reason; it works. Now for modes, I'm gonna be blunt, almost nothing you said here is accurate. For starters, modes are not shapes on a fretboard, or anything like that, they are when you take a scale and change the tonal center to any of the other degrees, ie making the 2nd degree of the major scale the tonal center gives you Dorian. The whole point is you're changing what "1" is, so when you play a different mode you wouldn't say "we're now starting on 2", because by definition 2 can't be the tonal center, it's 1. What you're demonstrating here is largely just different positions of the minor scale, which is useful to know but is not the same as modes. The best way to teach modes is with parallel modes, eg Phrygian is like the minor scale with a b2, Lydian is like the major scale with a #4 etc. And again, 99% of books, lessons, schools, articles, etc. all use the major scale as the starting point for modes, by arbitrarily going against the grain and using the minor scale and going from there, it'll just be confusing for beginners learning from this video when they go to learn on their own and find that almost nothing you mentioned here is congruent with every other resource. Also what note you start and end on has nothing to do with what mode you're in. It depends on the context of the harmony and what are the most prominent notes in the melody, if I play a Dminor scale starting on Bb but my harmony is just Dm - Am, it's never going to sound like Bb Lydian. Now I know this is how you think in terms of music, and that's fine, but when you have a large platform like this you have potentially thousands of new guitarists who will take you at your word, and you should at least do some research to make sure you're not going to accidentally mislead and frustrate all those people. Because I learnt these concepts in very similar ways when I was learning, and it took years of frustration before I finally started from scratch and re-learnt everything the right way. I don't want people to have to go through that.

Honestly, very very very helpful! Much better than having to search up how to read those charts. Really helped! Can't thank you enough. Now I'm off to part two of the lessons :)

I love this video so much dude! Sometimes i don't understand when i was looking for one scale in one song metal used. Thank you so much, i really appreciate it!

not gonna lie ive been playing for 10 years or more and i never understood this shit completelye but i think you just made it all click

how to recognize a fellow Avenged fan: plays in drop D + "Bases all theory" on d minor scale.

Nik you legend. This will help so many people, best delivery of scales and modes I’ve seen!

Nik I've been watching your memey boy videos for close to 2 years, I had no idea you had lessons in your catalogue, this just popped up on my homepage - as a player of 15 or so years, self taught with tabs and noodling, never bothered with theory as it never made sense; this taught me more than any music class or any other online resource I've used before, and I now understand how the riffs I like actually work - I feel like I'm going to have a much better time breaking riffs down by ear now, which is my preferred way of learning songs these days. You are a fantastic teacher.