Modal Chord Progression Backing Tracks

I spent a lot of time this past week playing over these modal backing tracks that I recently made for Module 6 of the Improv 101 course. I wanted to share the backing tracks with you along with a short PDF describing how I made them and some ideas on how to use them to practice. Enjoy!

All six are above in two formats: Boss is the full stereo master, and Ditto+ is the mono 16-bit copy that loads straight onto the pedal.

Modal chord progression backing tracks

I’ve been having a lot of fun pulling together the materials for Module 6 of the “Fret Science: Improv 101” course, which focuses on the major scale modes and how to use them for improvisation. I won’t repeat the contents of that module here, but I highly recommend watching my YouTube videos on understanding the modes and on the “Hidden in Plain Sight” method of visualizing them if you haven’t already seen them.

As part of building out the module, I wanted to create a set of backing tracks that are useful for practicing the modes and getting their sounds into your ears. I decided to make six backing tracks, all based on the parent key of G major. The G major scale is G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G, and I wanted to make tracks for G Ionian, A Dorian, B Phrygian, C Lydian, D Mixolydian, and E Aeolian, which all share the same seven notes.

What’s in the backing tracks?

It can be a little tricky to create a backing track that screams a specific mode since, at heart, all of the above modes draw from the same set of chords: G or Gmaj7, Am or Am7, Bm or Bm7, C or Cmaj7, D or D7, Em or Em7, and Gdim or Gm7♭5.

One trick is to put the root of the mode in the bass as much as possible. So if you wanted to play a D chord in an A Dorian context, you could use D/A. Another trick is to avoid dominant and diminished chords because they contain a tritone that strongly wants to resolve the chord down a fifth, and that can pull your ear to a key that’s different from what you intended.

Here’s what I ended up using for the chord progressions:

These chord progressions aren’t all that interesting, and that’s kind of the point. They’re meant to be a substrate that tells your ear what mode is in play and nothing more.

How were the backing tracks made?

I made the backing tracks in Logic Pro using the new AI Session Player features. Inside LogicPro, there’s a little disclosure box that opens up the “Global Tracks,” and that allows you to add your chords in the Chord Track, and the AI players will make their parts fit those chords.

When I make a backing track, I typically start by messing around with different AI drummer models until I get a beat that I like, and then I add a bass player and one or more keyboards. One trick that seems to make the session players work a lot better with each other is to tell each session player to follow the rhythm of the drummer, as I’ve done here for the bass player:

For keyboards, I found that I often like a “Piano” preset playing freely alongside either a Mellotron or a Synth sound playing more of a pad.

In any case, it’s not as hard as I expected to make a backing track that sounds half-decent using just the AI Session Players, although I do find myself tweaking settings for way longer than is probably necessary or healthy!

How can you use these tracks to practice?

There are multiple ways to use these backing tracks for practicing.

You can start by practicing minor pentatonic scales over the minor modes: A minor over A Dorian, B minor over B Phrygian, and E minor over E Aeolian. You can practice major pentatonic scales over the major modes: G major over G Ionian, C major over C Lydian, and D major over D Mixolydian. This is great practice for finding A, B, C, D, E, and G notes all over the fretboard, one at a time!

That gives you one scale to try over each modal progression, but another idea you can use is to temporarily switch to one of the other pentatonic scales and play it over the “wrong” progression. There are really only three sets of notes described above, and they’re all embedded inside the G major scale (and every one of its modes). So, if you’re playing G major pentatonic over the G Ionian track, try switching briefly to C major pentatonic or D major pentatonic and then going back to G major. This can add a nice flavor to your improvisation and keep things interesting. Some combinations won’t work as well as others, so experiment. If you’re following along with the Improv 101 course, the pentatonic shifting approach I describe in Module 5 is by far the best way I’ve found to temporarily switch scales. For everyone else, I’m working on a YouTube video that will explain this powerful concept, but you’ll have to wait for that.

You can also practice playing blues licks using the minor pentatonic (or blues scale) over major modes. This works especially well for Mixolydian (because the ♭7 in the minor pentatonic fits the mode), so try D minor pentatonic over that. It also works reasonably well over the Ionian mode, so try G minor pentatonic over the G Ionian track (just watch out for the ♭7, which clashes with the natural 7 in the scale). I find that this approach works less well with Lydian, but your mileage may vary, so give it a try. Note that when you do this, you are going outside of the set of notes that are officially in the mode (and that’s okay!).

Finally, you can use the “Hidden in Plain Sight” method to turn your pentatonic scale into the correct mode for the backing track. One of the best things about visualizing the modes using this method is that if you mostly play pentatonic phrases and judiciously sprinkle in the color notes from the mode, your playing will sound more vocal-like and less scalar, but you’ll still sound like you’re nailing the sound of the mode.

If you spend enough time with this, I hope you will eventually have an “aha” moment where your brain realizes that every single scale you’re playing over all of these modes is part of a bigger pattern, and you’ll start to see the modes of G major on the fretboard in a more holistic way.

Have fun with these backing tracks

I’ve made versions of the six backing tracks that are set up to load easily on the Ditto+ looper, which is my recommended looping pedal. I’m also including stereo versions that will work on some of the Boss stereo looper pedals, and you can also use those on your computer or phone with an app like AnyTune, Audacity, or AmazingSlowDowner.

When you get bored with these tracks, you can find a ridiculous number of modal backing tracks on YouTube, so you can probably find one to practice any scale you can imagine. And if you have GarageBand, LogicPro, or some other modern DAW, it’s not that hard to make your own. Enjoy!