B Ionian — Venezuelan Cuatro

B Ionian is 7 notes to the octave (modes family), drawn here across the Venezuelan Cuatro's A-D-F#-B strings with every B marked, so home stays visible from anywhere in the pattern.

Bright, resolved, and stable. The foundation of Western tonal music and the most common mode in pop, classical, folk, and jazz.

Heard in: Pop, classical, country, folk, gospel — the default major tonality of Western music.

Four strings inside a major sixth put a scale in a deliberately cramped place: the same pitch turns up on two strings constantly, and one open string sounds below the string next to it, so a run that looks like it climbs on paper can fall under the fingers. These maps light every root so the ear has an anchor.

Use it the way the music does — in short pieces, between strums. Very little of this repertoire asks a cuatrista for a long scalar run; what it asks for is three or four notes that land exactly where the strumming hand was about to brake.