In this paper, we investigate the vibration control of multimodal structures and present an efficient control law that requires less energy supply than active strategies. This strategy is called modal global semi-active control and is designed to work as effectively as the active control and consume less power which represents its major limitation. The proposed law is based on an energetic management of the optimal law such that the controller follows this latter only if there is sufficient energy which will be extracted directly from the system vibrations itself. The control algorithm is presented and validated for a cantilever beam structure subjected to external perturbations. Comparisons between the proposed law performances and those obtained by independent modal space control (IMSC) and semi-active control schemes are offered.