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Joined:
February 2005
Posts: 11840
Location: closely held secret | Those of you who don't subscribe to Guitar Noise newsletter missed this.
It's an offer for a FREE e-book on learning the pentatonic scales, in an easy format. Yes, jump through the email hoops, you will get the file (but who knows how long he will offer it free)!
Knowing your scales is a good thing for guitarists! |
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Joined:
August 2005
Posts: 616
Location: cincinnati, ohio | Yeah, I downloaded that right away. No catches, no hidden charges. Scanned all 40+ pages. Looks really good; now to find the time to really get into it.
To echo Waskel, if you don't subscribe to the Guitarnoise newsletter, you SHOULD (www.guitarnoise.com). |
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Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Learning scales is something that all musicians should do. But, knowing lots of scales does not make you a good musician, it just means you can play a bunch of scales. Just because you know the alphabet does not mean you can write a bestselling novel. Don't try to learn tons of scales until you can produce some meaningful music with a handful. A couple of major and minor pentatonics plus the diatonic major and natural minor in a couple of forms will keep many players occupied for years. |
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Joined:
August 2005
Posts: 616
Location: cincinnati, ohio | Actually, that's what this is--it's the major, minor, and blues pentatonic scales. Since I've done pretty well for 37 years without scales, I figure a little bit of knowledge can't hurt. |
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March 2002
Posts: 15678
Location: SoCal | I've learned scales and when I try and play lead, it sounds like I'm playing scales.... damn |
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Joined:
February 2005
Posts: 11840
Location: closely held secret | True, Paul, it alone may not make you a good musician, but it can give you a much better understanding of what you're doing, and why some things sound right and some don't.
I equate it with baking. Anyone can follow a recipe, and many are satisfied with that. But if you really want to get creative, it helps to have an understanding of how different ingredients work together or react to one another to produce a tasty product.
Hmmm. Lunch time... |
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Joined:
June 2005
Posts: 231
Location: N.J. | Originally posted by Paul Templeman:
Learning scales is soemthing that all guitarists should do. But, knowing lots of scales does not make you a good musician, it just means you can play a bunch of scales. Just because you know the alphabet does not mean you can write a bestselling novel. Don't try to learn tons of scales until you can produce some meaningful music with a handful. A couple of major and minor pentatonics plus the major and natural minor in a couple of forms will keep many players occupied for years. Bravo!! Well said Paul. I used to give my students 4 note Pentatonic patterns to practice their solos before incorporating the whole scale. The reason for this was it was more or less helping them to develop a bending technique {if they wanted to expand to more than 4 notes} and also helped to develop phrasing much quicker than trying to use the entire scale to start off with. ;) |
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Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Originally posted by moody, p.i.:
I've learned scales and when I try and play lead, it sounds like I'm playing scales.... damn There's an easy way to break out of this. Record a simple chord progession or have someone play it for you. Then, instead of picking up the guitar, sing or hum an improvised phrase or riff. Doesn't have to be very long, a couple or 4 bars will do. You will find you will sing something completely different to what you'd play if you'd played a scale, simply because your voice is not being dictated to by a pattern on the fingerboard. Once you've sang the phrase a few times, find the same notes on the relevant scale. A pentatonic will work nearly every time. Then you can play around with the phrasing a little. Do this often enough and you'll be able to bypass the singing part, do it on the guitar and it will immediately sound like music rather than a scale. |
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | I had a buddy that used Paul's singing method. Worked great for him as he became a kickass lead guitarist that had some very unique phrasing. |
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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | Glen Campbell is as good as anyone in incorporating scales into his playing.
Me I just don't practice them enough. :( |
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Learn Your Scales