Tag: scales

Does playing the same old pentatonic licks make you want to do this?

The Pentatonic Scale is an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. Or maybe that’s a lightsaber.  But pentatonics are kind of a lightsaber for guitarists.  They cut through anything.  Although there are only five forms instead of seven.  Ok, never mind.  Geeking out too much…

The minor pentatonic scale is one of the first scales every guitarist learns.  If you’re not familiar with them yet, please read this lesson first. That will give you the overview and basic patterns.

This lesson is going to show you how to take that simple little box pattern and create some crazy, off the wall sounds with it.  All without learning a bunch of new patterns or jargon. Continue reading

Scales are an important building block of music that every guitarist should know.  And I’m sure you’ve heard that you need to know them.  This is both and easier task than it sounds like, and a harder one.  Let me give you a quick overview of guitar scales.  Both common ones and a few more esoteric.

Let’s start with what a scale actually is.  A scale is simply a set of notes that we’ll use to write a piece of music with.  Think of it like a painter’s palate.  The painter has his blue, green, red, black, white, etc… and he’ll throw those at the canvas and create a painting.  A scale is out palate of colors and we’ll throw them at the page and instrument to create a piece of music. Continue reading