Understanding Chords Part 1

We all know how to play chords, it’s pretty much the first thing we learn how to do on a guitar, but as you improve and learn more weird and wonderful chords it’s very useful to understand how they’re made, where they come from and the relationships between the notes in any given chord. A knowledge of this (even just a basic knowledge) allows you to create your own chords, work out what they are and how to find melody notes that fit with them.

In this post we’re going to be dealing with basic triads, or simple three note chords, the simplest of which can be created by using the notes from a major scale (see a post on the major scale here, and if you haven’t read it yet, then you really should do so before going any further!). Let’s use the C major scale to start with.

C D E F G A B C

To make a chord we’re going to use the first, third and fifth notes of the scale, so C, E and G. The first note is called the ‘root note’ of the chord, the others are called the ‘third’, and the ‘fifth’ because of their relative positions in the scale. These terms are known as ‘intervals’ – gaps between notes, and understanding these becomes more important as we go on. If we play these notes on a guitar we get a happy sounding chord which looks like this:

Although it doesn’t sound particularly good like that, so on a guitar we duplicate some of the notes to spread the chord across more than 3 strings, and end up with what we know as a conventional C chord:

The notes in this version are CEGCE, and the intervals are R35R3. Just three notes, a simple major triad.

If we follow exactly the same process but start from D instead, and treat it as the root note, we can use the notes D, F and A to make a chord. If we play these on the guitar we get a sad sounding chord which looks like this:

But is more conventionally played like this:

Which is the Dm chord we all know. The notes and intervals are in a different order this time – DADF – R5R3. This shows that it doesn’t matter which order we play the notes, so long as the 3 required notes for the chord are present it will always be the same chord regardless of where and how it is played. To clarify, if you play D, F and A at the same time it will always be a Dm chord, which is why you can play the same chord in a variety of different places. Each different version is called a voicing.

So if we follow exactly the same process from each note of our C major scale we end up with a specific sequence of chords like this:

C  Dm  Em  F  G  Am  Bdim  C

What’s really cool about this is that if we pick another scale, say G major, and do the same thing to make a bunch of chords we end up with this sequence of chords:

G  Am  Bm  C  D  Em  F#dim  G

Different note names of course, but the same chord types in the same places. Chords 1, 4 and 5 are always major, chords 2, 3 and 6 are always minor, and chord 7 is always diminished. Because we used the same formula to create the scale in the first place, the relationships between the notes haven’t changed, therefore the chord types produced will be the same.

A group of chords like this are said to belong to a ‘key’, so above we have chords from the keys of C major and G major. No two keys will have exactly the same chords because no two keys have exactly the same notes, so from knowing all of this stuff we can work out what key a song is in (note – not all songs are exclusively in one key, or solely use the chords from just one key. All sorts of borrowing and swapping around goes on, but we’re going to totally ignore all of that for now).

Let’s say Pop Song 1 has a verse that goes like this:

C | G | F | G

Or these days it’s more likely to go like this:

C | G | Am |F

Either way, a quick glance at our two sequences of chords above will show us that all the chords feature in the C major one, so this section of the song is in the key of C major.

Pop Song 2 goes like this:

G | D | Em | C

Which tells us that this song is in the key of G major. .Of course it’s not always this obvious, but you get the idea. So, learn your major scales people – if you know them then you’ll know all the basic chords that you can use in any key. And all of this stuff is really useful from creative and practical standpoints, but we’ll come on to that another day.

Happy playing!

The Major Scale and note names on the neck

The major scale is the most important scale to learn. It needs to be learnt inside out, back to front and every which way. To be honest, most people can play a major scale quite happily as it’s a requirement of the Grade 1 exam, but its importance is not to be understated – it’s the scale from which the most commonly used modes are derived (more on this in another post), and the scale to which every other is referenced (more on this also in another post).

Very simply, a major scale is a happy sounding sequence of notes from any note you choose, ascending or descending to the next note of the same name. We’re going to deal with the C major scale initially as it’s the simplest one – the white keys on a piano, starting from the key to the immediate left of the pair of black keys.

On a guitar we don’t have keys of course so we need to know where to start it – we’ll come to this in a second. Firstly, there is a formula for creating a major scale, a specific sequence of ‘tones’ and ‘semitones’ to get our happy sound. On your guitar a tone is a gap of two frets, and a semitone is the next fret up from where you are. So here’s the formula:

Tone – Tone – Semitone – Tone – Tone – Tone – Semitone

And this formula is true for any starting note, but in this case we’re going to be starting from C and working up one one string. The easiest C note to find is fret 3 on your A string (think about the first note you play in a C chord)

If we follow the formula we’re going to play the following frets on your A string:

3 – 5 – 7 – 8 – 10 – 12 – 14 – 15

Which are the notes:

C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C

And it’s knowing these things that will help us work out note names on the neck instead of solely relying on fret numbers (non guitarists don’t necessarily understand fret numbers – we want to learn how to convey our ideas to other musicians who read music, not tab). You can see that all the notes above have a two fret gap (tone) between them except for E – F and B – C which only have a one fret gap (semitone). Because we already know the note names of all the open strings, we can use this knowledge to work out where all the above notes are on each string, and start to recognise note names as well as fret numbers. Try it and see.

Back to the major scale now. This formula works regardless of which note (fret) you start on. The sound of the scale produced will be the same – happy – but the names of the notes within the scale will change. Starting from a different note will produce ‘sharps’ (# – not a hashtag. Sharp) and ‘flats’ (b – usually a slightly deformed little b). These are the notes in between the notes we have above, and a sharp note is one fret higher than a normal letter note, a flat note is one fret lower.

If we start the formula from fret 3 on the E string (which is the note G) we will end up playing these frets:

3 – 5 – 7 – 8 – 10 – 12 – 14 – 15

Which are the notes:

G – A – B – C – D – E – F# – G

If we start the formula from fret 1 on the E string (which is the note F) we will end up playing these frets:

1 – 3 – 5 – 6 – 8 – 10 – 12 – 13

Which are the notes:

F – G – A – Bb – C – D – E – F

You will notice that the G major scale has a # note, and the F major has a b note. This is because there needs to be one note of each letter in the scale, for example you can’t have C and C# in the same scale. This is because it becomes incredibly awkward to write out in standard notation and consequently very difficult to read.

Here’s a challenge to end the post:

Try finding major scales starting from each open string (going up the string), so we’re looking for E, A, D, G, and B major. When you’ve worked out which frets to play, work out what notes you’re playing, and leave me some answers in the comments!

Making Sense Of Time

So when I’m not teaching I play guitar in the progressive metal band Brocken Spectre. One of the key things about progressive music is the use of irregular time signatures, sometimes more than one at a time. This might seem like an unnecessary headache but let’s face it, some of us are just drawn to this kind of thing. I don’t quite know why but I’ve always found odd numbers interesting, especially when you can make the odd numbers groove and feel less odd, but those listening can’t quite work out what’s going on (yes, very self satisfied I know). There’s more about how to lessen (or perhaps increase, depending on your perspective) the oddness in this post here.

So first, what is a time signature? Well you know those numbers you see right at the top of a piece of music? The ones that say ‘4/4’? There’s your time signature. Here’s the standard definition of it:

4/4 means that there will be 4 beats in each bar

And that’s fine for most music, but if you have a bar of 6/8 or 17/16, then how many beats are in that? Well we could redefine our time signature like this:

4/4 means that there a 4 beats in the bar, and each beat is worth one quarter note

Which helps make a little more sense of the irregular bars. But in  bar of 6/8 there might not be 6 beats – well there might be, but it may not sound like it depending on how the notes are grouped. With that in mind I prefer to think of the time signature as indicating the overall length of the bar. For example, a bar of 9/8 is the length of nine eighth notes, regardless of note grouping, note values within the bar or any other factor that creates musical interest. One trick that I use when working out what time signature my riffs are in (yes, I write them first and work out what I did later) is to break the whole bar down into the smallest note value I’ve used, add up to get a total then find the lowest common denominator. Here’s a little example:

So the smallest note value is a 16th note, and if we break any larger note values into the appropriate amount of 16th notes we end up with a grand total of 18 of them. So our time signature is 18/16, but by doing a bit of maths we can divide both numbers by 2 giving us a time signature of 9/8. The number of beats you hear is often controlled by the drummer, and the more inventive he/she is, the less often you will hear 9 clear beats. Admittedly with this example we could have just counted the note groupings, but if your bar has rests, dotted notes and ties in it then that becomes a little less obvious a solution unless you’re well practised at it, so I frequently use my original solution.

Check out any of the usual prog suspects to hear this in action: Dream Theater, Yes, Genesis, and in fact Metallica were well known for slipping in odd bars in their early work, probably where my liking for it developed. One of my all time favourites though is the bar of 15/16 in Megadeth’s Lucretia. No prizes for spotting it, just that proud moment when all fo a sudden you know what’s going on in the music!

Happy playing!

Penatonic Scales

Pentatonic scales are the basis of thousands of guitar tunes, and usually the first scales we learn on the guitar. They’re incredibly versatile having been used in all genres, easy enough to learn and fun to play. The problem though is that it’s very easy to get stuck in a rut, and also to rely too heavily on one version of the scale. Many guitarists are quite happy to do that and that’s cool, but personally I like to utilise all different versions of the scale and float around the neck pretty smoothly. The amount of stuff you can get out of these scales is quite phenomenal and even now I’m still discovering new stuff about them and new ways to play them. I also use them for a bunch of other things but we’ll cover that in another post.

Here’s a diagram of the 5 shapes of the minor pentatonic scale:

If you’re already familiar with this sort of scale diagram then great, but if not here’s a quick explanation. Horizontal lines are your strings (EADGBe from bottom to top), vertical lines mark out your frets, dots indicate which frets to play on which strings. You’ll notice that there are no specific fret numbers indicated, because all of these patterns are moveable. If you can play a pattern in one place, you can move the whole thing and play it somewhere else just like a power chord or barre chord. The scale shape will stay the same, but its name will be different as you will be starting from a different root note.

The patterns above can be started anywhere, but if you start the first one at fret 3 on your E string you’ll be playing Gm pentatonic, the second one would then start at fret 6 (n+3), the third at fret 8 (n+5) and so on. You’ll notice after playing all of them that they all fit neatly one after another until you have covered 12 frets of the neck. If you can move each individual pattern then you can also move the whole set, meaning that once you know them you can play in any minor pentatonic scale using only the five patterns above.

Here’s a handy practice routine:

1. Pick a pattern each day to learn, memorise and perfect. Try them with downpicks, alternate picking, hammer ons and pull offs, or any way you wish
2. Play each pattern in sequence, in both directions, aiming to keep a constant stream of notes, moving smoothly up the neck
3.  The ‘zig-zag’: Play pattern 1 from E to e, then smoothly into pattern 2 from e to E, then pattern 3 from E to e and so on until you finish. Then come back the way you came. Then start pattern 1 from e to E and zig zag the other way. This is fun!
4. String skips (might be worth working up to this one): Play the notes on each string in this order – E D A G D B G e, then come back e G B D G A D E. This works well in combination with the zig zag!

You can do any or all of these as much as you like, but in depth knowledge of these patterns will give you a solid platform from which to develop better technique, better improvisation and better awareness of the neck. Go for it!

In this post I’m going to shamelessly promote the forthcoming EP from my band Brocken Spectre by looking at the intro to our song ‘…If The Men Came’ – click to download the pdf at the bottom of the post. It’s a rare dose of clean tone for us so I suppose you could call it our ballad (it doesn’t stay that way).

We start with a broken (arpeggiated) C#m9 chord but rather than just play it up and down I’ve chosen to play some available chord tones (B – b7 and E – b3) on open strings. Doing this allows us to let part of the phrase ring through, a technique borrowed from acoustic playing and often seen in bluegrass lines. THe fact that it’s in 6/4 time should have no bearing on the difficulty as we’re playing the phrase rather than worrynig about the time signatures. The drum part mirrors the time signature anyway so we don’t have to worry about polyrhythms.

After 2 times through this we hit a broken Dmaj13 chord, again with chord tones played on open strings (B – 13 & E – 9) to provide the ringing sound. We’re going to play through these first two sections twice. Third time we’re going back to the C#m9 phrase then up to a barred Dm7, hammering on from the E-F (9 – b3) on the B string then from the A – C (5 – b7) on the E string. This is repeated a whole steup up as an Em7 chord. Again the time signature is irrelevent as we’re just playing the phrase.

Next bit is a descending linear phrase based around Aadd9 with a brief hint of B major courtesy of the notes B & D#. Again there are notes on open strings to be left to ring as directed. This leads into a ringing C# augmented triad arpeggiated across the G, D, A & E strings. The next bit requires a low B so if you don’t have a 7 or 8 string guitar you’re goin to have a problem – go buy one!

The simplest way of thinking of this section is as a shifting power chord shape wih the root on the low B. It shifts along a half-whole diminished scale using the A string as a sort of pedal tone. Doing this creates some interesting triads – F#m, F, D5 (not a triad I know) and D5 with an added b5 for a touch of evil 🙂

Palm muting and letting ring during this whole intro are key technique points as they provide the dynamics within it, and remember we’re playing phrases not time signatures so don’t get bogged down with counting – we’ll have plenty of that in another post!

Happy playing 🙂

ITMC Clean intro

10 Tips For Newly Gigging Guitarists

If you’ve played a bunch of gigs before then anything here will probably be old news (and feel free to add suggestions in the comments!), but if you’re new to playing live then here are a few hints and tips (in no particular order of importance) to make your performance go a little more smoothly. In fact, this is a list of mistakes I’ve made over the years which I’m trying not to repeat!

1. Your last practice before the gig will most likely suck. Chances are it won’t be just you that sucks, the rest of your band probably will too. Don’t take this as a portent of doom, it’s actually seen as a good omen for a decent gig on the night. I suppose the reasoning is that if you get all your silly mistakes out of the way at practice you’ll be more focused on them not reappearing when you have an audience.

2. Warm up! If there was an order of importance then this would surely be top of the list. You should already have a warm up routine before practice and your pre gig warm up should be a variation of that. I tend to do mine on the afternoon of the gig, then if I can I’ll find a quiet spot 30 mins or so before stage time to run through a few exercises. Regardless of the complexity of your music warm up is essential, then when the monitoring packs in and you can’t hear yourself at least you can trust your fingers to do the business.

 3. There is a difference between confidence and volume. Just because you know your songs well doesn’t mean you have to play them louder. Overconfidence will allow mistakes to creep in and make your ears ignore them. Better to be accurate and sure of the notes rather than loud and sloppy. Deal with this at last practice because we’ve all been to see bands with the ‘loud guitar player who screwed up that killer solo and didn’t get his bends at the right pitch’. Nobody aspires to be that guy

4. You are in a band. ‘I already know this!’ I hear you cry. I know you do. What I mean is there are several of you and a band dynamic requires a good blend of all parts. Your songs are bigger than the solos and each instrument has an important role in delivering the performance. If you’re in a normal band then chances are everyone will be watching and listening to the vocalist which means that your job as the guitar player is as an accompanist – that means BE TASTEFUL!, and LET THE AUDIENCE HEAR THE SINGING! If you’re in an instrumental band these things are less of a problem because a) you’re entitled to show off on whatever instrument you’re playing and b) there probably won’t be anyone in the audience anyway (speaks from a position of experience)

5. Don’t get drunk. A skinful of booze does not make you Steve Vai. It might make you think you’re Steve Vai but in fact what the listeners hear is very amateurish fumbling, you know, kind of like an audio version of your first date. One beer, maybe two is enough to tame the nerves or the effects of all the energy drinks you’re likely to have drunk during the day. No more. You’ve been told.

6. Soundcheck is not an excuse to screw up. You should have got all the mistakes out of the way at the dreadful last practice so soundcheck is to do the following:

To check the sound – Obvious I know, but make sure you can hear yourself and the others. If there is monitoring make sure it works. Get someone you trust to listen to how it sounds front of house, it’s totally different from what you hear on stage. If your sound is good then everybody wins.

To check your performance – Play hard like it was the gig itself. You’re not just there to play the notes, you have to entertain the nice people who’ve given up their cash to come and watch so use the soundcheck to get used to being on stage.

 To build confidence – If this is your first gig and you’re lucky enough to get a soundcheck, this is where you can get rid of some of the nerves. Not all of them, nervousness keeps you sharp and focused, but enough to stop you from soiling yourself during the first song.

7. Have fun but be respectful. You’re in a position where you might be getting paid to play your guitar in front of people, it doesn’t get a lot better than that. When you get off stage and people tell you how awesome you were (they will, they’ll be drunk and friendly) just remember that you’re not quite the best guitarist in the world yet regardless of how well you played, and take their compliments with a little dignity. It’s nice to be complimented but people generally prefer a little grace rather than an ego overdose

8. Don’t tell anyone you got stuff wrong. There’s one exception to this and that is if there are guitarists in the crowd. They’ll notice but they probably won’t mock as it’s likely to have happened to them before, and you can discuss your indiscretions till dawn, but I don’t know anyone who’s played a gig and made no mistakes. Everybody else won’t notice your mistakes, even if they’re enormous to you, as they’ll be too busy singing along. If you come off stage and go on about how you messed up you’ll only achieve two things – you’ll dispel the rock god myth that you’ve worked so hard to create, and you’ll also be rather boring.

9. Get back on the horse. If it was a great gig don’t rest on your laurels. Do another, get practising, write more stuff, get in the studio. You’re only as good as your last gig and in a week everyone will have forgotten about it anyway. If it was a bad gig forget about it. It’s done, you can’t change it. Do another, get practising, write more stuff, get in the studio. Prove people wrong.

10. Be wise with your money. When you get your post gig cash it’s tempting to dash to the bar for a well earned drink. Stop and think. Money you earn as a band could be spent as a band – rehearsal time, recording time, new gear for the guy in the band who has a crap job and can’t afford the swanky stuff you’ve got, or for you if you’re that guy (yeah I’m talking about me), better PA, t-shirts, CD’s, all sorts of merch. You’ll only go further if you work together.

 

 

The Six Chord Trick

Something that’s become apparent to me over the last few months while teaching is the fact that we all have natural tendencies to do certain things when we start playing an instrument. When you’ve been playing as long as I have you tend to forget exactly what it was like at the start but thanks to some very enthusiastic beginners I’ve been reminded of all the little hurdles we encounter.

The main barrier to effective chord changes as a beginner seems to be the overwhelming desire to remove the left hand completely from the neck after playing a chord, then to have to start from scratch when tackling the next. This makes it seem like an age between chords and doesn’t do much for confidence or musicality so it’s time to break the habit!

I’ve come up with a simple sequence of basic chords that we all know which forces the left hand to stay glued to the neck by virtue of the fact that each pair of chords has a common note. Not only do we have to think about what goes where it focuses on the similarities between chords rather than the differences, which seems to be the usual approach. The only thing that may be unfamiliar about this is the way I play a G chord, but I’ve detailed that below. So, here we go.

Fmaj7 – C – Am – Em – G – D – G – Em – Am – C – Fmaj7

And here’s the fingerings – EADGBe, just in case:

Fmaj7 – X X 3 2 1 0 ; C – X 3 2 0 1 0 ; Am – X 0 2 2 1 0

Em – 0 2 2 0 0 0 ; G – 3 2 0 0 3 3 ; D – X X 0 2 3 2

This won’t be a challenge if you’ve been playing a while, but if you’ve just started and are struggling to string some chords together give these a try to get into the swing of things. And remember, with these chords you can ALWAYS keep at least one finger on the neck.

Happy strumming!

February Album Writing Month (FAWM)

After missing last year’s FAWM I’ve decided to dust off my songwriting chops and give it a go this year. Halfway through the month and I’m beginning to find my mojo a little, for those interested you can keep up to date with my output at my Reverbnation page. There’s also the option to join my mailing list and other fun things.

I’ll update with any blinding ideas that hit me during feb, and from next month be prepared for a new irregular series on ‘logical guitar’.

Remember The Sandwich! – More tips for beginner guitarists

There’s so much information to take in when you start playing guitar, and for most of us this information takes the form of which frets to play with one hand and which strings to pluck with the other. All fine of course, but over the years I’ve encountered many beginners who could have developed much more quickly had they been shown some simple little things to make it all easier.

Remembering String Names:

It’s so important to know which string is which but rarely gets pointed out so I have a couple of mnemonics that should make it a little easier:

Elephants And Donkeys Got Big Ears

Elvis Ate Dynamite Good Bye Elvis

I can’t take credit for these as they were both passed on to me by students but they have certainly proved to be useful.

Left hand position:

Something that we take for granted when we have been playing for a while as it seems so natural and comfortable, but for a new starter finding the best hand position can be not only difficult, but crucial in their potential for development. Poor left hand position can make chords and scales harder to play, limit stretch and cause problems with technique long term. Here are two pictures, the image below shows a scrunched up hand with the thumb wrapped around the guitar neck. Sure it looks like the guitar is getting some love but just try a barre chord or a 2 octave dominant arpeggio like that. Hard. Perhaps not impossible, but definitely hard.

The next image shows what I would consider to be ‘correct’ hand position.

Obviously ‘correct’ means different things to different people in a field where every player has their own slightly different style, but from the point of view of a beginner this position gives the best chance of reaching all the new shapes with the minimum of risk of hand damage and the maximum sound quality. To my eyes this hand position best resembles that which you would have should you be holding a sandwich (filling of your choice), with thumb and forefinger in line with each other, pointing somewhere towards the ceiling, thumb low down on the back of the neck. The guitar neck then slots into the hand where the sandwich would otherwise be. The advantage of this is that the fingers are flat against the neck, rather than bent one way, allowing for greater stretch (great for scales) and the ability to perch the fingers on top of the strings thus letting others ring out clearly (great for basic chords). It’s also the perfect preparation for tackling barre chords – the beginner’s arch nemesis. So, REMEMBER THE SANDWICH and all will be ok.

Practice:

When you start playing an instrument it’s difficult to work out how much, and what you should practice. It’s tempting to sit for an hour and play until your hands are tired, your brain hurts and nothing makes much sense anymore. I don’t think that’s entirely productive, but I fully understand the temptation and commend the effort. Unfortunately this usually hinders development and can dent the enthusiasm. Longer practice sessions are much more suited to people who have been playing for a few months.

Let’s think about how we learn melodies and chords when we’re just starting out: One note (or a small group of notes) at a time. I think beginner practice sessions should be approached in the same way to ensure retention of information and keep motivation levels consistently high. In addition, as a beginner you simply don’t know enough to fill a one hour practice session without retreading the same ground. That’s not a criticism, it’s simply a fact. So, what I propose is a 5 day practice regimen focusing on developing core abilities essential to your playing.

Day 1, 10 minutes total practice divided into two 5 minute mini sessions
Day 2, 10 minutes
Day 3, 15 minutes total practice divided into three 5 minute mini sessions
Day 4, 10 minutes
Day 5, 15 minutes

The five minute sessions can be filled with whatever content you choose, although I would recommend regular recap of chords (finger placement, memory and changes), scales, warm up exercises, left and right hand specific exercises and playing through songs from a list of suitable beginner material. As you develop these mini sessions can be filled with new content and extended in duration (provided you can make the time), until your playing ability demands longer and more focused sessions.

The creative benefits of self limitation

It’s really easy to get carried away when you reach a certain level of ability on the guitar, and equally it’s really easy to get bogged down in your own desire to write and play cool and interesting stuff. This is somewhere I’ve found myself regularly over the years – loads of knowledge and ability but everything I play sounds stale.

If this sounds familiar then I have a work around that might help – limiting your options. I can’t take credit for this as ideas of a similar nature can be found all over the place and in every field, and I first came across it whilst flicking through a set of ‘Oblique Strategies‘.

It may sound weird, increasing your creativity by reducing your field of creative vision, but I’ve found it to work very well particularly in the way it focuses on the job at hand and the principle can be applied to almost anything. Let’s say you’re struggling to find that killer riff for the middle 8 of a tune and all your typical scale choices are sounding flat and boring. Pick 4 notes at random within the appropriate key. Play them in every order you can, in a variety of octaves, with every conceivable technique and stick rigidly to those notes. Something will come right as you live within those notes for long enough. The awesome Ron Jarzombek uses two similar, yet more advanced, principles when creating riffs for Blotted science, something he calls the twelve tone clock or twelve tone fragments. It’s similar to the twelve tone compositional system popularised by classical composers such as Schoenberg and can create some extraordinary results in terms of riffs and chordal passages. I shan’t go into it in detail as Ron has written plenty about it on his website and helpfully most Blotted Science tabs have the appropriate ‘clock’ and ‘key’ indicated next to each section. In any case, it’s a way of limiting your choices to force maximum creativity.

Where I find this sort of thing most useful is when I am practising improvisation. It’s all well and good to know scale patterns and be able to play them in 3rds, 4ths and every other interval but there are so many interesting little patterns and arpeggios within each scale shape that can be exploited when improvising, thus creating more expressive phrasing and developing more exotic note choice from conventional scales. Let’s use a three note per string C Ionian shape over a simple Cmaj7 vamp. We’re going to start with pairs of strings, first up 6 + 5, and we’re going to jam over that Cmaj7 for at least 5 minutes playing those 6 notes in every possible order and use every technique we can (hammers, pulls, bends, slides, taps, whammy etc) until they become so familiar it’s like breathing. Melodically the obvious things to notice are the C major (CEG) and D minor (DFA) arpeggios. Slightly less obvious to the beginner improviser are the Dm7 (DFAC/CDFA) and C6 (CEGA) arpeggios, and even less obvious are the F major (2nd inversion – CFA) and A minor (1st inversion – CEA) arpeggio. 6 notes. All those choices. Once we’ve done that we can move onto strings 4 + 3 and do the same.

It’s very easy to get carried away when you reach a certain ability level as the pressure is to constantly prove that ability by flying around extended scales and arpeggios at lightning speed. There’s a time and a place for that, and of course it’s loads of fun, but it’s often at the expense of note choice. Look at early examples of Vinnie Moore, Reb Beach, George Lynch et al, all obviously hugely talented yet their solos sound more like technical exercises than compositions. Then look at the majesty of Steve Vai (I know, an obvious choice), and jazz guys like Mike Stern, John Scofield and Pat Metheny. Fast at times, but the speed is sprinkled gently over long passages filled with glorious note choice. Rather than simply playing scales over chords they deliberately target each chord as its own individual entity and accent the defining chord tones (i.e the 3rd and 7th rather than the root and 5th). In the case of extended chords they’ll then target the #11, b13 etc. What this means is that they can actually solo with no accompaniment and as listeners we can still hear the chords that should be played underneath because their note choice is so expert. This takes lots of practice and lots of getting it wrong, but this ability doesn’t come by tackling the whole neck in one go,it comes from carefully breaking it in to manageable chunks and becoming 100% comfortable with all of your options. It takes ages, but it’s a fun road to travel and I’ll no doubt bump into you somewhere along it.