Welcome to our weekly Music Corner Drop-in series where take a deep dive into a broad range of subjects on everything guitar and music in general.
This week we’re exploring how to better use the pentatonic scale across the guitar neck. Do you ever feel trapped in the various boxes? We look at how to break free.
Lots of techniques, know-how and much more to apply to your own songs.
Overview
We have all tried to learn and master the five minor/major pentatonic scale patterns and have maybe even learned some tasty licks within their confines and mixed and matched a few together.
But a lot of us struggle to venture outside of these ‘safe’ zones; we remain captured with their vertical frets. We also limit ourselves to the notes of the scales.
There are lot directions we take in trying to break out of these scales. We might look at other scales, chord tones, etc. that can be added in to spice things up; or learn how to link the patterns and start improvisations both horizontally and/or diagonally across the neck.
Music Corners in general
These weekly one hour sessions are designed to give us the tools to self-improve and widen our knowledge in the following general areas: rhythm, reading music, improvising, understanding music theory, getting good tone, how to play a solo, how to play with a group, how to develop your ear, learning the rules of music through transcribing the history of a genre. Our tutor, Jamie McCredie, will share key things he has learned over years that have helped to make him the professional guitarist and musician he is today.
Materials:
With every lesson you will receive any relevant PDFs (usually on the day) and we sometimes try to do a Zoom recording of the session.
Session suitability
These sessions are most suitable for intermediate players with a tad of music theory/knowledge but players of all standards will register some lightbulb moments and pick up some great ideas and approaches.