Spicing up your Pentatonic's

[Phil47uk]

I often read posts about people getting bogged down with scale knowledge ( Or lack of it ), so I have taken an extract from my book and posted this up for those who want to know how to spice up their pentatonics and not always end up sounding like a blues or country guitarist.

Pentatonics over Major 7th chords.

You can play pentatonic scales based on the 1st...2nd and 5th degrees of a major scale over a Maj7th chord.

e.g. Chord Cmaj7th

C major scale

C D E F G A B

Therefore over the Chord of Cmaj 7th

Pentatonics used.. C major pent... Or Am pent.
D major pent.........." Bm pent.
G major pent.........." Em pent




Pentatonics over minor 7th chords

Pentatonics scales can be played based on the minor 3rd... 4th..And flat7 th of a natural minor scale.

Chord Cminor 7th..

C natural minor scale.. C D Eb F G A Bb

Therefore over the chord of Cminor7th

Pentatonics used. Eb major pent.......Or Cminor pent.
F major pent.........." Dminor pent
Bb major pent........" Gm pent.





Pentatonics over dominant seventh chords.

You can play pentatonics based on the 1st.....minor 3rd.......flat 7th of a minor seventh scale.

Chord C7th

C minor seventh scale. C D Eb F G A Bb


Therefore over the chord of C7th.

Pentatonics used... Cmaj pent.........Or Am pent.
Eb maj pent........" Cm pent
Bb maj pent......." Gm pent.





Now some of these may sound a bit weird to the ear, simply because the functions of the notes in the scale have changed against the chord..
Experiment and see what you like the sound of.

The usual thing is to say play C minor pent against a C minor chord, but now try this one.. Play your Cmaj7th chord and now play the scale of Eminor pentatonic against it..

C Maj 7th



C minor7th ( Cm7)




C7th




Have some fun playing around with sounds.

Sorry that things don't line up properly.. They are perfect in Word, but when you paste then on the forum they are all out of line..

[fatb0t]

This is a very interesting technique which I've been delving into lately to spice things up. You can definitely get some interesting licks out of superimposing scales. Sometimes it highlights intervals in scales that I tend to avoid because they seem 'unstable' to my ear. With this technique I can throw them in sparingly and then I can resort back to my good ol' trust minor pentatonic in the root position.

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by fatb0t

This is a very interesting technique which I've been delving into lately to spice things up. You can definitely get some interesting licks out of superimposing scales. Sometimes it highlights intervals in scales that I tend to avoid because they seem 'unstable' to my ear. With this technique I can throw them in sparingly and then I can resort back to my good ol' trust minor pentatonic in the root position.

Perhaps I may have gone a bit over the top with this thread, seeing as some posts are even questioning the validity of scales in the first place, let alone setting them to chords constructed on various degrees of a scale. ..

Yeah, you get some very interesting note functions changing the various scales against the chords mentioned.

[alligatorbling]

thanks for posting! good stuff here mate =)

[Phil47uk]

Yeah, using little tricks like this make people at a gig go " What the **** was that scale he was using there"
In actual fact in western music there are only very few scales that are used, but as I have always maintained, it's the knowledge of chord construction and how scales and chords are related that makes it all fit together. The scale was something they have played a million times...The chords they were played against though weren't.

Here's a typical sort of thin that gives you some weird sounds and intervals.
You have probably heard this before, but a few years back I was buggering around with old Humph my R0 trying to set up the neck pickup and just improvised around a chord sequence. It's straight into a desk..One take..No effects. Not my usual styles but never the less helped me adjust the neck pickup clean... Don't ask me what the hell I was playing as I was just winging it of the top of my head. I could probably work it out, but that's not really the point. Just listen to some of the functions changing in the scales against the chords as they change.

4shared.com - online file sharing and storage - download Humph.mp3






.

[fatb0t]

Well Phil, I'm sure you already know this but maybe some other MLP members don't - so I'll throw it in here.

When I improvise I follow the progression around a lot, I believe it's called 'chord tone' soloing. Basically I will land on a root, third, or fifth interval of the chord in the progression.

Now sometimes with arpeggios I will stack triads. So say we have a progression in Eminor with the chords: Em Am Bm
For the Em we have the notes E G B. When the progression lands on the Eminor I can play a G major traid (G B D) over the E min triad making an Em7 chord. This gives me a lot of options. I can go a step further and stack a Bm traid ontop of the Em chord to give it a Em9 feel and so on.

Sometimes when the progression lands on an Eminor I will sweep a Gmajor then a B minor triad - it adds a ton of flavor! Even with tons of distortion you can make complex chords which is really refreshing for metal playing.

[fatb0t]

Tasty improv

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by fatb0t

Well Phil, I'm sure you already know this but maybe some other MLP members don't - so I'll throw it in here.

When I improvise I follow the progression around a lot, I believe it's called 'chord tone' soloing. Basically I will land on a root, third, or fifth interval of the chord in the progression.

Now sometimes with arpeggios I will stack triads. So say we have a progression in Eminor with the chords: Em Am Bm
For the Em we have the notes E G B. When the progression lands on the Eminor I can play a G major traid (G B D) over the E min triad making an Em7 chord. This gives me a lot of options. I can go a step further and stack a Bm traid ontop of the Em chord to give it a Em9 feel and so on.

Sometimes when the progression lands on an Eminor I will sweep a Gmajor then a B minor triad - it adds a ton of flavor! Even with tons of distortion you can make complex chords which is really refreshing for metal playing.

Hole in one fatbot... Exactly the sort of things I mean..
I think you will be agreement of the importance and knowledge of chords and chord construction related to soloing. It's just a pity that in much of todays playing nobody ever seems to give chords much thought.

Great post..

[fatb0t]

Well it took me several years to grasp this concept. Scales standing alone are pretty useless. I mean, you can make riffs and stuff like that but all the color from solos comes from the chords BEHIND it.

It's a 50/50 relationship, a ying yang of sorts. They both need to exist for either to have any sort of musical value.

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by fatb0t

Well it took me several years to grasp this concept. Scales standing alone are pretty useless. I mean, you can make riffs and stuff like that but all the color from solos comes from the chords BEHIND it.

It's a 50/50 relationship, a ying yang of sorts. They both need to exist for either to have any sort of musical value.

Exactly..100% spot on.........

[fatb0t]

Since most of the tunes in my band are blues based, in a minor tonality and generally a derivative of a I IV V progression I'm always looking to spice up my solos.

Got anything in mind I could try out? As in an interesting chord/scale relationship I may not know of? I'm 22 with absolutely no formal training so I like to pick up pieces here and there..

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by fatb0t

Since most of the tunes in my band are blues based, in a minor tonality and generally a derivative of a I IV V progression I'm always looking to spice up my solos.

Got anything in mind I could try out? As in an interesting chord/scale relationship I may not know of? I'm 22 with absolutely no formal training so I like to pick up pieces here and there..

22 eh... You sound as if you have an older head on your shoulders.. Great stuff. You will go far in the biz...

[sliding tom]

Cool clip, Phil - Humph sounds like an archtop there - I guess that's the way a Les Paul initially was meant to sound like.

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by sliding tom

Cool clip, Phil - Humph sounds like an archtop there - I guess that's the way a Les Paul initially was meant to sound like.

Thanks Tom,
Yeah, when I spoke to old John Vasco on the phone the other week I strummed an open chord on old Humph and he asked " What's that an acoustic guitar?"...Praise indeed..

Hey Tom, watching those How Music works videos I learned something new.
I didn't know that the pentatonic scale can be found within the scales of every culture in the world.
I knew they were in Scottish and Chinese music, but didn't know those notes were hidden in all music. Ya learn something new every day.

Check out was he says about them in this vid..Fascinating..

You Tube

You Tube

[sliding tom]

Yes, Phil, I took notice of that right away when I started watching. And all those melodies sound so different from each other. When younger folks here complain about "being stuck in pentatonics" I think they may be more stuck to one position on the neck or suffer from a lack of imagination. There's a lot of ground that can be covered with pentatonics and then you can add a new note here and there and voila! you might be playing one of those cherished "scales" or "modes" without even knowing it.

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by sliding tom

Yes, Phil, I took notice of that right away when I started watching. And all those melodies sound so different from each other. When younger folks here complain about "being stuck in pentatonics" I think they may be more stuck to one position on the neck or suffer from a lack of imagination. There's a lot of ground that can be covered with pentatonics and then you can add a new note here and there and voila! you might be playing one of those cherished "scales" or "modes" without even knowing it.

Absolutely....

Many people are so myopic in their views about music and only listen to guitar related things, which is OK in itself, but the problem is that they can never get out of the cliched hole they have dug for themselves.
I have seen many bands and listened to many guitar related posts and videos and in around 99% of cases it could be virtually the same person playing only sometimes some better than others.
Very very rarely do I sit up with a jolt and think..Wow! Now that really did something for me.. It doesn't have to be technical or flash, but what I want to hear is an individuals story.. The loves, fears, hates and passions, but in so many cases it always ends up to me as if someone is painting by numbers, or reciting a well rehearsed line. The notes are all there, but the individuality is somehow missing.

The old days have gone I'm afraid.. This is a society of 'I wanna be instantly.'
Hell. They even want to buy new guitars that look as if they have been on the road for forty years. Back then, if you got a ding in your guitar you'd say.."Oh shit" ( or worse ).

Gaining experience and indivuality takes time.. You can't buy that one off the shelf along with your reliced guitar and how to play like a pro in ten days DVD.
People very often only want to hear what they want to hear, but I suppose we are all guilty of that at some time or another.
Back in the 60's you just had to know your chords. If you didn't and turned up at an audition people would just laugh at you. There was no plugging into a NASA space center effects rack and piddling up and down the fingerboard for ten minutes without even a breathing space. You had to come up with melody.. If you didn't it was..Goodnight, don't ring us, we'll ring you.

[jerryo]

Originally Posted by fatb0t

Well it took me several years to grasp this concept. Scales standing alone are pretty useless. I mean, you can make riffs and stuff like that but all the color from solos comes from the chords BEHIND it.

It's a 50/50 relationship, a ying yang of sorts. They both need to exist for either to have any sort of musical value.

Great reminder

Thanks

[huw]

Originally Posted by fatb0t

...all the color from solos comes from the chords BEHIND it.

It's a 50/50 relationship, a ying yang of sorts. They both need to exist for either to have any sort of musical value.

To me the KEY is paramount, and the scale, & the chords are each only half of the key...

And what you say is doubly true, hell more than double, triply true when the subject of the modes comes up...

I've been building up to a rant about modes for a while now (thread imminent!) and one of my starting points is going to be how people only seem to think "horizontally" ie like a scale, and not "vertically", ie the building & use of the harmony.

[fatb0t]

Originally Posted by huw

To me the KEY is paramount, and the scale, & the chords are each only half of the key...

And what you say is doubly true, hell more than double, triply true when the subject of the modes comes up...

I've been building up to a rant about modes for a while now (thread imminent!) and one of my starting points is going to be how people only seem to think "horizontally" ie like a scale, and not "vertically", ie the building & use of the harmony.

I look forward to that thread!

[Phil47uk]

I look forward to the thread too..

I see modes being described in such complicated ways on places like you-tube, where in fact they are very very simple if one looks at it from a different angle in as much as for every mode there is a chord and for every chord there is a mode.

[Harmony]

Some great info

[PINKBITS]

I really need to pull my finger out and learn more. Thank you Phil

[5F6-A]

cheers mate!! excellent stuff

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by Harmony

Some great info

Thanks Harmony..

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by PINKBITS

I really need to pull my finger out and learn more. Thank you Phil

Yeah the guitar is a fascinating instrument PINKBITS. There is just so much you can do on the thing and simple musical theory like this can open up a whole new world.

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by 5F6-A

cheers mate!! excellent stuff

Thanks 5F6-A. Hope it's been of some use.

[5F6-A]

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by 5F6-A

Just adding a sequel ( Part two ) to this thread, for anyone who happens to be interested.

[VastHorizon]

Originally Posted by Phil47uk

Just adding a sequel ( Part two ) to this thread, for anyone who happens to be interested.

I AM!!!

[Phil47uk]

Originally Posted by VastHorizon

I AM!!!

Well that's one....