Scales and progressions

[jenkem345]

Hey,
I have kind of hit a wall with my improv playing. I have pentatonic and blues scales down and am trying mixo scales (with limited success). Any tips on some good scales or chord progressions to practice that mix well together? Thanks

[Swain]

Maybe try playing "All Blues' by Miles Davis. There are just a few "Changes", and it's a fun tune. Also, "House Of The Rising Sun". Those Chord Changes can be fun to Improvise over.

Other than that? Maybe try these:

G Em C D

G D Em C

Eb9 D7#9 Gm Gm



But, I would suggest learning some Diatonic Theory and Harmony. I think that will probably be what you are looking for.

Hope this helps.

[loofery]

You can get good at using mixo over major chords a whole step apart. For example, over A - B , use B Mixolydian. These changes could be analyzed as the 4 and 5 chords in the key of E (B mixo contains the same notes as E major).

Try static chords; just vamp over a Maj7 chord and play the major and the lydian modes, or use a Min7 chord and go through the minor, dorian, and phyrgian modes, one at a time.

What you ultimately want to do is internalize the sound of the notes in the scale - not just the chord tones but the extensions as well. The chord tones of a Min7 chord are all found in the minor, dorian, and phyrgian modes, but it's the other tones that give them their unique flavor.

Also, definately learn some diatonic theory so you know what progressions to use them over without even having to touch your guitar first.

[stevel]

Hey,
I have kind of hit a wall with my improv playing. I have pentatonic and blues scales down and am trying mixo scales (with limited success). Any tips on some good scales or chord progressions to practice that mix well together? Thanks

Here's what I consider an interesting observation - many posters ask "how do I break out of this pentatonic scale (or whatever) rut?"

The answer seems to be to "use other scales".

However, my advice to you and anyone following this path is to break out of "scalar thinking" altogether.

If you really want to open up your playing, you need to start thinking about notes as individual entities - not "part of X scale" and how those notes relate to a given chord.

For example, in the key of C, what is Eb?

It's the b3 or a I chord - as either the minor 3rd of a minor tonic chord, or the b3 blue note over a major tonic chord.

It's the b9 of Vb9/V

It's the root of bIII

It's the b7th of IV7 (another blue note)

It's the 7th of viio7/V

It's the +5th (as D#) of a V+ chord.

It's the 5th of bVI or bVI7

It's the b5th of a vio triad (usually seen as a subset of some other chord).

If you like, it's the Sus4 of a bVII chord

So that note - Eb - doesn't have to "come from a scale" to impart a particular character in each of those contexts.

Now, this is not to imply (nor should it be inferred) that scales and "scalar thinking" is not useful - it certainly is - we just tend to put *WAY* too much emphasis on them. And by their very nature, and the way we employ them, the tend to "lock us in" to those ruts pretty quickly.

HTH,
Steve

[JonR]

^ excellent post.

In way, focussing on scales too much is like thinking we can learn everything about a language by learning the alphabet. OK, so we know the letter "M" comes after L and before N. Maybe we can learn to say the alphabet by heart backwards as well as forwards. Great. So what?
Letters only makes any sense when used in a word (chord), which then gets used in a sentence (progression or key). The letter "E" in the word "ARSE" is a different thing from the letter "E" in the word "ELBOW"... (viz old English saying ;). Nothing to do with the band Elbow... or the band Arse, if there is one... and there ought to be, although I imagine some people would get them confused... :) )

[Jon]

^ excellent post.

In way, focussing on scales too much is like thinking we can learn everything about a language by learning the alphabet. OK, so we know the letter "M" comes after L and before N. Maybe we can learn to say the alphabet by heart backwards as well as forwards. Great. So what?
Letters only makes any sense when used in a word (chord), which then gets used in a sentence (progression or key). The letter "E" in the word "ARSE" is a different thing from the letter "E" in the word "ELBOW"... (viz old English saying ;). Nothing to do with the band Elbow... or the band Arse, if there is one... and there ought to be, although I imagine some people would get them confused... :) )
LOL After a childhood accident I can no longer recognise the letter 'L'. I therefore don't know my Arse from my Ebow, which means I get funny looks when trying to play long sustained notes!! :jo

I agree with the rest of the post too - to move past a plateau in your playing you need to listen to different music that incorporates the type of playing you would like to move towards - learning a scale and then trying to make it fit somewhere is back-to-front. You need to start by hearing a sound (i.e. a lick over a chord or sequence of chords) and then trying to reproduce it on your instrument. Once you have done this you can look at the theory behind it to understand why it works and use this knowledge to expand on its usage. The goal with improvisation is to be able to reproduce the sounds you hear in your head in real-time on the instrument - if you aren't hearing those sounds...if the only sounds that you are hearing are the ones you can already play and are bored by, then it's time to do some serious listening to expand on what you can hear.

[jenkem345]

Thanks for your help guys i appreciate it

[stevel]

The point about the alphabet seems to apply only to those who want to be able to read/write the language. If one only wanted to be able to converse, there'd really be no need to memorize vowels and consanants. You would simply need to make sure that you spoke words just like you heard others say them. Would it be the same, at least in theory, with scales? Could someone become a skilled guitarist, yet not really know that a particular note comes after another in a particular scale?

Correct. You can certainly learn a language without being able to read or write it - in fact, I don't know of any humans who learn to read or write *before* they learn to speak!

There are *many* skilled guitarists (and other instrumentalists) who "speak the language" but don't know how to "read or write" (their scales).


Now of course, the likelihood of getting through life not at least having heard "the alphabet song" in English-speaking countries is pretty nil. So the likelihood that X guitarist never runs across the knowledge that there are things like a C Major scale, would be similarly rare.

Does one *need* scales. No. Will knowing scales be beneficial to you?

I don't know, could we be offering the original poster these suggestions without their ability to read, and our ability to write?

I often use the "alpahabet to word" analogy for "theory to music", but it applies with the "scale to music" parallel as well. You don't have to know the "theory", but it can be very useful if you do know it. And my philosophy is, it's better to know it and not need it, rather than to need it and not know it!

That's why we deem it necessary to teach our kids to read and write in school, after they've learned to speak at home.

Music is a little different though because not everyone has a music-making (music "speaking") household so kids won't learn how to "speak" music early on.

So when we teach music, we typically have to teach both the "spoken" (sounds) part at the same time as the "written/reading" (notation, chords, scales, theory, etc.) at the same time.

Steve