Playing Outside with Pentatonic scales

[rotren]

A simple but very useful approach for playing "outside".

[fulltone1989]

This is great! I've read about side-stepping on paper before but it's great to finally have a good video lesson of it for us visual learners. Have you every heard of "Coltrane Ascents?"
It's minor pentatonics ascending in minor 3rds. Sounds hard but really easy to incorporate in your phrasing, Jimmy Herring does this a lot. Your playing keeps getting farther out until you're back at the original scale you started on, just an octave higher. For instance, say it's a static groove on a Gm chord, you go : Gm, Bbm, C#m, Em, Gm. All of this can be done in either a box pattern or in their respective positions. My apologies if my jargon was off.

[Rob G]

Apologies for the blatant plug but I have a couple of videos posted that explore playing outside using the pentatonic scale. One uses half steps, the other playing off of the ii-iii-vi of a major key.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RobGarlandLA?feature=mhsn

[Flyin' Brian]

Originally Posted by fulltone1989

For instance, say it's a static groove on a Gm chord, you go : Gm, Bbm, C#m, Em, Gm.

And if you REALLY want to do something to improve your playing, do this all in one position, then do it in all keys.

[guitarjazz]

Originally Posted by fulltone1989

This is great! I've read about side-stepping on paper before but it's great to finally have a good video lesson of it for us visual learners. Have you every heard of "Coltrane Ascents?"
It's minor pentatonics ascending in minor 3rds. Sounds hard but really easy to incorporate in your phrasing, Jimmy Herring does this a lot. Your playing keeps getting farther out until you're back at the original scale you started on, just an octave higher. For instance, say it's a static groove on a Gm chord, you go : Gm, Bbm, C#m, Em, Gm. All of this can be done in either a box pattern or in their respective positions. My apologies if my jargon was off.

Central Park West

[projam619]

Great stuff Rotren! Thanks for sharing

[anderson110]

While I agree this is a useful technique that can work, it strikes me as one of those ways to let the fingers lead and hoping that music happens as a result, rather than letting the music lead and making the fingers follow.

So I'm not saying it doesn't have its place as a way to break out and maybe find some new ideas, but I think you have to be a little careful with this kind of thing, and not let it turn into an exercise in moving your fingers in patterns and hoping for something good to come out eventually.

[projam619]

Originally Posted by anderson110

While I agree this is a useful technique that can work, it strikes me as one of those ways to let the fingers lead and hoping that music happens as a result, rather than letting the music lead and making the fingers follow.

So I'm not saying it doesn't have its place as a way to break out and maybe find some new ideas, but I think you have to be a little careful with this kind of thing, and not let it turn into an exercise in moving your fingers in patterns and hoping for something good to come out eventually.

Good point....I believe that the best exponents of outside playing know exactly what their outside lines will sound like as they play them. Maybe when one first works on, say, side-slipping, it may sound like your fingers are doing the walking. But eventually, one starts to hear the "melodic" contour of outside playing simultaneous with its execution. And of course, outside playing is as much a rhythmic technique as well as a theoretical one...

[dazco]

Personally i find 90% of outside stuff sounding like it's outside for the sake of playing outside to some degree and misses on a musical level. Just as with the way so many people use use speed for the sake of speed. When used right and in the right amounts it's great. But i just don't hear many people playing outside in a real musical way. Well, i shouldn't say i don't hear many, i just hear a lot more that don't.

[MartinPiana]

Originally Posted by anderson110

While I agree this is a useful technique that can work, it strikes me as one of those ways to let the fingers lead and hoping that music happens as a result, rather than letting the music lead and making the fingers follow.

I'm one of those who is often teaching my ear - which will amaze no musician - as I teach my fingers. For instance, my experience with melodic and harmonic minor was that only when I began doing exercises on them did I begin to fully get those sounds in my ear, and not only play them but be able to hear them when others played them.

[stevel]

Hey Robert, I wish you had chordal accompaniment going on behind this.

Best,
Steve

[Elektrik_SIxx]

Hey, nice lesson! I like how you connect those licks so they have melodic continuity to them. Thanks!

[rotren]

Thanks guys, this is just a technique, really. Rambling up and down on any scale (regardless of inside or outside) sounds, well, lame if you don't have some good phrasing happening. That means, good rhythmic articulation and "feel", etc - something a bit harder to teach in a short video. Still, this side-stepping approach can work well, if you create some good lines out of it. If you play the exact same lick as in the original key, but a half-step up/down, it will likely sound a bit artificial.

[Rumblur]

nice playing, great tone, but that stuff sounds goofy. It's like a peanut butter and mustard sandwich... you can eat it, but it just aint right.

[angus99]

Originally Posted by Rumblur

nice playing, great tone, but that stuff sounds goofy. It's like a peanut butter and mustard sandwich... you can eat it, but it just aint right.

Well, it's not GCD, but why goofy???

A chord track, as noted, would "tie the room together," but I think it works very well as is.