Slide Guitar Instruction Books
Learn Guitar Scales Software
Scales are the basis behind most guitar solos, and at least a basic knowledge of them is essential for any guitarist who wants to do more than to be able to finger a few short riffs from memory.
A lead guitarist playing a blazing riff that sounds fantastically hot is likely doing nothing more than playing a few pentatonic scale phrasings up and down the fretboard. They look as though they have spent ages learning each guitar solo they play, but in reality, yes they have spent ages learning, but in learning only one scale of five notes.
In learning to play guitar you will want to learn guitar solos. A guitar solo is a carefully rehearsed series of notes known as a scale. There are many different types of scale, but that used by the vast majority of blues and rock musicians is known as a pentatonic scale: pentatonic because it has only five notes. In the blues pentatonic one of these is a blues note, generally a diminished fifth, but can also be a diminished third or seventh. If that means nothing to you don’t worry about it – it doesn’t have to.
The great thing about a guitar pentatonic scale is once you have learned it you can change key simply by playing the same five notes up or down the fret. You can play a whole riff just with five notes, and changing fret positions. It always sounds good because you are playing scales all over the fret, and scales generally sound good. That’s the pentatonic scale, and why it is used by lead guitarists all over the world. Now all you have to do to make a really great sound is to add a few hammer-ons, slides, pull-offs, vibrato and all the rest.
Play EXISTING riffs and patterns with speed and accuracy click here
Once you have mastered the pentatonic scale through practicing it forwards and backwards, up a key and down a key, and can play it fast with each note well sounded and clean, you can start working on phrasing. You can look upon phrasing in much the same way as phrasing different words in phrases and sentences. In fact once you have practiced phrasing enough, you will be able to attach phrases together to end up with a complete guitar solo.
To get started on phrasing you must first be able to play your pentatonic scale blindfold and without too much thought. It should come automatically to you, and you should know when you are in the right key to start. You will know when the time has come, and you can then start putting some of these five note combinations together. Practice these and then add some more and before you it you will have an entire solo in your head. It will consist of nothing more than a whole load of five note combinations played on different parts of the fret at various speeds. A simple concept that sounds great.
An important aspect of phrasing is that the final note must end on the root note of the scale you are playing. If you fail to do that, your phrase won’t sound finished. It’s a bit like intonation in speech: you don’t finish a sentence on the wrong note, but on a note that makes it sounds as if your sentence is finished. The same applies to musical phrasing.
It’s much easier to explain by letting you hear it, which is why learning to play guitar is best done using video instruction. Hearing a pentatonic scale being played makes it much easier for you than seeing it written down in a book. With video you can see the fingering, and also hear the sound. You can also hear how several scales can be put together into a phrase, and how the whole can be formed into an entire guitar solo. Learning guitar cannot be achieved properly just by reading books – you have to know that what you are playing sounds right.
Of course, it is not only the scales themselves that make a good soloist, and in learning to play guitar you will also have to learn the various techniques such as the hammer-ons and the others already mentioned. There are also many more, and these are also easy to learn when you see them executed on video. Everybody knows what a vibrato sounds like, but to see it actually being executed in front of your eyes, and then you trying it yourself, makes it much easier to achieve properly.
So there you are. Practicing scales is not wimpish, but essential for you to be a great rock guitarist, and wonderful blues player or good at any other style of guitar. The importance of scales in learning to play guitar is critical to your ability to play fast riffs, because they are generally based on phrases of pentatonic scales. If you are learning to play guitar by video, then you will learn these, and the techniques needed to make best use of them, quickly and easily without all the pain and hassle of trying to interpret charts and diagrams.
CREATE patterns and riffs anytime of the day or night Click here
About the Author
guitarist that you always admired. Click here