Guitar Lessons – Minor Pentatonic Sequences

Today we’ll be talking about some structured ways to approach playing the minor pentatonic scale. If you’re not familiar with the minor pentatonic scale, check out this lesson on the shapes for playing the scale first.

Sequences are just repeated patterns you can play to get through a scale. They’re great for learning a new scale, and they can make for some cool licks and runs in your solos. The first one we’ll look at is a simple pattern, just running up the scale in groups of 4 notes.

Play up the first four notes of the minor pentatonic scale. Then play up four notes starting on the second note. Then the third, and so on.

That’s a basic pentatonic sequence, and sounds great when played quickly in a solo:

Going up in groups of three sounds good, too:

Here’s a great descending pattern that’s easy to follow and remember.

You don’t necessarily have to play the notes in order, either. Here’s a non-linear pattern.

 

That’s all for now. Try running these sequences through the five pentatonic scale shapes I showed in the last video.

Guitar Lesson – Minor Pentatonic Scale Shapes

Hey guys, here’s a quick lesson on some scale patterns for the Minor Pentatonic scale. Check out the video to hear how these patterns sound, and then try them out yourself using the diagrams below.

The minor pentatonic scale is one of the most important scales to learn as a guitarist, you’ll use it in almost every solo, and when writing songs. You’re probably already familiar with the most popular scale pattern for the minor pentatonic.

 

This is the most commonly played shape for the minor pentatonic scale, and it’s definitely enough to get by in most cases. It’d be good to know the full scale, though, so you can get to that scale anywhere on the neck. There are five shapes to the pentatonic scale, each starting on a different one of the five notes in the scale. The first is the one you’re familiar with, based on the first note of the scale. In this case, we’re in the key of A minor, so it’ll be an A.

Here are all five scale patterns. Diamonds mark the root of the scale (in this case, A). It’s a good idea to visualize where the root is at all times, so you know where to look when you go to grab this scale during a solo.

Lesson plan for the next 5 weeks

Hey guys, I figured I’d give you a quick look at what my lessons will be covering for the next few weeks. I covered barre chords pretty thoroughly, and I figure it’s a good time to transition into some basic music theory. I’ll keep the focus on what’s important for you to know, and try and cut out the boring stuff. Sounds good? Let me know if there’s anything else you want to see here.

Music Theory 1

• Brief overview of the Major Scale
• Building major, minor, diminished, and augmented chords.
• Building major, minor, and dominant 7 chords.

Music Theory 2

• Extending beyond the octave:
  • Building major 9, minor 9, 7#9, 7b9 chords
  • Building chords with 11ths and 13ths.

Music Theory 3

• Roman numeral system of notating chords
• V – I progression.
• ii – V – I progression.
• iii – vi – ii – V – I progression.

Music Theory 4

• The minor scale, and its variations.
  • Natural
  • Harmonic
  • Melodic
• Applying chord progressions to the minor scale.

Music Theory 5

• Describe the concept of modes
• Outline the modes of the major scale, and the sound of each.
  • Ionian
  • Dorian
  • Phrygian
  • Lydian
  • Mixolydian
  • Aeolian
  • Locrean
• Apply concept of modes to other scales
  • Melodic minor
  • Pentatonic

Lesson – Barre Chords Part 3: 9 and 13 chords

In the last couple of lessons, we covered some of the basic barre chord shapes for major and minor chords, as well as major7, minor7, and dominant7 chords, with the root on the fifth and sixth strings. This week, I’ll be covering a few more chord shapes, including a few 9 chords, and one 13 chord.

9 chords are just the next step after 7 chords, and each 7 chord has a few 9 chords related to it. First chord up is a major9 chord. It’s related to the major7 chord, and like the major7 chord, it’s a very light, airy sound. Here’s the shape for a Cmajor9, on the 8^th fret of the 6^th string. And the 5^th string shape, on the 3^rd fret.

Here’s a dominant9 chord, usually just called a 9 chord. Like the dominant7, it’s great for jazz and funk. Here’s the 6^th string shape, and the 5th-string.

 Adding a #9th to a dominant 7 chord gives you a 7#9, usually called the Hendrix chord. Here’s the 6th-string shape, and the 5^th.

 Our last 9 chord is a minor9. Like the minor7, this is a relaxed, jazzy chord. Here’s the 6th-string shape, and the 5^th string.

Finally, we have the 13 chord, which is great for blues and jazz. That’ll look like this on the 6^th string, and on the 5^th string.

That’s it for barre chords. Next week, we’ll take a look at how these chords are built, so you can understand the theory behind them, instead of just memorizing shapes.

What I’m Working On: Gypsy Jazz with Stephane Wrembel

First day back in Albany for the semester, and stuff’s already heating up (figuratively speaking, of course…I’m watching the snow pile up outside as I type this).

I’d only just been introduced to the gypsy jazz stylings of Stephane Wrembel last week by my father, who had been working on learning the guitarist’s “Bistro Fada”, a fantastic guitar waltz which served as the theme to last year’s “Midnight In Paris.”

The timing is part of the reason I couldn’t believe an email I received this morning from a professor saying Wrembel would be giving a jazz guitar workshop at our college this week! Needless to say, I’m spending the days leading up to it transcribing his lines, and tightening up my playing so I can get the most out of the brief time I’ll have to play with this guy.

Also awesome, he has play-along tracks to most of his songs for free download on his site!

Take a listen this this guy if you get the chance, he’s an absolute monster on the guitar, and easily my favorite player to try and carry Django’s torch. I’ll have more next week on how the clinic went, so check back!

Take a listen on Spotify: Stephane Wrembel – Introducing Stephane Wrembel

Friends: Speed Painting

Take a look at some beautiful artwork by my friend, the lovely and talented Victoria Rose. I had some fun writing some relaxing music for this one, and can’t wait to work with her again.

Lesson – Barre Chords Part 2: Major, Minor, and Dominant 7 chords

Last week, I went over the chord shapes for major and minor barre chords, with the root on the 5^th and 6^th strings. This week, I’m going to go a little deeper into the kinds of chords you can get out of these shapes. 

The Major 7 has an ethereal quality to it. It kind of floats there. Here’s the Bmaj7 shape on the 6^th string and the 5^th string. Just like the major and minor shapes, these are the same chords, just in different places on the neck.

The Dominant 7 chord, usually just called a 7, is a jagged chord, it really sticks out. It’s great for blues and funk. Here’s the 6^th and 5^th string shapes.

Our last chord for the week is the minor 7. Like the major7 is related to the major chord, the minor seven is similar to the minor, but it doesn’t sound as sad. It’s more of a relaxed chord, kind of jazzy. Here’s are the shapes.

That’s all for this week. Next time, I’m going to cover a couple more shapes, some advanced, weird chords you might not be familiar with. After that, I’ll get into how those chords are built, and the theory behind them.

What I’m Working On: Diatonic 4th Runs

Hey guys, here’s a quick look at a new exercise I just added to my warm-up routine yesterday. The concept is simple, but it makes for a tricky run up and down the minor scale (or any other scale you like).

For this exercise, I used the A Minor scale, which you’re likely familiar with:

If we play the scale in intervals of 4ths, it becomes an exercise in itself. To find the 4th of A, we count up the A minor scale, A (1), B (2), C (3), D (4). D is the 4th of A, in the key of A Minor. I’ll be covering more of the theory behind intervals and scales in a couple weeks, that’ll do for now.

Here is the A minor scale, with each note of the scale followed by the one a 4th above it:

That’s a good exercise, but I was looking for something a little more interesting, so I messed with the formula a bit, and came up with this:

• Up a 4th
• Up a scale step
• Down a 4th
• Up a scale step

Not too complicated, but just enough to confuse the fingers a little. That’ll look like this:

Right now, I’ve can play that at 16th notes around 90bpm, but it’s only my first day with it. Try it out and let me know what you think!

How to make live dubstep bass in Pro Tools (or any other DAW)

Hey guys, I’ve had a few people ask about the dubsteppy wobble bass sound on my Skrillex First Of the Year video, so I figured I’d walk you through how I got those effects.

To be honest, most of what I did to the bass guitar there is the same thing electronic producers do to their bass synth to get that sound. I’m running the bass through a fuzz distortion, a low-pass filter, a vowel filter, and a downsampler. In Pro Tools, you’ll want to use the AIR Fuzz-wah, Talkbox, and Lo-Fi plugins.

The fuzz is pretty straightforward. You just need to find an effect that will drive the signal hard enough to bring out the upper frequencies of the bass, without killing it’s low-end tone. I had that on pretty much throughout the whole video.

I used a low-pass filter on this track, which means the filter cuts out high frequencies as it moves around. Adding some resonance to the filter gives it a “wah” sound. In pro tools, you’ll want to make sure that the fuzz isn’t set to “Post-Wah” so Pro Tools puts the filter after the distortion in your signal chain.

The vowel filter is kind of a weird effect. It simulates a talkbox or a vocoder by adjusting the frequencies that correspond to different vowel sounds. Pro Tools gives you a single knob you can use to rotate through the sounds, but there are plenty of plugins around that will do the same thing. This is what did most of the work on the bass in this track.

Last up is the downsampler. You can find this is most recording programs under similar names. In Pro Tools, it’s the AIR Lo-Fi plugin, in Ableton Live it’s Redux, and in Garageband it’s the Bitcrusher. There’s a whole lot of complicated reasons as to how this effect works. For the most part, all you need to know is that it adds a cool lo-fi effect to your sound, and that it turns the wah into a whole different effect. Bring the sample rate down low enough, then bring in the wah for a “yai-yai” type of effect.

There you go, everything you need to make your own live wobble bass sound. Good luck!

Lesson – Barre Chords Part 1: Major and Minor Chord Shapes

Barre chords are a little different from the open chords you might be familiar with, like this G, D, and C.

Instead of having one shape per chord, barre chords give you a shape you can move around the neck, letting you play in any key you need. It’s a great way to break out of the whole campfire-chord thing and get into playing on a new level.

In this lesson, I’ll be covering the most basic barre chord shapes, major and minor, and how you can apply these to your playing.

This is a major chord [shown below], with the root on the 6^th string. By root, I mean the note that the chord is named after, so for a G major chord, you’ll want to find G on the 6^th string, which’ll be the 3^rd fret, and build this chord shape on top of it. To play an A major chord, we move the shape up to the 5^th fret, which on the 6^th string is the note A.

A minor chord on the 6^th string looks pretty similar [below], and it can be applied in exactly the same way as the major shape.

Now, you can play any chord you need with the root on the 6^th string if you want, but jumping around from say, G to D major isn’t exactly the easiest thing if you’re stuck on the sixth string. If we move the root to the 5^th string, though, changes get a lot easier.

Here’s the Major chord shape with the root on the 5th string. It’s exactly the same sounding chord as it’s 6^th string-root version, just in a different, sometimes more convenient place on the neck.

And here’s the minor shape for the 5^th string.

Between these four shapes, you’ll be able to play almost any chord you’ll need for most songs. Next week, I’ll cover some more chord shapes: 7^th and diminished chords.