Tag: soloing

electric guitar D

The Diminished 7th Arpeggio

The diminished 7th arpeggio is most commonly associated with the minor key. If you build a chord off the 7th degree of A harmonic minor, you get G# B D F.

In A minor it usually functions as a leading tone chord that resolves one fret higher into the tonic chord (Amin).

Once you understand how it…



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How to Break Out of the Pentatonic Rut

Here are some things you can try with Pentatonics:

* Spend more time playing up and down the strings rather than across the strings.
* Pick every note instead of typical hammer pull licks.
* Avoid bends. Use slides instead.
* Avoid triplet patterns. Instead think in groups of 4, 5 and 6
* Think…



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How to Learn the Sound of the Modes

Playing modes over a pedal tone is going to nail the sound of each mode down, but it can also be misleading in that you can wander around aimlessly within the mode and think you’re really “doing it”.

What you need, though, is to develop a sense of the strong and weak notes in each mode,…



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What Makes a Mode

What make the modes is where the music resolves… comes to rest… feels at home.

If you take a pool of notes – C D E F G A B – and make the C sound like home, you get the major scale or C Ionian mode (at this point think of mode as meaning way…



About Pentatonic Scales

There are five interlocking patterns that are usually taught for the pentatonic scale. Each of those 5 patterns line up along side each other to cover the entire fingerboard with one scale.

A minor pentatonic = A C D E G

Anywhere you find those notes on the fingerboard, it’s the A minor pentatonic scale. If…



How to Practice Modes

There are many good ways to practice modes.

Start in a major scale position and alter the notes in that position to get the modes:

Lydian – raise the 4th

Ionian – return the 4th to natural

Mixolydian – lower the 7th

Dorian – lower the 3rd and 7th

Aeolian – lower the 3rd, 6th and 7th

Phrygian – loser the…



electric guitar D

Learning to Solo on Guitar

Start forcing yourself to play notes out of step-wise sequence.

One way to do that is learn melodic patterns. Go through your scales and play 1 3 – 2 4 – 3 5 – 4 6 – 5 7 – 6 8 – 7 9 (thirds) or 1 4 – 2 5…