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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine - The Guitar Player's Practical Guide to Scales and Arpeggios
Scales and Arpeggios form the foundation of all song melodies, arranged solos, licks, phrases, and improvisations on the guitar. If you are familiar with scales and arpeggios, and know how to use them, your ability to arrange and improvise your own solos will be greatly enhanced. Scale knowledge is the road map that can take you anywhere you want to go in music.
This new 160 page book (with 136 audio tracks on 2 CDs) by Dan Miller and Tim May not only teaches you how to learn scales in a way that is easy, fun, interesting, and informative, it also shows you how to practically apply scales when learning new melodies, embellishing those melodies to create your own solos and variations, and in exploring improvisations.
Most books that present scales and arpeggios will display scale patterns all up and down the neck and address many keys and many different scales (major, minor, pentatonic, diminished, whole tone, bebop, etc). This approach tends to provide too much theory and not enough practical information about how these scales can be put to practical use right away.
"The Guitar Player's Practical Guide to Scale and Arpeggios" focuses on the open position (first five frets) and the G major, G major pentatonic, G major blues, G minor pentatonic, and G minor blues scales. The goal here was to really dive in and explore the most useful scales for playing American roots music in the most common key and the most common position. By using this approach the authors not only have allowed themselves time and space for a very thorough examination of these scales through many, many exercises and examples, but they additionally provide a clear cut method for exploring and applying the same examples in a variety of keys and scales types. In other words, once you have mastered the G scales in the open position, you can easily use the same method to study any scale in any key at any position on the neck.
The book is broken down into four sections ("The Big Four"): straight scales, folded scales (scale patterns), harmonized scales, and crosspicking arpeggios. By presenting scale and arpeggio knowledge in these four categories, the authors are able to clearly demonstrate how a knowledge of scales and arpeggios can be easily and practically employed.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Practice Suggestions
The "Big Four"
Major Scales
The G Scale Open Position, Lower Octave
The G Scale Open Position, Lower Octave, Ascending and Decending
G Major Scale Open Position Lower Octave Example Exercises
Finding Melodies
"When the Saints Go Marching In"
Finding the Melody Guidelines
Scale Improvisation Practice
Finding Major and Minor chord Tones
A Word About Improvisation
Ear Training Exercises
The G Scale Open Position, Higher Octave
The G Scale Open Position, Lower Octave, Higher Octave Example
The G Scale Open Position, Lower and Upper Octaves
"She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain"
Mode Scales
Matching Mode Scale Patterns to a Chord Progression
Mode Scale Practice
Intervals
Intervals in the Key of G
Playing Intervals Relative to the Root
Song Association
Interval Exercises
Open Position Major Scales in Other Major and Minor Keys
Scale Practice Checklist
Folded Major Scales
Exercise 1: 4-Note Folded Scale #1
Exercise 2: 4-Note Folded Scale #2
Exercise 3: 4-Note Folded Scale #3
Exercise 4: 3-Note Folded Scale #1
Exercise 5: 2-Note Folding Thirds #1
Exercise 6: 4-Note Folding Thirds
Exercise 7: 6-Note Folded Scale
Exercise 8: 3-Note Folded Phrases 1
Exercise 9: 3-Note Folded Phrases 2
Exercise 10: 3-Note Folding Phrases 3
Exercise 11: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 1
Exercise 12: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 2
Exercise 13: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 3
Exercise 14: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 4
Exercise 15: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 5
Song Example: Forked Deer (A Section)
Exercise 16: Patterns from Songs 1
Song Example: Forked Deer Variation 1
Song Example: Forked Deer Variation 2
Exercise 17: Patterns from Songs 2
Song Example: Blackberry Blossom (A Section)
Song Example: Blackberry Blossom Variation
Exercise 18: Patterns from Songs 3
Exercise 19: Patterns from Songs 4
Exercise 20: Patterns from Songs 5
Exercise 21: Patterns from Songs 6
Using Scales and Folded Scales to Embellish Melody
"Arkansas Travler" - Melody
"Arkansas Travler" - Using Scales and Folded Scales
"Turkey In The Straw" - Melody
"Turkey In The Straw" - Using Scales and Folded Scales
"She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain"
"Sailor's Hornpipe" - Melody
Straight Scale and Folded Scale Example
The Major Pentatonic Scale
The G Major Pentatonic Scale
Folding The G Major Pentatonic Scale
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Melody
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Using just the Major Pentatonic Scale
"Amazing Grace" - Melody
"Amazing Grace" - Using just the Major Pentatonic Scale
The C and D Major Pentatonic Scale
The Major Blues Scale
The G Major Blues Scale
Common G Major Blues Scale Licks
Folding G Major Blues Scale
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Using just the Major Blues Scale
Playing Major Scales Over Diatonic Chords
Notes in the G Scale and Diatonic Chords
Chromatic Clock
Diatonic Chords in the Key of G
Double Stops
Finding Double Stops in Chord Shapes
"Amazing Grace" - Using Double Stops
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Using Double Stops
Harmonized Scales
G Scale Harmonized Scales
Harmonized Scales Example 1
Harmonized Scales Example 2
Harmonized Scales Example 3
Harmonized Scales Example 4 - Using an Open Drone
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Using a Few Harmonized Scales
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Alternate Resolving Phrase
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Alternate Resolving Phrase to Part A
C and D Scale Diatonic Third Intervals on B and E Strings
The Toggle
Examples of the Toggle
Wildwood Flower Example
Minor Scales
G "Natural" Minor Scale
G "Harmonic" Minor Scale
G "Melodic" Minor Scale
The Dorian Mode
Minor Pentatonic and Minor Blues Scales
G Minor Pentatonic Scale
G Minor Pentatonic Scale Open Position (Lower Octave)
G Minor Pentatonic Scale Open Position (Higher Octave)
G Minor Pentatonic Scale Open Position (Two Octaves) Folded Scales
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Using the Minor Pentatonic Scale
Improvising the Blues
Improvisation Tips
G Minor Blues Scale
Folded G Minor Blues Scale
Minor Blues Scales in Various Keys
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Using Minor Blues Scale
Crosspicking Arpeggios
Crosspicking Patterns
C Chord Crosspicking Exercise
Crosspicking Over I-IV-V Progression in G
"Wildwood Flower" Example
"Banks of the Ohio": Crosspicking
"Beaumont Rag" Crosspicking Pattern
More Crosspicking Patterns
String Skipping Crosspicking Exercises
"Blackberry Blossom" Harmonized Scale with Crosspicking
"Blackberry Blossom" with String Skipping
The Rhythm Pick Pattern
"Lonesome Road Blues" using RPP Rhythm
The RPP and Crosspicking
A Study of "Home Sweet Home"
"Home Sweet Home" Melody
"Home Sweet Home" Quarter Note Carter Style
"Home Sweet Home" Subdivide 1
"Home Sweet Home" Subdivide 2
"Home Sweet Home" Subdivide 2 with Single Note Articulation 1
"Home Sweet Home" Subdivide 2 with Single Note Articulation 2
"Home Sweet Home" Siimple Crosspicking Roll Style
"Home Sweet Home" More Complex Crosspicking Style
"Home Sweet Home" Adding the Rhythm Pick Pattern
"Home Sweet Home" Mixing it All Up
Harmoinzed Scales on Non-Adjacent Strings
Harmonized Scale Non-Adjacent Strings Exercises
"Blackberry Blossom" Harmonzied Scales on Non-Adjacent Strings
The Chromatic Scale
"Lonesome Road Blues" - Adding Chromatic Phrases
Chord and Arpeggio Summary
Appendix - The Rest Stroke