Finding patterns to use with newly-learned scales

randella

I'm looking at starting to put in a bit of practice again.  Same old story, in a bit of a rut, been playing for 25 years now and have reasonable legato technique; not so bothered about speed picking.

The specific problem is this - I can learn a new scale or arpeggio and understand its relationship to underlying chords.  That bit's fine.

When I come to apply it in a run in my improvisation I just end up running up and down the notes in sequence and it (predictably) sounds crap.  What can I do to practice the patterns differently?  I need something methodical to break the muscle memory.

Any advice appreciated!

mudslide73

I've been doing something similar - I use scale/mode specific jam tracks on YT. I just concentrate on small areas of a scale and try to come up with phrases rather than doing the whole "top to bottom" thing with the scale. 

Quist's channel has some very useful jam tracks and his content is also on Spotify.

GuyBoden

Just using patterns leads to a dead end, it just takes a long time to realise it..........

Rocker

Why not improvise on the song melody with 'enough' of the actual song to be recognizable but different and not merely an example of the guitarist aimlessly noodling on the guitar?  

viz

GuyBoden said:

Just using patterns leads to a dead end, it just takes a long time to realise it..........

Yes. You need to learn and use the alphabet, but not every word has the letters abcdefg in that order.

randella

viz said:

GuyBoden said:

Just using patterns leads to a dead end, it just takes a long time to realise it..........

Yes. You need to learn and use the alphabet, but not every word has the letters abcdefg in that order.

That's kinda what I was getting at, I just didn't articulate it very well

I'm looking at ways of getting away from playing abcdefg, and maybe towards using some of the letters in a different order that sounds more musical. I hear jazz improvisations in particular with lovely ebbing and flowing uses of the scale that aren't just up up up down down down. 

Wondering how others practice this. 

Axe_meister

First try just targeting the chord notes. Restrict yourself to only a couple of strings. Get the most mileage you can out of that restriction. Then pick another couple of strings and restrict your self to that. Then you can start linking the two.

JezWynd

I've found that thinking of a solo in terms of a conversation between two (or more?) people is a useful way to approach it. I don't know if that translates into what you're trying to achieve but it's worth a try.

Barney

I find that taking 2 strings at a time and making melodies works....so maybe use B and E string....then B and G ..string ..ect ....then do it with 3 strings ...then skip strings using maybe E and G syrings ect...

It stops the running of scales and makes you think of melodies and note choice more..

I also think one octave scales are more useful...less to think about and easily joined to make 2 or 3 octave...i think iff you just run up and down scales thats how your playing ends up sounding..

Sambostar

Two strings at a time, whole and half step ghost bends and bends, patterns, a bit of licks made from said scales, think the that these days is to spread out the intervals as much as possible in a simple lick without sweeping.  Erm patterns are handy in as much as they make you hear how things sound, mainly in pace, but that's about it, if you start using them all the time, they can be as bad as scale triplets or something.  To break muscle memory and get the best use of patterns look at Malmsteen's stuff and practice different ascending and descending patterns on one string with that scale, then all the strings.

The best way of invention is to hear it in your head first though, the solo progression or the weird intervals etc. even if you can't put your fingers on them.   Obviously playing patterns will help that when you want to learn what something sounds like with intervals faster but they are more a tool rather than an aid.

sev112

One of the most left field but astonishingly useful bit of advice I found in a book was to just use 1 string and see what sorts of phrases you can get out of that.  Encourages phrasing, bends, pull offs etc .

Really challenges you but builds up a great set of basic techniques and phrases that you can return to when needed without having to think about how to jump to the next 2 of 3 strings to get you out of trouble.

I must go and find that book - it was full of loads of weird lateral stuff - such as a whole blank page of nothing for you to practice !

Barney

sev112;1081225" said:

One of the most left field but astonishingly useful bit of advice I found in a book was to just use 1 string and see what sorts of phrases you can get out of that.  Encourages phrasing, bends, pull offs etc .

Really challenges you but builds up a great set of basic techniques and phrases that you can return to when needed without having to think about how to jump to the next 2 of 3 strings to get you out of trouble.

I must go and find that book - it was full of loads of weird lateral stuff - such as a whole blank page of nothing for you to practice !

That sounds like The Advancing Guitarist by Mick Goodrick... great book...

nickp

how about practicing the scales in sequences - patterns of 2,3,4,5,6 and intervals such as fourths.  it is where bonamassa bases his technique as does eric johnson.

find a bit of playing you like, using those modal sounds and then start learning the solo note for note (ie nicking phrases you like)

nickp

also as mentioned above practice one string, 2 string etc

so run the scale up the neck on one string, then design practice patters on two strings - 

use opposite motion as well so run up the neck whilst playng the scale notes on a pair of strings but using and downward pattern

randella

Thank you all for the help, there's some great info in here.

I've found a bit of stuff to work on - here's an example: http://www.guitarworld.com/scale-sequences-15-hot-patterns-will-fire-your-solos/25194

But more importantly, there's a bunch of stuff to think about here.  I like the idea of using two strings at a time in particular.  Also using one string I think will help in terms of understanding a scale perpendicular to the neck, if that's what I mean - escaping from those boxes.

Cheers again guys, you're great!

nickp

something that I have just remembered about these sequences is to get used to emphasising a note in a pattern = so initially where the beat falls - guys like mat schofield run patterns but use the emphasis to sometimes imply a displacement away from the beat.

also where you are playing a pattern of 5 over a 4 beat, then using the emphasis will outline the displacement

stratman3142

Thinking rhythmically might help. Rather than playing notes of equal length, try thinking of a rhythm with varying note lengths and duration of sustain, which might for example include syncopated rhythms or swing type feels.

randella

@nickp @stratman3142 thanks both.  I think one of the major improvements in my playing in recent years has been rhythmically - I'm quite good at syncopated accents and 5 over 4 phrasing (DUH-duh-duh-duh-duh, DUH-duh-duh-duh-duh over straight 4/4) is one of my favourite crutches (except for the pickslide ) BUT whenever I go beyond the blues scale/major pent I get scared and do the widdly-widdly thing again.  I can play you a run using Dorian/Mixolydian pretty fluidly but it sounds so BORING!

Plenty of food for thought here to get out of that rut.  Need to apply your thinking to more complicated scales.  It's a weird mental block, but I guess we all have different ones that we think other players would find stupid.