Hi Guys,
For most of my playing days as far as improvisation goes I've relied on my ears for playing what I though sounded good in a few Pentatonic shapes, which I semi convincingly got away with for years!! (i think)
The main reason I stuck with this approach was probably because i thought that there were way too many complicated scales to learn and that I wouldn't be academic understand all that theory.
However recently i have started digging into it and was kinda surprised that that all you really need to know to cover 90% of situations is a handful of scales really:-
Major scale
Minor scale
Major/Minor Pentatonic (almost the same thing)
Mixolydian - Play over Major 7 chords
Dorian - play over Minor 7 chords
After learning all this stuff (most of it i actually already knew but didn't really understand it.) I've found my playing get way better and I actually feel like I know what I'm doing finally!
Anyway haven't really explained this very well as I'm not giving a course on scales (please correct me if anything I've said is rubbish) but just wanted to know if there's any stuff you guys have learned late that you wish you had known sooner?
Cheers!
Comments
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
My technical ability and theory knowledge was rubbish as well and it took me ages to figure stuff out. Now as I understand it better its quicker for me to pick stuff up whether by ear or from a sheet.
It was the guy on the 'net from Leeds I forget his name, suggesting that most players get stuck in the "box" shape when it comes to improvising and coming up with melodies, riffs etc.
A good way of breaking out of this habit is simply learning where the flat 3rd the 4th, 5th, and the flat 7th is in relation to the root note everywhere on the fretboard. Then, provided you know where your root note is you can play a melody around it anywhere up and down the 'board. The problem for guys like me is knowing where the root notes are... I know where some of them are but I've never bothered to master the trick of immediately being able to jump to say a Bb on the 3rd string without thinking about it.
I was also reading some stuff recently that convinced me I should have stuck with my sight reading. I can sort of sight read but it takes too long and of course you have the "Paul McCartney can't read music" thing which seems to have given an entire generation or two of guitarists a good reason not to bother.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
I found the method described in this video good for knowing where the root notes are.