Tag: Soloing

Posted in Special Topics

Triad Combinations (also known as Triad Pairs)

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You can get quite a modern sound by alternating and combining major and minor triads. In the video I use variuos combinations like C minor and D major that touch different degrees of the key of the moment.  Try different combinations and write down those that sound more interesting to your ears. You can find a pdf file with triads in different positions and inversions free to download HERE

Posted in Special Topics

Recycling melodic material

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Recycling melodic material is a concept that you can apply to many different situations. Here we will see how to change a melodic line and how to adapt this line (with some harmonic knowledge) to other chords.
1) This is our original melodic line, a D minor ‘jazzy’ kind of phrase.
2) The first thing I could do is to lower all the A to Ab so to use the same phrase on Half diminished chords (natural nine adds a really nice color to the phrase)
3) Let’s now change the m3 (F) to M3 (F#), and the m7(C) to Maj7(C#)
4) Let’s try anther one: m3(F) to M3(F#), m7(C) to Maj7(C#), P5 (A)to #5(A#) goes to morph the phrase so that if fits a Dmaj7(#5) chord. Very Modern indeed.
5) Let’s see if you can spot these other examples: Altered dominant & Dim H/W

Posted in Getting it all together

Phrasing – Build your own vocabulary of melodic material

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This is where things get quite interesting. In this video I will show you how to use material from other solos you might already know, or you want to learn. All this will build your vocabulary of musical ideas/ knowledge of styles if you do it the right way:

1. Learn a phrase (=musical idea from a solo, in the video I use the very famous pickup from ‘Another brick in the wall Pt2’ by Pink Floyd as played by David Gilmour on ‘The Wall’)

2. Analyze the phrase…how is it built? from what scale? What Key? In the example the phrase is based around the D minor pentatonic.

3. Learn it in every key so that it becomes available to you in every key.

4. Use it adapting it to the song you are playing on. In this case I had to transpose it to G minor pentatonic, using it to give a ‘bluesy’ sound to the track. I also used it in E minor pentatonic as E minor is the relative minor of G major, which means that this phrase can also be used as G major pentatonic. Furthermore I had to adapt its rhythm as the original is in 4/4 and the track is in 3/4.

Again, the backing track can be downloaded >HERE<

Posted in Special Topics

Jog Scale

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This is a scale I know as ‘Jog scale’. I am sure even though you might not know it by name, you have heard its sound before, as it is featured in a lot of Beatles tunes, and also a favorite of guitarist Eric Johnson. It has an Indian flavor to my ears…just watch the video and you’ll understand what I mean. In the PDF file below you’ll find the 5 inversions/modes and relative fingerings in the key of G. It sounds best over G7 (or G7sus4), Fmaj7#11, and B7#9, but feel free to experiment…

Download: Jog Scale PDF

Good Luck.

Posted in The Jazzy stuff (but good for every style!)

Connecting 7th arpeggios with scales

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This is a great exercise that not only will improve your articulation, but will better your understanding of 7th arpeggios and how to connect them in a musical manner. Watch the video and download the file, it is pretty much self explanatory. After you have learnt the exercise, there are two things you can do to take it to the next level: 1. transpose in all keys. 2. use a metronome to gradually increase the speed (like in the video).

Good luck!

Printable PDF: Connecting 7th arpeggios