Jeff Beasley holds B.A. degrees in Music and Classical Guitar. He offers his readers 30 years of experience studio, teaching and performance. He is on the National Guitar Workshop faculty in Nashville, TN. Jeff's CD, Tiebreaker, is available through CD Baby, Guitar 9 and Jeff’s website, GuitarSource3.com. Jeff is endorsed by DiMarzio, RKS Guitars, THD Amps, Ensotec Cables, Keeley Electronics, Knucklehead Strings and In Tune.
Feel free to contact Jeff at jeff@guitarsource3.com
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Greetings Premier Guitar readers, and welcome to this month’s edition of Lethal Guitar! I’ve gotten lots of responses from the last few “Page Nine” editions of Lethal Guitar, and I want to say thanks to all you guys and gals for contacting me with your questions and comments - I really appreciate it.
This month, let’s talk about moving from one position to another on the fretboard in practical/applicable ways. I’m not going to limit this discussion to a single mode or scale/arpeggio. Instead, I’ll try to cover different melodic ideas that can really spice up your lead lines and make things easier for you on the guitar neck. Most of the time guitarists are limited to the “blues” scale in a few forms, but let’s cover some interesting spices we can throw into typical licks and ideas used today. We can work within the framework of Western music while throwing in our own tastes, to make our music more palatable and interesting to the listener.
I love to hear different approaches to commonly used melodies in the West. If you take something that’s been used extensively and can still come up with unique ideas for it, it always gets my attention. Most great players have a knack for taking old ideas and giving them new and fresh life, a task not so easily accomplished.
Example 1:
We’ll start with a basic pentatonic idea gone mad! Here let’s add in some diminished mayhem to grab our listener’s ear and not let go.
Example 2:
OK, now let’s go the opposite direction with a pentatonic idea coupled with an augmented arpeggio.
Example 3:
We go deeper with an easy position shift using the melodic minor scale in F#.
Example 4:
Now we’ll try the harmonic minor scale with a player-friendly approach to position shifting in C#.
Example 5:
This is a natural minor idea to shape shifting, or shifting from one position on the neck to another.
Example 6:
Now let’s try some symmetry with the major scale.
There you go! We have some interesting and player-friendly ideas for advancing up the neck, using common scale approaches. Hopefully this will help you to spice up your average licks when you solo. These ideas are a little easier to execute, and will help you develop your ability to shift positions or shapes when you improvise. Thanks guys, and I’ll see you next month in Lethal Guitar.
And as always, I really enjoy your feedback too. Keep those e-mails coming, and I’ll reply to your messages as soon as I can. jeff@guitarsource3.com or visit my web site www.guitarsource3.com. Thanks. I’ll see ya next month.