by Jeff Beasley

Hello Premier Guitar readers, and welcome to Lethal Guitar. I just got back from another exciting trip to NAMM where I got to hang with the other Dean endorsers Vinnie Moore, Michael Angelo Batio, Leslie West, Rusty Cooley and Chris Caffery. Michael Angelo Batio introduced me to the owner of Dean, Elliot Rubinson who welcomed me to Dean guitars, making me proud to be a Dean endorser. If you’ve never been to winter NAMM you should check it out -- it’s a lot of fun and a great place to meet your favorite musicians.

In our sixth installment of the Shredders Ph.D. we’re going deeper into our study of intervallic approaches to arpeggios. Last month we spanned the entire key of D major, utilizing all the common tones in the key: D, Em, F#m, G, A, Bm, C#dim° and D. We used an intervallic approach (major and minor thirds) moving through the chord tones. This is a pretty challenging exercise for both your picking and fretting hands but is also extremely beneficial for technical growth, not to mention it sounds phenomenal.

This month we’ll span the same key of D major but we’ll also include all the non-chord tones in the key. Each of the non-chord tones will be harmonized with a diminished arpeggio broken into intervallic thirds. This will really enhance the tonality of the key as it shortens the distances between each arpeggio, adding to the overall melodic continuity. Remember to alternate your picking strictly -- no two downs or ups in a row. Our new chord progression will be: D, Ebdim°, Em, Fdim°, F#m, Gdim°, G, Abdim°, A, Bbdim°, Bm, Cdim°, C#m7b5 and D. Let's dig deeper into the study of intervallic arpeggios!

Ex 1: Starting at our key center, D major, we travel through all the common and uncommon chord tones until we reach the octave.