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What's going on, Hotliners! Thanks for tuning in to the latest installment
of “Intense Guitar!” If you remember last month, we had a typo
contest from the issue before. Boy, did I get a lot of responses! I had
no idea so many people read my column, and even cooler, that they
dig it!! That's awesome! Thanks, guys! It’s always great when I get
responses like that.
Remember, the first person to get the correct answer to me would be
the winner of a Morley Bad Horsie wah pedal. That person is . . .
(drum roll, please) . . . John Keene of Torrance, CA. I really want to take
a moment to thank Bill Wenzloff, Randy Wright and everyone at Morley
(www.morleypedals.com) for their donation of the pedal, as well as
for their continued support for the past 15 years. Thank you!
Stay tuned for more giveaways in the near future. By the way, we've
decided to cut the text down a little so we can increase the size of the
tabs.We want to make sure everyone can see everything clearly.
Again, anyone wanting to contact me can do so using any of a few different
avenues. I can be reached at Toshi@TOSHIISEDA.com or intseguitr@
aol.com, or for those of you on MySpace, go to…
www.myspace.com/toshiiseda. I always love to hear from you about
column
ideas, suggestions
or
just to say
hello.
Okay, as for
this month's
topic, I'd like
to look again
at pentatonics.
But this
time we’ll
take them a
bit farther
than the
basic
shapes. You’ll
recall that
last month
we looked at
your "basic"
pentatonic
and blues
scale shapes. I've been finding that many guitarists don't or didn't
know these shapes, but they really should. I'll assume that you made
it through them okay and now have them down. Hopefully. :-)
This month we'll extend the topic by taking a look at dominant pentatonic
and extended pentatonic shapes. First, the dominant pentatonic.
Once more we find that in dominant pentatonic the word form penta
is used. Last month we spoke of the fact the word pentatonic comes
from penta, meaning five and tonic (meaning
tones). With the dominant pentatonic we find
that it's similar to the pentatonic, but in this case
it has a major third, not a flattened third.
The dominant
pentatonic
is within
the
Mixolydian
mode, which
is the dominant
step in
the Ionian
mode. The
formula for
the
Mixolydian
scale is 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, b7
and 8va. The
formula for
the dominant
pentatonic is
1, 3, 4, 5, b7
(8va). So, you
can see that
it sits right in
that scale.
Many players will often substitute the dominant pentatonic for the pentatonic
scale when soloing. This is especially the case with the blues. I
believe that Jeff Beck was the first person I heard using this scale. It
might have been John McLaughlin, though. Either way, both used this
scale in the ‘70s (and I'm sure they continue to). Try substituting the
dominant pentatonic instead of the minor pentatonic. It works really
well over the V chord (meaning the “five” chord).
With the extended pentatonic scale we're essentially combining two different
scale shapes to
make one scale. The
sound is very intervalic,
so that it’s reminiscent of
Allan Holdsworth, Bill
Conners, Greg Howe,
etc. These fingerings
require some serious finger
stretches, so be
careful not to injure yourself
when practicing
them.
Okay, until next
month... "Who Dares
Wins"!!!
www.TOSHIISEDA.com
(c) 2005 Toshi Iseda!
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