You don't have to want to play like a jazz legend to practice like one.
Intermediate
Intermediate
- Develop a systematic method for mapping out arpeggios all over the fretboard.
- Learn to develop your own practice material.
- Understand how world-class musicians seem to never run out of ideas to practice.
Do you want to play like Pat Metheny? Me too. But truth be told, I have no idea how to do so, though I’ve really tried. It was very difficult to wrap my head around writing a lesson on Pat because the elements that make up his style are so varied and complex—the result of decades of investment on his part. Since he’s one of my very favorite musicians, the thought of writing a lesson about him seemed even more daunting. Of course, if it was easy, we’d all sound like our heroes.
So, where do we start? When studying great artists, it’s usually a good idea to study their process—not necessarily their final products. I’ve found that when you study the creative process, you can apply it to your own music and come up with your own individual style, rather than just resorting to mimicry and copying licks. Pat has a few signature licks, but mastering those don’t really get you that close to sounding like Pat. One thing we can say about Pat Metheny with confidence is that the man knows his guitar, music theory, and fretboard at a higher level than 99.9 percent of guitarists. I recently stumbled upon a video that proves this. It’s a rare glimpse into how Pat practices that will serve as the creative spark for this lesson. Maybe we can learn to practice like Pat.
The story goes that Pat was doing a clinic in Italy and had just answered a question from the audience. While the interpreter was translating Pat’s response for the audience, Pat started to practice. (Why not practice when you get a few spare minutes?) What an amazing glimpse we get into his mind during this time. The audience knew it was something special as they sat in stunned silence and let Pat play for nearly eight minutes. And the resulting music is incredible in its own right. I mean, who on earth practices this musically? There’s a lot of music in those eight minutes and we could study it for years at a time, but let’s focus on one aspect. It’s striking that what Pat is practicing sounds nothing like how he plays when he is improvising. And this is the central concept to our lesson and the key question to answer. What building blocks do great players study and practice that allow them to create? We’re going to focus on just the first element that Pat played: major 7 arpeggios.
You can and should study the rest of the video—it’s full of amazing ideas you can spin out into amazing things to practice. A great companion to this lesson would be Pat’s book, Guitar Etudes: Warmup Exercises for Guitar.
If you’re an improvising guitarist, major 7 arpeggios are one of the central building blocks you’ll need to improvise. Learn these really, really well. Jazz is largely made up of three arpeggios that serve as building blocks: major 7, minor 7, and dominant 7. Let’s tackle just part of the arpeggio puzzle here. In Ex. 1 you can see a simple Gmaj7 arpeggio (G–B–D–F#).
Ex. 1
We’re lucky that not only do major 7 arpeggios sound good, but we can easily take this particular fingering pattern and move it up the 6th string to transpose it. For example, shift Ex. 1 up three frets and you have a Bbmaj7 arpeggio (Bb–D–F–A), as shown in Ex. 2.
Ex. 2
Now, to make this much more interesting, we’re going to link the arpeggios together and follow the cycle of fourths to keep jumping from key to key. The pattern is going to go as follows: Ascend two octaves in 16th-notes and then descend until reaching the end of the measure. You’ll end up playing 16 notes and at the end of the measure, you stop on the 3 (B) of the Gmaj7 arpeggio (Ex. 3).
Ex. 3
Ending on the B is awesome, because the next arpeggio in the cycle is Cmaj7. And wouldn’t you know it that C is just one fret higher than B. We can now elegantly jump from the Gmaj7 arpeggio to the Cmaj7 by moving only one fret. Let’s do the same thing we did before: ascend and then descend, again stopping on the 3 (Ex. 4).
Ex. 4
We end the example on the 3 of Cmaj7 (E), which is yet again one fret below our next arpeggio of Fmaj7. We now have a quick little pattern that we can loop around the neck (Ex. 5).
Ex. 5
At this point, we have traversed from the 2nd position to the 10th position. We are not only learning about arpeggios, but we’re also getting a chance to explore the upper regions of the fretboard.
Now, we can’t keep looping like this indefinitely. We’re going to run out of room if we take the Bbmaj7 arpeggio up the neck like this, so we’re going to have to be flexible with the pattern. We still want to keep the cycle of fourths going, but we can’t continue the exact pattern. Thankfully, we can just drop one half of the arpeggio pattern down an octave and keep moving (Ex. 6).
Ex. 6
Now that we moved to a lower place on the neck, we can use the earlier pattern to take us from Fmaj7 to Bbmaj7. You basically have only a few shapes: one with a 6th-string root and two with roots on the 5th string.
Now it’s time for you to learn to fish. I’m not going to write out any more of the patterns—you have enough building blocks to complete this. What I will provide is the full pattern of the cycle of fourths, so you can play the right arpeggios in the right sequence to loop this around. Here it is:
G–C–F–Bb–Eb–Ab–Db–Gb–B–E–A–D
The pattern of fourths is symmetrical. The goal is to be able to start anywhere, in any key, and loop your arpeggios through the cycle of fourths. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to loop this endlessly.
Beyond just learning the examples above, there are a couple of things to take away from this set of exercises.
Ditch the Patterns
If you watch the video a few times, you’ll quickly realize that Pat isn’t playing a set pattern. It’s not a specific etude that he’s practicing, but rather he’s generating music within some simple boundaries. Pat has created an algorithm for generating practice material: Play a measure of a major 7 arpeggio, smoothly transition to another major 7 arpeggio in the cycle of fourths, and repeat.
He’s jumping around the neck, changing octaves, sometimes playing some scales to connect. It doesn’t matter that it’s morphing and changing a little over time. What matters is that he’s sticking within the harmony for some set period of time and being creative about how he generates materials. And that’s the trick. The building blocks allow for tons of flexibility, especially in jazz. Next time, instead of thinking about this as a strict practice exercise, imagine this is a jazz standard that only has one chord per measure, but the tune is just major 7 chords that ascend in fourths. How can you take these arpeggios and add some passing tones to make them into jazz lines? (Hint: “Autumn Leaves” has two major 7 chords a fourth apart in the changes.)
It’s the Notes, Not the Shapes
You have to learn the notes in the arpeggios. To players at Pat’s level, they’re not just fingering patterns—they are collections of notes. It’s totally fine to start with shapes and refine as you go, but if you want to operate at this level, you’re going to have to know the names of the notes on the fretboard and the notes that belong in any arpeggio, chord, scale or key. This is just a single exercise to help you get there.
Move Beyond Major
You can now easily take the major 7 arpeggios and morph them in minor 7 and dominant 7 concepts to generate additional material to practice with. This lesson is just one example of arpeggios you can move in the cycle of fourths; dominant 7 arpeggios work exceptionally well in this context.
Your Job
Now it’s up to you to generate your own musical materials. This lesson was just a single example. But go back to the video for inspiration. Could you just play freely for seven minutes like Pat did? Could you play in a structured enough way that you’re improvising ways to practice and generating material like he can? Not everyone can do this for that long, but you’ll hear Pat joke that he could continue for hours ... and I totally believe him.
Find the elements that make up your own style and find interesting ways to apply them to the neck. Constraining yourself to a single measure per key and shifting in the cycle of fourths is a super fun way to give yourself just enough structure to follow, while staying loose enough to create something. Pat has been doing this for over 40 years, so we all have a lot of catching up to do!
What are different modes or scales?
A scale is a specific arrangement of seven different notes that, in most cases, will start and end on the same note, climbing an octave or two across all 6 strings in the process. Scales begin with a root note and can be played in any key. Depending on the scale, the intervals between notes will change, which gives scales different sounds.
A mode is a specific arrangement of notes that is built off of a scale. They take scales to the next level, adding different notes, intervals, shapes, and sounds. Each mode corresponds to a specific type of scale, and, unlike scales, modes don’t have to start or end on the root note.
What are the main scales?
In Western music, there are 12 scales. The first scales most guitarists are taught are the major and minor pentatonic scales. The earliest rock guitar players, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Chuck Berry, on to stadium rock legends Jimmy Page and Angus Young have popularized pentatonic scales with their lead work.
What are the main modes?
There are seven modes: Ionian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian, and Locrian. They’re similar to scales, but contain different note intervals and create a completely different sound and mood.
How can you use modes and scales?
Scales and modes are essential tools for navigating the guitar’s fretboard. They form the basis of most soloing that guitarists do, and lend vastly different colors to your playing. Each scale or mode has a unique feel, so the more you add to your arsenal, the freer you’ll be in expressing ideas on your guitar.
Which scale is the easiest to play?
None of the scales are easier or harder, per se, but the major and minor pentatonic scales are good places to start, since other modes often build off of and into them.
Where can I find additional reading on modes and scales?
These articles at premierguitar.com will be helpful: “Fretboard Workshop: A Pentatonic Approach to Modes,” “Pentatonic Escape Routes,” “Pentatonic Misfits,” “Beyond Blues: The Mixo-Pentatonic Scale,” “The Modes: Part 1,” and “The Modes: Part 2.”
Oh no—it finally happened! Now the big question: How long before my verve for guitar recovers from Covid?
This past Sunday I awoke to a very un-Sunday sensation. Hovering on the edge of consciousness, as yet still incapable of contemplating what Sunday mornings are for (lounging in bed till coffee’s made and lunch plans are set, of course!), I was suddenly struck by a godawful stench. As one does, I wrinkled up my nose, lifted my head to look around in disgust, and took a couple more sniffs to see if … I don’t know—maybe I’d dreamt it? Or woke up incontinent? Then I tasted the putrescence. Then … nothing.
Fuuuuuuuck.
Given that my wife hadn’t mentioned the unspeakably rank odor, I concluded I’d woken in time to witness the neurological flashpoint at which my olfactory system officially snuffed it. See, it was day four of what had been, until then, a pretty tame Covid infection—my first and only to date, as far as I know (thank you, vax scientists!). I’d been feeling drained, achy all over, and had a slightly sore throat and ears. But until then I’d never experienced the strangeness of eating without tasting. Just to be sure, I scrambled for the nightstand, threw three mini Altoids in my mouth, and groaned. No minty sting. No tingle. Just three flavorless little chalk blocks floating around my infected maw.
Since then, I’ve been contemplating the futility of consumption. Coffee tastes like water tastes like whiskey. Minus the burn of alc-e-hol. (Not that one drinks these things for interchangeable reasons.) Putting food in my face has become about two things: staving off hunger pains and storing up enough nourishment to recover ASAP.
Sometimes when I pick up my guitar, I have the same feeling. This song is in a different key and a different tempo, with a different pickup selected and maybe a different stompbox combo. But no, it still sounds like boring ol’ me.
Then something miraculous happened: In the wee hours that night … or maybe the next, who can keep track? … I found my stomach wrenching for lack of grub and went down for a quick bowl of my favorite cereal—Raisin Nut Bran. As I chomped down on the first mouthful, I was elated to find I could taste again.
Only I couldn’t. My mouth felt the sloshing of refreshingly cold milk, the bran flakes’ crisp, rough texture, the chewiness of the yogurt-covered raisins, and for a split second my brain made the final leap. Of course the sweet, nutty taste was there too!
Alas, no. Out of sheer habit, my mind wantedto join in with flavor party favors. But the bowl’s contents could’ve tasted like sardines and rats for all my mouth truly knew.
Sometimes when I pick up my guitar, I have the same feeling. This song is in a different key and a different tempo, with a different pickup selected and maybe a different stompbox combo. But no, it still sounds like boring ol’ me. Maybe if I grab a different guitar and/or plug into a different amp. Nope, still me. How. Lame.
I’m certain I’m not the only one who feels this with regard to my playing. We all go through it. Covid or not, we just have to keep reminding ourselves that, for whatever reason, I might not be feeling it right now, but I do know how to make a good cup of coffee, I do know the difference between bilge and potable water, and I certainly know Skrewball is a delightfully tasty, if ridiculously sweet whiskey. Likewise, I do know some cool chords, and I do have a feel for rhythms and melodies that are kind of neat. My palate for them may be lacking at the moment, but it will return sooner or later. In the meantime, keep the nutrients coming and the guitars twanging.