Hendrix, SRV, Satriani, Vai, Bonamassa, Fusciante... just a few of so many great blues and rock guitarists that are heard using this line in some form or other. Work it up to blistering speed for max effect - but take your time doing so, preferably using a metronome/click to monitor your progress. It also sounds great as an 'endless' lick while adding the envelope of a Wah Wah pedal to make it scream.
Enjoy and thanks for sharing!
Post questions and comments in the thread below.
Play a half-diminished arpeggio built on the major sixth of a minor chord - as a C#m7b5 over an Em7 - and access the essence of the Dorian flavor. Compared to the E-Natural Minor scale, the E-Dorian Minor scale differs by only one note: The C (the sixth step of the scale) is raised to a C#.
Now, there are plenty of great lines one can come up with using the scalar approach and I really like approaching lines with that angle. But if you have a vocabulary of lines based on chord tone approaches, this trick of superimposing a half-diminished arpeggio over a minor chord will open up a fresh, new door of possibilities when blowing over modal tonalities. Give it a try, even if you've never dabbled in Bebop improvisation before. It will give you at least one new trick within your Dorian playing that you can draw from. For myself over the years, I have come to visualize Dorian tonality more and more thinking of the half-diminished relative grid - based on the important flavor note in Dorian.
… in all positions! Here the follow up to a video I did on my favorite George Benson line. This takes the line through all possible positions on the fretboard of the guitar and also provides slow and medium tempo practice-along workouts. Enjoy and share!
For most beginning guitarists, learning to properly produce the sound of a barre chord is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome. It takes a lot of coordination and, yes, more strength than you usually need to exert when grabbing other chords. The keys to properly developing such coordination and strength are time, repetition and proper directionality of energy. In this lesson video, I intentionally steer clear of the barred "F" chord. Plan on trying that chord in two to three weeks, after you have spent 5 minutes per day practicing the progressive steps explained - on an E-minor chord. Instead, we will practice the skill of producing the proper pressure and directionality thereof with only the barring first finger. Then we combine the first with the middle finger only... then the first with the ring finger only... etc. always focusing on proper posture and alignment of the fretting hand. Each layer gets easy to execute or becomes easy quickly to then enable us to tackle the next layer of difficulty. We will master all levels within two to three weeks, always with ease and properly learned coordination.
Anyone can learn to play the infamous barred F chord. But trust me! If you commit to 5 minutes a day for two to three weeks on this approach, you will be playing that chord with ease as opposed to botching and hating it for months, maybe even years on end.
It sure was great fun to arrange Sam Cooke's WONDERFUL WORLD for ukulele fingerstyle. This lesson video follow up to my last ukulele post from a few weeks ago takes on each chunk of my arrangement covering certain tricks and how to keep the melodic line flowing with the chord changes. Not for the beginning player but, if you've mastered one or two songs in chord melody style, you will surely enjoy the use of open harmonics in this arrangement.
I recently decided to start producing accompaniment videos for my guitar studies books, BEBOP IMPROV CONCEPTS & INTRODUCTORY STUDIES FOR THE IMPROVISING GUITARIST, and to revise both volumes in the process. Each chapter of my two books will have several accompaniment-videos for maximum, illustrative effect. With these new revisions, both books will be much more visual and hands on in their conceptualization. This will definitely be a work in progress for the next 12 to 15 months, but I will publish samples on my website and social media as I progress. Already, having the first few accompaniment videos finished, and at my disposal, has been extremely useful for students who are actively working on guitar improvisation.
The video above is a brief intro to how to use chromaticism in bebop lines and, in particular, illustrates how to utilize chromatic passing tones, or approach notes if one prefers, on an A-minor arpeggio. This way of playing can add fluidity and control over swing feel and accentuation.
Twenty years ago, after spending about two years practicing this chromatic concept 45 to 60 minutes daily, I found that these new acquired skills were so effective and useful that I decided to write a book on this playing style. In fact, it made me backtrack at some point to cover a somewhat more introductory path for students; and the endeavor turned into two books, which I continue to use with students working on improvisational techniques and concepts.
This video takes the sequence of diatonic chords to the 5th string for placement of the voicing's roots. It proliferates the same concepts of building the major, minor and diminished chord structures with a quick review of the harmonic system. At 4'02, we get into a 90 second chord voicing workout which should be added to the VIDEO FOUR workout. Do this daily for two weeks straight (10 minutes per day, minimum) to thoroughly drill the concepts into your motoric memory. You'll be riding these like you ride a bike before you know it!
Here is a workout video to practice along with. Let the concept of all the diatonic seventh chords sink in more and more through mere repetition and fluidity practice. The video will guide your practice progressively from slow to faster as well as in ascending and descending fashions, while keeping the roots of the chord voicings on the sixth string. Master this before moving on to the next level.
This second video in this series on DIATONIC SEVENTH CHORDS focuses on the series of chords in C-major with all roots/bass notes placed on the 6th string. You will fundamentally understand the harmonic background to how to construct these types of guitar chord voicings and then systematically work them into your fingers and motoric memory. After spending a few days to a week of daily repetition (10 to 12 minutes per day), it will be easy and eye-opening to move on to the next video. That third video will move on to doing the same with the root system on the 5th string, again fundamentally adding to your chord voicing arsenal and understanding.
This lesson video series is an easy to follow and step by step method of understanding and building a solid chord vocabulary on guitar. If you spend one hour and a few weeks of repetitive practice with this video series, I promise that you won't ever have to look at any chord posters or charts again. No scrambling or head-scratching when trying to figure out a lyric or lead sheet.
This first video briefly lays out the broad picture of where the whole video series will take your playing. It then dives right into a didactic approach on learning the harmonic system of C major and how the discussed and illustrated chord voicings transfer over to any of the other ten major keys. Video 2 will have you train and master the seven chord voicings on only the 6th string for the placement of the chords' roots to then move on to video 3 to efficiently do the same with all the chord voicings' roots on string 5... learn, practice, master and move on to the next step.
It really helps to use a metronome to get this way of playing pentatonic scales onto your fingers. Start really slow with 8th notes so you can hear the accentuation of each group of five with the starting notes alternatingly falling on downbeats and upbeats.
Once you master each position, meaning all pentatonic shapes across the whole span of the fretboard, played in 8th notes, try to play these in triplets over the metronome's clicks. That said, I highly recommend setting aside four or five weeks of working with the metronome at a slow, comfortable pace to master 8th notes before even trying triplets!
Enjoy and thanks for sharing!
That special time of year is approaching fast. And now is the time go get ready for wowing friends and kin, on ukulele!
Taking you through the steps of this easy/intermediate uke rendition of SILENT NIGHT. The first part shows the piece in a normal tempo and illustrates it in its entirety.
The middle part of this video is about the technical insides and building blocks. An in the end, you’ll have an extra slow play along that can be used for putting it all together comfortably before then working it up to speed.
Let me know if you would like this arrangement in tablature form - no problem, just request in the comments below. Jingle, enjoy and share if you like!
This original, ukulele-fingerstyle piece is called "Fast Lullaby" and plays with a simple right hand pattern. Each finger, thumb through ring finger, sticks to one string each which makes it pretty easy to be learned once you nail the part with the hammer-on and pull-off trill on the left hand.
Harmonically, it pretty much sticks to A, E and D major chords while occasionally hinting at the subdominant minor (Dm) as you will find quite often in older-style songs of the American Songbook. Love the ukulele!
Thanks for sharing!
DORIAN is one of the four minor modes and, when compared with IONIAN, has a minor third (b3) and a flat seventh (b7). This in effect has us placing the half steps between steps two/three and six/seven.
Again, and in the same fashion as we did in the first two videos of this SERIES ON MODAL MASTERY, we will work up to a DORIAN chord/scale practice regimen to work out, work up to and master one position at the time. Ask your teacher to suggest some fun tunes to scream over that use DORIAN as the modal center. I can think of so many such as Herbie Hancock's CANTALOUPE ISLAND, Miles Davis' SO WHAT, Wayne Shorter's WITCH HUNT. In short, experiment with different keys for the use of DORIAN.
A quick, fun blues double-stop and a tag mixing minor and major blues tonalities. Part of this was featured in a previous, recent video called DELTA-BLUES RIFF.
Enjoy and thanks for sharing!
This first blues lick is very reminiscent of Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughan. It is a series of double-stops with the right-hand middle finger plucking the top root while the thumb or pick goes with the changing lower line. Add some inflections and articulations with hammer-ons and it gets sexy real fast.
Enjoy!
Post questions and comments in the thread below.
Here are four different play-along tracks for practicing the musical application of IONIAN scales in D-Ionian and Bb-Ionian:
0'00 to 2'10 - D-Ionian (slow tempo)
2'13 to 3'53 - D-Ionian (medium tempo)
3'55 to 5'43 - Bb-Ionian (med-slow)
5'45 to end - Bb-Ionian (med-up)
Enjoy!
Once realizing
that the difference between IONIAN and LYDIAN lies in where the half steps are placed, it's pretty easy to work out the layout of LYDIAN scale patterns on the fretboard.
This second video of this SERIES ON MODAL MASTERY dissects this difference between these two major modes in each of the five positions and around lydian-typical chord voicings - resulting in a lydian chord/scale practice regimen to work out, work up to and master one position at the time.
I recently wrote this classical etude that was literally inspired by a type of slack key tuning - I like to call this tuning a 'C-minor open tuning':
string 6 - down by a major third to 'C'
string 5 - unchanged at 'A'
string 4 - unchanged at 'D'
string 3 - unchanged at 'G'
string 2 - unchanged at 'B'
string 1 - down by a half step to 'Eb'
This tuning forced me to play the guitar differently and I composed this piece, RED RUSHES BY, going mostly by ear and not using my brain so much. In other words, I literally wasn't trying to make sense of everything like I usually would and wasn't immediately able to use familiar shapes. It was a real pleasure to encounter all these different colors and, with two strings tuned down by quite a bit, the lower string tension caused the top of the guitar to resonate in a different sweet spot.
The right hand part utilizes only two fingers and the thumb and is quite quick to learn and get up to speed. Enjoy!
-Video One: Ionian-
The secret to getting modal playing, and the seemingly confusing modal scale patterns, into your hands (and into your playing) lies in chord positions! Yes, you heard right and, that said (and explained in this video), it definitely helps to just tackle one mode at a time - until you have understood and moved that mode from your mind into your hands.
In this video, I first explain the characteristics of the 'Ionian' mode which also happens to be the diatonic major scale. I talk about its structure defined by a certain series of whole and half steps. Then, we move to the more hands-on approach of getting modes into your hands by associating chord voicings with corresponding scale patterns to span the whole fretboard. You will have plenty of 'aha' moments when doing these steps with me. And at the very end, I present a brief look ahead to the second video in this SERIES ON MODAL MASTERY by explaining how the LYDIAN mode differentiates itself by only one note when compared to IONIAN.