how do i use scales to make music
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barbarianbrute
New member
Re: how do i use scales to make music
scales are just notes in a key man. you have to find your tonal center and build around it. your rhythm will guide you to what kind of scales you'll use to solo. you can practice all kinds of sequences, but your practice should involve picking mechanics and focus on areas of difficulty.
when you play music, that all goes out hte window. when you're playing, you create melody so you won't necessarily follow up or down any scale. you can move between scales or pick certain notes from a scale. there's really no limits within the boundaries of what's in key or in tune.
practice should be so you can actually play freely when it comes time to play. you aren't going to be using your practice scales and sequences really i your songs.
scales are just notes in a key man. you have to find your tonal center and build around it. your rhythm will guide you to what kind of scales you'll use to solo. you can practice all kinds of sequences, but your practice should involve picking mechanics and focus on areas of difficulty.
when you play music, that all goes out hte window. when you're playing, you create melody so you won't necessarily follow up or down any scale. you can move between scales or pick certain notes from a scale. there's really no limits within the boundaries of what's in key or in tune.
practice should be so you can actually play freely when it comes time to play. you aren't going to be using your practice scales and sequences really i your songs.
JB_From_Hell
Jomo's Nimions
Re: how do i use scales to make music
Turn on the Weather Channel, and play solos over the faux-jazz. It's all slow enough that you don't have to be a shredder to keep up, but varies enough to stay fun.
Seriously.
Turn on the Weather Channel, and play solos over the faux-jazz. It's all slow enough that you don't have to be a shredder to keep up, but varies enough to stay fun.
Seriously.
Binnerscot
Well-known member
Re: how do i use scales to make music
That is great! I screw around in the same fashion just over the radio playing. Usually, in a three to four minute song on the air, I'll get a few things I like, but it is fun.
That is great! I screw around in the same fashion just over the radio playing. Usually, in a three to four minute song on the air, I'll get a few things I like, but it is fun.
Re: how do i use scales to make music
First off, scales are great as a vehicle for tying the neck of the guitar together. However, scales can be quite limiting to a player as they tend to lock you into patterns that through force of habit can be difficult to break out of. Just ask any of the thousands of guitar players that find themselves locked into the Major/Minor Pentatonic hell that one often finds themselves confined to after years of playing rock or blues. It can become quite difficult to rewire your brain after years of drilling a bunch of scales and modes into your head.
Ultimately, this leads to a lack of creativity! Unfortunately the poor victim of "scaleitis" erroneously thinks that the cure is the study of yet more scales! Or even more hilariously, they attempt either to discover or create new scales! :crazy: Learn to use scales and modes for what they are good for! That is learning to find key centers over the length of the fretboard.
The bigger question is, "How do you go about creating melodic ideas?".
What you really need to study is harmony and voice leading! Many of today's guitar masters are quoted as saying that they study more horn players than they do other guitarists. Why is this? Because, ironically, horn players spend more time studying harmony than do guitarist and players of other polyphonic instruments. Horn players cannot play chords the way we can. Therefore, they spend a great deal of their time practicing and learning arpeggios on their instruments. Sadly, a horn player knows better how to dissect a chord into arpeggios and extended arpeggios than do guitarist having full knowledge of chords! :lame:
Guitarists cannot see the forest for the trees. They constantly ask dumbass questions like, "Which scales can I play against this chord progression?", when it is the chords themselves that hold the answers to the question!
On its face, the study of arpeggios looks simple in concept. Believe me it is not.
First off, scales are great as a vehicle for tying the neck of the guitar together. However, scales can be quite limiting to a player as they tend to lock you into patterns that through force of habit can be difficult to break out of. Just ask any of the thousands of guitar players that find themselves locked into the Major/Minor Pentatonic hell that one often finds themselves confined to after years of playing rock or blues. It can become quite difficult to rewire your brain after years of drilling a bunch of scales and modes into your head.
Ultimately, this leads to a lack of creativity! Unfortunately the poor victim of "scaleitis" erroneously thinks that the cure is the study of yet more scales! Or even more hilariously, they attempt either to discover or create new scales! :crazy: Learn to use scales and modes for what they are good for! That is learning to find key centers over the length of the fretboard.
The bigger question is, "How do you go about creating melodic ideas?".
What you really need to study is harmony and voice leading! Many of today's guitar masters are quoted as saying that they study more horn players than they do other guitarists. Why is this? Because, ironically, horn players spend more time studying harmony than do guitarist and players of other polyphonic instruments. Horn players cannot play chords the way we can. Therefore, they spend a great deal of their time practicing and learning arpeggios on their instruments. Sadly, a horn player knows better how to dissect a chord into arpeggios and extended arpeggios than do guitarist having full knowledge of chords! :lame:
Guitarists cannot see the forest for the trees. They constantly ask dumbass questions like, "Which scales can I play against this chord progression?", when it is the chords themselves that hold the answers to the question!
On its face, the study of arpeggios looks simple in concept. Believe me it is not.
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Dr.Mavashi
neonderthalotonalogist
Re: how do i use scales to make music
Think of licks as patterns, creat your own, and play what you wanna hear, it will drive you nusts but trust your ear and push yourself, listen to guitar gods, it gives you good taste.
Think of licks as patterns, creat your own, and play what you wanna hear, it will drive you nusts but trust your ear and push yourself, listen to guitar gods, it gives you good taste.
Re: how do i use scales to make music
Miles and Coltrane have to be at the top of the list just because! But cats like Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw should be included. I think you'll find trumpet to be most compatible w/ the types of lines one might expect to sound well on guitar. There lots of sax and trumpet men to listen to like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon and Donald Byrd. But the former guys I mentioned are the true progressives. I think Gilmour and Holdie would be more interested in those guys. I do know Pat Metheny loved Michael Brecker as well. Let me add Wayne Shorter and Eric Dolphy.
I write a lot of music and I actually write jazz solos for guitar in midi software as part of my ear training and theoretical study. What I find in doing this is that there are lots of similarities btw the trumpet and the guitar when it comes to the types of melodic lines that work well for these instruments! I attribute this to the fact that it is difficult to play lines on either instrument that incorporate a lot of wide intervals (leaps). Therefore, it pays to be somewhat conservative with arpeggios when dealing with the trumpet or guitar.
Trumpet players will have difficulty adjusting their embreture when playing passages with an inordinate number of leaps while the mechanical layout of the guitar also creates difficulty for the player when a bunch of leaps are required. Therefore, you will find that both instrumentalist will use a healthy heap of chromaticism in their improvisations to compensate for the absence of leaping arpeggios in their lines. Sax players on the other hand have few inhabitions when it comes to leaping all over the place within their melodic lines.
Woody Shaw Quintet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAcPnZn38N4&mode=related&search=jazz woody shaw
Freddie Hubbard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v7HxHgLFcw&mode=related&search=jazz woody shaw
Osensei, help me out here.
Miles and Coltrane have to be at the top of the list just because! But cats like Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw should be included. I think you'll find trumpet to be most compatible w/ the types of lines one might expect to sound well on guitar. There lots of sax and trumpet men to listen to like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon and Donald Byrd. But the former guys I mentioned are the true progressives. I think Gilmour and Holdie would be more interested in those guys. I do know Pat Metheny loved Michael Brecker as well. Let me add Wayne Shorter and Eric Dolphy.
I write a lot of music and I actually write jazz solos for guitar in midi software as part of my ear training and theoretical study. What I find in doing this is that there are lots of similarities btw the trumpet and the guitar when it comes to the types of melodic lines that work well for these instruments! I attribute this to the fact that it is difficult to play lines on either instrument that incorporate a lot of wide intervals (leaps). Therefore, it pays to be somewhat conservative with arpeggios when dealing with the trumpet or guitar.
Trumpet players will have difficulty adjusting their embreture when playing passages with an inordinate number of leaps while the mechanical layout of the guitar also creates difficulty for the player when a bunch of leaps are required. Therefore, you will find that both instrumentalist will use a healthy heap of chromaticism in their improvisations to compensate for the absence of leaping arpeggios in their lines. Sax players on the other hand have few inhabitions when it comes to leaping all over the place within their melodic lines.
Woody Shaw Quintet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAcPnZn38N4&mode=related&search=jazz woody shaw
Freddie Hubbard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v7HxHgLFcw&mode=related&search=jazz woody shaw
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