|
Neoclassical Shred Guitar
(06 Aug 03)
Scales
Neoclassical rock, as I said, could be defined as "Heavy Metal & Rock, inspired by classical music"... you'll find lots of classical scales, melodies and other elements in those songs.
Hard Rock in the 70s and early 80s has been influenced by the blues very much, and neoclassical rock went the other way... it was just a different sound. Of course, you can find a decent blues-influence in the styles of the players I mentioned before, too... bendings, pentatonic runs, the blue note. Yngwie even used to play a short blues improvisation, called "Spasebo Blues" during his solo-spot (check out "Trial By Fire: Live In Leningrad")
But neoclassical players started to combine the sound of distorted guitars with melodic aspects of classical music. One of the most basic and popular aspects would be the use of the natural minor scale, as opposed to the pentatonic scale.
The natural minor scale (1-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7, or w-h-w-w-h-w-w, in A: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A, in E: E-F#-G-A-B-C-D-E) is actually a scale we're quite familiar with, actually it's one of the modes of the major scale. So, if you harmonize it, you get (simply put) all the chords from the major scale, starting on the 6th degree: Amin-Bdim-Cmaj-Dmin-Emin-Fmaj-Gmaj-Amin)
Here's a pattern, key of E minor. I chose to put this into a 3 note per string-pattern:
Now, guys like Blackmore and Yngwie started to use different minor scales as well, like i.e.
The melodic minor scale (1-2-b3-4-5-6-7, or w-h-w-w-w-w-h, in A: A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A, in E: E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D#-E... simply put, a major scale with a flat 3 )
Here's a 3NPS-pattern, E melodic minor:
What happens if we harmonize that scale, and derive chords from that. I always liked to do that, simply because playing those chords helped me to understand the scale a bit better, and I always made up jam tracks with those chords, so that I could immediately apply the scale. So, let's stack thirds and we get those chords:
Emin- F#m- G aug. (augmented... G-B-D#, major 3rd and aug. 5th)- Amaj- Bmaj-C#dim (minor third, flat 5), D#maj b5
One of the most popular scales in neoclassical rock would be the harmonic minor scale:
1-2-b3-4-5-b6-7, a minor scale with a major 7. In A: A-B-C-D-E-F-G#-A, in E: E-F#-G-A-B-C-D#-E
Here's a pattern:
Let's harmonize it:
Emin-F#dim-G augm.-Amin-Bmaj-Cmaj-D#maj b5
And, talking about Yngwie and the harmonic minor scale, another standard in the world of neoclassical rock would be the phrygian-dominant scale, which is the fifth mode of Harmonic minor.
That would be: 1-b2-3-4-5-b6-b7, in A: A-Bb-C#-D-E-F-G-A, or in E: E-F-G#-A-B-C-D-E
Here's the pattern:
OK, now, before you go ahead and try to write something with those harmonized scales, lemme explain: the phygian dominant scale often is used in addition to, say, the natural minor scale. There's a very popular progression in neoclassical rock... it was used a lot in classical music, i.e. by JS Bach. In Emin, that would be Emin-D-C-B(7)
And often, Yngwie (as an example) would use the E min scale over the first three chords, and then use the harmonic minor or phrygian-dominant one over the B. More on that later
|
|
|
Licks >> |
|
|
|
|
