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Improvising with Exotic Scales - Part 2
(21 Nov 03)
Progressions
Here is where the real fun starts and you can take many approaches to this, I generally narrow it down to two that seem to work well for me, one of them is inexact transposition, that is to take a progression that works well in other modes like for instance our good old blues progression (I IV V I) and apply it to the scale, let's try it with a different one though. Let's use the Persian Major Scale, this is a 7 tone scale and you can say it's a Gypsy Scale with a flat 5 (or a Phrygian Dominant with a sharp 7 and a flat 5), so it would be spelled like this:
A Bb C# D Eb F G#
Try getting all the possible triads out of this scale.
And for you shred freaks here are some 3 NPS fingering patterns:
Here's the PowerTab file of the above.
Now let's try to apply this scale to our old blues progression:
I = A Maj7b5 (A C# Eb G#) IV = DmMaj7 ( D F A C#) V=EbMaj7 sus4(E G# Bb D)
Quite interesting chords huh? This example would probably sound unmusical if you just try to stack all the notes together and hold them for 4 beats while you jam over it, but if you try and work around the dissonances something cool will come up, again, it's a matter of taste, some of these chords may be too jazzy for your taste or too dissonant but if that happens, work on them, see what other choices you have, if they sound too jazzy take notes out.
Forgetting about the rules is sometimes ok and sometimes it's great, feel free to remove the "forbidden notes" (3rd, 7th and extension) the keyword here is EXPERIMENT.
Try this approach and see if it works for you, I've used it for a while, in fact I have a whole notebook with progressions like II –VI - V - I ; III – IV - III and so on and whenever I feel uninspired I go back to those and try to use one in one of those scales I'm working on, I usually get something to start on whether I use the progression or not, so it's worth the try.
Another Approach
The other approach I use is very similar to the one I introduced in the first article, limiting yourself, the so called "cell" system (do not confuse this with the CAGED system).
First come up with a motive or a theme (I won't stop to discuss the differences between those two right now but if you really need to know then ask me in the forums :D ). Take your time with that one ‘cause that's going be the center of your song, then vary it a couple of times. Once you're happy with the results harmonize the whole thing using ONLY the scale you chose.
I know this falls more in the reign of composition than it does on improvisation but I believe that in order to be a good improviser you need to develop strong compositional skills (after all, improvisation is nothing more than instant composition), so get those scrolls out and write stuff down, it REALLY helps and it will expand your creativity as well. Once you get this concept down and have experimented a lot, you'll hear fitting musical ideas when jamming and the different approach this will give to your phrasing will increase your options while improvising.
Conclusion
Practicing improvisation is different from practicing technique, and practicing improvisation is a completely different thing from improvising, while practicing you need to do a lot more listening and a lot less playing than when you practice technique. It seems lame but it really helps to limit yourself to four or five notes at a time and work with them to exhaustion, this approach to practicing was widely explained in Eric's "Squeeze it Out" article.
Use your ears and instead of trying to blazing through these scales (and me giving you the 3 NPS may not help on that) stop and listen to the sounds in them, play every note while listening to what you're doing BTW you should do that with all the scales you know including the major and minor scales - you'll find sounds you never knew were there and your phrasing will improve.
Stay tuned for the third part of this article series, I'll show you some more ways to apply these scales to your everyday playing :) . I hope you have enjoyed the trip so far, feel free to explore on your own, ‘because this is a wide world and there's room for everyone' :)
Signing off once again,
Jorge Maldonado
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Guitarist, instructor and songwriter, Jorge, a.k.a. forgottenking2 is one of the top contributers in the iBreatheMusic community. Check out his website.
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