Hello Everyone!!!
Its great to be back for another lesson!!!
Lets get started and get our hands in shape. We are going to talk about developing scale patterns, making up scale sequences. I always love looking for new patterns. A lot of the ones we will use are uncommon.
Scales sequences are really important in many ways. They help to get your picking and fretting hands in shape, they can make your solos more exciting and also help develop your ear, learn the neck etc.
It's the best way to practice scales. We will talk about 4 note sequences. Ok lets begin...
Ex.1 Our first pattern is very common, this is a 4 note sequence in E min (E,F#,G,A,B,C,D). This was one of the first patterns I learned. Very cool, but you see it a lot. Make sure you practice this with a metronome etc. Also pick every note. Don't forget to move this around the neck.
Click HERE to hear a fast version of the exercise
or HERE to hear a slow version
Ex.2a-2e Ok, now lets make up some different patterns. We will take the first 4 notes of the E minor scale. You can take those 4 notes and put them in any order, then you can march them through the whole scale. There are 24 permutations you can play with those 4 notes. You can number the notes of the scale 1,2,3,4 and mix them up 1,2,4,3, you can do 1,3,4,2 etc.
I only gave you 5 different ones to start you off with. Take those combinations and move them in the Em scale. Make sure you experiment with the rest of the permutations. This works in any scale etc.
Ex.3a If you are a little confused about this, we will take the pattern in ex. 2a and march it through the Emin scale. I only gave you the first 2 bars of it. Try to continue this same pattern all over the neck. Your ear will guide you through it. You will see how this kind of practice will develop your ear.
Click HERE to hear a fast version of the exercise
or HERE to hear a slow version
Ex.3b.In this example we will take the pattern in Ex.2c. and move it to the 3rd position, still in E min. See, we are doing the same combination through the scale.
Click HERE to hear a fast version of the exercise
or HERE to hear a slow version
Ex.4. Our last example... we are mixing 2 combinations together. We are
taking Ex.2d and 2e and mixing them. But we are moving up the neck on the 4th and 3rd strings. Feel free to move it around on the other strings.
Click HERE to hear a fast version of the exercise
or HERE to hear a slow version
Make sure you follow the fingerings on this one. It also helps to palm mute these, to help make the notes pop out. Dont forget to accent the downbeats and pick all the notes. Try to work all these example up, around 150-160 beats per minute. They sound real cool at that tempo.
So you see it's endless. You can make up so many different patterns etc. Try mixing up the Rhythm etc. We just did 16th notes.
Ok, I'll leave you with this to mess with. If you have any questions, feel free to email me.
See you soon...Mike
Note: A Powertab-file of all the exercises in this article can be download via this LINK