Hey Friend,

I said yesterday that a scale pattern repeats itself up and down the guitar neck. That doesn't mean we're confined to a scale's pattern, though. Turns out learning your scales is just a starting point.

There's a couple problems most of us run into, though. The first, and most common, is we we don't truly learn the patterns. We KNOW the patterns, but without putting the time in to allow muscle memory to solidify, it's just head knowledge - not finger knowledge. 

And before I forget, part of learning these scales includes your brain memorizing how they sound. The more you play them, the easier it is for your ears to recognize when notes don't fit in the context of the music.

Something happens when your ears and muscle memory begin to take over. It's as if your fingers automatically know which frets to go to next. But as Kevin pointed out, that isn't enough. We learn how to play these scales, but then realize it SOUNDS like all we're doing is playing scales.

Note to note, in the order we learned them. Boring.

That brings me to the second problem. We never expand outside of the minor pentatonic. As I pointed out yesterday, a pentatonic scale is derived from the full scale. There are major and minor pentatonic scales, as well as full major and minor scales.

In fact, there are three different minor scales that are regularly used in music. And that's just scratching the surface.

You want to really expand creativity? Add in a Chinese or Hindu Raga flavor. Or an augmented scale. There are literally hundreds of scale possibilities. We'll come back to this idea later.

Most guitar players don't realize there's anything outside of the minor pentatonic scale. Just expanding your horizon past that limit will open up creativity to you.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

I gave you a bunch of minor pentatonic exercises yesterday. There are exercises for every mode of the A minor pentatonic scale. Don't get freaked out by the word "mode." It's just a word that allows you to differentiate which note you're starting with in the key. Each time you start a new pattern within a scale (your starting note is one from the scale), you are playing a different mode of the scale. 

Each mode has identical notes. The only difference between one mode and another is its tonic (root or starting) note. Learning the scale pattern for each mode gets you to playing in a different area of the guitar neck.

You might be thinking, "Okay Davey, that's great, but how does that break me out of the box? Even though I'm moving around the neck, I'm still playing scale patterns."

Yup, that's true. But remember, part of the problem we're trying to correct is being locked in to the same region of the neck. This will help you break out of it.

You can also mix and patch different modes, too. Start in one area and move up or down the neck, rather than side-to-side. Here's an exercise I call Pentatonic Crawl demonstrating what I mean. 

It takes some time to memorize a scale with all its modal patterns. Don't rush this process, as it is one of the main fundamentals to learning lead guitar technique.

I'd suggest spending at least a week practicing each mode. From there you can begin combining the modes like I did in the exercise file I sent today. 

There's definitely a lot to digest, but if lead guitar is your passion, this stuff will be fun. It can be almost therapeutic running scale patterns once you have them down.

You can get a lot more pentatonic exercise over at Paul Gilbert's Rock Guitar School on ArtistWorks. Of course, he teaches a whole lot more in his curriculum, but pentatonics are a fundamental of Rock and Blues, so the more you learn and practice how to work that scale, the better your solos will be. Check out ArtistWorks for more on how to get started.

Peace~

Dave