What Do I Do With This Scale?

When learning how to play a scale you need to look at it in two parts. Part one is the exercise and memorization of the scale. You need to know where your fingers go without thinking about it. Part 2 is getting inside the scale and making music/improvsing. Part 1 is ultra important and shouldn't be taken lightly. When I learn a new scale I play it from the lowest to highest point of the fretboard. This really helps with the technical side of your playing. Here's a couple of ways to keep it interesting for yourself. Play it once picking every note then play it once hammering on and pulling off every note. Another thing you can do once you feel very comfortable with the scale is you can skip every other string. For example take a minor Pentatonic scale and play the E,D and B strings only. By doing this your ears hear the scale in whole different way which is important to get to step 2.

Once you have the scale down pat you can start to work on improvising which would be step 2. There's many ways to do this but here's a simple way to get your feet wet. Eliminate the E,A and D strings from the scale. Only play the G,B and E strings. Now that you've set a limitation for yourself start moving notes around. Don't play the scale straight up and down. By doing this your ear starts to hear different configurations of notes instead of just the straight scale. Like I said there's many ways to get inside a scale so experiment and find what's right for you.

Here's a video of me playing with Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl at the Troubadour

Here's a video from The Baked Potato with me, Rudy Sarzo (Ozzy Osbourne) and Jonanthan Mover (Joe Satriani)

Gannin Arnold Trio (Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters and Chris Chaney)

Here's a video of me playing with Joe Walsh in 2007

Check out this cool Jeff Beck video I found.

Speaking in Tongues

I've been working a lot lately on how to incorporate chromaticism into Rock/Blues music. It's a tricky thing trying to blend the traditional with the weird. My idea would be to morph Pat Metheny with Jimi Hendrix. It would bring something unique to the Rock community. I'll be posting examples of this as I go along. In the meantime check out Guitarists like Mike Stern and John Scofield.