Hi, How are you doing?
Justin here again, for part 3 of your Major Scale study.
All of this information can be found on my website,
which is: www.justinguitar.com
So you might want to go and check that out
and print out the PDF file
because it might make the lesson a little easier.
Okay so what I am going to discuss with you now
is how to break out from your major scales,
instead of them sounding really scalular,
to make them sound a bit more like music.
You know the expression "you are what you eat",
it's the same with scales.
If you practice scales a lot, when it comes to improvising,
you will tend to play scales a lot.
It's really important that, as soon as you can,
you break out of playing the scales up and down
and put them into some melodic patters,
like what I am going to show you now.
So, what I am going to show you is
this little five-stage routine
that I used to use a lot, still use a bit
for breaking out of scales.
The first step is just being able to play your scale up and down.
Then you go to being able to play the scale up and down,
changing direction at random.
Then you go to playing random notes from within the scale,
but being really, really careful
that you only play notes that are in the scale. OK?
Then you go into doing a thing called "playing thirds".
Now, for those of you who know,
chords are built up of an interval called a third.
It's kind of like playing:
One, two, three.
So, playing one note, missing a note,
and then playing another note.
Then going back to the one you missed etc.
This is called "playing thirds".
It's a very melodic way of playing.
This is a very good exercise, get into playing your scales in thirds.
Lastly, we are going to do "four in a line",
which is playing four notes of a scale.
Then starting on the second degree of the scale.
And the third.
Fourth.
Etc.
OK, so, now we are going to go to a close-up
of my left hand here, Chet.
Hopefully, they will get to see exactly what I'm doing,
if they are not following the tab already. But you are, aren't you?
OK, here we go.
We are going to now explore
the five different techniques
that you can use for playing your scales.
So, the first one - straight up and down.
We are just using position one for this whole little lesson.
Of course, you should take this through all five positions.
Once you get to each position,
remembering that you are not going to go on to the next position
until you have mastered the last.
So, here we are in position one, playing first of all
straight up and down.
Keep doing that for say, like a minute.
Then you would move into part two,
which is playing the scale up and down
but changing direction at random.
But you are not skipping notes yet, you are still just playing the scale.
Etc. There is no pattern to it,
you are just really changing direction when you feel like it.
OK.
The next step would be to play even,
and try and do it really consistently evenly,
just playing random notes from the scale.
So you might go...
Etc.
Don't do it too fast, make sure that you can play it -
just get to the notes.
Make sure you don't hit any notes that aren't part of the scale.
OK.
After you have got that, you would move on to doing thirds.
This is really important that you check out the tab for this
and make sure you do it right.
Start on the first note, which is the root note.
You miss one note and play the next one.
Then you go back to the one you missed.
Miss a note, play the next.
Back to the one you missed.
Miss a note, play the next.
Back to the one you missed.
Etc.
All the way up the scale.
Watch that E because you have got to do two with the same finger.
It's a bit awkward.
And back down, you just missed one.
Get the next, go back to the one you missed.
It's not that hard.
OK. Once you have got your thirds sorted,
then you would move on to this one called "four in a line".
Start on the first note of the scale
and play up four notes.
Then start on the second note of the scale and play up four notes.
Then on the third note of the scale.
Fourth note of the scale.
Fifth.
Sixth.
Once you get to the top we go -
down four to start on the second highest note.
Again, always starting and finishing on the root note
for those patterns of thirds and fourths.
So, I would suggest you go through all of those patterns.
When you have got through all of those,
you will probably find that when you go to improvise,
you will play a lot less scales and a lot more nice melodic patterns.
OK. See you!