We’ve been doing a lot of focusing on finding scales for playing over major chords. Please see the previous entries listed below for details.

Let’s work out some scales to play over dominant chords now. Let’s do a one-chord progression with G7:

||: G7 :||

Record several measures of rhythm, strumming the G7 chord into your Band in a Box software, or a simple tape recorder, or something similar. Power Tab - free software - is highly recommended.

Now play back the recording. What are going to play over that G7? If you’re playing it safe, you can start with an arpeggio rather than a scale. Play a G7 arpeggio such as the following:

|--10-7----------------|----------------------|------7-10----|
|-------8--------------|----------------------|----8---------|
|---------10-7---------|--------------------7-|-10-----------|
|--------------9-------|------------------9---|--------------|
|----------------10--8-|-------------8-10-----|--------------|
|----------------------|-10-7---7-10----------|--------------|

What you’re doing is just playing each chord tone of the G7 one note at a time. You’re not hearing anything that’s not in the chord. For a little variety and color play an A note with that arpeggio. Also, try E.

Let’s go back to scales and re-ask the original question: what scales will sound good over G7?

C major is a good candidate. Why? G7 is found in the C major scale (among other scales). In other words, every note in G7 can be found in the C major scale.

Yet, there’s a dissonance if you use C major over G7: the C note. Play the C over the G7 and listen. As mentioned in a previous tip, this note wants to resolve to B.

So you’ve found one scale with a dissonant note and now you say, “Well maybe there’s a scale that contains the notes in G7 but doesn’t have the dissonant C.” You learn a bit of theory and you come up with this scale: G pentatonic. We presented this in a previous tip, so we’re going to zip over to yet another scale: D melodic minor.

Believe it or not, you can use melodic minor scales in at least 4 different ways to play over dominant chords. We’ll start to go over those approaches next time.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - October 1, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Scales and Soloing Series

• Scales To Use For Soloing
• Scales To Use For Soloing Part II
• Improvising With The Blues
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale II
• Soloing Over Minor Chords

We’re back to talking about scales to use for improvising. Here’s the sample phrase we’ve been improvising over:

||: C major, A minor, D minor, G7 :||

In previous chapters we improvised with the C major pentatonic and then the G major pentatonic. See the previous posts for details.

Now we’re going to use yet another scale to play over this phrase in C major, with the intention of hearing some Blues. Here’s the pattern we’re going to use:

|-------------------3-6----|
|-----------------4--------|
|-------------3-5----------|
|---------3-5--------------|
|-----3-6------------------|
|-3-6----------------------|

Play this pattern just shown over a tape recording or midi file of the C major progression.

How did it sound? We can get it to sound even better by highlighting those bluesey dissonances like this: start out playing the G major pentatonic (described in the Scales To Use For Soloing Part II) over the progression, and then after a few seconds play the Eb major pattern just given.

This pattern is the Eb major or C minor pentatonic. Yes, it has two names. It’s not a true blues scale, but it conveys the feeling of the blues. And that feeling comes from just two notes within the Eb major: Eb and Bb. Playing those two over chords in the C major scales produces the sweet, “incorrect” intervals we call the Blues.

We now have three different scales to play over the C major progression. Are you ready for yet another? We’ll dig in next issue.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - September 15, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Scales and Soloing Series

• Scales To Use For Soloing
• Scales To Use For Soloing Part II
• Scales To Play Over Dominant Chords
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale II
• Soloing Over Minor Chords

We’re looking at scales to use for soloing. Here’s the progression we’re working with

||: C major, A minor, D minor, G7 :||

Last week we improvised over these chords using the C major pentatonic (see Scales To Use For Soloing for details, including the pentatonic pattern we used).

Is the C major pentatonic the only scale you can use over a progression in C major?

Thankfully, no. We have many choices. Listen carefully to how this next scale plays over the aforementioned changes. This is the G major pentatonic:

|----------------------3-5----|
|------------------3-5--------|
|--------------2-4------------|
|----------2-5----------------|
|------2-5--------------------|
|--3-5------------------------|

The G major pentatonic has none of the notes — F and C — that could cause unacceptable dissonances. Specifically, the F, if present, would clash over a C major and A minor chord, and the C, if present, would clash over a G major and E minor chord.

Let’s generalize this finding so we can play in other keys: if you know a phrase or progression or sub-progression is going to stay within a major key and not stray outside it, instead of playing the major pentatonic from the root of the key center (e.g. C penta within C major), play the major penta from the V of the key center (e.g. G penta). For D major, this means you would use the A major pentatonic pattern, and for G major, you’d use the D major pentatonic pattern.

Next time: improvising with the Blues

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - September 1, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Scales and Soloing Series

• Scales To Use For Soloing
• Improvising With The Blues
• Scales To Play Over Dominant Chords
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale II
• Soloing Over Minor Chords

Let’s get into a topic that gets a lot of guitarists excited, and some maybe a little frustrated: scales to use for soloing. Specifically, single line, improvised soloing. This could apply to rock and jazz players, but others might benefit also from learning the theory being applied.

Super practical example: You’re playing some tune in C major and want to improvise over the changes (that’s “chord changes” or “chord progression” if you’re new to guitar lingo.). What scale do you use? Correction: what scales — plural — could you use? Let’s go from the most obvious to not as obvious options.

The obvious option is the C major (A minor) pentatonic. Need a pattern for this? How about the following:

|---------------------5-8----|
|-----------------5-8--------|
|-------------5-7------------|
|---------5-7----------------|
|-----5-7--------------------|
|-5-8------------------------|

And let’s have a basic phrase in C major:

||: C major, A minor, D minor, G7 :||

You don’t need two guitar(ists) to practice this. Get a program like Power Tab or record yourself playing the change just given, and then play notes taken from this penta-pattern over it.

How does it sound? Not terrible, right? But there’s a rough spot: If you’re playing the C major pentatonic over a G or G7, you might hear this dissonance: the C note clashing with the B in the chord. It doesn’t sound terrible if you don’t emphasize the note. Just remember that soloing isn’t all about playing your fingers off. You have to listen, listen, listen.

In the next issue we’ll answer this: Is the C major pentatonic the only scale you can use over a progression in C major? I think you already know the answer.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - August 15, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Scales and Soloing Series

• Scales To Use For Soloing Part II
• Improvising With The Blues
• Scales To Play Over Dominant Chords
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale
• Soloing With Melodic Minor Scale II
• Soloing Over Minor Chords