Shaun Baxter srs sme ser Key changes wth the By ns Peg SCALE This month, Shaun Baxter continues his new series devoted to different ways of practising the minor pentatonic scale ast month, © minor pentatonic, each containing a moveable Aanid meckanical fashion, Here, instead of Just playing up and down each scale shape, we are Soing to perform a set of exercises based around Ticks that can be found in each of the five shapes ‘of the minor pentatonic scale. However, this is still an exercise, nota solo, although it does sound more musical than last month's exercise the exerdses ‘This month’ lick examples are all composed of ‘sth-note triplets and are desigued to be played ver a shufle fee. You may experience some technical problems when trying to execute some of these licks cleanly, so refer to the fingering ‘shown in the music AS Te stated i the past, no reat improviser puts themselves at the mercy of divine inspiration everytime they improvise ~ they've got licks. IF you know thar you will definitely have to play the pentatonic scale with your particular style of music, you should start ‘making preparations for that eventuality. A jaz guitarist such 25 John Scofield doesn't picture an Alpine forest in springtime every time he encounters a major? chord. He sees arpeggto Shapes and various lick and line contours that he’ collected over year of listening and experimenting with this particular chord type. He ‘then simply reconsttutes this stretching, compressing and edit particular musical situation, Learning a ick in, say, shape 5 of the minor pentatonic scale will give you a reason to use that particular scale shape. There ace certain disadvantages to learning the guitar. One of them {is the tuning displacement between the G and B string, This destroys alot of shape symmetry when tying to apply various harmonic {information to the fretboard. However, i can also be a blessing in disguise, as each scale shape presents us with new fingering possibilities. In ther words, certain licks are easier to play with certain scale shapes. ‘a numbers game 1s for this reason that I think that you should assign a lick to a certain seale shape and stick to it, rather than lear how to play the same lick in every stale shape. If, for example, you had 50 diferent pentatonic licks, you could divide them up so that you had ten lcks in each of the ive shapes. Altematively, you could learn bow to play all 50 licks within each of the five scale shapes ‘and, in the process, expand the amount of work from 50 pieces of information to 250. What would ‘you have gained from doing this? Well, it could ‘be useful as a pure visualisation exercise, but, ‘musically, it could mean that you are condemaing ‘yourself to the possibility of having the first ick ‘you think of chasing you all round the neck when {improvising - leaving yoursei no means of escape, At least by having a different vocabulary for each shape ofthe scale, you have an even distribution of your vocabulary. By shifting 10 new scale shape the fst lick that you think of ‘ill be a different one from the previous scale shape. This means that you should end up sounding five times more inventive ‘shaun’s gt gear Fer tis moms ut | sed Psp PRS. Thien went. ‘trough 4 Como 3 atta es oa Fle! sete Simao The Comlar wason h ooning Stings: Vol Gain Bass Mid ied Pres MstVol rs ame ee es jargon buster mia BA tis case OF nts ely premetated atcan end Taper when mpeg sm Reenac ems A msec Over the yens Ihave been in his busines, ‘coum on pees have transcribed and analysed the syle of hundreds of gular, and all the great ones have fot specie things tht thy play within specie scale shapes. ‘change running Remember: a vital sill required when playing through key changes is the ability to look ahead. In otter words, to get used to thinking of two diferent things atthe same time. When preparing ‘yourself mentally forthe next lick, i's important ‘hat you use the root note ofthe next scale as a reference point, not the stating note of the lick that you are required to play. Furthermore, you should also see the root note in question within the context of an appropriate parental chord form {as shown): this wil give you a superstructure around vihich to build the scale. Afterall tall starts witha chord, Ifyou're looking at 2 chart and trying to improvise around a song, what’ the ‘rst thing that you see? The chord. You therefore need clear chord-to-scale relationship, where @ cord shape i the visual prompt for the appropriate scale and not vice versa ‘technique Lick 4 features a technique that involves shifting the weight of the tp ofthe third finger from the E siring tothe B string atthe height of @ bend. In ‘beat 2, you should bend the E string up, but ‘etum the bend on the B string, presentation ‘You should also work at stringing the various licks together witha convincing sense of continuity. This is a vital aspect of presenting any ‘musical material within a rock or bhies context. “The general rule is that you slide into each phrase (up or down), add vibrato at the end and then tal off with another slide (gain, up or down). Listen for this a I play through the lick examples (nthe @ECD ~ as mach care has to be given 10 the gaps between each lick as there Is withthe actual lick itself [Next month, we'll be using these Ticks to play ‘over key changes while staying in one area of the neck. See you then! st aris sine mea Arnus oe onl cs necear oe Une Saevsregenhi eae eePL I nn the minor pentatonic scale | @=AMlinor Chord @+ OQ = AMinor Pentatonie Shape 1 a o Oo m7 (a) a5) 47) 1) 2) | o © M7 @ (12) 5) (7) (19) @) ‘Shape 3 oo m 2) as) 7) 9) et) ay 9) (a5) @ 78 gultar techniques | september 2000a _ miei totes —04ite—o—— ; 10K 3 Shape No.3 —-o Rs oy, % — y 2p eu Bu Bu s a S08 oss ata