soloing

Here is a 29 minute exercise and tracking system to learn, REALLY learn, the pentatonic scale everywhere on the neck as quickly as possible.

Sorry for the clickbait headline, but you probably won’t be able to complete the entire exercise the first time you try it. It will likely take you at least a few days, but the tracking system ensures you will continue to make progress. After several days or weeks practicing this one exercise, you’ll be able to complete the exercise in 29 minutes for real. More importantly, you’ll be able to effortlessly find the closest pentatonic scale shape anywhere on the neck.

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A tritone is an interval of three tones, or three whole steps. It can also be considered a diminished (or flat) fifth (the blue note). Because it splits an octave evenly in half, it has some really cool characteristics and applications (though on its own it will sound pretty discordant and unstable). The interval between G and D♭ is a tritone, for example, but so is the interval between D♭ and G! [Read More]

Like most beginning guitarists, I dream of being able to effortlessly “trade licks” with other players, switching freely between rhythm and lead, and creating beautiful melodies on the fly. Rhythm (accompaniment or “comping”) and melody (lead or soloing) are far more intertwined than you might think. Both require that you truly and thoroughly understand (i.e. KNOW) basic scales. I believe that both are utterly dependent on knowing, really KNOWING at least the minor pentatonic scale and a few chord/arpeggio shapes. [Read More]