Hello, Im a beginner. I really feel fortunate to have found your site. My question is that in looking at some of the notes in different scales like A sharp harmonic minor & C sharp melodic minor, I see a B# in the note line & an E#. I was under the impression no Sharps or flats could occur after B or E going up in pitch. Also I don’t understand how to play a note that contains ## after it or double flats. Does that mean I need to find another equal note at a different octave and play them simultaneously?
The major scale’s relative minor is the 6th degree. The relative minor refers to the natural minor scale. Look at two scales.
C major: C D E F G A B
A natural minor: A B C D E F G
If you start the C major scale from the 6th degree, the order of notes become A natural minor. They are relative because they share the same notes. In reverse, the 3rd degree of the natural minor is the relative major.
The “right way to solo” is NOT by using the relative minor. In certain styles of music it is a trick that often works, nothing else. Example: If a song is in the key of C major, a lot of musicians might use A minor pentatonic for the guitar solo. Two reasons:
1: C major pentatonic and A minor pentatonic share the same notes.
2: The minor pentatonic scale for guitar is easy to play and most of us have a lot of experience with it.
If they are the same notes, it’s easy to play, then it makes sense to just use that instead … up to a point.
The only problem with this is if we spend a lot of our time playing the minor pentatonic then we become very good at making something sound minor-ish. If we then start using a bunch of very minor sounding licks over a major key, things can sound a bit wrong, or predictable.
In essence, there is nothing wrong with it but I personally would spend a lot of time practicing over a major key while avoiding thinking about minor scales. You’ll just come up with different sounding ideas.
With that said, I do personally use the major / relative minor trick quite a lot if I’m playing live and don’t have much time to think about what I’m doing.
This is quite a complicated subject and takes a lot of time and experience to grasp. It took me forever to understand it all properly.
I don’t know if you have my theory book (only on Kindle at the moment) but I go into a lot of detail about this. It gets pretty involved in parts though.
As for reading music, go for it. I can read music but I’m not a sight reader: big difference! 🙂
Thanks Sean. The paperback will be available for the Pentatonic book in a few days. The theory paperback, maybe a few weeks. Both from Amazon.
The pentatonic book is just about using the scale fluently across the neck. There is no theory, or information about when or how to use the scale over any particular style of music. It’s presumed you already use the scale and want to improve how you use it.
The theory book starts out fairly simple but covers a lot of information so gets a bit involved as it progresses. It covers the things I think guitarists and musicians should know about theory, modes etc. Hopefully I have done a good job with it but still no reviews so I’m waiting to find out 🙂 Had no complaints yet so that’s a good sign 🙂
Again Thank you, That information I can see will keep me out of a rut. Yes, I’m getting both of your books very soon, Just need to get the kindle app downloaded and head over to amazon. I have a lot of questions that I’m sure the texts will explain.. I will get back to you once I read both texts with any questions I wasn’t able to glean from the material.
Best~ Sean