Very new to playing licks.
When a jam track switches chords, do I switch to a different pentatonic scale to play along? So I would need maybe 3 or so scales to play along?
I could write an entire book on this subject and still not cover everything so it’s not easy to answer. Most of the time it’s down to the style / genre and the chord progression, and lots of musicians take different approaches.
The fact that you are new to it, I would suggest staying in one key with one scale for now. I think all of the jam tracks I have put up so far could be played using one scale. This is a common approach to most blues / pop and country songs.
For now I’d suggest messing around with the blues jam tracks with minor pentatonics, or the country jam tracks with major scales or major pentatonics.
Keep a look out on here, I’ve got a tutorial coming soon with an overview of using the CAGED chords and chord tones. Plus some other stuff in the works which shouldn’t be long, all addressing these kinds of questions.
Thanks.
I’ve been driving my wife nuts for years with it. I keep thinking she’ll learn to like it .. hasn’t happened yet! 🙂
Hi There,
The original question above, was exactly what I needed to know, so thank you for your comments. So for my benefit, if I was to use the straight up blues ( 120 Bpm ) and then play the notes in the A minor pentatonic scale it will work despite the fact that the straight up blues changes to D and then back to A :
A/// //// //// //// D/// //// A/// //// E/// D/// A/// E7///
This is the bit that confuses me.
Thank you for your fantastic site.
Z.
This track is a major blues so you could use major or minor pentatonic, or major chord style phrasing. I’ll try to post a lesson on this over the next few weeks but in the meantime just have some fun playing around with the A minor pentatonic. It’s creates a different kind of sound than major but it’s perfectly Ok with this style of music, many people would use minor pentatonic for a track like this.
Don’t worry about chord changes for now, just use the same scale over the whole track and try to let your ears guide you.
Ive found when the chord changes it can help when learning to land on the same note as the chord change then just use the rest of the scale notes to taste.obviously once used to scale playing do whatever sounds good to your ears but i found at first it helped me.
Absolutely. This is the kind of thing that should be practised regularly.
Thanks. I am currently reading your guitar book and plan on reading your pentatonic book too. Been very helpful so far.
I’ve been playing chords a long time but need to stretch my knowledge now that I’m in self-quarantine, have a lot of time. May drive my wife nuts.