Pentatonic Positions - Soloing Over Chord Changes

[Lee]

This lesson has moved here ...

Soloing over chord changes

[AndyC]

Thanks for the lesson found it very informative and useful. I've started to work my way through it and I can see I'm going to have many a happy hour plucking away.

Managed to follow your lesson quite easily and it all seems to make sense apart from where you mention quite early on about the four note being unavailable - maybe I'm missing something or just a bit thick , that said many thanks again I'm finding the site very useful - glad I stumbled upon it.

[Lee]

Thanks Andy, glad your getting something out of it.

The four note thing I'm talking about is this. Many guitarists spend more time trying to play all over the neck in the hope it's going to add some excitement or make their solo more interesting than sticking around the standard box pattern with their predictable licks and runs. Being able to play all over the neck is good but if you think your solos sound boring because you are stuck in a single scale pattern then it's extremely likely that you'll think your solos are boring no matter how many frets you make use of.

If I play the A minor pentatonic scale all over the neck up to the twelfth fret and you stay within the standard box position 1, then I have only four more notes to play with than what you have. I can play with all five pentatonic positions within the first twelve frets but if I don't play the four notes in red then I haven't gained any note (pitch) that I isn't in position 1. For instance,

Fret five sixth string = open fifth string.
Fret eight sixth string = fret three, fifth string.
Fret eight first string = fret thirteen second string
and so on.

It's still good to not be stuck in position 1 all the time but on the other hand it does have a lot going for it. It's easy to play with and use. If all you do is play up and down a scale willy-nilly then it doesn't matter where you play it on the fretboard. You can play position 1's notes up and down haphazardly or any other position haphazardly, both sound like you don't know what you are doing.

The bottom line to making a solo sound like you know what you are doing is to think about the notes as much as the pattern and as shown in this lesson just focusing on the landing note over the chord change makes a lot of difference to a guitar solo. Thinking about the notes, chord tones etc requires a lot of thought if it's all new to you.

If you are comfortable with position 1 (which most of us are) then use that and make the most of it to help you through your learning phase with landing notes and training your ear. If you try to do it all at once with all the positions then you have just made everything much harder, much more to think about, more confusing and as far as note pitch is concerned all you gain is four notes that you don't have in position 1.

Hope that makes sense, if not let me know and I'll try again

[AndyC]

Thanks Lee - penny finally dropped .

I've found the lessons on the site very useful so far in particular as I'm someone who finds if I understand something it helps me with my practice ( I'm one of those sad people who read instruction booklets from cover to cover - and enjoy it )

Keep up the good work it's really appreciated.

[JAZZHOBO]

nice one for this lesson.i thought the video lesson was great.things are much more clearer now.liked the key centre changing backing track,really helps to target the good right notes if that makes any sense. once again cheers. you're a star.

[Lee]

Thanks Jazzhobo. That video was hard work (and probably a bit over the top) so I'm glad it's helped!

[Michael]

Great video, but, the video link above says the video is no longer available when it's clicked, but I found it on youtube at: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=dlGxoiL2XLE
FYI

[Michael]

Oops! Sorry, it works now.

[Lee]

If I respond, will you reply?

forgive me if i'm wrong but something smells spammy here