Guitar Lessons and Theory

Improvising On Dominant Chords

Improvisation on dominant chords is maybe the first to be learn by improvising musicians. Dominant chords are frequently embellished by all kinds of extensions so any musician must be familiar to the modes he/she would play on them.

• The blues scale may be played on chords that include the 9th and the 11th and on the 7#9 chord.
• The most popular mode on 7,9,(11, 13) is the mixolydian mode. For instance, on a C9 chord you may play C mixolydian (the 5th mode of the F major scale).
• The half - whole tone scale may be played on 7b9 and 7#9 chords with a major 6th. On C7b9 and C7#9, try C 1/2, 1.
• Whole tones scales may be played on 7#11 chords like C whole tone on a C7#11 chord.
• Phrygian major can be played on 7b9 chords with a minor sixth. On a C7b9b13 chord, you can try C phrygian major (the 5th mode of F harmonic-minor).
• Mixolydian b6 also works on 9b13 chords. Try on C9b13 C mixolydian b6 (the 5th mode of F melodic-minor).
• Superlocrian works on 7#9 and 7#9b13 (altered chords). On C7#9(b13), you can try C superlocrian (the 7th mode of C# melodic-minor).
• Lydian b7 may be played on 7,9#11 (or b5) chords. On C7,9#11, you can play C lydian b7 (the 4th mode of G melodic-minor).

In conclusion, we've got the blues scale, a diatonic mode, the two symmetrical scales, a harmonic-minor mode and three melodic-minor modes. Musicians play so much on dominant chords so they get used fast to all their extensions.

Dedicated Technique

Last night I heard an interview with Al di Meola. He recognized that he had a period when he was studying guitar 8 hours/day in his youth. I thought of Steve Vai. They say Vai was practicing 11 hours/day. It seems a lot but it's enough to practice for 3 hours/day when you are still a beginner and didn't make your mind yet about a musical career. Then, when you're determined to make a living playing an instrument, you should consider practicing as your job. The more advanced you are, the more enjoyable practicing is. The problem is to make up your mind fast. You can spend your time on an activity that doesn't bring any income only while you are not committed to another working place or to your own family. So, the best years are when you are 12 - 20 years of age.

Why do you need a good technique? The point is to be able to express yourself. There are musicians that have a lot of feeling and their music would make a strong impression on anyone listening but their technique is too poor and they can't bring their ideas into life.

Maybe you think the competition is tough and practicing's goal is to enable you to show off. It's true that there are a lot of great guitar players but, in music, you compete only with yourself. Only a bad audience would fall for cheap technical tricks. A good one will appreciate your music. All you have to do is to acquire the ability to make that music.

Modal Improvisation

Instead of concentrating on the chord sequence of the song, modal jazz is all about scales and modes. This gives more freedom, the accompanying instruments don't have to follow the chords, the soloist can create melodies of his own instead of arpeggiating on and on the same chord sequence.

Inside the scale, the soloist may use intervals, triads, arpeggios, penta and blues scales and patterns derived from the scale.

But the real freedom in modal jazz is to be able to add "out notes", notes that are not within the scale or the mode of the song. It's very important for the soloist to know exactly what notes will make happen his/her intentions and for the accompanying musicians to hear where the soloist leads to or, even to suggest trips outside the basic scale or mode.

Let's take, for example, the A-dorian mode: A, B, C, D, E, F#, G. First, you have to get familiar to the sound of the dorian, then to hear when the improvisation goes outside the dorian and where. Important outside notes that can be used in the dorian mode:

• the minor second - Bb
• the flat fifth - Eb
• the minor sixth - F
• the major seventh - G#

For C-lydian: C, D, E, F#, G, A, B, the same notes of the mode will occur outside the mode but at other steps:   

• the flat seventh - Bb
• the minor third - Eb
• the perfect fourth - F
• the minor sixth - G#

It takes some practice to hear all the outside notes. Play as much as you can in the "modal spirit" as a soloist and as an accompanying musician, see if you feel the need to go outside the mode from time to time. 

Inside the Scales

Analyzing a solo, being aware of the patterns inside may help you avoid playing the same licks over and over again. Try to identify the following:

2-notes patterns: intervals

Thirds, sixths and fourths are the most popular intervals. Sometimes they come with a grace note.

3-notes patterns: triads

Starting from a note of the scale and play the note itself, the third and the fifth. For example, for C-major: C, E, G; D, F, A; E, G, B; F, A, C; G, B, D; A, C, E; B, D, F. As you see, you get major, minor and diminished triads. They can be played as a group of 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13 notes or whatever.

4-notes patterns: arpeggios

Adding the seventh to the triads you get 7th chord arpeggios. For example, for C-major: C, E, G, B; D, F, A, C; E, G, B, D; F, A, C, E; G, B, D, F; A, C, E, G; B, D, F, A. You get major 7th, minor 7th, dominant and half-diminished arpeggios.

5-notes patterns: pentatonic scales

In major scales you may extract three minor pentatonic scales. For instance, in C-major you've got pentatonic scales starting from A (A, C, D, E, G), D (D, F, G, A, C) and E (E, G, A, B, D).

6-notes patterns: blues scales

Add the "blue note" (the flat fifth) to the pentatonic scales and you get blues scales.

7 or 8-notes patterns: scales

Any pattern of adjacent notes.

See some examples in the major scale, in the harmonic minor scale and in the melodic minor scale.

Speed and Technique

While trying to teach vibrato, one of my students said: "I don't care about these things, just give me some fast licks!" There are many guitar beginners that don't care about making music. They just want to impress their friends. Technique is not only about speed and tapping, it's also about vibrato, hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, bends, harmonics, muted notes, tremolo bar and so on.

I had students that came with tens of fast licks but couldn't play hammer-ons and pull-offs. I heard guitar players that can play very - very fast but when time comes to play a tune it sounds boring and dry. The guitar is a very versatile instrument, the electric guitar is, maybe the most versatile of all. Think of all that huge variety of sounds! But, in the hands of a technically limited player, it becomes the most boring of all.

The guitar technique is versatile as well. For example, there are 4 ways you can produce vibrato: horizontally, vertically, picking and with the help of the tremolo bar. There are also several kinds of harmonics, 2 ways to mute notes, there are combinations between techniques like: bending and tapping and trills and vibrato bar.

Try to master as many techniques as you can and you'll notice that playing and studying will be easier and more diverting.

How to Listen

As books are not written for professional writers,as paintings are not painted for professional painters, so music is not made for professional musicians. Music is made for people. Its aim is to transmit a certain kind of feeling between the musician and the listener that can't be communicated on other channels.

Unfortunately, there are still musicians that make music for their fellows musicians only. There are classical composers that the only purpose of their works is to impress the scholars with their inventions. There is a lot of "fusion" that has only one quality: sophistication. Sophisticated harmony, sophisticated rhythms that impress the musicians in the audience but don't have any impact on the others. There are also guitar players that all they want is to show off.

The listener can be wrong too, even when the music is real music. There are students that are concentrating in guessing the chords, there are guitar players that get impressed with the performer's technique and don't pay attention to music. In other words: they don't feel it. There's a time for study and a time for listening. Knowledge and technique are useless when they don't serve a higher purpose: human emotion.

Speed Again

In order to be able to play real fast you need a lot of practicing. There's a certain barrier that you surpass without being aware of it and, from that point on, nothing can slow you down.

Almost anything can be played fast if you practice correctly: begin slowly, then increase the speed gradually.

But there is also another little secret: the efficiency of your moves. Press the strings with your left hand with the minimum power that gets the right sound. You can even practice this technique. Let's take two simple chromatic runs:

Play these two runs without pressing with your left hand's fingers (a kind of "left hand mute") until you are able to play them fast enough. Then increase the pressure until you reach a clean sound but don't press more than that. The purpose is to be aware of the minimal pressure that's needed.

Now, for the right hand: play tremolo picking on a certain note. Play at all the intensity spectrum: from soft to loud. Be aware of the right hand move. Make it as efficient as you can. Play tremolo picking on all the strings, the angle of the pick is very important.

You need only 5 minutes a day to practice these exercises and you may give them up when your moves will become real efficient.

Get Ready!

A reliable musician must be ready to play in any situation. Including jams where the musician was not told the tonality or the chord sequence, not even the tonality. Can you do this?

Try Band in a Box: the program has some amazing features for music students: you can learn to play chords or melody along with a band, you can improve your musical hearing, you can learn guitar chord soloing. But what is relevant for our issue is the "Melodist" feature. You can click on the "Juke Songs Now" button and the program will generate random songs. You should mute the melody and the soloist and improvise along with the computer.

There are two ways to do it: looking at the chords while improvising or turning off the screen and soloing by hearing and intuition. Both ways are not only great teaching tools but also great fun.      

Profession vs. Art

Any normal human being can be a professional. There are a lot of schools and a lot of tutorials to learn from all over the place. Who are the professional musicians? The sidemen we see in pop bands playing for Enrique Iglesias or Gloria Esteban, the instrumentalists playing for the Chicago Philharmonic, the jazz musicians playing for Las Vegas-style crooners. A professional is taught to satisfy the demands of his/hers employer and is easy to be replaced by machines. A professional musician is taught to satisfy the demands of the record company and is easy to be replaced by computers. Professionals will never create, they will only execute. They become less and less necessary.

Like professionals, artists worked a lot to acquire high skills. But, when times come to perform, artists forget everything they ever learned. Professionals just put into practice what they already know.

Artists are those strange people who can't live without creating. Literally. Creative musicians won't hear in their heads the last Bon Jovi hit or the smashing Petrucci solo on the last Dream Theater record. They will hear instead melodies never heard before, surprising harmonies, complex rhythms. They will invent instrumental techniques to fit their vision.

Is creativity some kind of illness? Maybe. Most of the artists have a lot of social and financial problems because of their obsession. But they are the ones that make us step forward. Music can do well enough without professionals, it will be a bore without artists.

The Tone

The first thing we hear when we listen to music is not the melody, not the rhythm, not the harmony – but the sound.

Great guitarists are great because they are innovators. They invent new music and new ways of guitar playing. But every one of them has his own sound.

The pioneers in the 1950s and 1960s fought against severe technique limitations. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and Ritchie Blackmore broke those limitations. A less famous player – Roy Buchanan – came with an amazing tone and decisive technical innovations.

The 1970s and 1980s brought us Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie van Halen, Steve Vai, Larry Carlton, Pat Metheny and a long list of great players. Each one of them found his own tone, the tone that fits his vision about music.

Nowadays there is no technical problem to get the tone you wish. Variax guitars, a great deal of multi-effects, soft effects are affordable. The only problem is to have a vision and to look for the sound that is the most appropriate for it. Keep this in mind next time you go shopping.

Anyone can learn to play like anyone else. You won’t count unless you make your own original music with your own original tone. Look for it!