Places to go?

Ok, say the key is "C" and we have a standard 12 bar blues. Does this open the , in addition to the C major Penetonic scale, the C minor, A minor, and the extended C major scale into the F and G majors and minors upon chord changes, or am I completly insane?

By my understanding, you want to stay in C, and modes thereof to meet the chord. ...Wrong? And of course, whatever feels good, IS good. :)

Yes exactly, well its got to sound good. :o I was just trying to get the scale theory in my brain, no more sour notes.

I have a hard time, too. I'm low-level, just working those pentontics. I wanted to play on the scale of the chord, but was advised that's wrong. That's what the modes are for: To stay in the key. Might be simplistic, might even be wrong, but that is my understanding thus far.

guess I'm still waiting for my Ahhhh moment. What scares me it is starting to click, in a weird sorta way.
I've been at this for awhile and seems that learning one major and one minor pen. and the extended of each will go a long way for lead. Then use chords to hold it together. But remember it is a lifetime endeavor and no one has mastered it all.

Originally Posted by: decpestOk, say the key is "C" and we have a standard 12 bar blues. Does this open the , in addition to the C major Penetonic scale, the C minor, A minor, and the extended C major scale into the F and G majors and minors upon chord changes, or am I completly insane?

Hi! Oh man, this is all confusing and pretty hard stuff, but enough practice and you WILL get that AAAH moment!!

I assume you're talking about a major blues, a minor blues will be less flexible.

Well, if we're talking about the major blues here - a standard C major blues - the chords would be (I) C7, (IV) F7, and (V) G7. The one, four and five chords.

A very good place to start is to learn the ARPEGGIOS of each of those chords, and play a few rounds of 12 bars just following the chords - play C7 arpeggio on the C7 chord etc.

Now, blues doesn't really sound good or very bluesy if you just play the arpeggios up and down - BUT - you learn which are the sweet sounding notes over each chord - those are gonna be notes within the arpeggios - and thus, safe notes to land on!

OK - to the scales:

Blues is very flexible and if you have the right attitude, any note can sound good, haha! However, it might be easier to start off with a few scales.

- Over the I chord - C7 in this case:
C Minor pentatonic scale will sound good
C Major pentatonic scale will sound good
C blues scale will sound good.
C7 arpeggio will sound pretty good (maybe a bit stiff)
C dorian scale will sound pretty good (same notes as Bb major)
C Mixolydian scale will sound pretty good (same notes as the F major scale)
A minor pentatonic will sound good because it has the exact same notes as the C major pentatonic scale.

Wow, as you can see, there are lots of options here, and you don't just wanna play the scales up and down trying to cram as many notes in there as possible. Pick one, develop a good idea, follow that for the chorus, and then maybe switch it up a bit for the next round of 12 bars.

- Well, on to the IV chord - F7.
Staying in the C blues scale, C minor pentatonic or C dorian will sound pretty good, as those scales contain some, or all, of the notes in the F7 chord. You need the C Dorian though to really hit the major third (A) of the F7.

F major pentatonic scale will sound good
F mixolydian will sound pretty good (contains F7 arpeggio)
F7 arpeggio will sound good

- The V Chord - G7
Again, staying in the C blues scale will work, as the listener's ears are already tuned in to that sound.
G major pentatonic will work ok
G7 arpeggio will work
G mixolydian works ok, but might not sound too bluesy

Well - a simpler way of going about it is to just play the C blues scale all the way through - adding notes from the arpeggios of each chord tastefully.

I know that all of this can be very confusing, so please ask more if there are things that are still very unclear!

Thank you! That's just what I needed, something simple. I still have some problems with moving, say 2 to 5 frets above the blues scale. I'm also having trouble with arpeggios. I have the chords cold in all forms and even 9ths and 13ths but playing while not holding the chord structure is confusing and seeing the scales around it is getting me nuts. Don't know if I am being very clear here. I think my problem is putting something that's not random together in my scattered brain. :o

This stuff just takes time. It was really confusing to me too at first, but after a lot of practicing the fretboard just kind of light up with the right notes when you think of a chord.

A good place to start though is to look at the chord shapes and pick single notes from there. In most cases, that won't be a true arpeggio with the notes all in order, but a good place to start because it would be easy to find. Try to find out which note is which within the chord - meaning - root, third, fifth, seventh etc. as you've already begun to do.

Originally Posted by: decpestI have the chords cold in all forms and even 9ths and 13ths but playing while not holding the chord structure is confusing and seeing the scales around it is getting me nuts.

See if these help. They are on learning to improvize by targeting chord tones. The idea is to think:

What key is this?
What chord is this in the key?

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=483
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=491

Then try these on how to mix and match major and minor notes in a blues context:

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=217
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=232
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=244

Hope this helps. If I am off the mark, please let me know and I will find something that helps.

Originally Posted by: decpestThank you! That's just what I needed, something simple. I still have some problems with moving, say 2 to 5 frets above the blues scale. I'm also having trouble with arpeggios. I have the chords cold in all forms and even 9ths and 13ths but playing while not holding the chord structure is confusing and seeing the scales around it is getting me nuts. Don't know if I am being very clear here. I think my problem is putting something that's not random together in my scattered brain. :o

It's helped me a lot in the past to actually buy (or draw) some neck templates that show the entire fretboard, and then map out all the notes in a given key for whatever scale I'm trying to learn. As you get more and more familiar with the neck, you will have an easier time learning new scales, chords and arpeggios, because you can relate them to something you already know.

For example, the jazz (or "melodic") minor scale is a major scale with one note (the third note-or the "mi" of the doe, ray, mi scale) flatted. I was so familiar with the major scale patterns that I didn't need to map it by the time I learned jazz minor.

Anyway, if you map out your scales, it will help you visualize the notes better, and find all the various routes up and down the neck, so that you can get comfortable with shifting positions from any string with ease, and keep playing in the next pattern.

You can make lots of copies of the scale, so you can mark it up. For example, you can find a chord that you like among the notes of the scale, and circle it so you can easily pick it out at a glance. Then you can move each note of the chord up or down to it's next position, and circle that chord form. Do this until you've covered the whole neck (within reason), and you'll have a voicing for each note of the scale. There are books that do it for you, but I think you learn it better if you draw your own neck charts.

One of the most important things to get into your head and hands is how the chords, scales and arpeggios relate to each other. This will help you to do that.

Perhaps it's equally powerful when you really become aware of each note's place in the chord. So when you work on them, make sure you spend a bit of your time asking yourself to name all the notes by root and number. That gives you the root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th. Once you have all those, you can start adding the extensions; 9th, 11th, and 13th. When you've been doing that for a while, it will be second nature, and it will really help you create more intentional, logical solos.

You can devote seven of the scale maps to color coding the root, 3rd, 5th and seventh of a given chord; only one chord on each copy. So the root might be black, or circled; the third red, or with a sqaure around it, the 5th green, or with a triangle around it, and the 7th brown, or with a star around it.

The kicker is once you've done this to the notes of the chord, you are going to find all the places each note occurs whether in the same or a different octave. So for C major, all the Cs on the entire neck are black, all the Es are red, etc. If this is daunting, that's good; it means you will get a huge benefit from it, because it will get you to the place where you can name any note on the fretboard with ease, and know what relationship it has to a given chord. Just take your time and don't get discouraged; the rewards are huge, and if you spend even a few minutes a day doing it, you'll notice real progress in a matter of weeks, or even days.

Having said all that, don't be impatient with yourself. Chunk this stuff down as much as you need. It's easy to get overwhelmed, but it's all easy stuff if you don't take it too fast; it's just got to be memorized, and programed into muscle memory. But if you start feeling overwhelmed, take a smaller chunk, because you won't remember anything if your brain's overloaded and stressed.

At first, you might want to start with an easy key like C, and learn a couple of scale patterns, say starting at the 5th fret and then starting at the seventh. Then you could try shifting between them. Work on making it sound smooth. Try changing the string you make the shift on so you get comfortable doing it from each string, and get the patterns locked in to the point where the line begins to have a nice flow to it; no hesitation. Also try changing directions in random places until you come up with some nice riffs. That's where it gets really fun. You want to make it musical and entertaining for yourself. Always work against boredom; make it a game, and make some pleasing melodies asap.

If you do the above for a week, then work on connecting the seventh fret pattern to the eight or tenth for a week, and so on, you'll have covered the neck by the end of a month, and be a whole lot closer to your "aha" moment! Just make sure that you spend a few minutes drilling the previous weeks' exercises so you don't forget them by the time you get to the end of the month! Then repeat the whole process, and it will really start to sink in.

After you've done that for a while, and have all the patterns under your fingers, and are comfortable shifting between adjacent ones, it's time to take it to the next level. Start finding all the arpeggios that go with each scale, (you've got your own maps of them now). Spend a couple months in similar fashion, with all the arpeggios. Once you get them under your fingers, you can start connecting them with the scale notes that are between them. That really goes a long way toward mastery of the neck.

I know I got carried away, and that's a lot of work and a lot to take in, but if you do it, I can vitually gaurantee massive progress within a few months! Just start by drawing one scale. That already engages your brain in a different way than just playing and struggling to visualize the patterns. Plus, you can do it with fewer mistakes if you play the scale while using the charts as training wheels until the pattern is part of you. That's important, because if you practice with a lot of mistakes, you end up having to spend almost as long re-programing your body and brain to correct the mistakes as you did learning the whole subject in the first place.

I hope that helps more than it hurts! You've got exciting times ahead if you take it at your own pace and stick to it!

I just thought of an improvement in my previous post. If you use a regular black ball point to make the map, you can then use highlighters for the color coding. Make sure you have at least 4 distinct colors so that you can mark the four parts of the chord. (Just be sure to put the key to the code somewhere on the page). If you want to really go to town, get 7, and you can color code the 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Good luck and have fun!

Thank you so much! Really gonna do this.
BTW found this link on a search, haven't printed it out yet but looks good.
http://www.thecipher.com/GuitarGrids-Cipher.pdf

I'm really on my own here. I live in the "sticks" and haven't found anyone to jam with yet but I do this for my own amazement. I've been having fun with guitar sense I was 12 years old (60 now) and have loved the ride. Garage bands, jam sessions, gear collection, sound search, depression relief, good times best friend and making friends(some not so great) loved every second of it and looking forward to much more. Thanks again for all the help.