Joined: 22 Sep 2008 United States Lessons: 3 Licks: 5 Karma: 4

Weaving Scales by Littlewing 22 Sep 2008 Views: 12492

In this lesson, I am going to assume that you already know most of the scales we talk about in this lesson.

Now lets put that off to the side for second and ponder this question: What is a scale?
A tool that you weight yourself on? NO. A scale is a sequence of tones built off of a root note. That is the basis for all knowledge of scales and modes.

Within scales, we have a distance between tones known as INTERVALS. Assuming that you already understand the concept of intervals we will move on.

The major scale has 7 modes: Ionian, Dorian, Phyrigian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian.
Most people will never step outside the major scale and its modes. NOTE: PENTATONICS DO NOT COUNT AS SCALES. THEY ARE JUST TONES THAT ARE DERIVED FROM THE AEOLIAN AND IONIAN MODE.

When Soloing, you should do what's called WEAVING SCALES. This is how it works.
I can be soloing in a D aeolian scale which is a relative mode of F major(Ionian). I'm just standing there, throwing in my bends, vibratos, sweeps, etc. Eventually, the solo begins to get tedious. What do I do? I throw in a outside scale. Keep soloing in D Aeolian but eventually, start to solo in D dorian which is a relative mode of C major which is 5th from F major. Then the D dorian solo starts getting boring. Now, I throw in a D harmonic minor. That natural 7 is such a change in the scale that it makes the solo much more interesting. What happens? Your ear adjusts to it. See what happens? Your ear adjusts to the outside tones. To prevent this from happening, I should of soloed in all 3 of those scales AT THE SAME TIME. This adds color to your soloing. An old saying is "I can play what ever I want in the middle, as long as I start and land on the right note.". Your probably thinking "What the hell? I can solo in A major and play a Bb whole tone?". The answer is YES. While this is technically incorrect, it prevents your solo from becoming boring. BUT DON'T, AND I REPEAT DONT' OVERUSE THIS TECHNIQUE. While this can create some extremely cool soloing, it can sound very dissonant if used improperly. When I say throw it in, I mean throw it in. But if you want to use something like a A aeolian and an A Dorian, then that won't kill you and you can use that as much as you want. That concludes Weaving Scales.