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Pentatonic scales
Feb. 12th, 2009 08:23 pmOnline guitar instruction, once it gets beyond basic chords, seems to lean heavily on the teaching of pentatonic scales.
This is in contrast to the instruction book I have, which, despite being peppered with pictures of Elvis and Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix, bears hallmarks of having been written by a classical guitarist. It treats the subject much like an introductory textbook for an orchestral instrument, restricting play to the low frets (in that volume, at least) and training the student to read music while gradually expanding the range of available notes to a C major diatonic scale over a couple of octaves. Chords are considered as built out of individual notes, starting with three-note chords on the high strings only, that the book teaches you to read off the staff.
This is good stuff to know and I'm certainly going to continue with it, not least because my major aim here is to understand things about music in general; but it does seem to bear little resemblance to what rock or blues guitarists do. Instead, especially when improvising, they think in terms of boxes: patterns that you can freely transpose up and down the neck depending on key, for scales that are usually described as elaborations of a major or minor pentatonic scale.
( Pentatonic scales, the guitar, cultural appropriation, and a theoretical exercise with a surprise result )
This is in contrast to the instruction book I have, which, despite being peppered with pictures of Elvis and Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix, bears hallmarks of having been written by a classical guitarist. It treats the subject much like an introductory textbook for an orchestral instrument, restricting play to the low frets (in that volume, at least) and training the student to read music while gradually expanding the range of available notes to a C major diatonic scale over a couple of octaves. Chords are considered as built out of individual notes, starting with three-note chords on the high strings only, that the book teaches you to read off the staff.
This is good stuff to know and I'm certainly going to continue with it, not least because my major aim here is to understand things about music in general; but it does seem to bear little resemblance to what rock or blues guitarists do. Instead, especially when improvising, they think in terms of boxes: patterns that you can freely transpose up and down the neck depending on key, for scales that are usually described as elaborations of a major or minor pentatonic scale.
( Pentatonic scales, the guitar, cultural appropriation, and a theoretical exercise with a surprise result )