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Scale Patterns For Guitarists
Scale Patterns To Create Awesome Licks
A mixed bag of scale patterns and ideas have been included in this week's batch of guitar licks.
Learning and understanding these licks will give you many new possibilities for your own guitar solos. Even though specific scales are used in these examples, you can easily transfer the patterns to other scale types if you understand the concepts involved.
Alternate picking, sweep picking, legato and playing in all positions are all covered for a range of new ideas you can add to your musical repertoire.
Why Learn Scale Patterns?
It is essential for any musician to practise and study scale patterns. To me, music is a blend of maths and art. Maths is the analytical side of music and art is the creativity. One without the other leads to imbalance and will impair your development as a musician.
Maths is all about patterns. Patterns in music are what give music structure and balance. Patterns are everywhere - musical form, melodic sequences, rhythmic devices, etc.
Recognising musical patterns will allow you to remember musical content and create ideas of your own. Always be aware of patterns!
Want to be able to create scale patterns of your own so you can create awesome-sounding licks for your guitar solos? The secret is to understand what it is you are actually playing.
Enter your details below and my weekly newsletter that analyses all the licks in these blog posts will be sent to you for free. Free guitar lessons to your inbox... What's not to like?
Major Pentatonic Scale Sequence
This 5-note pentatonic scale sequence is great for adding melodic interest to your guitar solos. The combination of 5 notes, slides and pull-offs instantly adds musicality to the horizontal fingering for this scale.
Any C major pentatonic scale idea will also work any time you want to use the A minor pentatonic scale. The notes are the same, although I was specifically hearing C major harmony when playing this lick.
Harmonic Minor Scale Sequence Lick
Even though this lick is a simple scale pattern, the three pickup notes have displaced the pattern to create a musically interesting idea.
Experimenting with the harmonic minor scale is so much fun and some great-sounding musical sounds can be created. Whether playing acoustic guitar, electric guitar, jazz guitar, or gipsy guitar... the harmonic minor scale works for any genre.
I especially love to improvise using the harmonic minor scale on acoustic guitar. There is something so satisfying about blasting out speedy harmonic scale licks and ideas on an acoustic guitar. I will never get tired of this!
Eb7 Sweep Arpeggio Lick
Be sure to work this idea through all types of arpeggios and all the diatonic arpeggios that are contained within the main scales you will be using (major scale, melodic minor scale, harmonic minor scale, etc.).
This lick resolves nicely to an Ab major chord type and sits nicely under the fingers.
Spending time with a metronome and this lick will greatly improve your sweep picking technique and will equip you with a ready-made idea that you can blast out at any opportunity.
Free Ear Training Course
Learning patterns is great for guitar technique, although you must be able to hear and understand what you are playing.
My free ear training mini-course will allow you to easily train your ears to hear all the musical intervals, which will help you massively when it comes to learning and using melodic patterns.
Signing up for my weekly newsletter at the top of the page also gives you access to my free guitar study packs. These are great little free guitar lessons!
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