Most people start of learning to play guitar scales by buying a beginner guitar tutorials book and following along with the patterns right? We then remember the boxes of dots described in the book, and these dots are notes in the music scale. This is the most orthodox method.
Then, we have Marty Friedman. Those of you who don’t know him, he’s somewhat of a musical genius and friend of Jason Becker. Anyway, back to the guitar lesson!
He explains in this guitar lesson that got a bit of an unorthodox way of playing. What he does is improvises using the notes in the chord progression being played for rhythm – he NEVER learned any guitar scales! It’s much like learning how to use arpeggios to improvise. This is a very difficult and long-winded way of learning to play guitar scales but then again, if you set your mind to it, anything is possible!
At one point, I did attempt this technique ( with a backing track ) and put aside what I’ve learned in other electric guitar tutorials and the result was that I found some really nice notes that actually sounded in tune, yet very unique! It helped me break out of the rut of my usual improvisation ( ie. playing the same notes all the time ).
I would not recommend any beginners who are learning guitar to try this. Wait until you’ve mastered your scales, and you’ll find that Marty’s technique will start to make sense.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSaTAGsIBEI[/youtube]
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Tags: arpeggios, Guitar Lessons, Guitar Scales, marty friedman
Interesting video. I get the impression Friedman is making things harder than they need to be, though. He says he experimented with different notes and kept removing notes he didn’t like until he arrived at a sequence that sounded like a harmonic minor scale. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just learn a harmonic minor scale?
I also think he kind of misses the point of scales, seeing them as absolutes rather than tools, since they aren’t exactly meant to be played and used only “as is”. Like he says, it’s good to break things up, and that applies equally well to any already existing scale. Just learn which notes a scale contains, then learn to play them in whatever order you like or need. This is exactly the same thing he did, except he reinvented the scale first.
I wondered that too Sami. Why did he have to make up guitar scales of his own when all the possible scales have already been invented? Perhaps he couldn’t afford a guitar scale book when he was a kid, who knows!
I’ve seen this video so many years ago and I still recall it clearly because what he said really stuck with my guitar practice and got me out of the rut of ‘scale playing’ – where I’d end up doing improvisation that sounded more like scales than something unique and melodic. And this, is where I think most beginner guitarists can benefit.
Just altering your training routine frequently and applying some of what Marty has taught in this video will really make your improvisations sound so much better. I know from experiencing the same thing.
Cheers,
Mark