The 5 pentatonic shapes are a staple of learning rock or blues guitar, though truth be told most guitarists generally use 3 of them at the most. In our latest book, ‘Woodshedder’s Guide to Guitar Scales‘, we reduced the number…
Category: Scales
Practicing Without Patterns
As you may have already gathered, any chord, arpeggio or scale can be written out as a sequence of intervals. This information is often lost on guitarists in favor of using a movable pattern, but the problem here is that…
From Multiple Scales to Multiple Chords
A couple of days ago we looked at How to Easily Learn Multiple Scale Patterns in parallel using just three different scale patterns/positions. In this lesson, I’d like to revisit those scale patterns and give you an easy way of…
How to Easily Learn Multiple Scale Patterns
This might not be everyone’s cup of tea but if at some point you want to get into jazz or jazz fusion, and are into the scalar approach, you’ll need a way to learn multiple scale patterns without tearing your…
How to Play Flowing Eric Clapton Style Pentatonic Lines
There’s no doubt about it, Eric Clapton is possibly one of the most influential guitarists of all time and while he tends to get overlooked these days in favor of the the more technical players, there’s a lot you can…
How to Approach Scales in Your First Few Years of Playing
If you’re serious about learning guitar, beyond having the technical ability to play your favorite songs, then at some stage you’ll need to learn scales. While this might seem like a daunting task, it doesn’t have to be. Sure, the…
Monster 4NPS Scale Runs without the Monster Stretches
I’ve been a huge fan of 4NPS (four-note-per-string) scales ever since I first saw them on the Allan Holdsworth REH DVD back when it was a video cassette in the late 90s. If you’ve ever seen Holdsworth play, you’ll probably…
Two-Note-Per-String Major Scales and Modes
Here’s an interesting concept for you to try out. I remember playing around with it unintentionally when I first began to look at major scale patterns and their modes across the whole neck to see how they laid out. I…
How to Avoid Cliché Pentatonic Licks
While the pentatonic scale is an incredibly useful tool for guitar players of the rock and blues variety, the standard method of learning the scale in five box shapes doesn’t do a lot to distinguish you from the next guy….
The Key to Breaking Out of Scale Boxes
You’ll find a lot of stuff on the internet about breaking out of scale boxes; some players suggest learning the modes (more boxes?) or throwing other intervals into the mix (still a box), playing horizontally up and down one string…