Exotic Scales You’ll Actually Use
Ten scales in the 2 Position Guitar Scale System
Most exotic scale books give you two hundred scales and no idea where any of them go. This one has ten, each tied to the chords it works over, each a scale you already know with a note or two moved, played in two positions.
Ten exotic scales, and where each one goes
Most exotic scale books are dictionaries. You get two hundred scales, a box for each, and a name that sounds interesting. Then you try Hungarian minor over a G chord, it sounds like a mistake, and the book goes back on the shelf.
The scale wasn’t the problem. Nobody told you where it goes. An exotic scale only sounds exotic over the right chord or drone. Over the wrong one it just sounds like wrong notes. So every chapter here tells you what the scale sounds like, which chords it fits, which to avoid, and gives you a handful of phrases that sound like the scale rather than an exercise.
No new shapes
Every scale in the book is a scale you already know with one or two notes moved or taken out, played in the same two positions of the 2 Position Guitar Scale System. You don’t learn another pattern. You learn which notes changed and what they do.
From Chapter 2: one note changes, the b3 (C) becomes a major 3rd (C#). That one change is the whole flamenco sound.
The diagrams mark the moved notes in both positions, so you can see the difference rather than memorise it. Everything is in A, root on the 5th fret of the low E string, so you can compare scales directly, and it all moves to any key.
What’s inside
The two positions
Both positions from scratch, how they chain across the neck, and how the B string warps them.
Phrygian dominant
Phrygian with the 3rd raised. The flamenco sound, and the way into the rest of Part 1.
Double harmonic
Phrygian dominant with a major 7th. Two identical halves, which is where the symmetry in the sound comes from.
Persian
Double harmonic with a flat 5th. The darkest of the three.
Hungarian minor
Harmonic minor with a raised 4th, for gypsy jazz and metal.
Neapolitan minor
Harmonic minor with a flat 2nd.
Neapolitan major
Melodic minor with a flat 2nd: minor at the bottom, bright at the top.
Ukrainian Dorian
Dorian with a raised 4th, the Eastern European and klezmer sound.
Hirajoshi
Natural minor without the 4th and b7. Sparse, open and easy to get under your fingers.
In
Phrygian without the b3 and b7. Hirajoshi’s darker relative.
Kumoi
Dorian without the 4th and b7. The brightest of the Japanese scales.
Which scale, which chord
Start from the chord you’re playing over and find the scale, plus every scale in both positions.
Who it’s for
You know your major and minor scales, you’re bored of them, and you want a few sounds that actually change what a solo feels like. You don’t need theory beyond knowing what a 3rd is, and you don’t need any of my other books: Chapter 1 teaches both positions.
It isn’t an encyclopedia. If you want every scale that has a name, there are books for that. This one is for the ten you’ll use.
Ten scales. No new shapes.
The 2 Position Guitar Scale System
Where the system starts: two positions per scale in every key, with scale changes, stacking and arpeggios.
See the book →The 2 Position System
Scales and arpeggios, chords, exotic scales and bass, and the PDF bundle with all four for less than buying them separately.
See the series →