Intermediate Scales Handbook: Exotic Guitar Scales Edition
Exotic scales have a reputation for being novelty items — the kind of thing you learn once, play over a backing track to impress yourself, and then never use again. That reputation is largely deserved, because most exotic scale resources give you the patterns without any practical framework for actually incorporating them into real playing.
This book takes a different approach.
The Intermediate Scales Handbook: Exotic Guitar Scales Edition applies the same musical, intuitive method from the original Intermediate Scales Handbook to 15 hand-picked exotic scales and modes — the ones that are genuinely useful for adding different flavours to your solos and exploring sonic territory that standard major and minor harmony simply can’t access.
The key difference from most exotic scale resources is how the material is organised. Rather than presenting scales in theoretical isolation, the book maps each scale directly onto chord types you already know and use — so you immediately understand where each scale fits in a musical context and can start applying it to your playing straight away.
What’s in the book
- 15 exotic scales and modes selected for musical usefulness — not just theoretical curiosity
- Every scale mapped onto familiar chord types so you know exactly when and where to use each one
- A practical method for incorporating new sounds into your existing improvisational vocabulary without starting from scratch
- Two methods for creating chord progressions directly from exotic scales — the gateway to genuinely strange and beautiful harmonic territory that sits completely outside standard diatonic harmony
- Works as a standalone book or as a natural continuation of the original Intermediate Scales Handbook
Who it’s for
Intermediate to advanced guitarists who want to add genuinely distinctive sounds to their playing. Players who’ve dabbled with exotic scales before but could never make them stick in a musical context. Anyone who wants to write or improvise with harmony that sounds unlike anything in the standard major/minor toolkit.
See a free example, try the tool, or start with the original
Want to see one of these scales worked out in full before you buy? The free Phrygian Dominant Scale guide breaks down the most popular exotic scale — the shapes in E, the two notes that make it sing, and what to play it over. A taste of the method, at no cost.
Read the free guide →Want to hear these scales before committing to the book? The Exotic Guitar Scales tool lets you build and explore them on the fretboard right now, for free.
Try the tool →New to the Intermediate Scales Handbook method? Intermediate Guitar Scales Handbook covers the major scale and its modes using the same intuitive approach — a solid foundation before diving into exotic territory.
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