Root 6 And Root 5 Major And Minor Scales

Now that we have learned about a chord based approach to lead guitar playing, let’s pick up our scales where we left off in our discussion of fiddle tunes (lesson 6) and listening to the various musical effects created by using the major scale. Use the diagrams and sound files below to practice the root 6 and root 5 major scale.

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Scales, The Law Of Melody and Stepwise Movement

In any sort of improvising, melody writing or lead playing, scales are your bread and butter. In a melody, notes are drawn to their neighbors in the scale on which the melody is based. This concept of playing melodies based on scale passages, runs which preserve the order of the notes in the scale, is a powerful concept.

Below you will find two short videos. The first one contains thoughts on practicing scales, while the second video approaches the topic of melodizing.

How To Practice Scales


The Law Of Melody


If Your want To Improvise, You Have To Improvise…

That means that knowing scales are fine, necessary and wonderful but the only way to become a good improviser is to put what you know into practice, in a musical situation. At first, that should be play along or accompaniment tracks and later it will be jam sessions. Below you will see the 4 scale diagrams we are studying in this less, the patterns cover a nice wide range and these scale fingerings should be considered basic, common knowledge. Below the scale diagrams are backing tracks employing basic chord patterns and famous progressions. Use these play along tracks to become good at creating musical ideas using scale passages.

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C Major Jamming Practice


C Minor Jamming Practice


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World Melodies…

To continue your education as a lead guitarist, I highly suggest that you become a student of melody. In any music school you will be exposed to and taught material outside of your comfort zone or normal field of view. This usually includes various forms of world music, ethnic music, classical studies, traditional music and roots music. For a lead guitar student, melodic material such as the fiddle tunes we studied in lesson eight of this course are a good example.

The following two songs are excellent technical studies as well as vocabulary builders and examples of excellent melody writing. The first, American Patrol is known to American folk, bluegrass and jazz musicians like. The second song, a beautiful and well-known love song from Greece is called Tiki Tiki Tak. There is an in-depth printed study for these two songs available below.

Acrobat PrinterClick here to open the sheet music and TAB for the melodic studies to follow. Below you will find videos for the melodic studies American Patrol and Tiki Tiki Tak, study the videos a few times and then slowly work your way through the printed charts. Your goal is to be able to play along, in unison, with the performances on the videos.

American Patrol
Tiki Tiki Tak