The BEST Neck and Scale Exercise EVER!
Whether you are familiar with a few, or a lot of Guitar Neck and Scale exercises (or any variation thereof), you are going to want to watch this video till the very end.
The idea of using Guitar Neck patterns for Scale sequences to reach the best overall musical performance is paramount to getting good at writing melody and for the art of learning how to play a guitar solo.
If you need to understand the best Guitar Neck and Scales exercise, then this lesson carries a key message that you will not want to miss when it comes to answering this question truthfully and without relying on a bunch of ineffective simplistic guitar studies.
Your knowledge of the neck, your awareness of scales, and your ability to have fast easy access to melody is going to take a big leap forward in this lesson.
I promise that I’m going to make this worthwhile for you today. Because a lot of us are following very different types of neck and scale training exercises on guitar.
And, I’m sure you’ve seen other videos and you have friends that play guitar who will say to do this exercise and that exercise, but the scale exercise I’m about to go over with you is seriously one of the best ones that will quickly lead you to both build dexterity along with helping you to play more melody at the same time.
If you watch the video for this lesson right till the end, I’ll demonstrate how this can all come together by improvising over an example progression that will apply this idea in a very effective way. So, let’s get things started, by introducing the framework of how this Neck and Scale exercise operates musically.
BASIC SCALE THEORY:
If we were to start with a scale, (and for our example I’ll use the scale of, “E Natural Minor”), so if we explore that scale’s individual Notes we get, “E, F#, G, A, B, C, and D.
Playing that group of notes up and down will obviously sound pretty basic. But, if we were to re-organize the notes so that they were in a new order and sequence, (like for example if we established the notes going; “E – G, F# – A, G – B, A – C,”
Doing this sequence concept will establish something that not only could function as a nice exercise, but it could also double as a pattern of notes that could be applied melodically as well.
BASIC SEQUENCE PATTERN:
I’ll explain more about the melodic direction with all this in just a moment, (because that is the coolest part). But first, I want to show you how to play the sequence on the guitar that I just read out loud!
Example 1).
The “E Minor” Scale – Upper 3 strings sequence…
I wanted to take a minute to let you know, that if you want to learn even more about scales and theory I have a great offer for you.
With any donation over $5, or any merchandise purchase from my Tee-Spring store, I’ll send you free copies of THREE of my most popular digital handouts.
One is called, “Harmonized Arpeggio Drills” (it’ll train you on developing your diatonic arpeggios).
Another one is my “Barre Chord” Handout which includes a page showing all the key signatures along with a chord progression that applies barre chords.
Plus, you’ll get my Notation Pack! It has 8 pages of important guitar worksheets for notating anything related to; music charts, guitar chord diagrams, and TAB.
As a BONUS, (from my "Over 40 and Still Can't Play a Scale" video), I'll also throw in a breakdown of all of the chords that are diatonic to the "F Major" scale.
As an EXTRA BONUS for my Phrygian Dominant video, I'll also throw in a breakdown featuring all of the chords that are diatonic to the Phrygian Dominant scale.
Just send me an email off of the contact page of CreativeGuitarStudio.com to let me know about either your donation or your Merchandise purchase and I’ll email you those digital handouts within 24 hrs.
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POPULAR SEQUENCES:
The Pattern that we just learned and played is using what’s often called a “Diatonic 3rd’s” sequence.
The above form of sequence pattern is just one of the many different types of sequences found in music.
You need to understand that there are mainly two ways we can formulate a sequence of notes from a group of scale tones. And, they can be very unique as well as, individual to how you want them to operate.
You can think of this as either:
1). Develop an exercise using a sequenced idea.
2). Use sequences as melodic ideas in a song or in a guitar solo.
Next, let's get into the idea of using sequences to create melody. This is where the fun starts, because you can take any sequence designed from a neck and scale exercise and shape it to form really cool melodic ideas…
Sequence Idea 1).
Descending 16th-note triplet sequence in “E Minor” to the final note of “E”
When we develop a sequence from out of a scale, we can use the order of the notes and the resolution tone (the final note) as a springboard idea over to a new sequenced statement. To demonstrate this let me show you an extension I composed that works off of the sequence that I just had played for you a moment ago…
Sequence Idea 2).
Descending 16th-note triplet sequence in “E Minor” to the final note of “B”
As you can tell, those two sequences are very well balanced and flow one over to the next very smoothly. Now, believe it - that creating these sequenced ideas is not only FUN, but it’s so easy to do that I’ve given this to my private students (who barely even know their scales on guitar), and they’ve invented some really cool phrases using this concept !
Next let’s move on to trying another sequencing idea…
Sequence Idea 3).
Ascending and descending 16th-note triplet Legato sequence in “E Minor” to the final note of “A.”
Resolution tones, dynamics, scale phrasing, guitar phrasing devices and different guitar techniques can all come together when (studying or composing) exercises and melodic ideas while using Scale Sequencing. Let’s look at one more idea - final idea before we wrap up…
Sequence Idea 4).
Ascending and descending 16th-note triplet DYNAMIC punch sequence in “E Minor” to the final note of “F#”
These, Dynamic picking accents will only generally work well on certain types of sequence set-ups. So, when you do discover a set-up, or you compose one (that works well to apply this idea), you’ll end up having a sequence that offers your listener a unique experience with the melody because the effect of each strong pick attack can really draw in the listener and make for a very interesting and a very dynamic musical sound throughout your songs, and your solos!
