Hello All!
This week we’ll be doing something a little different: instead of me showing you something that I or someone else played and then reverse engineering it, we’re disposing of a musical example and we’re just going to talk scales. But hopefully this will be a straightforward and enlightening discussion.
You can often simplify your life as an improvised by playing within one single scale or one sound as the chords change. We’re going to look at using a D major pentatonic scale over several different chords: D major, G major, B minor and even E minor. We’ll also introduce a new and relatively exotic sounding scale called a harmonic minor scale that works particularly well over the B part of this song. Also, we have a guest rhythm guitar-appearance from my mom, which I think is awesome. :-)
Look for a rhythm guitar practice track at the end of the video for you to practice with.
Cheers!
Chris
Topics and/or subjects covered in this lesson:
standards
Print Chords & Tab
Loop 0:00 Run-Through of Butter and Eggs Spontaneous Improv
Loop 0:45 Breakdown of Butter and Eggs Improvisation
Loop 18:38 Practice Loop of Chris Playing Rhythm
Comments
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Hello Chris, I had not seen this lesson, very interesting and precise.
With a very nice surprise to boot. Your mother is a fine lady, It shows.
Please give her my best for the new year, and thank her for a pleasant visit,
Jack.
Thanks a lot Chris for that course ! Very clear !
Yay Mom and thanks for the extended rhythm track ... awesome!
Great job, Chris and Diana! Could one keep thinking "B harmonic minor" over the Em chord, too?
Hi Jeff, yes, you could definitely keep thinking B harmonic minor over the E minor chord. You’ll just want to make sure that you resolve the tension that that scale brings in a place that feels righteous. That could be at the E minor or it could be over the B minor that follows immediately after, or you could get crazy and keep the tension going all the way until you get to the D major at the very end of the form. Remember, these scales are just tools for you to experiment and play with. Also remember that you can get away with playing ANYTHING over ANYTHING if you set it up and sell it well.