Guitar Lessons - Music Instruction Blog by Scotty West

Improvisation As A Language Skill. Make Your Guitar Solos "TALK".

     Those of you who are at all familiar with how I teach guitar know that I think of music as a LANGUAGE.  This makes the guitar itself merely the TOOL that you use to express the language.  I'm always trying to get folks to see that if you don't understand how the language really works, you're not going to see how the instrument itself works.

     This is a hard sell for many people.  They think that learning music is complicated and intimidating.  They're afraid they won't get it and they don't want to feel stupid.  They want to believe that they can learn to play guitar just by copping some more tabs or watching a few more YouTube guitar lessons.  Well I've got some good news and some bad news.

     The bad news is you probably won't get to play guitar the way you really want without learning how music works.  The vast majority of folks who start off playing eventually crash and burn because they don't know enough about how the language of music works to get to where they can actually THINK on their instrument.  This keeps them from being able to do the really fun and creative stuff with their guitars ... like songwriting and improvising.  Others waste literally DECADES worth of time fumbling around in the dark, attaining a level of playing that they could have mastered in just a few short months with a small expenditure of focus and discipline.

     The good news is ... believe-it-or-not ... music is a pathetically SIMPLE language to learn if you get it explained to you the right way.  If you don't think so, try our Absolutely Understand Guitar Video Home Study Program.  I guarantee that our video guitar lessons will get you to understand most of what's going on in music in just a few short weeks.  We've sold thousands of our guitar instruction programs around the world in these last 9 years and we still retain that 100% satisfaction rate  so we must be doing something right!  I'm also available 7 days a week to answer questions if you're confused or need help.  Call toll free or send me an email and I'll talk you through it free of charge.

     Here's a great example of how much music is like a language and how thinking of it that way will launch you into areas of creativity you never dreamed possible.

     Many of our modern styles of music involve IMPROVISATION ... Jazz, Blues, Rock and Country just to name a few.  Everybody wants to learn to solo and rightly so.  It's some of the most fun you can have anywhere in music.  In our previous guitar lesson posts and on our website, we try to get folks to see that the path to becoming a great improviser involves EAR TRAINING.  You solo by HEARING the riffs in your head and then you simply execute them on your guitar by understanding the layout of your fretboard.  Our YouTube sample videos talk all about this.  Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/user/scottyxcom .  Our website also contain lots of information on how to arrive at this level of musicianship.  Check out this essay page http://www.absolutelyunderstandguitar.com/guitar-lessons-instruction-dvd-improv.html .

     We've also pointed out time and again that you have to have a reasonable knowledge of music THEORY in order to do any meaningful ear training.  How are you going to train yourself to RECOGNIZE these note patterns if you don't even know they exist?  If music is a language, then music theory is the equivalent of the rules of SPELLING, GRAMMAR and VOCABULARY in other languages.  It's that simple.  How could you ever hope to do anything creative with the English language if you didn't know how to spell words or construct sentences?

     So here's my new example involving soloing on guitar.  While I was talking to one of my private guitar students the other day,  it occurred to me that we are CONSTANTLY IMPROVISING when we speak in our native language.  When you converse with someone, you USUALLY only have the faintest idea of what you are actually going to say ... right?  You're kinda' makin' it up as you go along.  You respond to input from the person you are conversing with and you didn't already know what they were going to say when the conversation began.  I dare say you often START sentences without really knowing how they are going to END.  I'm not exactly sure at this moment exactly how I am even going to end this paragraph!

     It struck me that this is exactly like doing a guitar solo.  You're making it up as you go along, responding to what the underlying chord progression suggests and expressing thoughts and feelings as they stream through your consciousness ... not always knowing where you're going to end up.  Once again we see that music is just like any other language.

     Of course, being able to converse in the language means that you have to understand how to choose your words by knowing what they mean and how they function.  You have to understand grammar in order to form your words into sentences.  This is exactly like what music theory does for you when spontaneously "conversing" in the language of music when doing a guitar solo!  Not only that, but you know what all the words SOUND like ... and that is exactly like what ear training is!

     So once again we see that music is just like any other language and you owe it to yourself to do your homework if you ever want to truly master it.  And remember, it isn't even all that complicated.  It's just often TAUGHT SO BADLY that everyone thinks it's this big deal.  I stumbled around for years until I found the GOOD teachers and resources that got me to see how simple and elegant the whole musical language really is and I always say that if an IDIOT like me can understand music, then ANYONE can.  You just need to BELIEVE and you will be on the true path.  We're here to help you any way we can.

All the best, Scotty West

Myths About Scales When Creating Guitar Solos

Greetings fellow guitar players,

     I'm constantly amazed by how much misinformation there is out there about the use of scales in guitar solos.  I'm often disappointed by how the main stream guitar instruction magazines often promote and perpetuate these misconceptions in their guitar lessons, attempting to make soloing look easier than it actually is.  Most online guitar lesson and music theory instruction programs also fail to provide their students with a clear understanding of this fascinating subject.  This does guitar students a grave disservice and makes learning to play guitar much more confusing.

     Here's the problem.  Many guitar lesson venues will try to convince you that the guitar solo in any given song is based on ONE PARTICULAR SCALE.  There are some (but only some) songs that CAN be viewed this way, but it is not a particularly useful or enlightened vision ... and there are other songs that totally defy this line of reasoning (chord progressions that contain a KEY CHANGE for example).   Many of you have been disappointed by guitar solos that you tried to create using this line of reasoning.

     The truth is there is a SEPARATE SCALE FOR EACH CHORD IN THE SOLO.  If you think about it, how could it be any other way?  If they tell you that the guitar solo is based on a MAJOR scale, how is this going to work when the chord progression contains a MINOR chord?  Shouldn't we be playing a minor scale when that minor chord comes around?  The answer is YES ... though many of you are going to have a hard time believing it.  You might say "well I know there could be better guitar solos than the one I just played, but all-in-all I think I did pretty good using that one scale".  The point is, to REALIZE those better solos, you might have to change your thinking and embrace this more enlightened understanding of the process of improvisation.

     Here's the really funny thing.  YOU'RE ALREADY PLAYING ALL THESE DIFFERENT SCALES.  You just don't know it yet and so you're unable to control your guitar solo the way you might like.  This is what the true understanding of MODES will help you see.  The same set of notes actually IS SEVERAL DIFFERENT SCALES depending on which note in the set is working as the ROOT.  The other notes in the set are FUNCTIONING differently depending on which chord you are playing them over!  Understanding and controlling these shifting relationships is what can take you to the next level in your quest for better guitar solos.

     Have you ever heard of the MIXOLYDIAN MODE?  You might say "Yes ... but I don't know what it really is and I don't know how to use it".  The funny thing is YOU ARE ALREADY PLAYING IT.  In fact, you'll hardly ever play a song that doesn't have Mixolydian in it!  It just might be the 2nd MOST COMMON SCALE IN ALL OF WESTERN MUSIC yet most of us don't really know about it.  This is just one example.

     Many of you might be surprised to find that the process of becoming a better guitar soloist is a bit more complicated than you thought.  There is an extended list of guitar scales that you need to have a grasp of.  In my video guitar lesson program, I have what I call the "MUST KNOW LIST" of scales and there are 17 scales on that list.  If the chord progression you are soloing over contains 5 chords, you will be using 5 of those scales in that very song!

     So there are more guitar scales to learn and ultimately we have to EAR TRAIN all of them ... but the results are very real.  With this deeper understanding, there is no reason to believe that you couldn't solo as well or better than any of your great guitar heroes.  I'm totally serious!

     Once again I might humbly suggest our Absolutely Understand Guitar Video Home Study Program as a great way to learn this stuff.  It's one of my specialties.  I've been explaining this concept to guitar students for 25 years and have gotten it down to a science.  Nobody has trouble understanding this stuff the way we present it.  Check it out at http://www.AbsolutelyUnderstandGuitar.com/ ... and you can call or email me anytime if you need help.  Our toll free number is 866-477-9900.

     Continued good luck with your music!  All the best, Scotty West 

Private Guitar Lessons vs Video Guitar Lessons

    I guess everyone would agree that these are tough times.  We are in a major global economic crisis and the price of energy is going through the roof dragging everything else right along with it.  Folks wonder how they're going to get through this winter with skyrocketing fuel costs.  Food costs here on the east coast have gone up dramatically.  People are losing the homes they have worked so hard to purchase

     It's tough for folks to justify expenditures for leisure time activities like sports and music.  My private guitar lesson business is way off right now ... down by almost 30%.  This is sad as many of my students tell me that their music is the one thing that boosts their spirits when times get rough.  The last thing they want to give up is their guitar.  Parents find it hard to come up with cash to continue their child's private guitar lessons but are conflicted about depriving them of the creative outlet and satisfaction it brings them.  They wonder if there are alternatives to expensive private lessons.

    More and more folks consider turning to video guitar lessons and the internet but wonder if these are viable options.  I believe that they are as long as you pick the right program.  There are a lot of bad guitar teachers out there ... on video as well as in person!

    I think it's difficult to learn guitar from the short little clips you get on say YouTube.  Music education doesn't seem to lend itself to the short "sound bite" approach.  You can learn some interesting things  ... songs and riffs and such ... but it's difficult to get "The BIG Picture" ... an integrated vision of the art of music and how it applies to the fretboard of the guitar ... and that's what you need in order to do the truly creative stuff like soloing and composing.  Many other web based guitar lesson programs feature short streaming lessons that only leave you wondering what comes next.

     Many of you have already discovered that just learning songs by rote is not the road to a satisfying guitar experience.  You're beginning to see that UNDERSTANDING how music works is the only real path to true musical expression.  Music is a LANGUAGE and it takes knowledge and experience to master any language.  These things simply can't be learned in a haphazard fashion.  You need a comprehensive, organized and integrated approach.

     So can you get this kind of holistic vision from video guitar lessons?  I think you can.  We worked for nine years to put our Absolutely Understand Guitar Video Home Study Program together ... and now after almost nine more years of global internet sales, we still retain a 100% satisfaction rate.  All of our students have enjoyed and benefited from our video guitar instruction and they call and email us evryday to tell us so.

    So our guitar instruction DVDs might be just what you're looking for in this difficult economic climate.  We also pride ourselves on taking care of our students by offering personalized support via email or phone.  You can contact me anytime if you're confused or need help.  It just might be BETTER than your average private guitar lessons at a FRACTION of the cost.  Check us out at www.absolutelyunderstandguitar.com .

All the best,

Scotty West 

     

     

Pentatonic Mythology - Become a Better Guitar Player

     It happened again the other day.  I was reading an article on how to play guitar like Eric Clapton. The sentence read "Start with a Pentatonic Scale and then add this note and this note and this note" and I'm thinkin' to myself "Well it ain't a Pentatonic Scale anymore then, is it?"

     I'm not quite sure where all these myths about the Pentatonic Scale got started but it's all pretty silly.  Yes ... there are many Rock and Blues Guitar riffs that are based on Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales, but the notion that these are the primary or ONLY scales you need in order to SOLO is ridiculous.

     Anybody who knows anything knows that MUSIC IS A LANGUAGE with 12 notes in it's alphabet.  Pentatonic simply means "5 notes".  People who play pentatonically are only using 5 of the 12 notes.  Why would you think that's a good idea?  Why would you want to ignore those other 7 notes?

     Some folks would say "Those 5 are the easy notes to use.  I have trouble integrating the other 7 notes" ... and that may indeed be true ... but maybe that means you just need to work a little harder to learn how to use those other 7 notes ... that is if you're serious about becoming a REAL guitar player.

     Diatonic Scales (like "Do - Re - Mi - etc) utilize 7 of the 12 notes and historically represent the true benchmark of Western Music theory.  Scales and Modes like the Natural Minor, Mixolydian, Dorian and Lydian are absolutely essential to smart soloing and melodic composition.  More modern and sophisticated music (like Jazz) is more CHROMATIC ... that is it utilizes all 12 notes.  This level of playing requires a deeper knowledge of music theory and better trained ears, but the rewards are very real.

      This doesn't mean that I'm advocating blowing off a whole bunch of stupid notes ... over-playing ... showing off.  I'm just suggesting that you have more options available to you then you may realize.  Why would you ever want to paint a picture with 5 colors if you could use 12?  How could you ever write a short story using only 10 of the letters in the English alphabet?  That's very much like what Pentatonic guitar playing is like.

     Free your mind from all this Pentatonic hype and begin to see the bigger picture.  We're here to help you anyway we can.  Check out our awesome guitar lesson, music theory and ear training home study program at www.absolutelyunderstandguitar.com .  You can also email or call me toll free anytime if you have questions.

All the best, Scotty West