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Cooler Pentatonics and Licks Adding The Major Third

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The pentatonic scale is an awesome scale. It’s a fairly easy scale and it can be used for almost every style of music: blues, country, pop, rock and more.

That’s why most guitar players use it most of the time. Great nothing wrong with that.

But wouldn’t it be nice if you could add a few notes to the minor pentatonic scale to give it more flavor and spice up your playing?

Well today we’re going to add the major third to the minor pentatonic scale. The major third will bring some happy, fresh and lively color to the table. Adding extra notes to the pentatonic scale is a common thing in soloing and will make your playing a lot more fun and interesting to listen to.

I’ll show you how to play the 5 pentatonic scales shapes / positions adding the major third and 5 licks to spice up your playing.

THEORY
The major third is a musical interval and is the distance between the root and the third note of the major scale. It also consists of four semitones (4 frets).

For example: Continue Reading

Announcement: 50 Cool Blues Licks Improvisation

By Klaus Crow Leave a Comment

Today I announce the arrival of my brand new guitar course:
50 COOL BLUES LICKS IMPROVISATION

“The Road To Playing Cool Blues Licks,
Mastering The Blues Scale, Improvising and Getting Motivated”

I’ve worked on this for quite a while and yes now it’s coming!

As a guitar teacher, guitar player and blogger I see a lot of guitar players are using the pentatonic scale for soloing and improvisation and that’s great because it’s a very practical an important scale that can be used for a lot of styles like blues, rock, metal, pop, country, etc.

For me it was also the first scale I learned, but after some time I noticed I got stuck soloing in just one position/shape for too long. I knew a few ways to break out of that shape area, but that was pretty much it. I felt limited.

I did know how to play the other pentatonic shapes but it was hard to make nice melodies or phrase fluently with all the other shapes. Somehow they didn’t seem to work really well.

Until I started learning the blues scale shapes and how to use them for improvising. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities. I was able to solo across the entire fretboard, it felt so natural and easy to do. It completely changed the way I was playing.

So over the years I got a lot of questions from the readers of guitarhabits about licks, the pentatonic / blues scale and improvisation. I thought, why not make a complete tablature Ebook with everything that combines those lessons I’ve learned over the years including video support and MP3 play along tracks. And so I began that journey…

With “50 Cool Blues Licks Improvisation” I will teach you a lot of awesome cool blues licks that you can use for your own solos and improvisation, but there’s more…

I want you to learn what’s behind the licks, how to break them up, turn them around, make up new ones, create different combinations and learn to play everything in every key like a real pro.

And those tools will be the perfect recipe for the chapters that follow, where you will learn how to play the 5 blues scale shapes all explained slowly in close up with effective exercises, tips, tricks and improvisation examples to master the blues scale inside out.

If you think this is for you, this is the time to really take your improvisation skills to the next level.

I know you are used to my free guitar lessons and they will sure continue to be, but because of the hosting, traffic and other costs that came up with the making of “50CBLI” and to keep the Ebook, play along tracks and more than 190 minutes of video lessons online for download I charge a rather small price of $69 dollars.

If you want to get out of your rut and advance your guitar playing check out the website to find out more:

WWW.50COOLBLUESLICKSIMPROVISATION.COM

Best regards,
Klaus Crow

5 Beautiful Ways to Play a II-V-I Jazz Chord Progression

By Klaus Crow 24 Comments

I just love figuring out different ways to play a jazz chord progression or just mixing up jazz chords with other styles of music.

It can add nice flavors to a song and give it some extra magic. It’s really fun to experiment with that.

Learning jazz expands your guitar vocabulary to a whole new level if you are ready for it.

In the meantime it’s just fun to play some beautiful jazz chord progressions and it will certainly contribute to your playing skills and creativity as well.

There are also more advanced II-V-I’s than the ones I show here but these are really nice to start out with and get your feet in the dirt. It can be a little bit overwhelming if you learn to play jazz chords and progressions for the first time, but after a few runs you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll be amazed!

6 Basic Major Scale Sequences / Melodic Patterns

By Klaus Crow 8 Comments

Photo by Gideon

When I first learned to play sequences I didn’t know what all the fuzz was about. Why was it so important to learn all these “sequences” or as some prefer to call them “melodic patterns”?

Anyhow, I did enjoy playing them because after a while I got into this flow and it sounded kinda cool.

Once I really got the hang of it I came to learn the benefits of mastering sequences

Sequences will improve your technique and ability to improvise and create melody on the spot.

Your playing becomes more flexible, creative and it’ll keep you from sounding like someone who is playing scales all the time. :-)

In other words… Want to improve your technique or want to improve your improvising skills?

Go ahead and work hard on these assignments.

Enjoy!

Assignment #1: Memorize the G Major scale and play it using alternate picking.

Assignment #2: Memorize the 6 sequences below (ascending and descending) and play them through the cycle of fourths. (in the key G, C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, B, E, A, D, G)

Assignment #3: Incorporate bits and pieces of each sequence into your improvisation.

Assignment #4: Try to make melodies from the patterns, play with the notes, experiment with timing and rhythm, turn things around, extend or shorten the duration/length of some of the notes, create pauses, etc.

These assignments will keep you busy for a while. Be patient and take your time!

G MAJOR SCALE e:-----------------------------2-3------| B:-------------------------3-5----------| G:------------------2-4-5---------------| D:-----------2-4-5----------------------| A:-----2-3-5----------------------------| E:-3-5----------------------------------| G MAJOR SCALE descending e:--3-2---------------------------------| B:-------5-3----------------------------| G:------------5-4-2---------------------| D:-------------------5-4-2--------------| A:--------------------------5-3-2-------| E:---------------------------------5-3--|

SEQUENCE #1 ascending e:----------------|-----------------|-------------------| B:----------------|-----------------|-------------------| G:----------------|-----------------|---------------2---| D:----------------|-------2-----2-4-|---2-4-5-2-4-5-----| A:-----2-3--2-3-5-|-2-3-5---3-5-----|-5-----------------| E:-3-5-----5------|-----------------|-------------------| Continue Reading

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