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Flatpicking Guitar Magazine - The Guitar Player's Practical Guide to Scales and Arpeggios

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Scales and Arpeggios form the foundation of all song melodies, arranged solos, licks, phrases, and improvisations on the guitar. If you are familiar with scales and arpeggios, and know how to use them, your ability to arrange and improvise your own solos will be greatly enhanced. Scale knowledge is the road map that can take you anywhere you want to go in music.

This new 160 page book (with 136 audio tracks on 2 CDs) by Dan Miller and Tim May not only teaches you how to learn scales in a way that is easy, fun, interesting, and informative, it also shows you how to practically apply scales when learning new melodies, embellishing those melodies to create your own solos and variations, and in exploring improvisations.

Most books that present scales and arpeggios will display scale patterns all up and down the neck and address many keys and many different scales (major, minor, pentatonic, diminished, whole tone, bebop, etc). This approach tends to provide too much theory and not enough practical information about how these scales can be put to practical use right away.

"The Guitar Player's Practical Guide to Scale and Arpeggios" focuses on the open position (first five frets) and the G major, G major pentatonic, G major blues, G minor pentatonic, and G minor blues scales. The goal here was to really dive in and explore the most useful scales for playing American roots music in the most common key and the most common position. By using this approach the authors not only have allowed themselves time and space for a very thorough examination of these scales through many, many exercises and examples, but they additionally provide a clear cut method for exploring and applying the same examples in a variety of keys and scales types. In other words, once you have mastered the G scales in the open position, you can easily use the same method to study any scale in any key at any position on the neck.

The book is broken down into four sections ("The Big Four"): straight scales, folded scales (scale patterns), harmonized scales, and crosspicking arpeggios. By presenting scale and arpeggio knowledge in these four categories, the authors are able to clearly demonstrate how a knowledge of scales and arpeggios can be easily and practically employed.


Table of Contents:

Introduction

Practice Suggestions

The "Big Four"


Major Scales

      The G Scale Open Position, Lower Octave 
      The G Scale Open Position, Lower Octave, Ascending and Decending
      G Major Scale Open Position Lower Octave Example Exercises
      Finding Melodies
     "When the Saints Go Marching In"
      Finding the Melody Guidelines
      Scale Improvisation Practice
      Finding Major and Minor chord Tones
      A Word About Improvisation
      Ear Training Exercises
      The G Scale Open Position, Higher Octave 
      The G Scale Open Position, Lower Octave, Higher Octave Example 
      The G Scale Open Position, Lower and Upper Octaves
      "She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain"
      Mode Scales 
      Matching Mode Scale Patterns to a Chord Progression
      Mode Scale Practice
      Intervals 
      Intervals in the Key of G
      Playing Intervals Relative to the Root
      Song Association
      Interval Exercises
      Open Position Major Scales in Other Major and Minor Keys
      Scale Practice Checklist

Folded Major Scales

      Exercise 1: 4-Note Folded Scale #1
      Exercise 2: 4-Note Folded Scale #2
      Exercise 3: 4-Note Folded Scale #3
      Exercise 4: 3-Note Folded Scale #1
      Exercise 5: 2-Note Folding Thirds #1
      Exercise 6: 4-Note Folding Thirds 
      Exercise 7: 6-Note Folded Scale
      Exercise 8: 3-Note Folded Phrases 1
      Exercise 9: 3-Note Folded Phrases 2
      Exercise 10: 3-Note Folding Phrases 3
      Exercise 11: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 1
      Exercise 12: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 2
      Exercise 13: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 3
      Exercise 14: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 4
      Exercise 15: Straight and Folded Scale Combined 5
      Song Example: Forked Deer (A Section)
      Exercise 16: Patterns from Songs 1
      Song Example: Forked Deer Variation 1
      Song Example: Forked Deer Variation 2
      Exercise 17: Patterns from Songs 2
      Song Example: Blackberry Blossom (A Section)
      Song Example: Blackberry Blossom Variation
      Exercise 18: Patterns from Songs 3
      Exercise 19: Patterns from Songs 4
      Exercise 20: Patterns from Songs 5
      Exercise 21: Patterns from Songs 6
      Using Scales and Folded Scales to Embellish Melody
      "Arkansas Travler" - Melody
      "Arkansas Travler" - Using Scales and Folded Scales
      "Turkey In The Straw" - Melody
      "Turkey In The Straw" - Using Scales and Folded Scales
      "She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain"
      "Sailor's Hornpipe" - Melody
      Straight Scale and Folded Scale Example

The Major Pentatonic Scale

       The G Major Pentatonic Scale
       Folding The G Major Pentatonic Scale
       "Lonesome Road Blues" - Melody
       "Lonesome Road Blues" - Using just the Major Pentatonic Scale
       "Amazing Grace" - Melody
       "Amazing Grace" - Using just the Major Pentatonic Scale
       The C and D Major Pentatonic Scale

The Major Blues Scale

       The G Major Blues Scale
       Common G Major Blues Scale Licks
       Folding G Major Blues Scale
       "Lonesome Road Blues" - Using just the Major Blues Scale

Playing Major Scales Over Diatonic Chords

      Notes in the G Scale and Diatonic Chords
      Chromatic Clock
      Diatonic Chords in the Key of G
      Double Stops
      Finding Double Stops in Chord Shapes
      "Amazing Grace" - Using Double Stops
      "Lonesome Road Blues" - Using Double Stops

Harmonized Scales

       G Scale Harmonized Scales
       Harmonized Scales Example 1
       Harmonized Scales Example 2
       Harmonized Scales Example 3
       Harmonized Scales Example 4 - Using an Open Drone
       "Lonesome Road Blues" - Using a Few Harmonized Scales
       "Lonesome Road Blues" - Alternate Resolving Phrase
       "Lonesome Road Blues" - Alternate Resolving Phrase to Part A
       C and D Scale Diatonic Third Intervals on B and E Strings

The Toggle

       Examples of the Toggle
       Wildwood Flower Example

Minor Scales

       G "Natural" Minor Scale
       G "Harmonic" Minor Scale
       G "Melodic" Minor Scale
       The Dorian Mode

Minor Pentatonic and Minor Blues Scales

       G Minor Pentatonic Scale
       G Minor Pentatonic Scale Open Position (Lower Octave)
       G Minor Pentatonic Scale Open Position (Higher Octave)
       G Minor Pentatonic Scale Open Position (Two Octaves) Folded Scales
       "Lonesome Road Blues" - Using the Minor Pentatonic Scale
       Improvising the Blues
       Improvisation Tips
       G Minor Blues Scale
       Folded G Minor Blues Scale
       Minor Blues Scales in Various Keys
       "Lonesome Road Blues" - Using Minor Blues Scale

Crosspicking Arpeggios

       Crosspicking Patterns
       C Chord Crosspicking Exercise
       Crosspicking Over I-IV-V Progression in G
       "Wildwood Flower" Example
       "Banks of the Ohio": Crosspicking
       "Beaumont Rag" Crosspicking Pattern
       More Crosspicking Patterns
       String Skipping Crosspicking Exercises
       "Blackberry Blossom" Harmonized Scale with Crosspicking
       "Blackberry Blossom" with String Skipping
       The Rhythm Pick Pattern
       "Lonesome Road Blues" using RPP Rhythm
       The RPP and Crosspicking

A Study of "Home Sweet Home"

       "Home Sweet Home" Melody
       "Home Sweet Home" Quarter Note Carter Style
       "Home Sweet Home" Subdivide 1
       "Home Sweet Home" Subdivide 2
       "Home Sweet Home" Subdivide 2 with Single Note Articulation 1
       "Home Sweet Home" Subdivide 2 with Single Note Articulation 2
       "Home Sweet Home" Siimple Crosspicking Roll Style
       "Home Sweet Home" More Complex Crosspicking Style
       "Home Sweet Home" Adding the Rhythm Pick Pattern
       "Home Sweet Home" Mixing it All Up

Harmoinzed Scales on Non-Adjacent Strings

       Harmonized Scale Non-Adjacent Strings Exercises 
       "Blackberry Blossom" Harmonzied Scales on Non-Adjacent Strings 

The Chromatic Scale

       "Lonesome Road Blues" - Adding Chromatic Phrases 

Chord and Arpeggio Summary

Appendix - The Rest Stroke