A lot of students ask me how they can take their improvisation skills to the next level and move beyond pentatonic scales and into modes and arpeggios. My response is to tell them not to abandon pentatonic scales in favor of modes and other soloing devices, but to use them as a springboard and a solid foundation from which to expand their harmonic awareness. If you play rock, blues and even jazz, you’ll be using pentatonic scales for the rest of your life, so there’s no need to discard them! In this book, we’ll be using the much-loved minor pentatonic scale as the basis for learning and having a quick way to access the modes of the major scale, as well as the basic seventh chord arpeggios. This means that when you go to improvise, you'll have a vast array of options with which to go beyond pentatonic soloing. Work through this book daily and I guarantee you a smooth and painless transition from pentatonics to incorporating modes and arpeggios into your playing.

Easily Master Melodic Phrasing in Your Guitar Solos 'He's just feeling it' is no longer an acceptable explanation of musical ability. This book breaks down melodic feel and phrasing into learnable skills. The most detailed, structured method to develop your own unique voice on the guitar Whether as part of the Complete Guide to Playing Blues Guitar Series, or as a stand-alone work, Melodic Phrasing takes you on a journey through every aspect of musical phrasing. We all have the same 12 notes.... It's how and when we play them that sets the masters apart from the amateurs. We all know it's important to learn the licks and vocabulary of the musicians who we wish to emulate, but in order to develop a unique voice we must learn how to phrase our lines in a personal way. Melodic Phrasing teaches you hundreds of ways to treat even simple lines to make the music your own. Learn to control rhythm and phrasing, and open your mind to infinite new musical possibilities. Melodic Phrasing challenges our perception of what blues soloing is. No longer will you be 'chasing licks' around the fretboard; struggling because you couldn't quite execute or remember the line you were reaching for. In this book you will learn how to develop and control fundamental rhythmic fragments to create and drive your solo forward. By focusing on rhythm and phrasing, and by learning to combine and develop these rhythmic building blocks, the melodies will take care of themselves. This is a natural, organic approach to developing your guitar soloing where you learn to truly improvise and break away from the prison of 'lick playing' or just 'exploring' the minor pentatonic scale. The Complete Guide to Playing Blues Guitar: Melodic Phrasing Contains: Over 160 examples with free audio to download Standard Notation and Tab The most in-depth lessons on rhythm and phrasing available Check out the reviews below: "If you are looking to go deeper than surface level with the blues and start gaining some understanding of what goes on within the melodic inter-weavings this is for you! I love Joseph Alexander's books... he is a great resource for anyone interested in the guitar." "Among the things I like most about these books is that they're laid out not like lessons, but more like practice routines. The emphasis is on getting the ideas into your fingers and ears, not just your head. A very refreshing approach. I look forward to the next one." "The Call & Response practice in this and his other books have helped my playing tremendously" Melodic Phrasing will change the way you approach the guitar. After working through this book you will never 'run out of licks' again; you will be able to create interesting, emotive, musical phrases whenever you want, and keep the audience coming back for more. Scroll Up to Buy It Now

Take The Minor Pentatonic Scale Scale Beyond Blues & Classic Rock... The journey of virtually every guitar player begins with the pentatonic scale. No other scale has been used more to further the connection between the guitar and modern music. However, pentatonic shapes fall so easily under the fingers the same thing which helped us progress can end up holding us back. In Mastering Pentatonics, boring pentatonic clichés are blown out of the water with a wealth of fresh, creative ideas from a group of expert guitar players. Discover new pentatonic patterns, licks, and sequences Learn multiple ways to adapt pentatonic scales to play over any chord Explore hybrid and exotic pentatonic scale forms to transform your lick vocabulary You will master pentatonic guitar licks in the style of the greats: Eric Clapton Ace Frehley Paul Gilbert Joe Walsh Brian May Angus Young Richie Kotzen Michael Schenker Eric Johnson Joe Bonamassa Joe Satriani Carl Verheyen Joe Diorio B.B. King Albert King Buddy Guy Robben Ford But, this is more than simply a lick book. You'll also discover game-changing concepts that will help you progress as a musician for years to come. Here's what you get: A pentatonic "cram session" to fill any gaps in your knowledge Learn to build pentatonic scales from each of the major scale modes Break away from box shapes with our guide to re-visualizing the fretboard Mix major and minor pentatonics to create some killer blues licks Discover the essential shapes used by the great shred guitarists Build "pentatonic chords" to create intriguing new sounds Master exotic pentatonic scales to open up new harmonic ideas You'll learn to master the pentatonic scale with Premier Guitar's best tutors and take your rock guitar playing in a new creative direction... Buy it now!

If you ask anyone who's been playing guitar for a while how to turn scales into solos, you'll likely get a variety of answers. They'll tell you to learn licks, work on your arpeggios, even learn your favorite players' solos note for note. While this is all good advice, I've had some particularly stubborn students that wanted to go beyond that; they wanted to be able to improvise using any scale up and down the fretboard, but at the same time break free from those deeply-ingrained scalar lines and patterns. It was then that I suggested the zonal approach to improvisation; by working in reduced areas of the neck with specifically designed patterns, they were soon able to create melodic, flowing lines that didn't sound at all like scales--they sounded like real music! This is the approach you'll find in this book. We dissect 15 of the most common scales, beyond the pentatonics, and break them down into zones which can be practiced either by scale, or for any particular scale across the fretboard. The objective of this book then is to provide a structured reference to make the transition from playing scales to playing, improvising and creating musical lines when soloing. It’s aimed at the intermediate to advanced guitarist looking to be able to improvise confidently and freely on the instrument in a wide variety of styles. It is also aimed at guitarists that want to move beyond rote pentatonic/blues soloing and incorporate other scales and modes into their playing, as well as building up a vocabulary to solo fluently over chord changes.

I actually wrote this book as a practice guide for myself because I wanted a way to get different and outside sounds using pentatonic scales, as well as to improve my chops and have a huge variety of new sounds at my fingertips to play over the chords you see 90% of the time such as major/major7, minor/minor7, and dominant chords, among others. As well as being a scales book Alternative Pentatonics is also a method to practice improvising over common chords using uncommon groups of five notes. Five notes are somewhere between an arpeggio and a scale, as well as being the ideal number of notes to craft some really nice phrasing (in my opinion), as I’m sure you realized when you first learned your minor pentatonic scale and started jamming over a 12-bar blues. This book contains 28 new pentatonic scales divided into chord types so that you’ll know exactly what chords you can use them over. For the intermediate player: this book will give you plenty of new and interesting options for playing over common chords and force you out of standard pentatonic scales and/or the major scale modes. For the more advanced player: this book could be more about exploring possibilities than learning scale patterns; in fact, I would suggest that advanced players avoid even remembering the patterns in this book. Instead, they can be used to explore the improvisational terrain and find new sounds, then filed away in your subconscious and allowed to seep into your playing while you’re in the throes of improvisation. So, if you’re stuck in a soloing rut or are looking for new sounds, outside sounds, exotic sounds, or even a few downright weird sounds, this is the book for you.

3NPS (three-note-per-string) scales, as used by legions of guitarists but popularized mainly by Joe Satriani, are one of the most efficient ways to navigate the fretboard and get your scales down IF you follow the guidelines in this book. As the name suggests, a 3NPS scale is any scale that contains three notes on each string, and as you'll see in this eBook, this makes for a very consistent way to map out scales on the guitar fretboard. What we’ve done here is revamped the 3NPS scale system and turned it into an incredibly effective means to learn a wide variety of scales all over the fretboard by streamlining the number of patterns, as well as the picking system. This is not a scale theory book, and contains no pentatonic scales. This is a quick and dirty (and very effective) method for learning 3NPS scales all over the fretboard; something to work on in the woodshed. It will improve your picking technique and speed. It does not require a great amount of thinking as you only need to learn two picking patterns, which is really one in two directions, and only three scale patterns instead of the usual seven per scale.

(Guitar Educational). A comprehensive source designed to help guitarists develop both lead and rhythm playing. Covers: Texas, Delta, R&B, early rock and roll, gospel, blues/rock and more. Includes 21 complete solos; chord progressions and riffs; turnarounds; moveable scales and more. The audio features leads and full band backing.