September 3, 2013

8 Octopus Licks: Fresh Guitar Scale Ideas With Wide Scales

Hi again! After my last lesson on the methods of writing an instrumental guitar song, now I’ll show you some interesting wide scale ideas. This lesson is called “8 Octopus Licks”, because the left hand’s movements will resemble an octopus. I’ve created 8 licks in the following video, and today we’ll discuss the first 4 licks.


The video with all the 8 licks:

 


These licks are based upon the idea that if we create wider scale boxes, then we’ll get more interesting intervals and sounds.

The backing track in the video is in the key of F sharp major. The first few licks are played between frets 9 and 14, so the width of the scales is 5 frets, or a perfect fourth. Make sure to warm up properly before practicing these scales, because it can be quite a stretch!

The scale pattern is really simple: on all 6 strings, the notes of fret 9 and fret 14 are within the key, so if you play these notes string by string (so playing 2 notes per string), you’ll get a pretty interesting sound, as opposed to the all-too-familiar minor pentatonic sound.


You can read the full lesson at Guitar-Muse.com. Click here: 

http://www.guitar-muse.com/8-octopus-licks-fresh-guitar-scale-ideas-with-wide-scales-7603