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If you look at my last article, “superimposing arpeggios” you’ll read how it is possible to superimpose a different arpeggio of a chord from the same parent scale over the chord that you are improvising on. In this lesson I am going to take it one step further and combine it with another of my previous articles “Jazz Up Your Blues Progressions”, in which I describe how to add a jazz flavor to your blues progressions by adding different chord substitutions throughout the sequence. Continue reading »

When playing over a particular chord how many different arpeggios would you consider using? Over any chord you can superimpose a large number of different arpeggios which can give you greater harmonic choices. In this lesson I am going to look at one approach of doing this. By having a parent scale in mind (ie playing in a specific key) whether it’s for one chord, a chord sequence or for a whole piece of music, I’m going to show how to determine all the different arpeggios that are available to play over each chord in that key. Continue reading »

Robert Johnson was born in Hazelhurst, Mississippi on May 8, 1911 and died in Greenwood, Mississippi on August 16, 1938. During those 27 years he recorded 29 songs that influenced modern blues and paved the way for the future of blues-based rock.
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As a guitar player and guitar teacher I meet a lot of people who always wanted to play jazz but thought it was too difficult so they never give it a go. This lesson is kind of aimed at those players who want to jazz up their blues playing without too much stress. It’s not designed as quick-fix but will get you sounding much more jazzy in just a few simple steps. Continue reading »

The blues scale was the first thing they taught me when I got into jazz band in high school. It’s a simple scale to learn, and all the tones sound good over blues changes. The advantage of knowing it Continue reading »

Have you ever wanted to go to a music store and get a book that had the best information on how to play guitar, explained in ways that were easy to understand and made sense, and not know which book to buy? Ever go out and get that book, only to discover that it had a bunch of information that you didn’t need and didn’t make a good deal of sense after all? Ever wonder whether the “get chops quick” guitar methods so prevalent on the Internet today are really ripoffs? Well, no need for further frustration, help is here. Continue reading »

In part 2 we’ll take a look at another common pattern for rock or blues/walking bass and some examples for putting it to use.
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As far as rock guitar lead is concerned, it is the scale of all scales, the mother lode so to speak, the scale used early and often by such lead guitar greats as Jimmy Page, Edward Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Slash, and Neal Schon, to name a few. If indeed a rock n’ roll encyclopedia exists specifically for rock lead guitar (and who knows, there might be one floating out on the web somewhere), this scale would and should appear on the top, right up front. Continue reading »

The first in a series of bass articles covering a wide array of topics. Email me if you have any suggestions. We’ll start with some common blues patterns.

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In this article, I’m expanding on my previous piece, “Why I-IV-V Works, And Works So Well.” I’ll be adding 7ths to the chords and starting to talk about harmony a little more. Continue reading »