Guitar modes and scales

Cafe Society
1

Hi,

I’m a very amateur guitarist. After playing essentially the same blues scale solo over every song in the world, I’m trying to extend my abilities. Modes are confusing me, however, especially how they apply to actual songs.

As an example, Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ has a fairly simple chord progression. It’s in ‘C’ (or A minor, or something; told you I was an amateur) - what modes can I use to solo over it? Or should I be thinking about scales? Gah - I don’t even know what musical ballpark I should be in.

Thanks for any pointers in the right direction.

2

Now I’ve decided it’s in ‘G’. God, I need help.

3

Mr. McQ says try pentatonic scales.

http://kingfreeze.guitarbrain.com/major%20pentatonic%20scale.jpg

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/theory/pentatonic.html

According to him, you should be able to ‘solo all day with that’. :slight_smile:

Rock on, dude. :cool:

4

ALthough you can use a G major scale over “Wish you were here” it can sound a bit strange unless you know what you’re supposed to do with it (especially if you stay on the F# for any length of time). Pentatonics (specifically G major/E minor pentatonic) are probably best. you could also try playing arpeggios of the chords if you want to get out of the pentatonic rut.

5

Thanks, guys. I guess I picked a bad example, or I’m barking up the wrong tree entirely - I’m trying to get beyond pentatonics, but I’m not sure how to.

Ah, what the hell; I’ll just play louder. :slight_smile:

6

Joe Satriani discusses modes with examples:

7

Here is a good primer: http://www.stetina.com/lessons/modes.html

8

For Wish You Were Here (WYWH,) Em pentatonic (or G pentatonic, same notes) will work and is very safe. Then if you want to branch out a bit you can add notes from the chord currently playing.

Many songs don’t stay conveniently in one scale either. In the intro and instrumental/scat breaks on WYWH, the chords are (not in order) G, C, D, and Em. This would mean that it is in the key of G (or E minor, same notes.) However, there’s also an A major chord which is has a C# note that is not in the key of G. To make things easy you can play the G pentatonic scale which skips the C/C# and makes it less likely that you’ll hit the wrong note at the wrong time.

the beauty of the guitar of course is that you can bend the strings and therefore the notes. If you hit one that sounds crap, just bend it up until it sounds right! If it still doesn’t sound right, hit the same note again several times while soloing. People will then assume that it is creativity rather than a mistake and they will comment on your Jazz influences :).