I was playing with my loop pedal today and figured this cool harmony riff. I wanna solo over it but have no idea what scales or modes or whatever to play cause i don't know much about theory. Any tips?
Ok, well I could give you a really standard reply and tell you what scales etc that you could use over it. But I would encourage you to try something else out, and therefore will leave it for someone else to tell you what scales etc.. to play.
Something I've been having my students do is use their ears more, and create their own scales.
And here is how I have them do it. Start your loop station, with the harmony. Then take one string at a time, start with the hi E (highest pitch) it's easier to hear. And play one note at a time and listen to the note. Does it sound good? over the harmonies. If so write it down. Then move up one fret and try all the way of to your at the 12th fret again.
If you know the notes on the neck you can stop there and just write the note names that sounded good to you. And then improvise with those notes. If you don't know the notes, then write the frets, and move onto the next string and do the same thing and write down the frets that sound good. Now you have a map of what notes work over the harmony.
Some things to remember, there are really no wrong notes, just because a note might sound wierd, it might be cool too, but only pick it if you like it. It may be 4 notes or 11, or whatever, that doesn't matter, if it sounds good to you then it will define your sound.
This is how they originally came up with what worked over harmony, I would encourage anyone to take this approach. You may be suprised what you come up with.
Then you could try eliminating notes from the ones you picked, if you picked 7 or more or something, and make a pentatonic with 5 of the notes. Pick any of the notes, because you liked all of them, they should all work.
Anyways, this is one approach, sorry I didn't give you a scale, but I'm starting to notice way too many people using patterns, and not their ears, so I am not willing to promote that path anymore. Music is about listening, not a book of patterns, scales and arpeggios.
Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:55 am Post subject: Re: what would you play over this...
ratso wrote:
I wanna solo over it but have no idea what scales or modes or whatever to play cause i don't know much about theory. Any tips?
It aint theory , knowing what modes or scales to use over a chord is self evident if you turn the chord into musical notes on a stave ... then simply fill the gaps as you see fit... or look at two or more chords and work out the common tones and use that as your scale.
The only difference between a chord and a scale is that a scale is played melodically and a chord is played harmonically. Em pentatonic is Em7add11. G13 has the same notes as G mixolydian (but we can't often play all the notes on a guitar).
If you want to take the science route, I'd recommend doing this after you've let your ears choose the path for you... all theory is going to do is give you a narrative of what you're doing, useful for communicating to others or giving a name to a sound you like.
As Mirth said, your ears have got you that chord progression ( perhaps F#7 Amaj6 Cm6 ) so trust them to find the rest of the melody. Patterns and scales are only useful when your ears have a variety of applications for them. _________________ Fabulous powers were revealed to me the day I held my magic Suhr(d) aloft and said "by the power of great scale!"
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, knowing what modes or scales to use over a chord is self evident if you turn the chord into musical notes on a stave ... then simply fill the gaps as you see fit... or look at two or more chords and work out the common tones and use that as your scale.
