Each scale introduces a new sound to your major scale foundation. Various notes are added to your vocabulary, but always in the context of the basic fingerings.

  • The Major Scale –
    • the small interval sounds (half step and whole step)
    • Emphasis on the natural 3 and natural 7 (E and B in the C major scale).
  • The arpeggios in the major scale – large interval sounds found in the major scale. You use the same fingerings as you did for the major scales.
  • The Minor Pentatonic Scale – the b3 and b7 sounds for blues and rock – new notes. (Eb and Bb from the root C)
  • The Blues Scale – the #4 sound – another new note. (F# from the root C)
  • The Dorian Sounds – the natural 6 and 9 notes combined with the minor pentatonic and blues scale notes
    • (Carlos Santana type smoother blues sounds)
  • The Major Pentatonic Scale – the sounds of the 6 and 9 (also found in the major scale) but with larger intervals and no 7th
  • The Mixolydian Sounds – the natural 3 note and the b7 note for the unique major blues sound.

Musically what happens is this:

  • First you learn the sounds of the Major Scale, and the seven fingerings that interconnect across the entire fingerboard.

That provides you with small interval sounds (half step and whole step).

  • Then we go back over those fingerings to find the arpeggios located inside each fingering.

That gives you larger interval sounds, although still in the major scale tonality, and still in the basic fingerings.

  • During that time various techniques are also explored, including string bends, the ‘pinch’ and so on.
  • We then take the same approach to other tonalities, like the blues, minor pentatonic, and Dorian sounds.

Amazingly, the fingerings for the arpeggios we learned earlier are almost the same as the minor blues and rock sounds, making them that much easier to locate and quicker to learn.

  • The major pentatonic scale and Mixolydian scale provide the sound of blues and country with a major 3rd and a flatted seventh.
  • We continue with harmonized scale fingerings (playing scales two notes at a time) and more string bends.
  • Pedal tones and double string bends are the last topics. Here we’re taking scales and fingerings you already know to make new sounds, but still within the seven-fingering-framework we used for all the scales, modes, and arpeggios.