Sunday, July 25, 2010

Pentatonic Scales and Improvisation

I am now the master of the pentatonic scale in A minor.

No, seriously, I can play it backwards and forwards, slowly and quickly, AND with confidence. The chart looks like this:


The action starts on the fifth fret, if you want to try this at home.

As soon as Gernot taught me this scale, and was fairly certain I could handle it, he suggested that I use it to do my own improvisation while he played the blues track I learned last week.

Improvisation?!

Well, that's what I have to call highly effective pedagogy. By teaching me something new and immediately giving me a real musical application—however elementary—he shows me that all of this abstractness really does mean something, which of course encourages me to stick with it.

So he played, and I picked off some notes on the A minor pentatonic scale, and it worked . . . okay, it would have really worked if I hadn't been so nervous about screwing up, but it will definitely work this week when I see him again.

I've been practicing, you see . . . 

1 comment:

  1. I have a vague memory of Wei commenting on Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" and how it recalled the pentatonic scale in Chinese pop songs. I had no idea what he was talking about so maybe now you'll be able to expalin to me:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aOGnVKWbwc

    ;-)

    ReplyDelete