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Learn how to add some flavor to your solos when using a pentatonic scale.
I would like to show you some ideas I use to add some flavor to my solos when I'm using a pentatonic scale.
While I feel the pentatonic scale is extremely useful and great in its most basic form, sometimes those five notes aren't enough to make the statement I wanted to make in my phrase.
The idea of these examples is to help re-grab the listeners' attention and make them say, "What was that!? That wasn't what I was expecting!" That's partly the idea we want to accomplish in our solos, right? To throw the listener off a little bit.
I was always drawn to the tonality of the mixolydian scale. When I first heard Jeff Beck and even the keyboard player Jan Hammer on Billy Cobham's Spectrum album, I was hooked when these players would throw in a lick or phrase utilizing the mixolydian scale.
It always sounded good to me and kept my interest in the solo. It, to me, would draw attention back into the song as if it were making a bold statement. It made me think, "What's coming next?"
I was even more drawn in when I would hear a lick played in a pentatonic scale and then out of the blue, mixolydian was thrown in mixing the two scales together.
So, what exactly is the mixolydian scale? For those who aren't familiar, we'll need to know this first! It is the fifth scale (dominant) in the major key. So, for instance, in the key of G major (G, A, B, C, D, E, F#), D is the 5th of that major key. It is major sounding because of the major 3rd (the