Musicians often fall into ruts when relying exclusively on Western scales and sounds.
But there’s a great big world out there, full of music from other countries and cultures that can be easily
Musicians often fall into ruts when relying exclusively on Western scales and sounds.
But there’s a great big world out there, full of music from other countries and cultures that can be easily added to your repertoire.
Scales from around the world can add an intriguing twist to your playing, giving you the sounds of the Far East, Middle East, Eastern Bloc and Latin America, You can hear many of these tonalities in the ax work of players like John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Marty Friedman and Yngwie Malmsteen. This lesson will serve as a guided musical tour of select world sounds.
HARMONIC MINOR
(1-2b3-4-5-b6-7)
Pioneered in the Seventies by Michael Schenker, Ritchie Blackmore and Ulrich Roth, neoclassical metal rose to the rock forefront in the mid Eighties when chopsmeister Yngwie Malmsteen stepped onto the scene. The Bach rocker’s scale of choice was harmonic minor, played in FIGURE 1 in the key of G# minor (G#-A#-B-C#-D#-E-G). Anchor your hand in 7th position for the duration of the figure, and use alternate picking (down, up, down, etc.) throughout.
FIGURE 1
JAPANESE
1-b2-4-5-b6
Lacking a 3rd or 7th, and therefore tonally ambiguous, the versatile Japanese scale works well in a variety of situations, including major- and minor-key progressions, as well as Phrygian-based contexts. FIGURE 2 is based on the E Japanese scale (E-F-A-B-C). Take a rubato approach here—that is, let the tempo fluctuate, altering your phrasing in a way that feels right to you.
FIGURE 2
CHINESE
1-2-3-5-6
Many of you are already familiar with the Chinese scale. You just know it by its Western name: major Pentatonic. In the Western world, this sound is heard perhaps most famously in the work of the Allman Brothers. FIGURE 3, on the other hand,