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Here is the video transcript:
When we start learning guitar, the first musical elements most of us encounter are chords. We tend to simply learn these as shapes, A D C Em …and so on…
Our introduction to scales normally comes when we take an interest in playing lead guitar, especially if we want to emulate professional lead guitarists and be able to produce an improvised lead guitar solo.
Only once we begin learning Guitar Music Theory, do we start to discover the deeper relationship that scales have with the music that we make.
For any passage of music, almost regardless of genre, there is a normally single scale that acts as an underlying common denominator. That scale provides the notes that are used in the main chords backing the song and also the main notes of the melody. It follows that this same scale is then likely to be the safest one to select as the basis of any improvised guitar work over that part of the song.
Let’s look at ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ as an example. Now if we take a close look at the chords …and list the notes that make up each of the four chords used in the song. Then write these notes out in order, we can see that they all belong to the scale of G Major.
So, if we are trying to pin down the notes to sing or play the melody, then the scale of G Major is going to be the first place to look for these notes. We find that, like so many Bob Dylan tunes, this melody is very economical. It uses only the notes B A G and E . And we can see that these notes, as well as all belonging to the G Major Scale, are also all included in the simpler G Major Pentatonic Scale.
So this immediately gives us a couple of choices as to how we might approach improving some fills, lead lines or a complete solo over this tune.
Using the G Major Pentatonic To keep things clean and simple
Or the G Major scale if we want to sound a little more melodic or intricate…
This basic relationship between scales, chords, melody and basis for improvising exists for all songs.
But do bear in mind that chord substitutions used to strengthen sequences, will sometimes introduce notes from outside the main underlying scale, and also that songs often incorporate key changes.
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