Applying mPentatonic - Guitar Tricks Forum

That lesson is about just getting started with improvisation. It's a fine way to start gaining some basic skills that combine the physical skills of alternating between rhythm guitar chord strumming & single note lead line playing. It is pretty thin conceptually. He doesn't explain how or why you are doing any of that stuff.

Originally Posted by: SRVFan2000
He showed how over an A chord, you can simply go to the 5th fret and play the 6 notes of the mPenta starting on the 5th string (2-4, 2-4, 2-4.) Easy enough- all those notes are in the Am Penta[/quote][p]This is a little misleading. First the minor pentatonic scale only has 5 notes, then they repeat. So he is using a 6 note pattern, but starting to repeat notes from the scale. And he doesn't explain why to use those specific notes. I think he chose them simply because it is an easy pattern to visualize & play.

I get that he's after a simple, easy & obvious pattern for beginners to play. But he is combining an A major chord with an A minor scale. That is perfectly acceptable & often used in a blues or blues rock context. But it's often best to start by explaining how chords & scale are related to each other before mixing & matching ideas from different contexts. Especially if you aren't going to explain them.

Can you play it? Yes! It's great skill building. But as soon as you ask anything about why you are lost & going to need more knowledge to move forward.

Originally Posted by: SRVFan2000...but then he said if the chords change, you can chase them.[/quote]
He is following the chord changes & this is a perfectly acceptable way to solo. But he doesn't explain is that there are basically 2 different ways to approach soloing.

1. Start in one key signature (scale) & target any & all chord tones as they change.

2. Change key signatures (scales) along with the chords as they change.

And of course you can do a mixture of those 2 concepts.

In that video he is doing option 1.

Originally Posted by: SRVFan2000He referenced D, then G. When he changed chords, it appears like he went to the same relative area (one string below the root D to play the 6 note pattern, then the same for G.) It sounded like it worked when he did it but to me, those notes on the D, G, didn't seem to fit in with e.g., Am Penta pattern. What am I missing?[/quote]
You are missing the conceptual knowledge of what is happening because he didn't provide it. :)

Originally Posted by: SRVFan2000He commented that if music always made sense, we wouldn't have rock n roll!
This is a great example of bad teaching. It should be obvious that if things didn't make sense there is no reason for anyone to teach anything, right? You just do whatever random thing you want that makes no sense.

Why stay on the 5th & 7th frets? Why try to vaguely connect scale lines with chords at all? Why use scale patterns?

Obviously he is basing his examples on something. Why not explain what those ideas are if you are supposedly teaching?

[quote=SRVFan2000]Do you think he was just showing random examples- or trying to play this in one given key?
He is just showing you the basics of how to get started alternating between playing rhythm chords & lead lines without too much conceptual info to explain.

[quote=SRVFan2000]
I don't even know what Key A G and D would fit into - maybe G-flat major...but then a mPenta would not seem to work.
[p]Those chords all fit in the key of D major.

D (I) - G (IV) - A (V)

Or they could fit in an A mixolydian mode.

A (I) - G (bVII) - D (IV)

But it doesn't matter if they go together in his example because he's just showing an option of following the chord changes by changing scales to match that chord with no relationship to the chord that came before or after.

Again, it's just a beginner example of physical skill building. And that's fine as far as it goes. It becomes problematic when you go looking for conceptual understanding. Or claim that "sometimes music doesn't make sense".

[quote=SRVFan2000]Is he just doing a bit of improvising- am I over thinking it?