Im not too bad at blues, i have enough to keep me content. im now starting to move into standard 7 note scales and learning whitesnake and bonjovi type stuff. cheddar cheesse of the highest quality, and totally awesome to rock out too, dont care what you say!

anyway, in many of these songs there are really really fast major and minor scale runs up to a high note for a bend. currently im fluffing the using the pentatonic but its not fully right.

the runs are too fast for me to figure out by ear. anyone any tips on learning these super fast runs? I need to work up to do a few like in the tune Hot for Teacher.

Alot of van halen licks are Arpeggios and triads. Thats where i started.

-Vince

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If you download & install Audacity (free) you can dump an mp3 in there and change the speed without changing the pitch :

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Sorry schmintan this has to be said " don't eat as much curry "

Schmintan you have to learn your diatonic scales. All those runs are three note per string scale runs. I would advise you to learn the G major and C major diatonic scales and all 7 positions on the neck. Not to get all theory on you but you will be actually learning 14 scales.

I picked those two keys because the relative minor of G is Em and the relative minor of C is Am two very guitar friendly keys. The G major scale consist of G-A-B-C-D-E-F# Now if you harmonized it in chords you would have G-Am-Bm-C-D-Em-F#dim and if you harmonized it in 7th chords you would get Gmaj7-Am7-Bm7- Cmaj7-D7-Em7 -F#m7b5.

So all those chords in the scale would work to write a song. I know you heard of the modes which scares most people but is really easy to understand. There are 7 degrees in a major scale so if we take G it would be Ionian(Major) the second degree would be A (Dorian) third would be B (Phrygian) 4th would be C (Lydian) 5th would D (Mixolydian) 6th would be E (Aeolian or natural minor) and 7th would be F# (Locrian).

In actuality once you learn the G major scale you have also learned 6 other scales as they all contain the same 7 notes, it is just what note you start on. So if you start and play those notes starting on the sixth degree A and end on A you are now playing the A Dorian scale which also has the same notes as the Am pentatonic plus two more the B and F# added from the Diatonic scale which can really open up your playing. Also if you start and play from E to E you now have the E Natural minor which also has the same notes as E pentatonic plus two more the F# and C.

The same way the pentatonic lies all over the fret board so does the diatonic, but instead of 5 positions there are 7. I would advise you to get a book or go online as probably someone on youtube has a video showing the 7 positions and you also want to learn them in 3 note per string form as that is where the runs you like are coming from.

I will recommend two DVDs that will be of great help to you for where you are in your playing-Rock Concepts/ and Ultimate Guitar Techniques-Killer Rock and Metal Runs. Both are by Danny Gill a tremendous player and ex student of Satriani. You can find these at www.licklibrary.com or maybe get them new on an ebay store that sells music DVDs. Watch the Rock Concepts first and believe me you will be on your way to the next level. Good Luck and keep us posted.

Im currently familiarizing myself with the diatonic scales, mainly C and G, simply because a few songs im learning are in these keys.

Ive broken the scales up into 3 patterns ( i dont stick rigidly to patterns but it helps me find my bearings). first pattern goes from ionian on the low E to ionian on the High E.

Next pattern starts on the Phrygian ( 3rd mode) from low E to High E.

Final pattern is Aeolian (relative minor, 6th mode) Low E string to High E String.

All the other modes are simply bridging modes between those 3 main ones ( for the time being at least).

I was hoping for some quick fix to help me out. i think arpeggios might be the closest i can get to a quick fix in this case.

Well that is good to see you have an idea of what you are doing and to be honest no one really uses all the modes. I would say stick with Aeolian and Dorian mainly and if you want to play phrygian that is cool to.

Lets just say you are playing in E Aeolian the main thing to remember is that you are not in G you are in E so you have to fit your licks around Em as that is the tone center. You also have to learn diatonic licks, So if you were going to solo you can start with Em pentatonic licks then switch over to E Aeolian and mix it up.

A great song if you can find the correct tab from a magazine to show you how this all works is Mr Crowely which is in D minor which is from the F major scale but it has everything but the kitchen sink in it and is just a great solo period.

Look to get them two DVDs I told you about as they will really help you out and help you to understand this type of playing besides showing you the runs and techniques you are trying to grasp.

good points straycat. Im going to print this out

This is definitely more difficult than it sounds!

Darn that's exactly what I was thinking (sort of)! I figured someone must have beat me to it.

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