Learn how to solo / scales

[Donn1958]

Looking for an online course to learn scales and how to use them to learn how to solo. Do not want to get deep into music theory. Want a easy to understand teacher who supplies tab for the lessons. Don’t want to just learn songs. I consider myself an intermediate player . I can learn just about any song with practice. Regular bluegrass songs, not Beethoven. Tried Peg head nation , did not like. The teacher, without naming, kind of rushed over some parts, was good and explained others. Not consistent, although the course is said to help you start to solo better it really just showed how to play a song.
Thanks for any ideas

[DaveGinNJ]

Looking for an online course to learn scales and how to use them to learn how to solo. Do not want to get deep into music theory. Want a easy to understand teacher who supplies tab for the lessons. Don’t want to just learn songs. I consider myself an intermediate player . I can learn just about any song with practice. Regular bluegrass songs, not Beethoven. Tried Peg head nation , did not like. The teacher, without naming, kind of rushed over some parts, was good and explained others. Not consistent, although the course is said to help you start to solo better it really just showed how to play a song.
Thanks for any ideas

I'm no great player but what helped me was learning the Pentatonic scales in closed positions. As long as you match the chords it's hard to hit a really bad note. Toss in some slides and pulloffs

[James Vwaal]

Matt Flinner. Many styles to choose from. NFI on my part. Supplies music charts (notes and tabs).

www.mattflinner.com

[A-board]

Matt Flinner. Many styles to choose from. NFI on my part. Supplies music charts (notes and tabs).

www.mattflinner.com

2nd vote for Matt Flinner. He provides a variety of courses which include downloads of videos, audio files and charts.

For a different approach, you might check Tim Connell’s site “Tim’s Mando Lessons.” He has a promotional free webinar on Nov. 5 which should provide an overview of his offerings. Sign up at the website. FYI, Tim doesn’t do tabs; he provides an opportunity to learn standard notation.

(nfi on both)

[HogTime]

I'm no great player but what helped me was learning the Pentatonic scales in closed positions. As long as you match the chords it's hard to hit a really bad note. Toss in some slides and pulloffs

Same with me! Just have to remember what the current chord is.

[tiltman]

I'm no great player but what helped me was learning the Pentatonic scales in closed positions.

Agree - helped me too. Truly think that this is what you are looking for.

I'm a self-taught intermediate/advanced player (don't necessarily recommend that...) but I took a class from Don Julin earlier this year. He's really a great teacher and I'm pretty sure he has course on using pentatonic scales to improvise/solo.

NFI, YMMV, Etc....

Kirk

[bigskygirl]

Don Julin has some pentatonic courses available.

[Donn1958]

Seems a lot of people recommend pentatonic, why not major scales?

[pops1]

The pentatonic is easier and you can always add the extra notes to make a major scale. It's not just learning the scales, but learning where to be on the 1, 4, and 5 chords. It's pretty simple if you see it done slowly.

[tiltman]

Seems a lot of people recommend pentatonic, why not major scales?

Using the pentatonic scale you literally can’t play a wrong note!

(lots of other advantages - that’s the main one)

Kirk

[bigskygirl]

Just ran across this site, Mike has lots of free lessons and the 1st 2 listed are on using pentatonic scales.

https://www.mandomike.com/free-lessons

[jaycat]

Using the pentatonic scale you literally can’t play a wrong note!

You underestimate me!

[Bill McCall]

Using the pentatonic scale you literally can’t play a wrong note!

(lots of other advantages - that’s the main one)

Kirk

Things can’t be foolproof because fools are so clever

[DaveGinNJ]

Using the pentatonic scale you literally can’t play a wrong note!

(lots of other advantages - that’s the main one)

Kirk

This. Yes maybe you can do something that isn't that great but it will be at least OK. Also if you restrict yourself to those 5 notes you are bound to find some nice sounding licks

[Mando Esq]

I think this video from Lessons with Marcel has some really great info on building riffs and double stops from the pentatonic scale

https://youtu.be/BAiv5GH6QRw

[Mando Esq]

[deleted]

[Josh Levine]

Soloing is kind of like peeling back layers of an onion. On the most basic level (and probably the most important, IMO is being able to play the melody) Another layer will be using scales to "improvise", but you still want to be able to quote the melody. If you just play scale notes it will sound just like that... playing scale notes over the chords of the song... I know you said you don't want to talk about theory, but to be able to really improve as an improviser you want to start thinking about chord tones and be able to use them over the chord changes in conjunction with the melody, different scales, double stops, and other "licks" to give your interpretation of the song. I think Mike Marshall has some good stuff on this in his Artistworks course, talking about "Target Notes" - Notes in the melody that help define it, and then different ideas of how to travel between those "Target Notes". I also agree that Flinner covers this pretty well in his courses, but there are additional theoretical concepts you will need to try to understand as you grow as an improviser.

[mbruno]

Seems a lot of people recommend pentatonic, why not major scales?

For one, it's easier to remember positions with fewer notes than more. That said, it's not really much different. The major pentatonic is basically the major scale without the 4 and 7. If you have a 1 4 5 progression in G for example (so G C D), one common thing to do in a break is highlight the chord changes somewhat by playing chord tones and related tones.

So for G, you could just play the G Major pentatonic notes (G A B D E) and be fine. When you get to C, you can still play the G major pentatonic notes, but it's common to add the C (like an arpeggio run C E G or something). Similar on D, you'd play the G Major pentatonic but a common way to highlight the D chord is by playing the F# (3rd of D but 7th of G) - especially when sliding from the b3 to 3 (F to F# here).

So over a 1 4 5 type progression, you basically are playing the G Major scale - but over certain chord changes you may avoid or highlight a specific note which result in the major scale or some similar scale like the Mixolydian if you play the b7 (F) instead of the 7 (F#) etc.

If you haven't really looked at the circle of 5ths, there's a lot in there that can help identify related tones / scales etc.

[Bill McCall]

Improvisation is just creating a new melody in real time over the changes. Having a easy way to select notes which sound pleasant over the chords is what knowing scales allows. Major, minor and pentatonic scales allow access to notes from a known hand position, assuming you practice.. There are other scales, but recognize it’s always the same 12 notes, root to octave in any key.

Practicing creating Melodies over easy chord progressions builds confidence for real time playing. Don’t forget that rhythm and repetition are your friends. As my teacher says “it’ll take more than 2 weeks to learn”.

Patience, good luck and have fun.