The Guitar Player's Resource
Many of us musicians are under pressure to constantly learn new things. Why? It's because we have a need to sound "new", "original", or "different".
The problem here is that not everything new that we learn is easy to play, and so we may not be ready to deploy it immediately. The ideal situation would be to find new things that are also easy to learn and play. The low-hanging fruits, so to speak.
True, there are not many ideas like that around. But today we see one of them. If you are a Western musician, this is probably going to sound 'new' to you.
Today we learn a few different Japanese scales, and we learn how to mix and match them to create a lot more scales. You are sure to find a few of them that you will like and will fit your musical style.
The video above only covers the Japanese scales as "collections of pitches" i.e. there is no indication of how to play these notes to give the 'oriental' feeling to them.
But fear not, as in the video below I cover just that: how to use bends and slides on your guitar to make these scales sound more 'authentic' and exotic.
Once you have learned these simple tricks, you can make them your own and you will come up with your own sound. Enjoy!
Tommaso Zillio is a professional prog rock/metal guitarist and composer based in Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Tommaso is currently working on an instrumental CD, and an instructional series on fretboard visualization and exotic scales. He is your go-to guy for any and all music theory-related questions.
