The Guitar Player's Resource
Welcome back! Writing from the friendly skies again and about to begin a mini West Coast tour. I have to be sure that my G9 friends are covered first!
This lesson I will be showing you a way that you can create some outside lines, using the diminished scale and incorporating it with your basic blues scale box. This will work great with the modes as well, try it with Dorian or mixolydian for example.
For this lesson, we will be using the dominant diminished scale, the one that begins with a half step. I have done a bunch of lessons on the diminished scale that you may want to check out, if you are not familiar with it. I listed a basic pattern in the notation to help get it under your fingers. These examples are all in Fm and can work over other chord types such as F7, for example. Be sure to play them in different keys as well.
Examples 1 and 1a. Here is a basic pattern for the F blues scale and the F dominant diminished scale. These patterns are common and move up down the neck. Of course, if you want to change the keys, just move the patterns to a different key.
MP3 - Outside Lines - Example 1
MP3 - Outside Lines - Example 1a
Example 2 is a line that mixes the F blues scale (F, Ab, Bb, B, C, Eb) and the F dominant diminished (F, Gb, Ab, A, B, C, D, Eb). For the first 3 beats, it is mainly the F diminished scale and then it resolves into the F blues scale.
The A in the last bar is the major 3rd from F. By adding this note, it will make the line sound more bluesy. I use alternate picking for this example.
MP3 - Outside Lines - Example 2
Finally, Example 3 is a string skipping line that is built mainly with minor 3rd intervals. The minor 3rd intervals outline diminished arpeggios. The diminished and diminished 7th arpeggios fall right inside of the diminished scale. The nice thing is, they move in minor 3rd intervals. You can alternate pick all of this, but it does sound smoother playing it legato.
MP3 - Outside Lines - Example 3
That is it for this lesson! Be sure to make up your own examples and visit www.mikecampese.com for more information!
Mike Campese is an all-around music performer, session artist and teacher competent in many musical styles, electric and acoustic. He has studied at G.I.T. (Honors Graduate), and with Paul Gilbert, Norman Brown, Stanley Jordan, Scott Henderson and Keith Wyatt.
