Guitar soloing- scale help

[JayB]

Hey guys, for whatever reason, guitar scales seem to be one of those things I can't quite wrap my head around, and I feel like being unsure of myself about the "rules" of where I should be playing in a certain section are really holding me back as a guitar player. I have guitar pro 6, which I love because I can punch in a few notes and it will tell me what scale those notes are in and I can just follow that scale, but it doesn't seem to always work right. For instance, on my band's cd I'm trying to come up with a melodic lead for a section, and it's tuned to Drop C. I download the guitar pro file for Killswitch Engage's Breathe Life (also in Drop C) to see what scale that solo was in. I highlighted notes from Adam's solo and it came up with no 100% match. A few other tabs have the same problem. They sound correct as far as whoever tabbed them out goes.I know this is getting long-winded but my question is , how do you guys usually go about figuring out what scale to follow? Some guitarists have told me they just play whatever sounds right, but what about if I want to harmonize it? Having the scale in front of me makes that so much easier. So can anyone explain what I should do in basic terms that I can understand? Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[professorlamp]

Basic thing for a lot of the metal stuff is it uses the minor scale and they usually borrow some notes from either the harmonic or melodic minor, hence it not having a 100% match. Oh and everyone under the sun likes to include the major 3rd occasionally for a gritty effect in a scale. So essentially with those 3 scales and the added major 3rd you have 10 notes ( I think) but still sounds 'pleasing'.

edit... Oops, answered the wrong part, as for 'what to play where?' usually whatever the overall tonality of that progression is. And for harmonies you'd usually stick to diatonic tones and most people use 3rds to harmonise but there's plenty of cooler options if you mess around with chromatics.

The best bet in drop C (assuming its in C minor here) for you here is probably the C minor pentatonic. If you're above that ( I have no idea what you're like as a player) then just mix and match the minor scale with the minor modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Locrian (not minor I know)) and throw in whatever other notes make you happy. It's a long winded process to getting a decent ear for it.

 

[rispsira]

yea man great answer above!
u know i could never get into theory because i hate memorizing stuff especially scale shapes and the million areas of the fretboard where you can play them plus youve got a lot of scales so.. until finally (yea thats the disadvantage of learning alone with no guidance you can waste quite some time to figure out something haha) i understood what intervals are and started to see the trend of why this scale sounds like this or that one sounds like that. But anyway from that moment on when im faced with a new scale i dont go learning a new shape i look at the intervals and if you learn where they are in relation to a root note youll find the scale quickly BUT most importantly youll always find later on that a new scale has some similarities whit at least one you already know so you start to DERIVE it u know what i mean.

So find the key of the song then find the intervals. Once you find them see which scales have those intervals. Then if you feel like it you can derive some pentas or hectatonic scales by removing the 7th interval and some arps etc.
Now that is the simplest "theoretical" approach but its always good to know some "harmony" because it expands the idea further by explaining for instance why you could use a scale that has the "wrong" interval yet still sounds good but until you go that far you will be fine by focusing on the theoretical method and dealing with the rest as chrmoatic passing notes that give tension and release and the result is more or less the same.

When you get frustrated always remember that all these things above are just part of a system trying to explain the beauty of the thing you DO already have which is your ear so dont worry about it too much i think

baby steps.

PS: ive been playing for more then 10 years but i just started getting into theory 2 months ago.. im taking it very slow (cant tell you how slow haha)

PS2: my personal advice is write this solo by ear for now and as you start to learn things then a tiny bit at a time you start to try to incorporate them.

 

[LeSedna]

First you need to know which key is your song into.

It's very easy, in every "normal" melody, there is a conclusion, and most of the time, it's the tonic, which is the note that is also the tonality of your tune. To find it, you can sing by improvising a little melody in your head (a shitty predictible one) and the last note is the one.

Now just use notes from the minor pentatonic of that tonality, on your tune, and end your musical solo phrases with the tonic.

When you are confident with it, do the same with the minor scale.

Then you can try harmonizing by writing a second line in parallel that uses the same up/down pattern that your main line, but starting upper by 2 notes in the scale, it should sound in-flamish.

Now when you are used to dealing with those scales, try more exotic ones.

Of you let guitar pro analyze a solo, it can sometimes fail, because being a simple analyzer, it does not have a human brain to tell it "ok in this solo he used the natural minor scale, but used here and there as a bonus the C sharp, F, G sharp". No, it will just say "damn he used 10 notes out of 12 in this solo, I know no scale like that" and will return a blank answer.

So just use your ear really. You just have to learn the flavor of the few main scales we use in modern music (minor, major, minor penta of course, harmonic minor, and if you're motivated, the 7 modes which are nothing else than using the minor/major pattern starting from another "step" and which give 7 flavours, a few of them being usually a bit useless to the common mortal writer)

Also, if there is a chord progression in your song, and if it's not eccentric, 95% of the time the tonality of your song is the tonal of your first chord (example : stairway to heaven is A, and it's solo, since the tonality never changes in this song, is in A pentatonic minor)

Hope I helped, I tried not to use any specific term like degree or anything !

PS: please excuse mistakes or typos, on phone ATM !

 

[LeSedna]

Other thing : your kse song is tuned in C, but that only means the guitar has a C tuning. Maybe this song isn't even in C. Of course most of the time especially in metal, it will work because we chugga-chugga on the lowest note, which therefore traps us in only a few options. Most metal riffs based on open strings will trap you in that tonality. I'm exaggerating but you get the idea.

Also, talented songwriters are able to do what is called a modulation, which is simply changing tastefully the tonality quickly or slowly, for different desirable effects. So maybe a solo can have here and there a modulation of one tone up (classic ending of song in pop music : tonality +1 for the final choruses) or down. Good example is children of bodom, lahio is very good at changing tonality several times in a song while no one would notice. So you might have analyze a solo by guitar pro that gives you A minor, while the first chord is G, and the tuning C standard ! It just means that maybe guitar is in C, song is in G, and during the solo or chorus the songwriter modulated to A. If he used chromatic notes or exotic intervals to enrich his solo, the gp analyzer wouldnt get it while a friend guitarist would say "yeah it's eolian with a few weird notes in between".

Trust me in the end, scales and basic theory for songwriting is very very easy, it's just a tool to help your ear. In the end what sounds good is good, and it just helps you. Going to a level where you think in terms of intervals and harmonic progressions made of this and this degree a "blind way" because you know it just works (like classical writers are able to do by projecting themselves) is another story and is not necessary in modern music like ours, although of course i'd like to do that.

 

[Plankis]

Your guitar is tuned to drop C doesn't tell me shit. I can play anything in that tuning.

What you do is this:

1. Find out the key signature of the part.
1.1 How do I find the key signature?
Write down every note that's played. Compare with the major scale tables here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signature
1.1.1 No match!?
You might have used some notes that are off key, quite common in metal. You can omit the odd note if it's just one and go from there. If it is several and the part is some crazy chromatic crap you need start thinking: What do I want to convey? And improvise from there with these written down notes in mind.

2. Find the chord progression of the part.
This is super easy when you know what key signature you're in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_(music)

3. Land on the notes that the current chord has.

4. Don't only do 3. It's boring.

It might seem tedious but you'll get a hang of it eventually if you keep consciously doing it.

Homework: http://www.musictheory.net/

There's a sticky quite close to this subject: http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...torial-breaking-down-guitar-scales-modes.html

 

[LeSedna]

To avoid any confusion (with your pb with that kse song) when people say "this song/album is in C" it just means the original artist tuned their instruments to C. Then each song has a specific tuning, which in modern music and cause of instrument and playability/writing limitations will be the same, but not only.

Hence why most classic rock, pop, hard songs are in E, A or maybe D, cause these are the three first open strings from where we riff ! Not to mention these are also common chords. Most Metallica classics are in E. Etc

You can of course write a song in Asharp. But then all your open strings are notes that are off, and you cannot use usual chords etc etc. that's the reason why most guitarist if songs are in E or A etc (or whatever tuning they are down tuned to, and tuning+5 semitones if you are following me)

 

[Plankis]

To avoid any confusion (with your pb with that kse song) when people say "this song/album is in C" it just means the original artist tuned their instruments to C. Then each song has a specific tuning, which in modern music and cause of instrument and playability/writing limitations will be the same, but not only.

Hence why most classic rock, pop, hard songs are in E minor, A minor or maybe D major, cause these are the three first open strings from where we riff ! Not to mention these are also common chords. Most Metallica classics are in E. Etc

You can of course write a song in Asharp. But then all your open strings are notes that are off, and you cannot use usual chords etc etc. that's the reason why most guitarist if songs are in E or A etc (or whatever tuning they are down tuned to, and tuning+5 semitones if you are following me)

Just to be clear: KSE is tuned to C. Metallica is tuned to E etc.
Classic rock, pop, hard song are in E minor, A minor or maybe D major.

Don't just say "My song is in E". That would mean to me that the song is in the key of E major. Which is very different to E minor...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_(music)
This is one of my many pet peeves, haha.

 

[JayB]

Wow, thanks for all the tips guys! LeSedna, I know what you mean regarding KsE tuning in Drop C doesn't mean the song is in C, but the Breathe Life solo is over a bunch of chugga chugga like you said, which I assume makes that part in the key of C. The part I'm trying to write a solo over in my song is I believe in C, based on what you said where the last note, conclusion, is what the key is (I had heard this before as well).

So let me see if I'm getting this right- it's technically ok to mix and match different scales with one another, as long as they are in the same key? Are there any exclusions to this rule, like scales that absolutely do not sound good together? Or is it just all trial and error? Thanks guys, I feel like I'm starting to understand this much better!

 

[JayB]

Then you can try harmonizing by writing a second line in parallel that uses the same up/down pattern that your main line, but starting upper by 2 notes in the scale, it should sound in-flamish.

I do this all the time, I love harmonizing stuff like this. Now that I know I can mix and match scales I think I'll be able to come up with much cooler stuff.

One quick question: the other day I wrote a pretty cool sounding lead to go over this part, but I scrapped it, even though going by ear it sounded great, because when I punched it in Guitar Pro it came up with no matches. Like you said I was probably borrowing notes from multiple scales without knowing. My only question is if I write something like this that sounds cool but I can't find what scales it's on, how would I write a part for another guitar completely harmonizing it in 3rd harmony? Would I have to rely on my ears at this point? I wish there was a program where you could punch in a note on the fretboard and it would tell you all possible harmony options for that note!

 

[professorlamp]

So let me see if I'm getting this right- it's technically ok to mix and match different scales with one another, as long as they are in the same key? Are there any exclusions to this rule, like scales that absolutely do not sound good together? Or is it just all trial and error? Thanks guys, I feel like I'm starting to understand this much better!

Depends on the underlying harmony, if you have a C and then a D you couldn't play phrygian or locrian because they both have Db but you could still play Minor because it has the D. Bit of a crude example and I don't know if that helped at all
Really it all depends on whats underneath, if it's just a C alllll the way through then theoretically you could play anything but I'm hoping you're not chugging on a C all the way through

Safest best is the minor and minor pentatonic though

edit: might aswell embellish a bit for my first example thing

In the case of C minor

Say you have C and D
you could play minor because
C and D = 1 and 2 respectively

Minor scale formula = 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7
Dorian = 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7
Phrygian = 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7
Locrian = 1 b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7

Since the dorian and minor have a natural 2 (the D in our case of C) then we are good to go with this. The other two (phrygian and locrian) have a b2 (a Db) and would clash with whats underneath. that's not to stop you playing it but it's best to stick to conventions a bit more if you're just starting this stuff.

 

[LeSedna]

I'll add on an easier note that harmonizing leads usually only sound really good if strictly following the minor or major scale (a la in flames), or possibly Arabic scales or things like that. If you wanna harmonize a line that is kind of exotical and chromatic, chances are that it's not even possible to do so without ending with some incompatibilities and dissonances between your two voices (then again, it's all subjective, I'm assuming here usual western based modern music trained ear )

It's all about being creative and having the second line do something more suited, or just not doing it.

Use the guitar pro scale tool the other way around : use it to show you the notes from a specific scale, don't ask it to check which scale you used (unless for a quick check after a moment of inspiration). It's useless, well it can give you ideas but just don't use it as a judge. What sounds good, sounds good, even if it's out of traditional scales. I posted a link today in a new thread (that no one seemed to care about !) about a chord progression Wagner invented and which basically took with a 180 degree virage every rule of "good taste" by then, and yet sounds marvelous. There is no such thing as a strict rule in music, otherwise Bach would have never tempered his clavier and created music that sounded dissonant to most people at first and we would not be able to transpose music today !

So don't delete a part cause guitar pro tells you it doesn't find a correct scale. Some JSBach solo pieces can include all the 12 semi tones in 2 or 3 bars of music, and guitar pro wouldn't even be able to tell you which scale was used, cause there is none predominant sometimes, it's just constantly evolving, and still sounds all intimately logical. Take the Chaconne : it has a tonality, but start counting every note out of the main scale used in that tonality. You will stop quickly as probably all notes on the violin are played at least once, while still being a tonal piece !

 

[JayB]

if it's just a C alllll the way through then theoretically you could play anything but I'm hoping you're not chugging on a C all the way through

Haha no, but considering how much all this music theory makes my head hurt, I'm tempted to, lol!

 

[LeSedna]

Btw you can pm or post the solo section with the idea you had the other day as a gp (5 if possible) We can sort it out probably easily.

Well there is no such thing as a program that gives you all harmonizing possibilities, cause its pretty simple in the way you are after :
- wanna harmonize to the 3rd ?
- take your scale
- take your note
- go up two notes in the scale
- done

Other possibilities are : 4th... 5th... 6th... Where you offset everything by 3,4 and 5 notes upper in the scale, And except if you are after a strange sounding harmony (some can sound great like on dark low riffs) the most popular thing is the 3rd. It's what you hear everywhere when you layer voices on a chorus etc. that + octaves. There are few other ones used sometimes in metal (like Jeff loomis always uses this harmonization that is kind of dark in the harmonic minor scale or whatever it is again, not good enought at that to tell you which one it is out of the blue! Some death metal riffs use it as well. There are plenty in hypocrisy)

Those numbers are degrees like explained before (two posts before this one iirc). I II III IV V VI VII Are the references of the notes in your scale (I being your tonic. If you are in C, then C is I, and following the scale pattern for minor, II is D, III is D sharp etc, so the 3rd for C is D sharp. And so on. (if you got it and if my brain doesnt fail me at 2:31 am, the 4th for C in the minor scale is E sharp) But this is overthinking it : practically speaking, just do as you are used to do then, and when something is not working, it's not working, as simple as that.

Sorry for double posting, editing is buggy on my phone app sometimes

 

[LeSedna]

About chugging all the way through C... It's actually what I do in the end of my upcoming EP it's something djenty songs play a lot with : make the guitar repetitive and droning, and make the synth and ambiance in charge of the song harmony. It sounds good sometimes ! Its supposed to be dissonant at some point on paper, but the characteristics of the distorted guitar tone and the wall of sound of the rest make it sound good. Just like there's a chord in a bach piece I play (badly) where on a low string there is lets say a C, and on an higher string there lets say a C sharp. It's terribly dissonant on paper, and if you play them together they are, but with two octaves of difference, and the context of the chord and melody, it passes smoothly like daddy in mummy.

 

[JayB]

I'll add on an easier note that harmonizing leads usually only sound really good if strictly following the minor or major scale (a la in flames), or possibly Arabic scales or things like that. If you wanna harmonize a line that is kind of exotical and chromatic, chances are that it's not even possible to do so without ending with some incompatibilities and dissonances between your two voices (then again, it's all subjective, I'm assuming here usual western based modern music trained ear )

It's all about being creative and having the second line do something more suited, or just not doing it.

Use the guitar pro scale tool the other way around : use it to show you the notes from a specific scale, don't ask it to check which scale you used (unless for a quick check after a moment of inspiration). It's useless, well it can give you ideas but just don't use it as a judge. What sounds good, sounds good, even if it's out of traditional scales. I posted a link today in a new thread (that no one seemed to care about !) about a chord progression Wagner invented and which basically took with a 180 degree virage every rule of "good taste" by then, and yet sounds marvelous. There is no such thing as a strict rule in music, otherwise Bach would have never tempered his clavier and created music that sounded dissonant to most people at first and we would not be able to transpose music today !

So don't delete a part cause guitar pro tells you it doesn't find a correct scale. Some JSBach solo pieces can include all the 12 semi tones in 2 or 3 bars of music, and guitar pro wouldn't even be able to tell you which scale was used, cause there is none predominant sometimes, it's just constantly evolving, and still sounds all intimately logical. Take the Chaconne : it has a tonality, but start counting every note out of the main scale used in that tonality. You will stop quickly as probably all notes on the violin are played at least once, while still being a tonal piece !

Thanks for the tips once again man! I do use Guitar pro in the manner you mentioned as well, but the problem there was that I was only using one scale and so my solos were sounding very "limited" , I don't know how else to describe it.

Anyway, here's a very basic tab of what I'm trying to solo over.

d|-------------------------------------------------------------
A|------------------------------------------------------------
F|------------------------------------------------------------
C|--0-0-0-----3-3-3-----7-7-7------3-3-3----2-2-2----0-0-0---------
G|--0-0-0-----3-3-3-----7-7-7------3-3-3----2-2-2----0-0-0---------
C|--0-0-0-----3-3-3-----7-7-7------3-3-3----2-2-2----0-0-0-----


Edit: also the third of each note there is held much longer than it looks there

 

[JayB]

Btw you can pm or post the solo section with the idea you had the other day as a gp (5 if possible) We can sort it out probably easily.

Well there is no such thing as a program that gives you all harmonizing possibilities, cause its pretty simple in the way you are after :
- wanna harmonize to the 3rd ?
- take your scale
- take your note
- go up two notes in the scale
- done

That's what I normally do, but I mean if I was just going by ear and then wanted to harmonize a part I'd have to figure out what scale each part was in, know what I mean? By the way I posted a simplistic tab of the power chords played under the solo in my last post. If a GP file would help I can probably make one tomorrow with the idea I had.

 

[JayB]

Also if it helps, this part is coming in from another solo that my brother did, and then the rhythm changes and my part would come in. I wanted to do a twin harmonized melodic lead here, as it transitions into a tempo change. This is all the intro of the song. But considering I wanted it to be harmonized, I guess that limits my scale options, like you said before only certain scales sound good harmonized right? Anyway, this part ended up being a lot like Lamb of Gods The Passing, where at the end there is a harmonized lead and then the notes get held out and there's a transition.

 

[JayB]

PS this is the full thing, it's two songs here, this has both with the transition so you can get what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l2_KpfCcmA&feature=related

 

[Habsburgs]

Good example is children of bodom, lahio is very good at changing tonality several times in a song while no one would notice.

+1

I could never fully analyse a bodom song without going like wtf, how did he get here hahaa hes good