fusion Guitar Lessons

So picture the scene. Jam night in your local pub, the second last performer to put his name on the board takes the stage. Another guitarist! Announces he's going to play another blues. Turns to the backing band and in his best Marty Mcfly voice, says,
"fast blues in A, watch me for the changes........and try to keep up!"

So. If you've read all of my columns so far you should be able to get some inside / outside sounds over some popular minor and dominant progressions. It's ok to play pre determined licks, but I like to use any harmonic improvisational device as I would speak.  In this instalment we'll look at some ways to get familiar with the 'sounds of the outside' by creating excercises and by extending our phrase ideas.

I recently played on the alloutguitar. com stand at the London music show, where I had a few people come up to me and asked:

My first time was in the early 90's. I was about 17 or 18 at the time and the experience still gives me sleepless nights to this day!

Happy New Year! Here is something to tickle your 2008 ‘lick bone’ with!

In the second instalment of this outside dominant extravaganza, we will look at the other 2 pentatonics you can throw over an, ‘adult entertainment domestic appliance malfunction movie plot excuse’ type groove!

We know we can play 4 blues pentatonics based on the Rt, 2nd, 5th and 7th of the dom7th chord and that the blues scales based on the Rt and 2nd have a Mixolydian b5 and Lydian b7 (or Lydian Dominant or Jazz Lydian) sound to them respectively.

Australian born Brett Garsed has something we all want as guitarists!
He has a style and technique all of his own and has played with some of the finest fusion noodlers of our time including Frank Gambale, Allan Holdsworth and the late, very great, Shawn lane.

He has also had major chart success with John Farnham and Nelson. After a move to LA he hooked up with 8 finger tapper and producer TJ Helmreich with whom he has recorded several awesome instrumental epics including one of my favorites, 'Uncle Moes Space Ranch'.

Now that you know all the Blues (Hexatonic), diatonic modes and melodic minor scales, we can now look at how to use them over a dominant or 7th chord. This lesson is in 2 parts because of there is a great deal you can do with a dominant chord and there’s a great deal of theory surrounding it. Dominant chords appear in 2 main varieties, Static and Functional. A dominant chord normally resolves to its 1 chord. This is because the whatsit of the 7th becomes the doo dah of the 1 chord and vice versa. Simple!