When Mike is soloing.......

Drew263

Pj_Gurl wrote:

Alive is G major/E minor pentatonic scale.

I prefer to improvise and follow the chord progression. E,G,D,A I believe is a cycle of 5ths so it doesn't stay in one key.

Live, I can hear Mike following the chord progression in his solo.

ianvomsaal

Jam10 wrote:

Thanks guys for all the advice! Another question.......when I am in the key of A, can I solo using the C major scale along with the A minor blues scale? Or if I am in the Key of E like in Yellow Ledbetter, can I solo using the G major scale along with the E minor blues scale?
Thanks

Drew263 wrote:

A minor is the relative minor to C Major
A Major is the relative major to F# Minor.
So key of A major? No. Key of A minor? Yes.

I posted Relative Major and Minor just below in my Key Signature link.
Here, click this . . . again (sigh) click:KEY SIGNATURES

gimmesometruth27

Pj_Gurl wrote:

See, that's why a lot of people are reluctant to improvise. They worry about getting back in time. Hehe i laughed at what you said about the audience being intoxicated, isn't that just so true, 90% of them will never notice . Can you try to practice with a metronome? Don't listen to the beat, try and feel it. Count it in your head, emphasise it, play around it. Recognize it in how you play, don't just hear it as a 1234 count. Like if you're playing fast passages, try accenting the notes on the beat. If you're playing more rhythmic, syncopated solos, have a go at playing the downbeats downwards and the upbeats upwards. That doesn't always mean play 1234 down and 1& 2& 3& 4& up. You might have to divide that further, depending on the tempo, and play ALL the beats and the ands down, and the notes in between up. Same goes for strumming. It seems pretty obvious, but if you're already doing it, try and emphasize the downbeats a bit more. Listen to the beat and work around it.

You see it alot in in guitarists with no rhythm - they try and play the wrong notes in the wrong direction. (not that i am in anyway suggesting you don't have rhythm!!)

Rhythm = 100 times better than speed and flashiness. When my brother taught me to play he was anal about that, he was always on my back about it. It was good advice for me.

Edited because my spelling was attrocious!

thanks for the great advice. i practiced with a metronome after band practice tonight and tried the accenting on the beat tip. i am thinking of getting a cheep digital recorder so i can record and loop chord progressions then improvise on top of that.

i completely agree that rhythm is 100% better than speed and being flashy. i am a solid rhythm player and i never aspired to be a shredder or flashy player. i just never had the desire. i just kind of wanted to hold everything together and be a solid rhythm player. now that i have been gigging 6 times a month for the last 4 years i want to expand and improvise a little more. the info posted earlier has been a considerable help already. thanks to everyone for contributing to this thread.

who's_pearljam?

What Ian has posted up there took a lot of time and is a great service to people here! That's some great stuff to which I can add some bad habits, too

I've been playing for years and I know my scales, but another thing to get on if you really want your own voice and personality on the guitar is bending and slide ups and downs, and vibrato.
Get good at bending strings and when you hit a sour note, just bend it up to the next note and it'll sound like you know what you're doing!


Practicing with a metronome is a must, too and that's great advice. Another thing that adds personality to soloing is playing off the beat. If you hear a laid back guitar solo, like Jerry Garcia, a lot of times, he's playing just a little behind the beat and it gives a relaxed feel.
If you listen to Keith Richards playing rhythm guitar on a lot of their stuff and you'll hear that he is a little ahead of the beat. He actually sets the beat and the drummer comes in behind a bit. That adds a little sense of tension and urgency. Learned from Chuck Berry.
Listening to Frank Zappa solo is amazing, too, because he often plays way out of the beat and in different time signatures, but he had this sense of bringing it back to the beat every once in a while. Jimmy Page does that, too. He plays like he's teetering on the edge of a cliff then when he brings it back at the end, it's so satisfying.

Anon

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

thanks for the great advice. i practiced with a metronome after band practice tonight and tried the accenting on the beat tip..

you're welcome , it's great it was some help to you.

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

now that i have been gigging 6 times a month for the last 4 years i want to expand and improvise a little more.

oh man i think i need to sleep. i'm seeing things. I for serious thought you said 'now that you have been giggling'. I thought to myself 'what is he talking about'. Wow, what am i talking about more like it

pnjguy

StuffnJunk wrote:

its a whole big long explanation, but basically since the song is in E major, you would solo using the E MAJOR scale, but no one solos using the major scale cuz it sounds "happy" and "lame"......you solo using minor scales, cuz they sound "sad" and "cool".....this is really a basic explanation!!!!

thats not correct. C# minor pentatonic is the same notes as E major pentatonic. The only difference is the shape of the scale. But they are the same notes. If a song is in major, its going to sound happy regardless unless you play it in minor of the key that its in. So for ledbetter, you can actually play it in e minor pent if you want. Listen to "lenny" by Stevie ray vaughan. Its is e major, he plays C# minor as well as E minor. There, you can hear the difference between happy and sad. But simply going down three half steps doesnt make it sound less happy.

StuffnJunk

pnjguy wrote:

thats not correct. C# minor pentatonic is the same notes as E major pentatonic. The only difference is the shape of the scale. But they are the same notes. If a song is in major, its going to sound happy regardless unless you play it in minor of the key that its in. So for ledbetter, you can actually play it in e minor pent if you want. Listen to "lenny" by Stevie ray vaughan. Its is e major, he plays C# minor as well as E minor. There, you can hear the difference between happy and sad. But simply going down three half steps doesnt make it sound less happy.

a major scale contains seven different notes.....a minor pentatonic scale (as i play it) only contains five different notes

pnjguy

StuffnJunk wrote:

a major scale contains seven different notes.....a minor pentatonic scale (as i play it) only contains five different notes

pentatonic just means 5 notes, either minor or major. Major pentatonic would be those 5 same notes as C# minor pentatonic.

Pappas

StuffnJunk wrote:

C# minor pentatonic.....main position at 9th fret:

e - 9 , 12
B - 9 , 12
G - 9 , 11
D - 9 , 11
A - 9 , 11
E - 9 , 12


next little box:

e - 12 , 14
B - 12 , 14
G - 13
D
A
E

box before it:

e
B
G
D
A - 7 , 9
E - 7 , 9

you can get a whole lotta mileage outta this....mike sure did!

there are other places to play the scale, but these places are the real "meat and potatoes"

this is exactly correct

you can get a whole heap of licks happening just with these box combo's as i like to call them!

Dogman3

Wait, I thought Alive was in the key of A?

Drew263

Dogman3 wrote:

Wait, I thought Alive was in the key of A?

Main chord progression is Em, D, G, A. G major is not in the key of A.

ianvomsaal

Drew263 wrote:

Main chord progression is Em, D, G, A. G major is not in the key of A.

INCORRECT - G-major has one sharp in it, A-Major has 3-sharps in it. You can have more sharps in a
Key than in a given chord, but you don't typically have less (unless you're working with accidentals).

Dogman3 wrote:

Wait, I thought Alive was in the key of A?

Yes, You are correct - Alive is in the Key of A-Major (or F#-Minor).
Look at the Key Signature (there are 3-sharps in the Key Signature, thus A-MAJOR):
click here: Pearl Jam ALIVE - Just click the PIC for a bigger view.
The 3-sharps before the time signature means it's in the Key of A-Major (or F#-Minor).
Cheers . . .

- Ian

Drew263

ianvomsaal wrote:

INCORRECT - G-major has one sharp in it, A-Major has 3-sharps in it. You can have more sharps in a
Key than in a given chord, but you don't typically have less (unless you're working with accidentals).

- Ian

Ian I wasn't saying it was in the key of G Major. What I was saying was that, THAT particuliar chord progression was not in the key of A. I understand what you're saying about the key signatures but I'm confused on how E, D, G, A is STILL in the key of A.

To me it either looks like a cycle of fifths or if it's Em a 2,1,4,5 in the key of D.

If I'm off track here..please..teach me.

ianvomsaal

Drew263 wrote:

Ian I wasn't saying it was in the key of G Major. What I was saying was that, THAT particuliar chord progression was not in the key of A. I understand what you're saying about the key signatures but I'm confused on how E, D, G, A is STILL in the key of A.

To me it either looks like a cycle of fifths or if it's Em a 2,1,4,5 in the key of D.

If I'm off track here..please..teach me.

Okay, lets go over this . . .
I think you may be overanalizing it, You need to look at the song as a whole, NOT just the Chorus.
The Intro and Verses to Alive revolve around A (basically A-Maj and Asus4).
The Pre-Chorus F & C, while the Chorus E, G, D, A shifts the feeling slightly, but not the key.
The Bridge basically revolves around B, and YES the tunes relative minor of F# (along with more hints of A).
The solo reflects the Chorus' E,G,D,A (remember, many times the last chord hints at the Key).
The solo's chord progression says to me a repeated (5-1) V-I (E-A) over and over (song ending on a V (5) - thus a feeling of tension).
The G and D are basically passing tones (but can also be though of as extensions of the A-Chord - 7 & 11th or 4th - added COLOR if you will).
You can analyze it all you want, but the Key Signature states that it's in A-Major (and it doesn’t change throughout).
The intro and verses revolve around A, while the chorus is a 5-1 progression (5-being E, 1-being A).
Cheers . . .

- Ian

Drew263

ianvomsaal wrote:

Okay, lets go over this . . .
I think you may be overanalizing it, You need to look at the song as a whole, NOT just the Chorus.
The Intro and Verses to Alive revolve around A (basically A-Maj and Asus4).
The Pre-Chorus F & C, while the Chorus E, G, D, A shifts the feeling slightly, but not the key.
The Bridge basically revolves around B, and YES the tunes relative minor of F# (along with more hints of A).
The solo reflects the Chorus' E,G,D,A (remember, many times the last chord hints at the Key).
The solo's chord progression says to me a repeated (5-1) V-I (E-A) over and over (song ending on a V (5) - thus a feeling of tension).
The G and D are basically passing tones (but can also be though of as extensions of the A-Chord - 7 & 11th or 4th - added COLOR if you will).
You can analyze it all you want, but the Key Signature states that it's in A-Major (and it doesn’t change throughout).
The intro and verses revolve around A, while the chorus is a 5-1 progression (5-being E, 1-being A).
Cheers . . .

- Ian

Ok thanks Ian. I think I was overanalyzing it.

Colors of Musid

Drew263 wrote:

Ok thanks Ian. I think I was overanalyzing it.

Sorry wrong quote I was addressing Ian's explanation

E Mixolydian with a flat locrian, famously effecting in a jam. The locrian position of the scale is a minor half diminished chord. It really works well to flat the note (G#) to (G) and make it a major chord. It gives you the easily played open major chords of A - E - D - G and produces a great song that can really trick listeners cause it works so well, but it shouldn't.

ianvomsaal

Colors of Musid wrote:

Sorry wrong quote I was addressing Ian's explanation

E Mixolydian with a flat locrian, famously effecting in a jam. The locrian position of the scale is a minor half diminished chord. It really works well to flat the note (G#) to (G) and make it a major chord. It gives you the easily played open major chords of A - E - D - G and produces a great song that can really trick listeners cause it works so well, but it shouldn't.

A-Major Scale is A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#
E-Mixolydian is just the V(5) of A.
G#Locrian is just the VII(7) of A.
So if you drop the G# to G you're basically modulating the tune from the Key of A to the Key of D.
The point has kind of been beaten to death (moot-point) - Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think
most of this is a bit beyond most people's understandings here on PJMP (m7b5 - Half Diminished), thus pointless.

- Ian

Drew263

ianvomsaal wrote:

The point has kind of been beaten to death (moot-point) - Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think
most of this is a bit beyond most people's understandings here on PJMP (m7b5 - Half Diminished), thus pointless.

- Ian

They have shitty instructors then. My instructor and I use those chords all the time.

StuffnJunk

ianvomsaal wrote:

A-Major Scale is A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#
E-Mixolydian is just the V(5) of A.
G#Locrian is just the VII(7) of A.
So if you drop the G# to G you're basically modulating the tune from the Key of A to the Key of D.
The point has kind of been beaten to death (moot-point) - Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think
most of this is a bit beyond most people's understandings here on PJMP (m7b5 - Half Diminished), thus pointless.

- Ian

i guarantee mike mccready doesn't know the first thing about this type of music theory......even hendrix didn't......they just know the basic blues scales and where to play them based on what chords are being played, and THAT'S IT!!!

you don't need to know ANYTHING about which keys have how many sharps or flats to play like mike. period.

ianvomsaal

Drew263 wrote:

They have shitty instructors then. My instructor and I use those chords all the time.

Exactly - there are a ton of Shitty Guitar Instructors out there, which is why so many people don't know anything about
theory - Thats why I recommended getting a qualified instructor - someone with a background in music like a music major.

StuffnJunk wrote:

i guarantee mike mccready doesn't know the first thing about this type of music theory......even hendrix didn't......they just know the basic blues scales and where to play them based on what chords are being played, and THAT'S IT!!!
you don't need to know ANYTHING about which keys have how many sharps or flats to play like mike. period.

This seems to be a little truculent/hostile - it's sort of an absurd thing to say, and yet it's also a fairly presumptuous thing to say.
And unfortunately you are INCORRECT.
Both McCready and Hendrix studied a little music theory - I've read that they both studied a little music theory to try to help them
figure out what they were doing, and why (and even Stevie Ray Vaughan did this later in his career). You don't need to know a lot of
music theory (a little can go a long way), but it always helpful to know certain things (like what Key you're in, or truly underdstanding
what scales, modes, or notes you can play over certain progressions/chords, and why those scales, modes, or notes actually work).

- Ian