Jambole.com – for Guitarists

Here’s an interesting thing… When you first start playing, Pentatonics are by far the easiest scales to learn, to play and to improvise with. However, as you develop, you encounter an interesting brick wall. Let me see if I can describe it.

The standard fingering for each pentatonic contains just 2 notes per string.
Arpeggios, in the form of chords, have 1 note per string.
Major and Minor Scales can be laid out to have 3 notes per string.

Lets see what happens when we start to play these things quickly…

In the case of the Major scale, when with 3 notes a string, your left hand can get really quite quick – a bit like drumming a table with the tips of one hand.

In the case of an Arpeggio, you lay your fingers on the chord shape, drag your pick across the shape and lift your finger off each note as the next is played, (to sound each individual note rather than the chord). In this case, once you get the hang of dampening, you can play each note as fast as you can rake the pick across the strings.

In the case of a Pentatonic, with 2 notes a string, you’ll find that you’re limited by how quickly you can hammer on and pull off one finger, which compared to the other 2 approaches is not very fast at all.

So, what can we do about it? We can invent a new fingering!

With this particular approach we’re going to alternate 3 then 1 notes per string, apart from at the turn around point on the 1st and 6th string. Let me draw it out for you.

The best approach with a pick is to use economy picking. Here’s the first position tabbed out, and including pick strokes.

As you can see, the number of up and down strokes is quite a bit less than the number of notes actually played.

If you want to find out more about this type of technique, I’d definitely recommend you researching the playing of Frank Gambale. For example, the DVD Monster Licks-Speed Picking will give you a great insight into this technique and what can be achieved with practice.

Enjoy!