Allen Hinds: Legato Part 4
For this fourth and final instalment of fiery legato chops, Allen Hinds shows great ways of developing more advanced runs, using sweeping, chromatic colours and more. Jacob Quistgaard transcribes.
Being able to add natural sounding chromatic flavours to your runs is an awesome side-benefit of mastering smooth and fast legato on your guitar. Allen very much has this ability and uses this ‘added chromatic colour’ to great bluesy effect in his playing.
As Allen has pointed out on several occasions during this series, it’s extremely important that you take the ideas further in your own time, grabbing the opportunity to really experiment. This will surely aid the development of your own style, achieved by transferring the ideas across the various positions of the fretboard and into other scales and modes. Simply by working out how to transfer a lick to the altered scale, Lydian mode or, say, to make it work across your pentatonic scale shapes, you are bound to come up with some totally new and inspiring movements that will fuel your playing in a really positive way.
It is worth bearing in mind though, that any pattern learnt in any of the seven modes of the major scale (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian mode) can usually be re-used ‘as is’ in any of the other modes. Here’s how Allen describes this approach: “I am not advocating laziness! I just found that it was more important to understand the relationship of modal scales than knowing every mode starting from anywhere on the fretboard, therefore achieving a common result with a minimum of thought. A shortcut of sorts.” ”You can get a lot of mileage out of one lick if you are creative. You need to know your scales and have a basic understanding of diatonic concepts. The more vocabulary you have, the more descriptive you can be of the emotions you want to express. But we are all human, and it’s in our nature to find short cuts in order to achieve goals as efficiently as possible.”
“I believe it’s not imperative to know every mode everywhere on the fretboard, but as long as you understand the diatonic relationships between scales you will be okay. Initially, I learned how to play the Dorian mode. Like millions of others, I listened to Hendrix, Clapton, Duane Allman, and the likes. That was the scale I could discern and hear the easiest in the beginning, with pentatonics and a few blues notes thrown in next. Then I learned the Mixolydian mode - again with some blues notes added – and then the major scale. I didn’t know Locrian, Phrygian or Lydian mode for years to come. However, once I understood how diatonic modes where created, I could see one lick in a Dorian context, but also see the same lick as a Mixolydian lick, only starting on a different scale step. So a Dorian mode lick beginning on the 5th, would become a Mixolydian lick starting on the 9th and so forth.”
We will look at three separate legato ideas, each of which will consist of its initial presentation, followed by a section where Allen improvises, delivering and developing the lick in the context of a backing track. Take your time to get creative and invest in the further development of these legato licks.
We’d like to say a special Thank You to Allen Hinds for this fantastic series!
If you can harness a bit of a legato technique, I believe you will expand your dynamic range and improve your musicality. Allen Hinds