LEARNING ZONE

Lessons from the world’s greatest teachers and schools...

Here at GT, we don’t shirk our duties in offering you the most stimulating and involving tuition each month. While many guitarists are keen to get closer to sounding like a hero, there are many others that hanker for new ideas that aren’t pinned to just one artist or genre. It’s perfectly valid to make reference to ‘this player’ using ‘that mode’ but that should never stop an acoustic guitarist exploring the Locrian mode or a seven-string metaller strumming major 6th chords. Put simply, all music is good for all guitarists and it’s our role to present you with the facts so you can decide if you want to things pursue further.

This month, we have Jens Larsen’s Jazz (p58) covering the fifth mode of the Harmonic Minor, the Phrygian Dominant. It’s a little spicy (the b2- 3 gap is where the metaphorical scotch bonnet exists!) but he’s using it with a clean sound over II-V-I changes. Lovely ideas and exquisite playing, fit for all guitarists and contextually quite different from, say, Yngwie Malmsteen’s use of it for his burning rock instrumental,

Little Savage. Martin Goulding’s

Fretboard Fluency series (p72) culminates in an eight-note scale that’s a step beyond the seven-note worlds of Major, Melodic Minor and Harmonic Minor. Again, a spicy scale with many unique aspects and musical doorways; D Half-Whole scale has D Major and Minor, F Major and Minor, G# Major and Minor plus B Major and B Minor arpeggios possible. You certainly won’t find those varied options in the Natural Minor or modes like Dorian. Treat this article as a theory and physical bootcamp with new shapes and patterns to be enjoyed and polished up. So, plenty of the exotic this month but for those actually wanting to sound like their hero, Phil Short presents two corking solos in the bluesier style of David Gilmour - the bends, the Blues scale flurries (p50); and Simon Barnard looks at one of the most influential bands of the 90s, Oasis, so turn to p62 for a double-stop and Major Pentatonic workout inspired by their highly regarded early albums. Enjoy the issue - and your playing!