Scales from around the world

For this exclusive feature, John Wheatcroft shows how to expand your harmonic and melodic potential by exploring some of the exciting and unusual sounding scales that the world can show us.

As creative musicians, we’re always on the hunt for fresh and unique sounds. One way to introduce new musical ideas and reinvigorate our playing is to look at incorporating less familiar sounds. As most pop, rock, blues and even jazz utilises a well-worn set of scales and chords, a great way to do this is by studying scales that popular western music rarely employs. We can cover new ground either by exploring a completely new concept, revisiting an old musical friend to search for new ideas, or by slightly modifying something we already know well. Our brief today is to help us expand our playing by focusing in on 10 different scale sounds, with a range of five, seven and eight-note options coming from all over the world. These will allow you to add sophistication, edge and beauty to your playing. You’ll expand your knowledge of harmony along with your melodic phrasing, fluency and compositional options along the way.

There are 10 musical examples for your perusal. Each consists of a new scale definition, an intervallic or triadic exercise to establish some of the harmonic possibilities using this sound exclusively, a harmonised chord scale with a suitable chord from each available note, and a full solo consisting of licks, melodies and appropriate musical phrases derived from each scale entirely and exclusively.

To really assimilate each sound I’d suggest you spend some time with each in isolation and become as familiar as you can with the intervallic content. Begin with the fingerings as listed but it’s also a good idea to find these notes in as many positions as you can, including mapping the scale out along the length of a single string. This will give you the best physical distance-tointerval relationship and will really assist you in internalising the sound. With this in mind, I’d also suggest singing what you play. Start with just the ascending and descending scale patterns and work up to the arpeggio and interval exercises outlined in the musical examples. It’s also a great idea to try to sing each line and lick, either out loud or just to yourself in your head. Even if you get things slightly wrong, it may still help your phrasing to sound more like the music you imagine, rather than what you fingers are capable of reaching without necessarily being in control internally.

Working on scales in this focused way, by establishing the fingerings and sound, defining the harmonic options within each sound and then by creating a vocabulary of useable melodic options from each, is an immensely useful strategy. It’s also a whole world away, in terms of application and motivation, from just passively ascending and descending each scale from top to bottom to a metronome click, with little attention or comprehension to when and where this sound might be applied in an actual musical context. You could give yourself the goal of creating a short number of original musical phrases or composed licks; say three to begin with, for each scale. Create a chord progression for each scale using the chords listed and try these ideas out in a contextualised way and you’ll be using these ideas in your playing in no time. As always, enjoy.

“I went through five, six, seven, eight and nine note scales. I catalogued them and filed them away and threw away all the ones that had more than four semitones in a row’ ALLAN HOLDSWORTH

For the scale, triad arpeggio and chord sections go for a full sounding clean tone using the neck pickup. For the single-note line solo based ideas add a light crunchy overdrive with the bridge pickup to achieve a tone that sings but is still dynamically expressive. Go easy on the gain and deliver the notes with commitment and conviction. Ensure all notes ring true and that you keep all idle open strings at bay with muting.

Allan Holdsworth: a master musician with a vast repertoire of unusual scales Marty Friedman is a rock guitarist who loves to explore less common harmony Pat Martino: the great jazzman had an encyclopaedic knowlede of scales Guthrie Govan instinctively added different scales to his improvisations TRACK RECORD Marty Friedman loves unusual scales, so try Tokyo Jukebox 3 (Mascot 2021). Allan Holdsworth’s knowledge of harmony and melodic connections was as legendary as his technique. Check out IOU (Enigma 1985) for its breathtaking playing and beautiful compositions. Berklee professor David Fiuczynski incorporates many of the sounds we’re exploring. Try Planet Microjam (Rare Noise 2012).