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Simple Beginner Guitar Lesson – How to Improve your solos with descending Pivot Scales

By Mike Hayes | September 16, 2009

When you hear an experienced guitarist play a solo you can expect the unexpected; it’s always fresh and exciting … they’re not playing random notes, tired cliche licks or boring scales; they’re creating music on the spot.

How do we arrive at this creative point in our playing? The first
thing to do is stop playing predictable scale patterns. Have you
ever noticed that most players play their scales in an ascending
manner; sure they often play descending scales but the ratio is
something like 75% of the time ascending compared to 25% descending.

Here’s some ideas to help your soloing:

Tip 1. Try playing your scales in a descending fashion it’s a step
in the right direction, it will start to free up you mind as well
as your fingers.

Tip 2. Next time you play a scale deliberately stop on a note
halfway through the scale, what we want to do is listen to the
sound of each note in the scale.

What normally happens is the guitarists plays the scale as fast
as possible only pausing on the first and last notes, which
incidentally are the same notes only an octave apart. All the
other notes of the scale are a blur, we want to stop doing that!

Slow down and pay close attention to the sound of each note, it
will help you when you are improvising as you will be able to
accurately select the sound you want your fingers to find on the
fretboard.

Tip 3. Pivot scales – in every major scale there are two
semitones; one between the third and fourth notes the other
between the seventh and eight notes.

Select a semitone sequence to use as your pivot point, here’s how
it would work in the key of G major.

G major scale : G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G

Now the same scale with the semitones marked as (^).

G-A-B^C-D-E-F#^G

I’ll use the notes B and C as pivot notes …

C-B-C-G / C-B-C-F# / C-B-C-E / C-B-C-D / C-B-C-C / C-B-C-B / C-B-
C-A / C-B-C-G

Notice how the fourth note in each sequence makes up a descending
G major scale e.g., G^F#-E-D-C^B-A-G

Now for another example using the other semitones as our pivot
point.

G-F#-G-E / G-F#-G-D / G-F#-G-C / G-F#-G-B / G-F#-G-A / G-F#-G-G /
G-F#-G-D / G-F#-G-E

Again, notice how the last notes in each sequence form a
descending scale in the key of G major, this time commencing on
the note E.

Of course you can use any series of notes as your pivot point,
don’t forget to try these ideas in different keys all over the
fingerboard when you next practice your guitar.

And now I’d like to invite you to get free access to my “How To
Remember 1,000 Songs” eCourse. You can download the course for
free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar
System

http://www.GuitarCoaching.com
http://AdvancingGuitaristProgram.com

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