Miniseries #006, Scruggs Licks IV

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Miniseries #006, Scruggs Licks IV

Hi All,

Lets continue on with this roll pattern that we've been working on. First let me say that again I misspoke calling the left hand technique a pull off when in actuality it was a push off once again. sheesh. I mentioned in this lesson as well that its good to play with different forces of the right hand. You can try this in your practice were as you can play a lick lightly or you can play the lick harder to start to bring out finesse in your right hand. In different playing situations you may have to pick the strings harder or you may have to pick the strings lightly depending on the circumstance.

It is good as well to practice different left hand technique such as using the hammeron as opposed to the 2-4 slide associated with this lick. Using these different left hand techniques brings out slightly different effects using basically the same notes as you can see and hear in this video.

Also in this video we changed the fingering just a little. Switching from using the fourth string fretted at the second fret to using the fourth string fretted at the third fret. By changing just this one note within the pattern we have changed the sound of the lick. Using the fourth string at the third fret now gives the pattern a bluesy sound......or a minor sound...........or a seventh sound...... depending on what you may be playing at the time.

I'm going to be explaining this in my regular lessons as to why changing just one note in the pattern is changing the sound. It comes down to scales......by changing notes in the Major Scale we create other scales. The fourth string fretted at the third fret ( going back to notes on the fingerboard this is an F note)....that F note when playing this pattern in G can be associated with a G7 scale.....a blues scale.... a pentatonic scale....a minor scale and so on.

So the possibilities of changing just that one note can be played over many different chords in many different ways. Again I'll be explaining why these things word and sound like they do in my regular lessons. Music is just a cool thing....thats what I'll say right now!

Rock On Everyone,

David