Scales 2 | Scales 3 | Scales 4 | Scales 5 | Scales 6 |
Scales 7 | Scales 8 | Scales 9 | Scales 10 | Scales 11
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The graphic below is a copy of a file that was drawn by an Excel spreadsheet on a Macintosh computer. I first wrote this as a computer program for an Apple IIc. The result is a chance to study the patterns that are produced when we study a scale on our steel. The example is of an E-9th guitar in the key of C. The spreadsheet gives you the choice of all twelve keys and 53 different scales. It also will let you look at what happens to the scale pattern when you push pedals and knee levers. |
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The scales begin at the first fret and continue up to fret twelve. You should know that this pattern repeats every octave, so frets 13 thru fret 24, are the same as frets 1 thru 12. Knowing this, we can study the patterns in one octave and know that the same thing is repeated, up the neck. | |||||
I use these scales to help study my guitar. The numbers represent the scale tones of the particular scale that you are using. I do everything in numbers which make changing keys much easier. | |||||
The scale tones that the numbers represent are from the major scale. It is the same as singing do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. Looking at these scale tones on a grid that represents your fretboard, allows you to see the music on your guitar. | |||||
I broke the guitar into different sections to make it easier to study. I even try to make up licks by jumping to a different section of the fretboard. When I'm looking at one of these scale patterns, it allows me to see the entire guitar. I don't have to think of the key of C as only the eighth fret. I can see the entire guitar. The music is there, you have to go and find it in all of the possible places that you can. If you see the whole guitar, then you're more likely to develop the ability to play creatively. All the instruments use the same scales, they just lay differently on a pedal steel guitar. The stringed instruments all work the same when it comes to the way scales make patterns. These scale pattern charts allow you to study each tuning as a separate entity. They are similar, but the patterns have subtle differences that the right and left hand must learn to work together on. | |||||
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We all know that the E-9th set-up has certain pedals and knee levers that are common to most guitars. We can use these standards to help us study. If we consider the A pedal, which raises our 5th and 10th strings a whole step, we can see places to utilize this change. The tenth string has the same possibilities except the octave and thickness of the string gives us a different characteristic of sound. If each square is a half-tone, then we can move two squares up and get a new note using the pedal. In other words, if we have the bar at the first fret, string 5, we see that we have a scale tone of 1. (That's a C note) We can use the pedal to bring a new note to the bar. Without moving the bar, we can have the second scale tone (D note) brought to us at the first fret. |
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