Hello, today you will be learning about the Four Note Motifs that are found all over many forms of music, but in particular rock guitar based music. These scale sequences are usually played at a fast pace with a fairly distorted guitar tone and this is only achieved by practising the sequence below at a very slow pace. By learning the four note sequences you will be able to execute flurries of notes to form parts of solos that will grab the listeners attention.
At first this passage will seem daunting because there are so many notes being played. Once you understand that it is a sequence and therefor a pattern is repeated through the scale, it becomes less daunting because you can hear where the passage is going.
Tackle the sequence four notes at a time and once learnt, attempt to play the diatonic notes harder than the rest of the notes in the sequence. This is known as accenting and will bring some life to a flat sounding run.
Sequence 1
When you have learnt the notes of the sequence, turn on your metronome set to 60 bpm and try to play two notes per a beat and then when this becomes easy, try four notes per a beat as shown in the sequence above.
Sequence 2
Sequence 2 is played in 1/8th notes which means you play 2 notes per a beat instead of 4 and uses the C major scale in the A shape form. Play the sequences in the remaining four shapes of the C major scale so that you can connect the scale shapes up and down the neck. If you don’t know how to play the scale in different positions then see Be The Guitarist for easy to understand scale diagrams and full explanations.
Come back soon to learn two more Four Note Motifs.
Tom Clark