Hi there, today we are going to be looking at some of the high quality guitar tuition I have been receiving from Scott McGill the exceptional guitarist and tutor. This lesson will include new finger gymnastic exercises to give you finger independence and help you warm up plus the Lydian Pivot exercise. The Lydian Pivot exercise will teach you how to play a Lydian off the same root using a different finger starting point each time. You will also learn how to play the augmented arpeggio spread across octaves. In coming lessons you will find out about using the chord inversions that you have learnt in previous lessons to play a Blues without any restrictions to one area of the neck.
Finger Gymnastics- Combined Triplets
Combined Finger Gymnastics
Lydian Pivot Technique
Use fingers 1- 2- 4 to play the first 3 notes of the C Lydian pattern, fingers 2- 4- 1 to play the first 3 notes of the second C Lydian mode. Use finger 3- 1- 2- 4 to play the first 4 notes of the third C Lydian mode below and finally use fingers 4- 1- 4- 1 to play the first 4 notes of the fourth C Lydian shown below. (Read more below for more information).
C Lydian Pivot Technique
When approaching this exercise I want you know the reasons we would learn how to play a C Lydian starting on the same note but with a different finger each time. As you learn about improvisation, if you haven’t started doing so already you will realise how we rely on a trick bag and the smaller the trick bag we have, the more ‘samey’ or restricted we sound. When we go about learning our modes we may learn just one way to play the Lydian and shift it up the low E string depending on which root we wish it to have. This is very limiting and although you may be able to use it when you improvise, you will soon feel the restriction of playing it in one area. The next stage many players go through is to learn how to play a Lydian in 5 positions based around the CAGED shapes we learn in the early days. This is much better and for many players including myself up to now it is the way we approach modes and it works. This exercise is designed to teach you how to pull out the Lydian mode whenever you need it, with any finger so that you don’t have to revert to a shape in that area of the neck that is based around the CAGED system because to find the shape you may loose the flow of improvisation.
Lydian Scale Sequences
The idea of the Lydian Scale Sequence portion of the lesson is for you to have a way to practise the scale and develop accuracy and melodic motion that you could apply to improvisations.
Lydian Scale Sequence
I want you to continue the sequence using the shapes you learnt when pivoting the lydian earlier so that you are not restricted to one shape of a Lydian sequence.
Augmented Widespread Arpeggio
Augmented Arpeggio
As you learnt in previous lessons about the idea of what an arpeggio is I shall just give the example to learn but I would like you notice the pick motion shown in the example as this helps a lot with the fluency of the arpeggio.
Come back for the Part 8 where we will be looking at the use of chord inversions over a Blues in A.
Tom Clark