[AX7221]

Firstly i am all about scales, but not only about scales chord tones also. What has kept me from buying PT is so many of the people who love PT discredit scales. Scales are such an integral part of music that you cannot ignore them all together. I know a pianist who will discredit chord tones saying he'll sort've gravitate towards them without knowing it, which i think a lot of people who discredit scales will do in turn. Like if im playing in a minor scale i might modulate to a major scale b/c it sounds good but the thought of modulating will never cross my mind. So if someone ignores scales it doesnt mean that they arent playing in a scale, like an A note sounds different in A minor than it does in C major than it does in F major and so on. So i can modulate from A Aelion to C Ionian to B Locrian even if i've never even heard the word Locrian in my life. What im getting at is even if a musician discredits scales and doesnt know the names and patterns of scales will still have the different vibes of the different keys in their music.

So...Long story short i will never give up scales but im having trouble with chord tones, there's a "trick" as far as i know to PT and im curious if i can use this "trick" if im staying with scales.

-Tom

[allthumbs]

It is common for enthusiasm to get away from people new to P.T. I think it is the sense of relief for people who have struggled with scales and modes. If you read some of my posts, I keep saying it is not scales VS chords. There is no reason to unlearn scales.
P.T. will show you how scales fit in to the overall layout of the guitar and offer you more freedom of note choices. It will help you see chords and scales as a seamless whole.
There is an element of retraining your fingers if you have spent countless hours running scales on auto pilot. P.T. is all about thinking about what notes your playing. With scales, it is the same thing. You need to be able to think of notes outside of the scales and have your fingers go there. The goal is after all, to have complete freedom of the fretboard whether you favour scales, chords or a blend of both.

[Kirk Lorange]

Hi, Tom.

If you are pleased with your improvisational skills, there's no need to buy any book. If you're not, then I guess you should try and figure out where the problem lies. If it's creating melody, then PT will help a lot. If you prefer to hear scales, then stick with scales and try and figure out how to juggle them around in a real piece of music, especially one that isn't strictly diatonic where (I guess) you need to keep switching from one to another.

The PT 'trick' is really just a very succinct way of seeing the whole fretboard as a unit, a kind of 'bottom-line' map. You can measure anything at all with it, including all scales and boxes and modes.

[felixdcat]

But PT explains music itself too, right?

[si16]

It doesn't go into great detail on theory but it does cover the major scale, keys, how chords are made up and some other things before going on to discuss PT itself.

[felixdcat]

Good. So it covers things you need to know before using PT. Just what I need