Another way is to leverage the knowledge of pentatonics but superimpose different ones eg. Em pent over Am7 chord, Bm pent, or shift up/down 1/2 step for outside sounds.
I like the idea of the "train tracks" something to work on so I can easily reference notes around the fretboard for navigating changes. strings 1,5,6 are the easy ones, 2,3,4 are tricky.
Man, I don't know any modes...as an example, you could ask me to play a Lydian mode, and I wouldn't have a clue short of looking it up, how to play a Lydian mode scale....I know it's name, you know, like major scale, minor scale...I know those two...but the other ones...I probably even use them, depending on what the progression I'm playing over is...I've even been through 1st year music theory in college...but that was about 50 years ago...I probably need a refresher, hahaha!
Greg, you are in the top five of my top one hundred favorite guitarists of all time. Where in that top five? It varies. Sometimes you number 5, or 4, but most times you are number "ONE!" I love ya, bro. Keep cutting forward. You still have much to show us.
lol... he keeps asking if that's making sense: The brain keeps saying yeah, the fingers are saying WTF?!! I wish I had reached out to this guy for some masterclasses 20 years ago...
Every time I hear Greg Howe and the likes of Guthrie Govan and Tom Quayle , I suffer from brain palsy. It's not easy to decode extraterrestrials skills
Greg: Plays a super fast pentatonic lick in an effort to show how it can be expanded upon to sound more interesting and less predictable Me: Slows down the video to learn the super fast pentatonic lick
Thanks for uploading this man! I love that 7 notes grouping concept. It make me realize that maybe we can't do totally random in fast and complex lick when improvising, we need a concept that can be sequenced and disguise it little bit.
I like this guy, a lot, ,good explanatory teaching concepts ..great player... I saw him with Simon Phillips , nice guy too.. his band Maragold were great..
I wish Greg would have used a whiteboard to show exactly how these scales relate. I know theory fairly well, but I dont have scale shapes memorized to understand what he was referring to.
Its incredible how I always told myself learning my arpeggios was important, but it took a Greg Howe bootleg video on youtube to make it click and learn. lol
Great Lesson! Thanks for uploading this! Greg is one of my favorite guitarist and I am happy to finally have an understanding of his improvisation techniques. I now have more tools to add to my own repertoire and technique. The video is very much appreciated!
Great info Greg! And let us not forget that what we're really playing by superimposing C Major 7 (what you're calling "B" or actually the B Phrygian Mode Shape) over A Minor is the DORIAN mode "tonality" (you can hear that Major 6th tone in a very pronounced manner in your A Dorian style phrases). In such case, we're actually NOT playing in A Minor anymore "technically", but in the Key of G Major / E minor over an "A Minor/Dorian Groove", and all of the G Major Chord Diatonic modal scale, triad, and 7th arpeggio shapes will apply to the improvisation. My 2 Cents... ;o)
Thanks for your explanation, but I still dont get it. I know C major and A minor have the same notes, but I dont see how dorian and phygian come into play.
He is just being a Wanker and is wrong- Cmaj7 arpeggio over Amin chord is definitely not Dorian because A Dorian needs a F# and the backing track is not based around B min for it to be Phyrgian. Just listen to Greg and don't worry about this wanky shit.
