Learn the diatonic scale over the whole neck in 3 days.

[gatesheadbanger]

This can be done in a weekend really.  The diatonic scale is a very useful scale to learn as it provides us with the famous major scale and can be utilised to play music in all seven diatonic modes:

Ionian (major scale by another name)
Dorian (favoured by Santana and Iommi - like the blues scale on steroids)
Phrygian (thrash metal favourite)
Lydian (Vai and Satch favourite - think West Side Story and the Simpsons, which use similar scales)
Mixolydian (country and happy blues scale like T.Rex)
Aeolian (the natural minor  - think Queen and other 70's rock)
Locrian (errrr.......)

I am not going to go into modes in this post but the first step is learning the diatonic scale which each of these is a form of.  This is how I did it.

In the picture below is fretboard diagram for the major scale in the key of G (taken from free lessons Music Motivated website) - naturally, for "A" you'd slide the whole thing up two frets, for "E" slide the whole thing down three frets etc.



It is essentially made up of two 6-by-4 boxes, (each is ringed) and a spare bit in the shape of a wonky cross (remember that the 1st fret is also the 13th fret to see the cross).

Let's Rock!

"Saturday" - Step One - learn the shape in the blue ring.  This gives you the Locrian/Ionian part of the diatonic scale.  How?  Well all you need is four fingers, one per fret and a backing track.  If you can strum out and record yourself something like "G, Em, C, D7" over and over on a loop, (or get a friend to strum it) and using this pic as a ref, just play that scale against your backing  - not necessarily just up and down, but that is well worth doing to get it into your fingers.  At first you will struggle to produce meaningful melodies, but it will come with time - have fun with it.  Try to keep landing on the G at the end of phrases to reinforce the tonality.  When you can do this without looking at the picture, go to step two.

"Sunday" - Step Two -  learn the shape in the pink ring. This gives you the Phrygian/Lydian part of the diatonic scale.  This time strum out and record yourself something like "Bm7, C, Bm7, Am7" on a loop, and using this pic as a ref, just play that pink scale - again even just up and down is good to get it into your fingers. Try to keep landing on the B at key moments to reinforce the Phrygian tonality. When you can do this without looking at the picture, go to step three.

Notice the mysterious dead fret -where no finger shall go!   (fret 6 in G Major above)

"Monday" (OK it took more than a weekend - Step Three) - so now you know 9 of the 12 frets you need to learn.  The last three frets are just a wonky cross shape that sits jammed between the Phrygian & Ionian boxes (no dead frets here!) - see the notes not ringed.  It won't take you long to add this to your memory.  I recommend the following approach - pick a key that puts the wonky cross mid neck - like D major.

To do this - the blue-ringed box moves to cover frets 9 to 12.  The pink box moves to cover frets 2 to 5.  The wonky cross is then jammed between them on frets 6 to 8.  Get a "D, Bm, G, A7" backing track going and play over both blue and pink boxes, passing through the wonky cross as you move between them, landing on the D's to taste.

Once you can do this - you have learned the whole diatonic scale over the whole neck - which will come in very handy in the future - trust me! 

Cheers, Carl

[rockinronnie]

Looks like I have my weekend sorted out then

Is the diatonic scale one that Francis would use much?

So are you saying that if we learn the diatonic scale, we can effectively ignore the others and just solo / improvise with the diatonic in whatever key the song is?

[gatesheadbanger]

Feb 17, 2015 9:31:48 GMT rockinronnie said:

Looks like I have my weekend sorted out then

Is the diatonic scale one that Francis would use much?

So are you saying that if we learn the diatonic scale, we can effectively ignore the others and just solo / improvise with the diatonic in whatever key the song is?

I should do another post on modes really .... I'll be a bit loose with my terminology below to give a shortish answer.

All modes are are rotations of scales; scales starting from different points within themselves. Every scale has modes - and in fact - the major and minor pentatonic scales are modes of each other. The C major pentatonic is CDEGA, the A minor pentatonic is ACDEG - same five notes. What sets the mode, and the mood, is the note you consider the home note, the note you keep returning to at important points in the song - in the above example it's C for the major pent, A for the minor pent.



~~~

The diatonic scale does contain all of the notes of the major and minor pentatonic scales but not necessarily in the same key.  For example: 

the diatonic scale in the key of E major has the notes E F# G# A B C# D# 
the E major pentatonic (country/T.Rex)                 is E F# G#    B C#  same notes! 
BUT the E minor pentatonic (most blues)               is  E G A B D !!! no good! 

However - if we consider the C# minor pentatonic, it is C# E F# G#B, which notes are all in the E diatonic scale.  Starting on the C# (the 6th note in the E diatonic (in red above) means we are playing in C# Aeolian mode.  

F# minor pentatonic is F# A B C# E again are all in the E diatonic scale and starting on the F# (the 2nd note of the E diatonic in red above) means we are playing in F# Dorian mode.

G# minor pentatonic is G# B C# D# F# again are all in the E diatonic scale and starting on the G# (the 3rd note of the E diatonic in red above) means we are playing in G# Phrygian mode.

These three modes are all minor modes, and because the diatonic has 7 notes, and the pentatonic has only 5, we can find the minor pentatonic scale embedded in the diatonic mode three times! (albeit in different keys)

~~~

I didn't really answer your question re Francis, because he doesn't always seem to stick to the major and minor pentatonic or even blues scales.  He seems to throw in the odd passing note a lot.  But mostly Frame does use those scales.  Even the solo in Railroad has a lot of Dorian Mode in it - you know those little bounces he does around 3:58? They are outside the blues scale - they are Dorian.

~~~~

But the bottom line is - the diatonic scale is very worthwhile scale to learn as so much music is based on a mode of it.  Once you have it in your fingers, and then learn the concept of modes, you are away!    So learning the scale is good first step.

What the diatonic scale won't give you is the harmonic and melodic minor scales - these are not modes of the diatonic -and there are a whole host of other exotic scales.  Diatonic won't even give you the blues scale, as it does not possess the "blue note" (though the pentatonic scales are very close to the blues scales apart from that). But the diatonic scale is a good place to start nonetheless.

Apologies if you already knew this stuff,

Cheers
Carl

[quomanuk]

Cheers a great explanations. Thanks for posting , hope more people can do the same. Nice to share for others to learn and progress. Top class by the way.