Unlocking Solo Energy: Mastering Patterns and Sequences

This episode explores the transformative power of sequences and patterns in guitar playing, demonstrating how they can enrich musical expression and creativity. The conversation delves into techniques for both pentatonic and diatonic scales, emphasizing finger movement, different picking styles, and the emotional impact of recognizable patterns.

• Understanding the significance of patterns in guitar 
• Examples of moving within the A minor pentatonic scale 
• Techniques: picking, legato, hammer-ons, and pull-offs 
• Eric Johnson inspired sequences for dynamic play 
• Transitioning between strings for fluidity 
• Exploring diatonic sequences and their applications 
• Emphasizing rhythmic context over speed in sequences 
• Ongoing exploration and improvisation in practice

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Chapters

• 0:00 Learning Guitar Patterns and Sequences
• 6:17 Adjust notes for easier pentatonic fretboard movement.
• 7:29 Adapt pattern for creativity, not strict adherence
• 13:12 Exploring Fretboard Sequences in G

Transcript

Steve Stine [00:00:00]:
Hey, Steve Stine from GuitarZoom here. Thank you so much for joining me. Today we're going to be talking about the power of learning how to play what we call patterns or sequences. And you can call it either one of those things, but basically what it is is taking a repetitive idea. Maybe it's a lick that you like to play, and sometimes that lick is with maybe a little bit of tweaking, it's capable of being able to move across the fretboard, be it, you know, horizontally or vertically or whatever it might be. So it doesn't matter whether it's pentatonic or diatonic or in a particular key or position. You could do this anywhere. It just takes a little bit of thought process in trying to put it together.

Steve Stine [00:00:36]:
So let's take a look at an A minor pentatonic position first and then we'll move into diatonic and talk about some things as well. So in the pentatonic position here, maybe I come up with a repetitive lick that looks like this. And that's my lick. Right. So what I could do with this then is just take that idea and then simply move to the second string and then abide by the minor pentatonic in this case, which means I'd go from eight to five and then seven back to five. So I'm doing the same thing, but I'm doing it on the second and third strings instead of the first and second strings. And then I could go to the third string and go from third to fourth, fourth string. So I'm doing the same thing and then end it somehow in whatever way I choose.

Steve Stine [00:01:43]:
Now if I put those together now it's up to you to decide how you want to approach this, which fingers you'd be using, whether or not you're picking everything. Or maybe you're using some legato, hammer on, pull offs, that sort of thing inside there. That's all up to you. And the other thing is that you don't have to play the entire sequence. Maybe you're just doing part of that to get from somewhere. Maybe I'm trying to get to the A here. That's what I want to do, is get there. So if I'm playing this and I stop when I get there, or in that case I go another one and then come back up to the A.

Steve Stine [00:02:28]:
Or maybe I don't even start on the first string, maybe I start on the second string and just do that much of it. You could do anything you want, but patterns again, or sequences, you can use those terms interchangeably. For now, tend to add a lot of energy. They're really nice because they're longer and they add a little more, obviously, some movement across the fretboard. But aurally it sounds really nice when you're playing this because it's something that is recognizable, because you hear that repetition, but then you hear it moving in sequence, which sounds really cool. It's not for everybody. And again, you don't have to play them as fast as humanly possible. You can play them however you like.

Steve Stine [00:03:07]:
But there's something to think about. So let's look at a couple more ideas. Pentatonically, let's say I was doing something where I'm going to go that same idea there, but this time what I'm going to do is I'm going to add on a pull off from the second string there. So I'm going. So I'm playing 8, 5 and then 8 back to the 5 and then a pull off from 8 to 5 and again I could make that into a lick on its own. But now what I'm going to do is take that same idea, move to the second string, third string, fourth string. So if I put those together, it sounds like that. And it sounds kind of cool because you're getting this double on the second string.

Steve Stine [00:03:59]:
Watch this. So I'm ending on the second string and then my next sequence is starting on the second string. So I'm getting. So it sounds really cool. When you start learning how to do different things like that, it takes out a different face than it would if you were just playing some licks or playing like that, which all of that stuff is great. It just sounds a little bit different. So it's worth taking a look at this. Let's look at another one.

Steve Stine [00:04:31]:
This is more of an Eric Johnson style thing where maybe what we would do is play something where we play a group of four. And then what we're going to do is we're going to go to the next note of the A minor pentatonic. I started on eight, so now I'm going to go to five and I'm going to play four notes from there. So I have. Now I'm on the second string. I'm going to play the eight, go four down from there and then play the five and go down four from there. So I have. And then.

Steve Stine [00:05:09]:
So if I put those together. So again, sounds really interesting. And then you can build them up into whatever speed you want. So there's lots of different ways of approaching this. But let's go back and now let's look just a little bit at moving this direction and then we'll take a look at some diatonic stuff. So now let's go back to this idea, the first idea we had. So I could take that idea. Maybe I change my fingers, maybe I don't.

Steve Stine [00:05:42]:
But my, my idea is I'm going to move up the fretboard this way in more of a pentatonic fashion through the positions. Now when you do this, what you're going to find is that sometimes you might want to stay absolutely true to the scale, which is a minor pentatonic. But sometimes, depending on what you're trying to get out of the pattern that you're playing, you might need to adjust the notes a little bit, which means you might be borrowing from, for instance, the diatonic scale or something like that to make the pattern of the sequence that you're playing easier to execute. Let me show you what I mean. So if I was playing this and I did this, so what I'm doing is just taking this idea, so I'm moving that up as I go. But let's say when I get to the, the 10th and 12th, where I would have. And I have to go to the 13 to stay true to the A minor pentatonic and then I move up and I'm back on track. But that one can be really difficult for people.

Steve Stine [00:06:54]:
So what I see a lot of players do is when they play something like this, when they get to this position, Instead of playing 12, 10 and then played the 13, they might just even that out and play 12, 10, 12 to make it more sequential and patternized and more shape oriented. So now I'd be playing 8 and 5, 10 and 8, then move up and play 12 and 10. So I'm changing that note, right? I'm changing it for the betterment of the execution of the pattern that I'm doing, not just staying true to the A minor pentatonic. Now you have to be okay with that in your brain, right? When I was a little kid, I thought, like it was taboo to. If you were playing in a particular key, you were never allowed to play any other note or a particular scale. You were never supposed to do something outside that scale. And you know, as I got older, I realized that that isn't really. It's hard to be creative if you never move out of these, these thought processes.

Steve Stine [00:07:49]:
But listen, it's, it's, it's entirely up to you. I'm just saying for the execution, you can see how that, so that's. And there's a lot of ways. I mean, I could take half of the stuff I just played and I could move it up and down sequentially, doing exactly what I'm doing right now with that one lick. So again, looking for some different ideas like that. You could work on any of the ones that we're doing right now. Or you could make up your own. So let's move into the diatonic world a little bit.

Steve Stine [00:08:20]:
And there's all kinds of different ways to do this. But I just want to give you a couple things to think about. So let's say, for instance, you're playing a scale like G major. So if I was playing this. Now, some pretty logical ways that you'll see people create patterns or sequences with something like this. The very straightforward would be something like this, where I play. I play a group of six like that. So I'm playing 3, 5, 7, 3, 5, 7.

Steve Stine [00:08:52]:
And then from this string I start all over again and play now again, I'm obeying. Obeying the G major scale. So I'm playing 3, 5, 7. 4, 5, 7. Sorry, right there. So I have. And again, what you're getting is this repetition in the middle of this string right here. It's being played twice.

Steve Stine [00:09:14]:
It's playing at the end of this first sequence, at the beginning of the next one. So I get. That sounds kind of cool. Then I can keep going. Once I'm here, I can take and repeat there. So I'm getting. And it sounds really great. Going backwards as well, you might do.

Steve Stine [00:09:46]:
And what you're really doing is that group of six. And then a group of six from that string and a group of six from that string. So you get. Sounds kind of cool. Again, more of that energy that's being created by being able to do something like that. And it's creating that repetition in the middle of that string each time. Right? So that's something that you could work on. Now, another way that you could approach something like this would be taking that scale, for instance.

Steve Stine [00:10:14]:
And maybe instead of just playing it all straight like that, you do something like this. So now what I'm doing is I'm playing up. I'm getting to the third fret there, and then I'm going backwards, and then I'm going up like I did before. So it's really kind of two little licks or two little ideas in one. Then once I get to this string, I do exactly the same thing. And then I get to the next string. Next string, next string. Okay, so you get that kind of idea okay, it sounds kind of cool.

Steve Stine [00:11:07]:
So there's a lot of different ways you can do this. One other one I want to show you real quick is maybe you're doing things where you're going like we did before we went. We went down four. Well, let's say we did something like that in the diatonic realm here, where we're going, we're going down four notes from this G major. But then we go back to the next note, because we started on eight. So now we go to seven and go down four notes, and then we go to five and go down four notes. So we get. Okay, and then from here, so you can keep going over and over and over.

Steve Stine [00:11:51]:
Now, again, you don't have to do all of it. You might just do one group of strings, like the first and second strings, or second and third strings, or those two sets, and then that's it. But it's something worth looking at. Another way you could approach that would be doing the same idea. But this time, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go forward from the seven to the eight. And then I'm going to go forward from the five to seven. So I'm going. And then eight to five, seven to eight, five to seven.

Steve Stine [00:12:20]:
See, I'm just moving forward, going down that scale. And what's kind of neat about doing something like this is you can also, if you know more of your fretboard. Again, I'm in G major. If I came up here and started on 14, 15, I could do the same idea. And now I'm playing back where I started, right? So now I might start moving from more of a horizontal to more of a vertical motion down that way. But I wouldn't have had to have done that. If there's another avenue of motion that you like, maybe I'm up here and I'm coming down that one, and I just stay there. Or at some point I shift again.

Steve Stine [00:13:26]:
So there's. There's all kinds of different ways that you can approach something like this. And always remember, it's not that it all has to be super fast. If you want it to be fast, you can practice it over and over and over and develop it. And that's great, but sometimes it doesn't need to be that. Sometimes you might just be using it in more of a rhythmic sense and use it in a different context, but there's just really great ways of being able to look at the fretboard. So with that in mind, let's do one more. Okay, again, we're in G.

Steve Stine [00:13:56]:
So this time what we're going to do is I'm going to start up here and I'm going to do this. So I'm playing 12, 15, 14, 12. Now, I wouldn't have to start here. I could have started here or here. It doesn't matter where it begins. But what I'm going to be doing here is once I get done with it, I'm going to simply move down to the next note, which in this case would be the 10th fret right here. So I'm playing 12, 15, 14, 12, and then 10, 14, 12, 10, and then 8. So I'm playing 8, 12, 10, 8, 7.

Steve Stine [00:14:36]:
So again, I'm obeying the G major scale here. And then once I get here, look at this. I could be back on that, that sequencing idea, moving through here. Okay. And with any of this stuff, you can go either direction, whether you want to move this direction or this direction, or you want to move backwards. Whatever works for you. But it's worth taking a look at if you've never thought about playing sequences before.