Hi Guy's
I just received an email from Geoff Hohwald telling me that he is currently working on a series of six new lessons on how to incorporate the use of Pentatonic scales and licks into your improvisation.
These lessons although discribed as Pentatonic Improvisation Basics are I believe aimed at the more advanced novice or intermediate student.
Most of the instuctional material I have seen on the subject of Pentatonic Scales, is simply that (Pentatonic Scales) I haven't really come across anything that will teach me how to use pentatonic scales to improvise on the banjo until now.
In Lesson 1 Geoff starts by showing you how to play the Gm Pentatonic Scale and explains when to use it. You then learn a series of licks created from the notes in the scale. Finally using the licks in context with couple of tunes Train 45, Think of What You've Done, and New River Train the latter follows a similar chord progression to Red River Valley, She'll be Coming Round the Mountain, Mama Don't Allow and Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms.
Over the past four years I have read a lot of threads on the Hangout which talked about the importance of learning the Pentatonic scales but I have to say at first I never really understood why. As I have progressed along my learning curve I begun to gain an interest as I started to explore a little of the theory of how scales work (having been inspired by John Bolding's - Banjophobic's LOTW). Each day I'm begining to understand more and more about how wonderful a tool it is for improvising because the scales are fairly simple to learn and it is hard to hit a wrong note once you know where to find and memorize those scale notes.
Geoff has just added the second lesson in the series to his website and writes:
"I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out and explain the Pentatonics and am working on a 6 lesson series. Lesson 2 came out today
Pentatonic Improvisation Basics 2 is our second lesson on using the pentatonic scale to create licks. In this lesson, we'll identify and play the different Gm Pentatonic notes as you move up the neck. I teach you how to play nine different licks and use them in the context of a song. The download includes .mp3 jam tracks and a .pdf of the tabs scale diagrams. Learning how to create your own licks is an invaluable tool for jam sessions
Series overview of 6 Pentatonic Lessons--The first 3 or 4 lessons will show a particular position on the fingerboard with lots of drills and then fitting it into a song. The last 2 or 3 lessons will focus on applying the licks that are taught.
Until all 6 are done you will not get the complete learning cycle. (This is kind of like building a stacked stone wall. You fit each stone individually and do not know how the current stone will fit until you stack the previous stone.) However you can take each position and work on it and memorize the variations. This will probably take 6 to 8 months to complete.
The way I do this is to start with a lick or position and then play licks made up from that over and over and then listen back. After 10 to 20 hours of doing this over and over( This is per lesson) I discover what licks work the best, what sound the best and any problems mixing that particular lick with other licks.
Once I decide what licks to teach it takes another 10 to 15 hours to write the script rehearse it, and play any background tracks. I am not aware of anybody else doing this so I do not have a model to copy. If you do not spend lots of time showing where and how to use the licks the student can get lost or not even understand the concept.
I'm going through this process because it is something I've always wanted to do and fortunately I have the available time to do it."
If this is of interest to you here is a link to where the first 2 lessons are listed:
http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/banjo/improv/pentatonic-improvisation.html