In this session of Creating Bluegrass and Roots Music Solos, you’ll learn to create melodic lines that match the chords you’re playing. You’ll learn about strong beats and weak beats and how playing chord tones on strong beats creates lines that sound good over those chords. Scott introduces the concept of six- and eight-note scales, as opposed to five-note (pentatonic) scales and seven-note scales (major scale and modes). He also talks about the importance of tension and resolution in creating forward-moving lines, and shows you that playing non-chord tones on strong beats creates tension that sounds good as long as you resolve it. Scott uses the first four bars of “Maiden’s Prayer” to illustrate these concepts and give you ideas for creating your own variations and elaborations on “Maiden’s Prayer” and other melodies.
The musical handouts (downloadable PDFs) for the session (and all sessions) are available in three formats: notation with guitar tab, notation with mandolin tab, and notation only.
