Keith Whalen - Modal Scale Climbing

This is a neat way to play and climb scales/modes with the use of a quick raking technique. Using a 3 note per string scale shape you can sweep triads found within the structure of the scale and seamlessly employ alternate picking in the process.

I didn't have the patience to write out the full tab for the exercises but they can be easily discerned by ear considering they are all diatonic and fairly straight forward. The triads are played over three strings and always use the 3rd, 2nd and 1st note of the 3 note shapes respectively to climb. Examples are played for the Major, Melodic Minor, Harmonic Minor and Harmonic Major modes.

* You may also shift positions and climb using a varying number of modes or scale positions. You may also employ wider intervals, descend in groupings, phrase to your liking and omit notes to create the desired effect/sound.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Keith
• Whalen
• guitar
• exercise
• modes
• scales
• sweeps
• major
• minor
• melodic
• harmonic

[holyzoo]

Astonishing technique! I finally found your blog after finding this on YouTube. Now I understand what you're doing. I'll have to spend some time practicing this. Wish I had thought of this approach 20 years ago. :)  By the way, the only way I found you was searching for Hungarian Major mode formulas on Google. Not commonly known stuff as far as I can tell - certainly not across the whole fretboard, all its modes, and harmonized chord progressions either. That's what I'm currently studying.

[KeithWhalen11]

@holyzoo Thanks holyzoo! I'm really surprised you found all the stuff that way, that's actually a very cool thing to hear. I think the technique just developed naturally because I didn't want to give up sweeping or picking and wanted to find something that would work very fluently and maximize the quickness in climbing. I'm far from being an authority on the subject though, I have much to learn about the harmonic aspect of these modes still.

[KeithWhalen11]

I'm going to upload another video of this nature but using Hungarian major/minor, Neopolitan major and Persian modes. I'm gonna speed them up and go to town like that last scale at 6:52. I'm thinking of trying to composite and enigmatic modes too but they're kind of weird haha.

[KeithWhalen11]

I've never drawn any inspiration from Derryl to be honest. His style is completely different, he's more of a legato player and does the big Holdsworthian stretchy thing. I'm more of an aggressive attack kind of guy, which works wonderfully with this approach considering the snap effect you get from the quick upstrokes on the top of those triads. A humbling comparison considering the talent he has though! Thanks for checking it out.

[ShredReviews]

Nice one! I've seen Derryl Gabel doing a couple of similar lines and they really are a great way of employing economy picking for triads in a way that avoids the atypical arpeggio sound :)