Welcome back! In this lesson I wanna show a great way to play fusion guitar licks.
I’ve always wanted to play fusion but I never really understood how to achieve “that sound”.
Fusion sounds like you are playing the wrong notes in a very correct way. Doesn’t really make
sense but that’s what it sounds to me. So my actual journey with fusion music started when I
was preparing to audition for Berklee. I remember I met John Stowell and I was just amazed. I
took a lesson with him and it just expanded my knowledge from 100% more; and so my journey
continued. I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston and took lessons with great teachers
such as Tim Miller, Norman Zocher, Jim Kelly, David Fiuczynski and Andrew Maness. They
were all incredible fusion players, but I have to say the tip that got me the most was actually the
simplest one I have ever received: The Pentatonic Scale, man!
Here’s the basic idea: Play a pentatonic scale and then move up or down a semitone and play a
pentatonic scale! If you are like me, when you think about fusion you immediately connect it to
complicated scales and lots of weird chords. Well guess what? it doesn’t have to be that way.
You can simply play a pentatonic scale which is the simplest and easiest scale of all.
So let’s try out this theory. I’m gonna choose the A pentatonic scale and the A# Pentatonic
scale:
Now what I’m gonna come up with a cool lick in A pentatonic and then I’m gonna continue this
lick in A# Pentatonic. So it’s basically one full guitar line divided in 2 different scales; half of the
lick is in A minor pentatonic and the other half is in A# minor pentatonic:
The first 2 beats are in A and the last 2 beats in A#. You can come with licks like the one above
by moving up or down whenever you want.
And you are probably thinking, where do I use a pentatonic? It turns out that you can easily use
it with any Minor chord or any maj7 chord if you play it half step below it (e.g for Cmaj7 I would
play a B Pentatonic).
That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed this lesson and please remember to check out our entire
collection of guitar lessons at:
Now what I’m gonna come up with a cool lick in A pentatonic and then I’m gonna continue this
lick in A# Pentatonic. So it’s basically one full guitar line divided in 2 different scales; half of the
lick is in A minor pentatonic and the other half is in A# minor pentatonic:
The first 2 beats are in A and the last 2 beats in A#. You can come with licks like the one above
by moving up or down whenever you want.
And you are probably thinking, where do I use a pentatonic? It turns out that you can easily use
it with any Minor chord or any maj7 chord if you play it half step below it (e.g for Cmaj7 I would
play a B Pentatonic).
That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed this lesson and please remember to check out our entire
collection of guitar lessons at:
