Open position scales are great. For one thing, they obviously give you the ability to improvise freely around basic open chords and the extensions of them. The open strings can also provide all sorts of interesting sounds, whether creating lines on adjacent strings (one fretted, one open), adding open string notes to existing chords to get exotic sounding chord substitutions, or working some controlled dissonance. Below is demonstration of these ideas.

 

1. Open position scale tones around a simple progression:

 

[hana-flv-player video=”https://greenfieldguitar.com/wp-content/uploads/VSN-11.flv” width=”500″ height=”300″ description=”” player=”2″ autoload=”true” autoplay=”false” loop=”false” autorewind=”true” /]

 

2.  Creating chord extensions, substitutions and lead lines on adjacent strings:

[hana-flv-player video=”https://greenfieldguitar.com/wp-content/uploads/VSN-25.flv” width=”500″ height=”300″ description=”” player=”2″ autoload=”true” autoplay=”false” loop=”false” autorewind=”true” /]

 

Use open position scales, and open strings in general, to your advantage. They are unique properties of the guitar, and wonderful expressive tools.

© 2015 Jim Greenfield

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS