Amish Guitar

I've been back from the family reunion for almost a week now and I did want to take some time to write about it. My brother in law and I did finally find some time to jam. I'm the one with the acoustic, naturally. We were playing a diddy I call Caitlyn Starlight with is nothing more than a chord progression that I like to play:


G D C (x2)
G D Em Am
Em C D
Am7 Em
Am C D

Of course it means little with out the rhythm, but it's one that I've noticed people start bouncing their heads to when I play it. So, I started playing it and BIL started playing a melody. I was impressed. He told me that what he was playing was variations on the Gm pentatonic scale, which is the scale I mentioned in my previous post. It was quite cool.

I had never paid much attention to all the different modes of scales except for the Major and Minor scales of course. Turns out that a lot of melody, riffs and blues played on guitar is based on the minor pentatonic scales. BIL took the time to show me what he was doing and it seemed to me to be such a simple shape. I can't really explain how it works in written words, so I'm going to let the guys at rockongoodpeople explain it better:



Just a plug here for the guys at rockongoodpeople. They have over 350 videos on youtube for guitar instruction--mostly samples from their commercial products they self produce and sell at www.nextlevelguitar.com. I've not ever bought one of their pay products, but they share a wealth of information in their free videos. One reason I like their videos so much compared to other "instructional videos" on youtube is they teach while so many others just "show." Check 'em out.

Video embedded with permission from rockongoodpeople.