Playing over the four chord

[TJE]

Folks when I play lead I usually play the melody and add extra notes here and there always coming back to the melody note. I'm looking expand my playing ability. The way I'm playing now I'm always in the scale of the key. ( key of A ; A major scale )How do I branch out? I do use arpeggios but usually on the one chord only. Got any suggestions?

Thanks, Tony

[mr. beaumont]

Well, the four chord has it's own arpeggio...every chord does...

[rick-slo]

Chromatic notes as leading notes towards the melody line (half step or possibly full step). Accidentals need not be accidents.

[MC5C]

If you want to play over the IV chord and make it sound more like that chord, the first thing you can do is use the IV chord arpeggio. You can expand that by playing the A major scale but starting on the IV, or the D. That scale (actually the Lydian mode) will sound different than if you just play a D scale. Same with the V chord, you would play an E7 arpeggio and use A major scale tones, that would get you started. Anytime you want to make it sound a bit more interesting you can use a jazzy scale (A, G#, G, F# and then the rest of the scale, you are adding a flat 7 to the A major scale). Anytime you want to make it sound a bit more blues, you can add the minor third and flat fifth. If you want to (and if the chords are dominant 7, works better), you can assume the IV chord is a tritone substitution and just play the Ab scale tones instead of the D scale tones (Ab7 can be a tritone substition for D7, common in blues particularly for the IV chord)

I forgot, very early I learned the power of diminished arpeggios, they add a lot of colour to the IV and V chords particularly as passing tones leading to another chord, and the good old whole tone scale is always cool.

[stanron]

You can do a heck of a lot just sticking with the scale notes.

Three ideas to play with are passing notes, tension and resolution.

Playing a series of eighth notes up or down the scale produces no tension. Consider these passing notes.

Persisting on a note, either with sustain or repeated picking, can produce harmonic tension if that note is NOT in the current chord. Moving to a note which is in the current chord, or keeping the note until the chord changes to one which contains the note being played, resolves the tension.

Decoration is another idea. Take a note, quickly hammer on the scale note above it and pull off back to the original note. You can extend this by sliding down one scale note and hammering on to the original note. Five quick notes from one picking movement starting and finishing on the same note.

Other ideas are parallel thirds and sixths. These require knowlege of scales up and down the strings rather than across them.

[TBman]

I'm learning improv (blues) in the Key of A right now, using the following notes (A pentatonic)

A C D E G

thrown in are e flat and g# sometimes.

Just a basic I IV V progression but up and down the neck.

[min7b5]

A few years ago I put up a few beginning lessons on YouTube with some ideas about how to possibly use scales and arpeggios for improvising that might be helpful.

Scales http://youtu.be/fU9ygo81vOc

Arpeggios http://youtu.be/aX22ROEklUc

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by TJE

Folks when I play lead I usually play the melody and add extra notes here and there always coming back to the melody note.

Good plan. Although you don't always have to come back to the melody note...

Originally Posted by TJE

I'm looking expand my playing ability. The way I'm playing now I'm always in the scale of the key. ( key of A ; A major scale )How do I branch out?

As mentioned, there's lots you can do within the key scale (and still get away from the melody). You should certainly get comfortable with arpeggios, and be aware that the arpeggios of all the chords interlock (in any one position on the neck) - so you could easily shift from one arp to the next, by a half or whole step, no more. Treat the arpeggio of the next chord as passing tones between the arpeggio of this chord.
Exploiting common tones is also good (A and D chords both have an A note).

The easy (and safe) way to move beyond the diatonic scale is to add notes between chord tones. Basically, any kind of chromatic note is OK provided you land on a chord tone (arpeggio note). E.g., when you change from A to D, you could insert an F between the E on the A chord and the F# on the D. Very common and normal, and hardly "outside" at all. (It works the other way too.)

A more generic option is to make a 3-chord major key song bluesier by shifting to the minor pent of the key. So if your song is in A major (chords A D E), try the A minor pentatonic scale. Instant blues sound! (This is what TBMan is talking about.) Just be aware that f you have any diatonic minor chords (F#m, C#m, Bm) A minor pent is not going to work. You might also need to bend notes here and there - and you'll need to be very familiar with blues sounds and cliche licks to get it to sound right.

It's great that you're already playing the melody, because that's always a good fall-back line, as well as a good source of inspiration. If the melody (and chord sequence) is wholly diatonic, then adding chromatics might not suit the song. But if there are a good few chromatic notes in the tune, that's a hint as to the direction you can go in.

Always work outwards from what the song gives you - don't try to apply some abstract theory from outside. (Unless you've heard something unusual you really like, when theory might explain it.)