Does CAGED work differently in pentatonic soloing?

Amm7 · #1 09-25-2008, 01:04 PM

Hello, All.

I'm not a beginner - I know lots of bar chords and how they work, have been through the Fretboard Logic series, focused intensively on the chromatic CAGED patterns for each letter played from the open position, and done a few open-mic sessions over the past year. That said, it's all self-taught, and that dark road has taught me that what the books don't teach are the most important.

What I'm still somewhat confused on stems from not knowing of the CAGED system when I began learning pentatonic box patterns. Without knowing CAGED, I figured out how to match each box pattern with the root positions of their relevant chord (presuming that the chord for each was the key chord in the progression). Then I learned of the CAGED system, and began to focus intensely on the diatonic scales. I found out how useful this is for soloing all over the neck - not only could I begin a solo in something like CAGED II (Am), and cover a lot of frets without needing to jump tracks as the chords changed in the progression, but it actually sounded the most natural this way. But my solos only seem to work without rotating a different letter in CAGED to the open position to accomodate each progressional chord change as long as I was playing diatonic (maybe because more notes in the scale offer more notes which are shared between chords???). Although it seems to be the only way by which I have been able to produce solos which sound like the recorded stuff (when in pentatonic), I find it hard to believe, based on the available information which I've read, that it is truly necessary, or even particularly right to be rotating the open position within CAGED for each progressional chord in a pentatonic tune (simple tune or not). It certainly makes the process more complicated when done this way, so I don't want to drive myself nuts trying to do it like this if it isn't necessary, and sure would appreciate helpful comments from anyone who understands what I'm talking about. I hope I'm not the only one who's ever experienced this sort of bafflement.

Thanks to all who respond.

Amm7 · #2 09-25-2008, 06:01 PM

Bump!

Doug Young · #3 09-25-2008, 06:07 PM

I suspect most people are confused by your question. I know I am :-) Off hand, it sounds like you're thinking way too hard, and too mechanically about the process of soloing. But maybe if you gave a concrete example, a chord progression and how you're trying to approach it, you might get some comments and suggestions.

Bryan T · #4 09-25-2008, 06:42 PM

I'm certainly confused by your question! I would suggest finding the pentatonic scales within each of the five CAGED shapes. The major penatonic will have the root, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th degrees of the major scale. The minor pentatonic will have the root, b3rd, 4th, 5th, and b7th.

Some of the shapes will be familiar. The major pentatonic off of the G shape (and the corresponding minor pentatonic off of the relative minor) should be familiar. Others probably won't be as familiar.

Hope that gives you some direction,
Bryan

Amm7 · #5 09-26-2008, 10:30 PM

Thanks, Doug Young and Bryan T - at least I know that I need to be more specific on what I'm asking.

Those who have been through the Fretboard Logic series are familiar with the CAGED scale system (I was actually under the impression that CAGED had become the new default approach in teaching scales). Anyway, each letter in the easy-to-remember word CAGED represents one of five connected box patterns (two of these patterns are also used to play the F and B scales). When you play the C box pattern, no matter where you play it on the neck, it will resemble the same pattern of the C scale played at the open end of the neck (if the open notes of the C scale had an imaginary 2-fret extension behind the nut to be played on, it would look like this). Of course, if you played the C pattern from the 3rd fret, you would not be playing it in the C scale, but in the open D scale (from the third fret, move down to the the adjacent CAGED letter D, which can be played with at least one open note). Naturally, this would shift the letters of CAGED so that D is at the open end, spelled DCAGE from the nut.

When you switch from the open C scale, and it's subsequent box patterns spelled CAGED from the nut, to the open D scale, which is spelled DCAGED (or GEDCA for the open G scale), this is what I'm talking about when I speak of "rotating" the CAGED box sequence, which I doubt should be done during the course of a solo. At least, not when you're playing against an ordinary progression, say VI V IV, with Am as VI (opening bars to Del Shannon's "The Runaway" which later gets kind of strange, but these chords could stand alone with a dirty pentatonic solo easily enough). When I play the open C le 7-note scale (I think the word for this is diatonic), I have no trouble cutting some nasty solos as the chord progression moves from Am to G, then F, and finally back to Am, while using the pattern boxes only in the position which maintains the spelling CAGED in constructing those solos. In diatonic, this makes it easy to find strong notes to begin or end my phrases on. What has me confused is that it doesn't always seem to work this way when soloing in the pentatonic boxes, which are superimposed and complimented by their corresponding diatonic patterns.

Try doing a real gritty pentatonic solo from the open C scale, as the rhythm moves from Am to G - chances are, you'll want to move to the next box up the neck, which is the A box. However (unless it's just my ears which are out of tune) you may find that the A pentatonic box doesn't have all of the best notes which you may expect in a gritty pentatonic solo as Am progresses to G. So, try E in its place, noting that E at the third fret has just one box between itself and the nut, making it (unsurprisingly) the open G scale which you have just jumped to! You'll find some really punchy notes when you do this, but the problem is that your solo has jumped keys to match the chord change, while the chord progression itself is still within the key C. Needless to say, this can really complicate the whole process, so if you try this, 1) do you think it sounds closer to the blues rock recordings you've heard? 2) Do you think it's normal for the solo to change key to correspond to the current chord change, when the song remains in its original key? This is what I'm not decided on, and possibly because I haven't paid a guitar instructor to sort it out for me (who would probably just tell me to stop thinking so much, after smacking me in the head - and I don't think a guy in his forties needs that from the sort of kids you see in those stores).

Amm7 · #6 09-26-2008, 10:33 PM

correction: phrases with the reference "spelled from the neck" should all read "spelled from the nut".

Doug Young · #7 09-26-2008, 11:22 PM

I understand CAGED, it's really your application of scales with it that has me confused about what you are trying to do. I think the real answer here tho, is that soloing isn't about mechanically moving through patterns. There's no magic "box" that you can select that ensures that all the notes will sound right. Good solos are melodies, composed on the fly. The ideal is to hear in your head what you want to play and play it. It's useful to reduce the number of things you need to think about by knowing some scale patterns that guide you by limiting (or outlining) the notes you have to choose from, but that doesn't mean all the notes will work, nor that you can avoid listening and knowing in you head what a note will sound like before you play it. At best, patterns like the pentatonic box shapes are sort of visual cues that show you the general lay of the land. If you learn and analyze some of your favorite solos, you'll probably see that they deviate from the patterns all the time.

That said, let me try a more mechanical answer to what I think you're running into. The examples you're citing are really pretty simple diatonic harmonies, G to Am could be in several key centers, but to pick one, you could create a melody based on the notes of a G major scale that would work fine. That still doesn't mean every single note will sound perfect against each chord at any time, you have to use your ears to create a melody, but you'll probably find it pretty easy to select notes that sound good.

Now, you're trying to use pentatonics, so you're picking an A "box" shape, which happens to contain 5 of the 7 notes of the G major scale. So in theory those notes will also work, but you are missing 2 that you might very well like to use, and a few of the 5 are still going to clash against certain chords (D will sound really "normal" against the G chord, less normal when held out against the Am). You could also use the Em pentatonic, which also shares 5 notes from the G major scale, and again, you're missing a few and have a few that won't go everywhere, it's just a different subset. There's really no mystery here, you're just selecting a subset of all the notes available, and some create the sound you want, and some don't. It's still up to your ear to choose. If you find it helpful to think about the visual shape of an Am pentatonic or an Em pentatonic as a guide that allows you to find the notes you want to hear, that's fine, but you're not constrained by them, nor will they guarantee that you'll find the note you want inside one of these boxes.

I may still be completely misunderstanding what you're asking, but I hope this helps somehow.

brahmz118 · #8 09-27-2008, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amm7

Try doing a real gritty pentatonic solo from the open C scale, as the rhythm moves from Am to G - chances are, you'll want to move to the next box up the neck, which is the A box. However (unless it's just my ears which are out of tune) you may find that the A pentatonic box doesn't have all of the best notes which you may expect in a gritty pentatonic solo as Am progresses to G. So, try E in its place, noting that E at the third fret has just one box between itself and the nut, making it (unsurprisingly) the open G scale which you have just jumped to! You'll find some really punchy notes when you do this, but the problem is that your solo has jumped keys to match the chord change, while the chord progression itself is still within the key C.

I agree, in the most basic sense that is a problem. Do you have a fairly good understanding of modes in the context of diatonic progressions? When you get to a G chord in the progression, technically the scale at that point is G mixolydian, not G major. Your E box at the 3rd fret produces the notes G A B C D E F#, but to stay in the key you would want G A B C D E F.

Quote:

Needless to say, this can really complicate the whole process, so if you try this, 1) do you think it sounds closer to the blues rock recordings you've heard? 2) Do you think it's normal for the solo to change key to correspond to the current chord change, when the song remains in its original key?

I would say no, to both. Playing G major instead of G mixolydian in the key of C tends to undermine the drive of the chord progression -- this is not what the blues rock icons are doing to get their grit. Blues rockers get a lot of mileage out of minor pentatonic and mixolydian, with added blue notes and chromatic passing tones. Stepping through multiple keys in the same piece is more common in jazz -- but even then it is not simply a matter of simplifying the major-sounding modes to major scales.

Quote:

This is what I'm not decided on, and possibly because I haven't paid a guitar instructor to sort it out for me (who would probably just tell me to stop thinking so much, after smacking me in the head - and I don't think a guy in his forties needs that from the sort of kids you see in those stores).

I like to think a lot too, at least when I'm first trying to understand and master a theoretical concept. I'm more relaxed when I have to concentrate on fingerings and mechanics, once I have some sense of the bigger picture.

Amm7 · #9 09-27-2008, 11:18 AM

Doug, I believe most of us non-geniuses really need the mechanical rote of the box patterns - but at least the CAGED logic connects them smoothly with the scales, while relating them clearly to the chords which they are played against. If you have the ability to innovate outside of the box and come off sounding good, no box pattern is going to limit you anyway. You'll probably sound better than those who stick to the box, but the "magic box" pattern should guarantee that those who use it won't sound wrong - when CAGED spells out the entire C scale from nut to 12th fret, how can those who use it play any off-key notes?

Where I ran into dilemma was when playing the C scale, beginning with it's relative minor Am (so this could be worded A Aeolian), in a VI V IV progression. I would solo against these chords diatonically, and the transition between the Am and the G was smooth as I moved from the open C-box to the A-box at the third fret. When doing the same thing, but soloing in pentatonic, the notes which seemed to make the best impact at the A-box position when soloing diatonically weren't there, and those which were available seemed to create way too much tension, if they weren't discordant. This is when I felt the need to switch to the E-box (from third fret position). Therefore, I was soloing with a song with chords which were progressing on in the C scale Ionian, so my picking, as Brahmz rightly pointed out, should have continued from the G mixolydian (G is five down from C), but I wanted to use the E-box of the G scale Ionian instead! As Brahmz rightly pointed out, switching keys for each chord in the progression is surely too crazy for the blues, and then I know that even the jazz players won't take it to that degree - so why do the notes sometimes sound better when I do that?

What I've concluded so far is that I've just gotten too used to the notes which I was using in diatonic - and it happens that all of the notes of the open C scale pentatonic A-box and the open G scale pentatonic E-box combined are shared by the open C scale diatonic A-box! Therefore, it's no wonder that I could jump the key while playing pentatonic and still hear the same notes which I would play while soloing within key diatonically.

I guess what bothered me to begin with was being used to a certain level of tension as I moved from Am to G in diatonic, and when I tried this in pentatonic, the E-box from the third fret sounded more like what I am used to. The proper A-box makes better sense when the blue notes are added, and I guess the much higher level of tension in the available notes is why they call it blues!

Thanks to those who try to help.

neiby · #10 09-27-2008, 11:32 AM

I've been playing guitar for 24 years and I've never heard of CAGED patterns. I must be behind the times.

Amm7 · #11 09-27-2008, 11:56 AM

Doug,
I must agree with you that it's up to the ear to decide where the best notes are, and that the CAGED boxes are no guarantee of finding the notes you want, only that they should prevent a foul. What was bothering me is that I found so many notes of the "wrong" pentatonic box were the notes which I had relied on while using the "right" diatonic box of the same key. This from both the pentatonic E and A-boxes fitting into the diatonic A box!

I'm just trying to avoid getting into a pattern where the process is too complicated to allow solos to be created spontaneously, which is where I feared it was going as soon as I felt the need move outside the box patterns. To move outside of box patterns is to cross the key threshold, but then I was moving between two pentatonic boxes which fit inside the diatonic A-box - therefore, maybe I didn't really breach the key. Anyway, thanks for helping me in processing this!

Amm7 · #12 09-27-2008, 12:05 PM

-------A previous post did not show, it was repeated because it didn't show, and now that it is showing, I'm not able to delete (only edit) the redundant post!

doctrane · #13 09-27-2008, 02:19 PM

I need to pull out my fretboard-logic book and re-read the text, but to me the CAGED concept prepares you by hand position to 'scale thru' either by note (pents) or note(s) (chord), dividing the neck vertically at least by 5 sections. But I don't really need it to play. It's more to get you hand in posistion so you can play what your ear guides you thru

For me, it's preparation and practice thru scales, patterns, where the extensions will be and how to link what you've played temporally together, the tonal movement of guide tones, hearing and predicting intervals to use, motif repetition and variation and permutaion, primary musical thoughts becoming secondary functions becoming prmary functions in different muscal contexts, gestalt (foreground/background) application, music theory and study, everything >> and then most important >> your Ear and what you want to connect in a tonal (II-V-I), polytonal, atonal matrix of sound. Your musical envelope that you create. Yes pentatonics work in the CAGED box >> but it's all about how you translate this thing called sound, tonal sound and relate feelings and stories in tension and release through how consonance and dissonance work, it's about expectation and nonpredicatability, pschoacousitcs, the blue note(s), helmholst and how that relates temporally, verically and horizontally into your chord(s), line, and tonal extensions (b7,b9,#11,etc.), and how the temporal nature of sound, the ear, the nervous system work.

You get the whole thing practiced, perhaps in a life time, ibecoming ingrained as automatic into the subconscious and then you let go and PLAY

the guitar is interesting in it's fretboard layout, to be able to construct ways of remembering what works and has worked but it's more about the chances and taking your head out of the equation, getting in the zone where you just Play and it's all working. It's all about finding your voice and how your voice developes, your concept developes. It's about creativity
And that takes from a second to eternity to develope.

It's all good, if you can communicate or express something, using sound, direct from the soul,

I need to put this fretboard-logic back in my to-read queue
doctrane

Doug Young · #14 09-27-2008, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amm7

Doug,
I must agree with you that it's up to the ear to decide where the best notes are, and that the CAGED boxes are no guarantee of finding the notes you want, only that they should prevent a foul.

Ah, that's the issue, I think. Pentatonic scales cannot prevent a foul. About the only way to ensure that notes sound "consonant" is to limit yourself to playing the notes of the chord that's being played at any given moment. Older style jazz often takes that exact approach, simply outline the chord changes with arpeggios. It works if the chords are flying by fast enough. Rock and pop styles tend to do that less because it would be too boring when the chords aren't changing fast. But thinking about the notes that are in the chord you're playing over is still a good idea, and the only fool proof pattern I know of, if a tad boring.

On the other hand, I think what you've recognized, that the Am and Em pentatonics both contain a subset of the notes in the C major scale, is a really useful tool,and a good insight. You can find patterns that let you "jump keys" within the same pattern if the pattern is limited to notes that are in both keys diatonically. You can also go the other way and use pentatonics in non-diatonics ways. There used to be a book out by Tim May that explored all the unusual ways to employ pentatonics, so you could get alternate, jazzy sounds. For example, play a C7 chord, and use an F# major pentatonic over it. That produces a C9#5b5#9b9 sound, basically all the jazz alterations. You can't just sit on that scale and play over it all day. It basically contains all the "wrong" notes! But it produces a certain sound - lots of tension, and it's an easy way to get that sound if you want it. Again, the pentatonic is providing a certain subset of the available notes as a package that you can use, as long as you can predict the sound it will create in advance and use it in the right place. I don't know if that book's still around, but it was interesting.

I don't think soloing requires genius, but approaching it from a strictly mechanical, theoretical standpoint almost always gets confusing. The fastest way to learn how to be a good soloist is to learn solos you like note-for-note off the record. Start simple, memorize the licks. Turn them inside out and backwards and make them your own. Then apply them to your own tunes. Later, you can try to figure out what patterns if any, what theory, if any, applies and why this or that lick sounds good to you.