- Hey, this is Kirk Fletcher,
and you know I'm often asked the question
about pentatonic blues.
You know pentatonic,
is there anything else outside the pentatonic?
I hear you playing other things,
things to like dress it up.
Or people tell me I'm bored
with the pentatonic scale or whatever.
And to me, I don't drift too far outside
of the pentatonic blue scale.
And the pentatonic blue scale meaning these...
(playing guitar chords)
I feel that, you know, a way to make it more interesting
is just to phrase differently.
Just do different phrasing,
and just maybe some different things,
and you have to listen to a lot of different kinds of music.
Because the pentatonic blue scale
is in so many different kinds of music,
from country, to soul, to r&b.
It's the base to a lot of music,
you know just that scale in that vocabulary.
So I think, getting to know the pentatonic blue scale
is very important and there's just different things
that you can do, you know.
One example for the pentatonic blue scale would be,
(playing guitar chords)
I put the flat of fifth in there too.
(playing guitar)
So many different things that you can do
with just that scale. (playing guitar)
Put a little vibrato on it,
and you got a whole different color.
(playing guitar)
And I just bent up a whole step.
(playing guitar)
You know, and it's the same scale, I'm just changing it up,
doing pull-offs, and adding the flat of fifth in there
and just grouping it a different way.
(playing guitar)
What I like to do is like phrases,
just little phrase, you know just like,
(playing guitar chords)
Or another thing I like to do is repeat myself
on higher strings, like play, (playing guitar chords)
then play it higher, (playing guitar chords)
still in that pentatonic blues.
(playing guitar)
Another thing you can do, when you start a slow blues
or whatever, you can play, you know, starting to look like,
(playing guitar)
And all you're doing is (playing guitar)
You can say a lot by just playing a few notes,
you can say a whole lot and make a real statement.
Because we all like people who take their time
and talk and explain things,
or tell a story in a very soothing way.
And I think to me, playing just a fewer notes
and just really honing in on that, (playing guitar)
is really cool you know.
(playing guitar)
All right, Kirk Fletcher signing off,
thank you so much and I'll see you soon.
Oh and by the way I'm playing a 1964 Fender Stratocaster,
that I've had for a long time,
and that's it, thank you so much.