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In this lesson you will learn an important concept that you will
continually revisit as your improvisational journey continues.
What you learn here can be applied to other scales and notes.
Targeting
Targeting means that you are going to focus your attention (and
ear) on one note, playing other notes in the scale as embellishments
of the targeted note.
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Of course the first scale that you are going to be use
is (surprise) A minor pentatonic. Play the scale
chart to the right at the 5th fret. All of the squares are
the root of the scale (A) Memorize the scale and
the location of every A.
see scale primer
for how to read this chart
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A minor pentatonic
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In this exercise you are "targeting" All of the A notes using
the next note in the scale above the root. The numbers that are
circled are A. Play each measure by itself, and listen to the
sound. They all have the same basic sound since they are the same
notes, just in different octaves. Try improvising with just these
sets of notes. Make sure that you are emphasizing the A note (hold
it for longer, and end your phrase on it). You are practicing
this to train you fingers and your ear to recognize this sound.
Next you are targeting the A from a scale step below.
Here you are targeting from 2 scale tones above
the A.
Finally you are targeting from 2 scale tones below.
| Normally when you think of the A minor pentatonic
scale you think of A as the bottom note, with 4 other notes
above it. |
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| A better way to organize this scale in your
head is to thing of A as the center note, with 2 notes above
it and 2 notes below it |
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