Canadian Musician - January/February 2019 | Page 25

GUITAR
Juan Coronado has won several awards in Canada and the U.S. and appeared on Guitar Player magazine’s “Top Ten Guitar Heroes” list
twice. His new album is being released on video first and many songs are already available to stream. His albums Renewal and Ultrasonico
are available on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, CD Baby, and his websites: www.juancoronado.com and www.ultrasonicostudios.com.
By Juan Coronado
Re-Shaping a Common
Sonic Element
I
Part 1
laugh about how serious the title of my column sounds, but really, it’s about having fun with things that we already know – about reimagining the
stuff we enjoyed when we first learned it and putting a new twist on it.
So, I present to you some ideas about how to use familiar sounds and scales in a different "shape" or "sequence" over the neck that will bring a new
sonic element to your repertoire. The best part is that it is easy to use in any song, and not just when a complex background harmony is happening.
We typically come to love, use, and overuse the pentatonic scales from the first minute we start playing lead guitar.
Ex. 1 is a G major pentatonic (with a couple of extra notes for the sake of continuity on the fingering) in an ascending shape of three notes per string
that will connect the first low G to the last high G on the neck.
Ex. 1
You can play it as a legato lick by picking only
the first note of every string or you can pick most
of them like I do. I've always liked the sound of the
runs when you pick every note because it makes it
feel a bit more under control and gives a sensation
of speed and aggression.
Ex. 2
Ex. 2 is the same concept of the three notes per
string in an ascending pentatonic, but this time
in G minor.
Ex. 3
I could not move on to a different scale before
mentioning my absolute favourite concept: econ-
omy picking.
Yes, you can “sweep” a pentatonic! Remem-
ber that economy picking is basically the same
as sweep picking, but in this case, we have three
notes on one string and one note on the next, over
and over again.
Your picking will end up as a sequence that
has a pattern of three notes down and one up, as
demonstrated in Ex. 3.
More tricks coming up in the next issue!
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