WHEN IT COMES TO GREAT INSTRUMENTAL GUITAR MUSIC, you probably think of Steve Vai or Joe Satriani. Well, native New Yorker Rob Balducci is a player that can give these guys a run for their arpeggios. Balducci’s last two CD’s, The Color of Light and Violet Horizon were released on Steve Vai’s Favored Nations label and received great reviews worldwide. His ability to create interesting compositions full of memorable melodies makes his music as appealing to guitarists as it does non-musicians. Balducci describes his music as drenched in layers of sonic colors, each representing a tangible emotion, desire, depth, feeling, thought, and mood….
….In this lesson, I want to show you one of Rob’s signature scales, the altered dominant pentatonic, that he uses often in his music. In Ex. 1, you find the various positions of this scale. Play through these and get the sound of them in your ears. This is a dominant pentatonic scale. However, it is not the traditional form, which is root, 2, 3, 5, b7. Rob’s version contains the root, 3, 4, 5, b7. The altered version replaces the major 2nd degree with a perfect 4th….Read the full Article…