Music Is My Life

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…

Three note per string scale patterns are especially useful to players who wish to hone their
techniques such as alternate or economy picking or even legato. The consistent number of notes
on each string really facilitates the use of these techniques and is why these patterns are
the choice of so many great players, especially shredders such as Paul Gilbert. Think about
it – if each string has 3 notes, its a lot easier to get into a rhythm of playing a constant
number of notes then moving to a new string, than it would be with any of the CAGED shapes
with their mix of 2 and 3 notes per string. Three note per string scales are great to use
when playing triplets as you will be playing all the notes on any one string for each triplet
which helps a lot with the timing.

Paul Gilbert shredding in his instructional video!