System Ten

Introduction To System Ten

Welcome to The Guitar Daily Workout System Ten!

In the Guitar Daily Workout, the first 4 Systems provided the FOUNDATIONS that most guitarists need to be professional-level musicians: the scales, arpeggios, and techniques that form the core of a guitarist’s understanding and vocabulary. We mastered the CAGED system for arpeggios, pentatonics, and major scales, learned all of the three-on-a string modes, all arpeggios in one position.

Systems 5-8 developed INTERMEDIATE skills with more sophisticated scales, arpeggios, and approaches; moving the student from solid foundational techniques to a true mastery over the guitar neck. We learned all 7th arpeggios-major 7 arpeggios, dominant 7 arpeggios, minor 7 arpeggios, m7b5 arpeggios and diminished arpeggios. We also learned all of the major hexatonic and minor hexatonic scales, and learned the dominant pentatonic scales. And we learned how to play all of the arpeggios on three string sets, and learned the major scale and pentatonic scales on both three and two string sets.

In Systems 9-12, we will explore ADVANCED concepts-less commonly used scales and patterns–ones often found in jazz, fusion, and more complex musical styles.

Most guitarists could have a great career just by having mastery of the concepts in the first 8 systems. Many guitarists have been very successful not even knowing all of that information.

With Systems 9-12, however, you will develop skills that will allow you to understand and play more harmonically complicated music.

We will cover Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, and their Harmonized Arpeggios for harmonic and melodic minor scales, as well as the Diminished scale, Whole-Tone scale, the Coltrane Pentatonic, and Barry Harris’ 6th Diminished scale. We will also delve into single-string playing and Wes Montgomery-style octave playing.

Keep at it and work hard and you should find a whole new world of musical vocabulary opening up to you.

As with all of these systems, application is key. However, these exercises should give you muscle memory, dexterity, ears, and understanding of the scales and arpeggios that will allow you to access music with very sophisticated musical vocabularies.

Finger Gymnastics

In System Ten, we will begin to work on some exercises that use only one string. This is very difficult to do on the guitar, but it is important to be able to see beyond boxes and approach the instrument in a linear fashion. System Ten Finger Gymnastics is similar to System One Finger Gymnastics but arranges the patterns using one string only. These exercises will teach your hand to move along the neck rather than across string sets.

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Coltrane Pentationic

We introduced the Coltrane Pentatonic scale in System Nine. The Coltrane Pentatonic is a 5-note scale that was widely used by the saxophone genius John Coltrane, and many others. It is a wonderful scale that can be used over m7b5 (it is probably best called the m7b5 pentatonic) and dominant 7th chords but is often heard over a minor chord, replacing the traditional minor pentatonic.

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Arpeggios

In this system, the arpeggios will be from the harmonized Harmonic Minor scale. Since the scale consists of the tones R, M2, m3, P4, P5, m6, and M7, it has a unique harmonized scale. The scale has some odd chords not found in the major harmonized scale and may be new to many players. The arpeggios are as follows: minor/Major7, minor 7b5, Major7#5, minor 7, Major 7, and diminished.

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Harmonic Minor Scale

For this iteration of the harmonic minor scale, we will laterally index the scale, starting on the Root, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th scale degrees. This will enable you to see all forms of the harmonic minor scale in one position. We will play this version of the harmonic minor in thirds. The harmonic minor scale is especially useful in jazz and metal. In both, you would use the harmonic minor in a minor chord progression over the V chord. So, for instance in Cm, often you’ll hear the G7 chord. In that instance you’d use the C harmonic minor scale over the V chord.

Modes

Playing along one string is a very important ability to have in guitar-playing. As we did in System Nine, in System Ten we will play the major scale along one string. For each week, we will play a different major scale mode starting on each string, playing them in 3-note sets along one string only. This mode exercise is an excellent exercise for learning how to play laterally along the guitar neck. Knowing modes this way will help you to see intervals and play laterally along the neck using linear modes as connectors to jump off points for soloing.

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