This Minor scale guitar lesson will show how to phrase root notes when soloing with flamenco-style guitar. The objective of this video series is to help establish a foundation of guitar fundamentals by applying various playing techniques (rhythm, fingerstyle, and soloing) to various styles of music. The more playing styles and techniques a guitarist can learn, the more diverse and self-sufficient a guitarist will become. A self-sufficient guitarist can then teach themselves, communicate with other musicians, and even write their own music once a solid foundation of fundamentals is established.
The Creative Guitarist Method Series was written and designed by Kevin J. Paluzzi of Paluzzi Guitar Instruction in San Diego, CA. For more information on private lessons and books, go to:
There really isn’t any one particular playing style or technique required in order to classify someone as a guitarist. For example, Andres Segovia, Bob Dylan, and Carlos Santana are all considered legendary performing guitarists, but each has his own particular style or technique (fingerstyle, strumming, and soloing) for playing. Every guitarist will have their own personal preferences when it comes to what style of music they would initially like to learn. Some may have a more-specific goal (singer/songwriter, soloist, etc.), while others may prefer a more general or overall approach to learning various playing styles and techniques. This series of books and videos are designed with a ‘pick and choose’ topic format (songwriting, soloing, etc.) so that once the Guitar Basics are completed, the guitarist can decide to focus on whatever topic he or she wishes study.
After learning a few standard Minor scale riffs, the next step will be to focus on phrasing these riffs. If a riff can be compared to a ‘musical sentence’, then phrasing is how ‘punctuation’ can be applied to a guitar solo. Without phrasing, a guitar solo will sound rambling and disorganized in very much the same way as a ‘run-on sentence’ does with language. This lesson will focus on the foundation of phrasing technique: the root note.
Root Notes/Box Patterns
In the Key of ‘A’ Minor, ‘A’ would be considered the root note of that key. Within the standard ‘A’ Minor Scale box pattern, there are three ‘A’ root notes located on the first, fourth, and sixth strings. These fundamental root note positions on the first, fourth, and sixth strings remain the same for any key. In the Key of ‘B’ Minor for example, the three ‘B’ root notes would be located in the same root note positions, only two frets higher from the Key of ‘A’ Minor.
Root Note Focus - Standard Riffs
A root note focus establishes the mood or tone of a scale. All off the standard riffs learned so far have had a root note focus, with the ‘A’ root note being the last sustained note played in each riff. The basic ascending riff using the ‘A’ Minor box pattern (Natural Minor Scale -1) also begins and ends on an ‘A’ root note. When combining these riffs, sustaining each root note provides more space or ‘breathing room’ between riffs, which is essential to developing phrasing technique.
So far, the foundation of building a music vocabulary for improvisation has been set by learning some standard riffs (‘musical sentences’), knowing how to phrase these riffs (‘musical punctuation’), and then combining these riffs (‘musical paragraphs’).
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