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METAL GURU RUSTY COOLEY
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The Pentatonic Workout
O
Metal is a lot different today than it was in
N the ’80s. Back then, things were brutal. If
S you didn’t know how to solo, you weren’t
even looked upon as a guitar player. It was
the whole “if you only play rhythm, you’re
only half a man” mentality. Metal has
EX. 1 become more inclusive, but at a price. Musi-
Box 1
cally speaking, metal guitar has devolved
V
over the years. It has gone backwards from
featuring over-the-top, killer playing all the
way back to a three-chord format that’s
Box 2 arguably not that different from where rock
VII and roll started. The main difference is that
with today’s popular dropped-D tuning, you
can play all three chords with just one fin-
ger!
Box 3 Though guitar solos may not be com-
IX mon in current mainstream metal, the truth
is that the guitar is not merely a rhythm
instrument. And it hasn’t been since way
back in the big-band era when Charlie
Box 4
Christian proved a 6-string could wail. The
XII
good news is that the tide seems to be turn-
ing towards good musicianship again. I
teach dozens of guitar students each week,
Box 5 and they almost all have one thing in com-
XIV
mon: They want to learn to burn. This series
of columns aims to help players develop
their chops to the point where they can do
some extreme shredding. If that’s your goal,
the best place to start—even if you’re an
experienced player—is with the pentatonic
scale.
Many guitarists can play an A minor
pentatonic scale, but how many really know
all five pentatonic “boxes”? They’re pre-
sented in Ex. 1, with every appearance of
the root, A, circled. Box 1—by far the most
popular of the bunch—starts at the 5th fret,
and each new box starts one scale tone
higher up the neck. Once you’ve learned all
five patterns, I suggest putting yourself Cooley, wood-
through my Pentatonic Workout, which shredding on
goes like this: Ascend through Box 1, then his Conklin
descend through Box 2, then ascend 8-string.
through Box 3, and so on. Once you’ve
gone through all five boxes, do the whole
process in reverse going down the neck.
(Remember that you can also play Box 5 an
octave lower in the second position.)
The next step is adding variations to the
Workout. For instance, instead of only using
alternating picking, try playing the scales
legato, where each picked note is followed
by a hammer-on (ascending) or a pull-off
(descending). Then, employ different pitch
sequences, such as the rising six-note triplet
pattern in Ex. 2 (which you should also prac-
tice descending) and the “ascending while
descending” approach in Ex. 3, moving each
new pattern through all five boxes. The
whole point of the Workout is to develop fret-
board visualization, because the most impor-
tant thing when improvising is being able to
see the entire neck as a whole. The more
you practice these five boxes, the more they
will begin to merge into one giant box. —As
told to Jude Goldg

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124 M A R C H 2 0 0 4 G U I TA R P L AY E R P H OTO : S U S A N C O O L E Y