60s synth scales

[Herr Masel]

I've been really liking synthisizers lately, and while I don't have one I want to be able to follow what scales the keyboards play on solos in bands like the doors, or deep purple. I can hear alot of it is straight pentatonic but there is more there, that gives it that strange vibe. Maybe it's just the different technique (no bends, for instance, though the whole style is different) and the sound that is different from guitar. Thanks.

 

P.S. the same can be said for Robby Krieger's playing, but I can stay on top of what he is doing most of the time, mostly superimposed major/minor pentatonic scales.

[Poparad]

It's the same major and minor pentatonics that guitarists play (and the major scale too), but you already hit the real issue: how those players put those same notes together to make the solos. The nature of the instrument is going to lend itself to patterns that are different from what guitarists would naturally do, which helps give it that different, fresher vibe. The best thing you can do is try to learn some of those keyboard solos on guitar, matching the articulations, rhythms, and phrasing as best you can. That will be the most effective way to learn what you're wanting to learn from it.

[Herr Masel]

Originally posted by Poparad It's the same major and minor pentatonics that guitarists play (and the major scale too), but you already hit the real issue: how those players put those same notes together to make the solos. The nature of the instrument is going to lend itself to patterns that are different from what guitarists would naturally do, which helps give it that different, fresher vibe. The best thing you can do is try to learn some of those keyboard solos on guitar, matching the articulations, rhythms, and phrasing as best you can. That will be the most effective way to learn what you're wanting to learn from it.

 

 

That confirms what I suspected, thanks. It's amazing how a different instrument can totally change the whole vibe of a melody, though I'd guess that synths on a whole have their own idiosyncracies like guitars, that'd you only experience if you played one.

[Tarv]

A big part of the equation is Arpeggios, I've found that most of the better keyboardest I have played with think chords and arpeggios first, scales second when improvising.