INTENSEGUITAR
TOSHI ISEDA
Intervallic Exercises
Hey folks, sorry I missed last month’s
column! I was on the road and missed
my deadline. Anyway, thanks for tuning
in this month. I’ve received some emails
from a few readers who want to know
what else I practice besides the Ionian and
Aeolian modes in a cycle
of fourths.
was kind enough to sit down with me in
the basement of the Iron Horse, a bar in
Massachusetts, after just playing a gig with
the Steve Morse Band. At the time he said
he’d never given a guitar lesson before, so
I was particularly appreciative and honored.
extremely important to be able to execute
any pattern, lick, line or exercise from
either a downstroke or an upstroke.
As I’ve stated before,
guitar playing is (to my
knowledge) composed
of only three different
means of playing: scalar,
intervallic, and chordal.
Practicing scales in a cycle
of fourths is a great way
to get scalar playing happening but we should be
able to play in intervals as
well. This way your playing
doesn’t become boring
and predictable. A few
great players utilizing this
concept are Carl Verheyen,
Eric Johnson, Al Di Meola
and Joe Diorio, to name
but a few.
The second exercise is based around the
diminished scale. This one covers all six
strings and is one that
I’ve actually used as a
lick in my song, “Custer’s
Last Groove” from my
CD Full On!. This exer-
cise should be practiced
in either 3/4 or 6/8. I
did these exercises in a
comfortable position on
the fretboard but I rec-
ommend moving them
down to the first and sec-
ond fret positions to really
give your fretting hand
a stretch and a workout.
Consider it more bang for
your buck!
Playing in intervals can
mean several different
things – for example, finger
tapping, arpeggios (sweeping and picking
them), and fingerpicking. When the term
fingerpicking is used, a lot of people get
visions of players from Leo Kottke and
Chet Atkins to Andrés Segovia and the late
great Michael Hedges. I suggest checking
out “hybrid” players like Brett Garsed, who
actually combines fingerpicking in the middle of a picked run or line. Very cool stuff!
Steve has since become a good friend and
continues to inspire my playing and compositions. Thanks, Steve!
These exercises should
definitely get your
intervallic playing going.
Remember, if you have
anything in mind that
you’d like me to cover
or explore deeper, you
can reach me at Toshi@
ToshiIseda.com, intseguitr@aol.com or for
those on MySpace, myspace.com/toshiiseda. Thanks for tuning in, and until next
month, “Who dares wins!”
This month however I want to take a look
at picked interval exercises, as I find these
to be the most challenging to execute. I’m
going to include two exercises I received
when I took a private lesson from the
great Steve Morse back in 1991. Steve
The first exercise is based around the
Mixolydian mode and utilizes only four
strings. I highly recommend not only
executing this in the Mixolydian mode
(which is how it’s written) but also the
remaining six diatonic modes as well: the
Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Locrian and
Aeolian. Both exercises should be practiced
with a metronome. This particular exercise
can be practiced in 3/4 or 4/4. You should
not only start both of these exercises with
a downstroke but an upstroke too. I feel it’s
Toshi Iseda
Toshi Iseda is an Alumnus of the prestigeous Berklee
College of Music and the American Conservatory of Music.
He has been featured in Guitar Player, Guitar World and
Guitar/Guitar One Magazines, and is a former instructor
at the National Guitar Workshop and former instructor at
the American Institute of Guitar.
toshi@toshiiseda.com
intseguitr@aol.com
toshiiseda.com myspace.com/toshiiseda
