Sean Scales

[Guesswho_Chick]

Does anybody know what scales Sean uses to build his solos off of?? They sound fairly bluesy, but not exactly like that (he seems to do more blues-oriented stuff live though)... any ideas??

[Tagatha]

I'm not sure, I'm not technically minded when it comes to the guitar so I don't understand much of the theory behind it. He seems to use Blues and jazzy variants tho.
He seems to use my own soloing tricks (speeded up by about a billion times!) of rapid scaling and variance around it, but I don't know what I'm doing, if you know what I mean, the sound just fits to my ear and I'm working my way up teh fret board progressively.

I wish I could solo proficiently. Sigh. That's my next project, after the mando and 4-track home recording my next demo. ;)

I am going to spend so much money on my music this summer!

[Goose_17]

i'm not a guitar expert or even a guitar player..but i have noticed that on the older stuff sean uses a lot of tony rice style licks and solos. however i'm not sure how that would carry over to the scales. i'd be the newer stuff of course would be a lot more jazz and blues.

[Guesswho_Chick]

Tagatha - definately think you're right! I was listening to Smoothie song today, and noticed that part of his solo was just going up the scale reeeeally quickly! Thanks!! My teacher's teaching me a Texas Fiddle Backup, that's based in one part on a chromatic scale, and then in the second part of a g-scale - I wonder if Sean just plays around with things like that, putting together a few different scale types?? [think har You should let us hear your demo when ya get it done!! :)

Goose - Good point! And excellent insight, especially for a non-guitarist!! It may be easier to find more info on Tony's playing *I'm sure there's more info out there on him then there is on Sean*. In fact, I probably should go ask on flatpickinbluegrass.com's message board - somebody there may know what Tony used, and then maybe that could lead us in Sean's direction?? the newer stuff might be a lot more jazz/blues - he does an awful good job of not making those jazz solos stale and sterile though, and of still fitting into a band... [shock]