Why "pockets" instead of just learning SCALES?!?!

Jim Fogarty · From: Phila, Pa, USA

Hey all,

Started my C6 psg adventure recently (after a couple years on E9 and C6 lap) and in purchasing some learning methods, I keep seeing "pockets" brought up. Emmons, Newman and (I think) Herby Wallace, too.

But these "pockets" just seem to be fairly random major and minor pentatonics, with added tones here and there......but not necessarily covering the whole scale, or section of the neck, consistently. Often they don't start or end on a root, either. In fact, in his "C6 and Swinging", Newman flat wrongly states that a certain note is the root, when it isn't.

Anyway......why pockets? Why not just learn the scales and their functions? As an armpit guitarist and teacher, I've always found it important, when playing and teaching blues, to know whether to keep the 3rd or 6th natural or flat it, etc. It's not that difficult, and no more work than learning these semi-random "pockets", IMO.

Just curious if I'm missing something.

Thanks!

George Biner · From: Los Angeles, CA

Say you want to play blues licks efficiently without skittering around the whole neck -- you find a pocket and play your licks there -- then you move to another pocket. That's what Clapton does.

Pockets aren't bounded by roots, they are bounded by the notes of interest playable in that pocket. If the root is out of the pocket, move to the next pocket.

There's nothing random about pentatonic scales -- they are just scales with some notes missing.

I think, sometimes it seems heretically, that whatever tool gets you playing the licks you want is useful. If it's not useful to you, don't use it. It is possible to drive a high performance Mustang well without knowing the dimensions of the camshaft.
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Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Well actually pockets are pieces of root scales, taken from a different degree of the root scale formulated from a different position, we don't have to play a root note. Many pockets that we may play out of don't include the ROOT.

Many pockets of in family root scales, as we call them, include the exact same notes, minus the roots. Its what makes music so interesting and its the thread that binds everything together.
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Jim Fogarty · From: Phila, Pa, USA

But, it seems to me, that with â€œpocketsâ€, somebody else has already chosen the supposed â€œrightâ€ notes for you to play. Without the knowledge of which scale and which degree and where they are, youâ€™re kind of painting by numbers, no?

Not arguing, just trying to see the logic. Is this maybe just a way of getting beginners started improvising, without teaching them music?

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

well perhaps, but if there are a handful of notes in a pocket, how many variables does that make ? The trick ( study) is to play out of a few pockets where the notes may be varied in the dynamic range, where it gives a totally different perspective. Each pocket position can begin on a different degree of the scale, OR NOT ! It just comes with more seat time and studying the chord/root shapes that the pockets present to us.

What came first, the scales or the pocket ?

RE: Take a short scale burst ( pocket) such as the one used in Orange Blossom Special. We probably all play it in the
"TYPICAL" form. But those same exact notes can be played multiple ways and not sound anything like OBS.

And then the confusion, we can play out of a simple 3 or 4 note pocket in the key of "A" and play it across A,D and E . Then change one note here and there and its a whole new perspective.

Blues guitar players know the can play a pentatonic Blues scale or solo in "A" on the 5th fret. But then magically they jump up to the 9th/10 fret region and play a continuation in a different pocket. It works. Why does it work ? because another form of the "A" chord and scale are right at the 9th fret. These players are now playing a simple "A" scale pocket derived from the "A" chord on the 9th fret. Its not magic, its the tuning and an alternative position.

On the Pedal Steel for example, just playing strings 6,5 and 4, OPEN with the AB peds down is the Root "A" chord. then the 5th fret NO Peds, another form of the root "A" chord , then up to the 8th fret, A pedal and E Raise lever, another form of "A" root, then again at the 10th fret, B Pedal and E Lower lever, yet another FORM of the "A". All of these notes are in the root "A" scale but varying degrees. How we decide to use them is the key to the city . We know where they are but what the heck do I do with them ?

Its like a road map, SOMEONE listed all the streets , but which one do we want to drive down to get home ?

It just comes with more seat time as well as listening time. Very Happy

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Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Some instruments regularly use whole scales, even in multiple octaves, in their playing (piano, violin, clarinet) and some don't (guitars) so we learn what we need.

The reason we encounter "pockets" on C6 is because on E9 we can play scales without moving the bar. On C6 we have to dodge about - the pedals are no help because they give notes outside the scale, not in it. Play a scale on E9 without using the pedals and you'll find yourself moving in a pocket. I don't like the word - it feels too constricting - perhaps as it represents the space we need to express ourselves we should call it a "room" or a "field".

We have to learn scales in theory in our heads, but on the actual guitar we choose the set of moves that gives the phrasing we want, which won't always be the same.
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Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

what Ian said ! Laughing

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Bill McCloskey · Posted 16 Mar 2021 4:40 am

removed.

William Carter · From: Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA

I play multiple instruments. Some I learned on my own, and some classically trained. My brain just doesn't process scales as a whole. I just don't like them, don't have any use for them, and not many songs or licks use the whole scale for anything.

My brain learns a lot easier when I take 3 or 5 notes at a time and learn how those work together. Eventually those 3 or 5 notes get combined with a few more notes to complete the "official scale". Nothing says you have to learn a scale all at one time. When I was in kindergarten taking piano lessons, they only taught 5 notes for 5 fingers. The other 3 notes in the scale got added later.

Everybody's brain is programmed differently and has a different formula for the best way to learn something. For me it is small pieces. Other people may prefer to have the whole scale at one time. It's just what works for each individual person that matters.
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K Maul · From: Hadley, NY/Hobe Sound, FL

Iâ€™m not a â€œtrainedâ€ musician and I really never learned scales, degrees, modes per se. What I did do was learn my neck well enough to play the melody and use my intuition to serve the song, the singer and the band in general. It is not an approach for everyone and I know there are many drawbacks. Iâ€™ve heard too many scholarly musicians playing scales and NOT the song.
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Tom Campbell · From: Houston, Texas, USA

I think it was John Coltrane (jazz artist) once said, "You learned music theory, practiced scales...and then just forget all that sh_t and just play".

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

What William says about 5-note scales is very relevant as they are mostly all we use in real life, and by chaining them together you can construct any scale you want.
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Sam Werbalowsky · From: New York, USA

I've been playing C6 for about a year, and learning and discovering various pockets. I think about which chord tones are in each pocket and which note I'm starting on. It's more about the chords this way than a scale, but they are obviously related.

There's also a ton of different ways to play a scale, on both necks. I do practice scales on E9, but I think the pocket approach is getting me up to speed much faster on C6. Relationships between pockets will also help to play over changes faster, since it's not too difficult to see how different pockets relate to each other between the I, IV, V, vi, ii, etc.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

while I certainly never think in terms of scales, the fact of the matter is I learned them and played them for years, its how my guitar fingers got trained. Its how my ears got trained. Even if we are not thinking scales, and only thinking 5 notes, we have trained our "INNER SELF" to recognize the note relationships. I doubt anyone THINKS in scales , I know I don't, but they may very well "subconsciously" play in alternate positions, which of course are derived from the "S" word ! Those alternate positions are not mistakes or magic !

If I feel my guitar fingers are getting sloppy I do revert to 2 or 3 scale forms for 5 or 10 min each day. Its not about the scales but rather finger discipline, but along for the ride comes the relationship of notes. Its the same on the Steel.
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Ron Hogan · From: Nashville, TN, usa

POCKET INFO

Ron

Michael Sawyer · From: North Carolina, USA

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I personally spent a good bit of my mis-spent youth studying classical piano, and a good part of that was running scales - my teacher insisted. I eventually revolted, turned to blues guitar 50+ years ago, and turned away from that whole approach. Then in the 80s, I felt the need to study modal scales, the whole Berklee/GIT sort of approach that almost mathematically maps various modal scales to chord progressions. Then I only rarely used it. Sorta like "All dressed up and nowhere to go."

So to me -

1. I generally don't find the "scales over chord progressions" approach very musical. I think it's important to understand scales, arpeggios, chords, and so on, but in the end, to me, it's about listening to music, grokking how things fit individually to it, and then working on playing music, not scales. To that end, anything that gets you there is good.

2. Even without #1, steel guitar is laid out in a very nonlinear fashion. I mean, guitar is also nonlinear, but it's at least piecewise linear with a regular pattern to the breaks in linearity. But steel and especially pedal steel is even more nonlinear. Extended modal scales do not lie nicely like they do on piano, violin, or even guitar. We're restricted to a single bar across the strings and don't have 4-10 degrees of freedom with moving fingers. I think it's reasonable to know where various scales are, but I think it's futile to try to get extended scales up to speed, if that's what you're going for. And that is what it seems to me what a lot of, let's say, rock and fusion guitar players are going for when they run scales over chord progressions almost as if mathematically defined.

Paul Franklin has written about these general issues a number of places, as well as the general intervallic approach to improvisation. I think he's right on with this. E.g.,

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=355352

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=339216

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=331172

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=222844

My jazz guitar teacher/mentor had a favorite phrase - "I play music, not scales and modes. The only mode I care about is pie a-la-mode!". OK, he certainly knew scales, but I never, ever heard him play scales over a chord progression. And he is a monster jazz player.

Joel Jackson · From: Detroit

Tucker Jackson · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

I donâ€™t see the difference between â€œposition playingâ€ on guitar and â€œpocket playingâ€ on steel. The tuning may be different, but the frets represent the same thing. All the notes in two octaves are right there in a 3 or 4 fret space anywhere on the neck, along with all the intervals, modes, and chord tones you would ever need in any key.

The limiting factor with steel guitar of course is the bar. Some positions (pockets) are better suited for scale runs than others. Throwing a slide or pedal bend is part of what gives the instrument its character, for me anyway, and I see no reason to avoid it.

One of the reasons for position playing is finding the sound of the note you want to play. G#4 on one string is going to have a different timbre than G#4 on another string. As Ron Hogan explains in his ad for lessons on the subject, the idea is to eventually be able to combine ideas from all the pockets in order to create flowing melodies (or chord changes), shifting positions with the bar confidently.

J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

The "invention" of Jazz was in PART an application of the discovery of using chord notes and thus also exploring more complex chords instead Classic Music's gold standard or scales and modes. With that instruments which had been considered "not whole" like guitars etc moved up the food chain.
Interestingly enough, if one studies Louis Armstrong, a trumpet player... in other words, a non-polyphonic instrument thus incapable to play a chord or a harmony ALONE, constructed his style which revolutionized the world, around Arpeggios and enclosures to these degrees. I don't know how he "thought"... but that's how Jazz was born.
Now, some "Jazz-Schools" analyzed all these Jazz Creators' music and found that some modes, when overlaid over these icons' music would "match" much of their playing and try to sell the idea to their students that there are "Jazz-Scales" that "make you sound like playing real Jazz!". It's a great marketing stunt, but as for learning to create Jazz like the ones we admire who did it, it stinks.
Because, it's evidently not how they created the music.

Django Reinhardt, who's music is near and dear to me, one day heard a Satchmo recording and exclaimed "c'est mon frere!" ("this is my brother!").
If today you meet Djangophiles you will find that most center their improvisation around the chords... hence, arpeggios and enclosures to their degrees.
Evidently, when you keep book of what Django and his followers play, it becomes very near Chromatic.
So, I my opinion, if there is ONE scale to learn, it's the chromatic scales.
Students and kids growing up in the Django Reinhardt tradition and legacy all are sat down to learn chords, progressions and then practice their arpeggios agains all the chords and then progression fragments (II V's etc) and add enclosures and become CREATIVE with it and eventually to reel off "free".

Another example: BB King and The Blues. Every white boy interested in blues is automatically introduced to the Pentatonic - aka. Pentatonic "Blues Scale and told that they can "Oh Boy Am I Lost" (Jeff Newman's OBAIL scale) play anything out of that scale and "all them notes will work"... well, "with the avoidance of the pesky 4th degree in there in the Key chord. BB King, declared in various "teaching interviews" that he never based his playing around scales.

I have heard technically gifted pedal steel professionals reel off "Steel Guitar Jazz" single notes solos for conventions in a row... and after 2 or 3 tunes of that, the brain long recognized the over-imposed pattern and boredom and finally irritation sets in.

While many Jazz tunes follow certain chord patterns (progressions)... the core to Jazz and melodic BeBop is still the chordal framework that supports it.
You can play a mode or two "against" that all night long, but it will be VERY difficult NOT to sound quite evidently "non-meaningful", even with great technique (aka. "speed").
While someone who knows the progression and the chords, fills and finally leads along with the tunes evident movements.

Now, we're all NOT Django, nor BB or Satchmo.
But I think the steel guitar is uniquely positioned to be used taking advantage of it's chordal layout. Playing in C# is a simple as it is in C. Everything one learns, can be modulated with one gentle nudge to the bar... the whole progression actually! Learn it once, play all 12 keys, no question asked. Even on the standard guitar, due to it's limited number of strings, it takes to learn every song at least twice, off 2 different bass string roots a 4th, resp. a 5th apart.

Shapes, Clouds, Pockets.
On the steel guitar the easiest two ways to play an interval are:
a) pick the next string
b) move your bar a fret or two.

a combination of both can tighten or widen intervals.
Trying to play distant intervals with the bar alone, slows down and can wind up sounding "awkward". Playing half note intervals across the string is only possible with a few select adjacent strings using changes to bring them closer.

Most strings are tuned minor, major and a second apart.
Without morphing the interval sequence across the strings with pedal and lever changes, there is usually only one 2nd interval present. Most a minor 3rds.
So, you learn to phrase your "ideas" around 4th movements (IIm to V, II7 to V, IIm to Vm), etc on as many frets as possible so they are playable without sounding "strange" like resorting to successions of long single string slide etc.
Guitar players "see" the chord shapes. WE should too. And the chords broken up over 1 or 2 fret intervals appear "every where".
IF you play KNOWING the progression, you HAVE to "SEE" the chord positions in as many inversions (fret positions along the fret board) as you possibly can learn and explored. It would seem reasonable to put those in context with common movements predominantly found in modern Western Music... which typically tends to move in (not only) 4ths. Hence, practice your II, V's, and evidently you want not just to jump 5 or 7 frets but to get them within reasonable playability... within 2 to frets to the South and the North (up or down the neck)... Et VOILA! as the French say, the POCKET is born. It's a symbiosis between MUSIC and PLAYABILITY.

But other people's pocket too, are no "Play Any Note From The Pocket"-ticket... it's MUSIC and playability that created the Pocket.

Once one knows how to make MUSIC in several, actually a near unlimited number of way of the notes arranged in pocket, one can move (modulate) that whole pocket around to play (in the case of a II, V pocket) to a III VI progression of a bVII to III7 progression alike and weave into the next pocket nearby.

... J-D.
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Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"

A Little Mental Health Warning:

Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.

I say it humorously, but I mean it.

Bengt Erlandsen · From: Brekstad, NORWAY

Pockets is something that will naturally occur for any given tuning. Just like different jeans have their pockets in different places, different tunings will have certain groups of notes located neatly together in a "pocket" somewhere. It is no substitute for skipping the knowledge of a scale, or chords/intervals within a particular scale. "pockets" gives some insight into your instrument and the particular tuning beeing used on that instrument.
Learning scales and/or "pockets" is only a handful small pieces of the puzzle.

Example....If you limit yourself to only playing 3 voiced chord-voicings. You will most likely find that there is one or more Major 7ths ( R 3 7 ) that turn into a Major 6th voicing ( R 3 6 ) followed by
a bunch of minor 7ths ( R b3 b7 ) that turn into minor 6th voicings ( R b3 6 )

In case of the blues you will find a dominant 7th ( R 3 b7 ) turning into a minor 6th voicing( R b3 6 ) or the other way around.

Thats another two pieces of the puzzle

Learning a scale goes way beyond the initial memorizing of the notes and structures that are present in the scale chosen. Parts of it will be found in "pockets" and the rest will be discovered and unlocked by your imagination.

Bengt Erlandsen
Zumsteel S12extE9 7+7

Joseph Napolitano · From: New Jersey, USA

Paul Franklin brilliantly , repeatedly addresses this specific topic in his course . He spends a lot of time gett ing students focused on intervallic playing . I'll let Paul's course speak for itself, as I could easily bungle his message.

Jim Fogarty · From: Phila, Pa, USA

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