Harmonizing Scales

Harmonizing is one of the tricks that can help make one of your leads amazing. It is a must for any serious guitar players and today we'll discuss how to achieve that effect. But first, let's make sure that we are comfortable with the tools we'll used.

In order to harmonize, we need to be very comfortable with each position of the modes extracted from the Major scale. We'll work on 3 note per string patterns here:

Ionian
Dorian
Phrygian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Aeolian
Locrian

As you should know, the 7 previous scales follow each other on the fretboard. Because of that, we'll be able to harmonize easily any 3 note per string sequence by simply playing the same sequence on the relative mode to the original one.

Let's say that we want to harmonize an ascending A Major scale a 3rd up. We simply will ascend simultaneously the relative C# Phrygian mode.

The track I built to illustrate that concept will first go through the original lick, then we'll harmonize it a 3rd up.

Work slowly and make sure you try this on your own material.

Have fun!