Adam "Nolly" Getgood
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Adam "Nolly" Getgood is the 7-string guitarist with Bristol based band Red Seas Fire. |
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ViK Duality 7 metal test
ViK Duality 7 clean test
Blotted Science - Synaptic Plasticity
Cover of Per Nilsson's solo on The Illusionist, by Scar Symmetry
ViK guitars Duality 7 Adam Nolly's CS demo
Nolly and Bulb jamming with ViKs
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So you want to learn how to play 7-string guitar but you don't have enough readies to go and buy one.
Well fear not boys and girls because Zon Brookes always has a work-around solution under these types of circumstances.
Get yourself an old 6-string electric guitar with a Strat scale length i.e. 25.5" and a new set of 13 gauge strings.
The C major scale is shown below on the GuitarPro6 fingerboard for 7-string guitar with a low B string:-
A standard 6-string electric guitar represents strings 1 to 6 of the previous 7-string; as shown in the next GuitarPro6 fingerboard:-
Instead of tuning your 6-string EADGBE why not tune it BEADGB which represents strings 2 to 7 of the previous 7 string?
The C major scale is shown below on the GuitarPro6 fingerboard for a 6-string guitar tuned BEADGB:-
Won't a 25.5" scale length be too short?.... I hear the purveyor's of all guitar wisdom cry from afar.
Well follow this link to check out the specifications of the Ibanez UV777 to quell any fears you may have on this front - scale length of 25.5" I do believe.
Again the guitar-wise are shouting the strings will be too slack.
This is where the 13 gauge strings come in useful and if you want to do a full string tension calculation check then follow this link to the D'Addario strings design chart (very useful for this precise purpose).
So to quote those of an American persuasion y'all set.
C major scale box shapes for BEADGB tuned 6 string guitar
This issue demonstrates the C MAJOR SCALE box shape for 6-string guitar tuned to BEADGB with the all important orange letters omitted.
The CAGED octaves sequence is shown for C natural in the diagram that follows:-
The diagrams that follows show all of the C major scale notes plotted over the 6-string guitar's fretboard
(tuned to BEADGB) in both the 
and CAGED octaves styles:-
As always a more long term solution to fretboard navigation is to see scales/arpeggios as INTERVAL shapes rather than note names - as these are universal to all scales, arpeggios and chords rather than specific to one particular root note - with this in mind the intervals for the C major scale are detailed below in the
CAGED octaves manner:-
The table and tabbed panel below details all five box shapes for the C major scale in the CAGED octaves style.
6-string bass C major scale box shapes
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- 6Z4Z1
- 4Z2
- 5Z2
- 5Z3
- 6Z3Z1
- 6Z4Z1 at 12
- 6Z4Z1
- 4Z2
- 5Z2
- 5Z3
- 6Z3Z1
- 6Z4Z1 at 12
Once the individual box shapes have been assimilated all five shapes should be linked together and played in one continuous exercise (with the first shape - 6Z4Z1 - being repeated at the 12th fret). The video shown to the right demonstrates the CAGED octaves chain-linked sequence for the C major scale box shapes. |
The complete TAB for the previous exercise follows:-
The box shapes for the previous exercise follow:-
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Cipher....Zon Brookes |
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