The Art of Fusion Guitar - Part I

Maurice Arenas opens his fusion guitar series for Mike's Master Classes by breaking down a complete fusion solo over his tune AB City Groove — a study piece he wrote to combine elements of jazz, blues, rock, shred and fusion in one lesson. The class is aimed at players of many levels, from beginning through advanced, with concepts you can keep returning to as your playing develops.

What's covered

• The chord progression to AB City Groove, including jazz chords and slash chords, moving through Aeolian, Lydian, Mixolydian and Phrygian dominant sounds
• Sweep-picked and hybrid-picked arpeggios in the style of Frank Gambale, graded as Level 1 (no shifts) and Level 2 (with shifts)
• Chromatic passing tones and outlining small chords in your lines
• Three-octave scales with a logical fingering approach, plus scales on one string, two notes per string, and three notes per string
• Pentatonic scales with repeated notes in the spirit of Allan Holdsworth and Paul Gilbert
• Diminished arpeggios and their applications in jazz, blues and rock
• The 7 modes of the major scale (three notes per string) and the 5 pentatonic boxes (two notes per string)
• Maurice's basic approach to viewing the fingerboard

A PDF handout with the chord chart, diagrams and arpeggio shapes is included. If you want vocabulary that works across any style, this first installment lays out the foundation.