Photo credit: Max Crace
'Scale length' refers to the distance between a guitar's nut and its bridge. So, in other words, a guitar's scale length is determined by the gap between the two main components that seat its strings. It can therefore be thought of as the measurement of the maximum sounding length of a guitar's strings.
Guitar Scales is often compared to a road map. In which you navigate the right path to avoid taking the wrong direction. The guitar map shows you the way around the fretboard. Manipulating the fretboard in such a way creates an emotion connection to music. There is an endless number of maps within music. Invoking a varying number of emotions or reactions. As you grow as a guitarist you will want to utilize this map or “scales” with skill. However, it is not as easy as navigating roads with GPS. Though with practice, you will gain more focus on your destination and where you are headed as a guitarist.
Despite the amount of time and practice, learning scales will not come to you automatically. Learning affective scales can take years. Which is ok, because the result with bring long lasting rewards.
There are different types of scales with amazing sounds. Often you hear them, without taking note of what a guitarist is doing. You can identify scale usage with a trained ear. For instance, consider some of the common scales used and the songs associated with them.
The minor pentatonic scale is a common first scale for guitar beginners to learn. It's often used to create solos in rock and blues. You can also learn the C major scale, which is a good entry point for composition
Guitar chords are the harmonic embodiment of music notes. By learning guitar chords first, you'll develop a sense of harmony and how things sound in relation to each other, thus creating a structural foundation, on which you can later build your guitar scales knowledge
Scales used by some of the most classic and iconic songs:
Stairway to Heaven: Scales: C minor & C Minor Pentatonic
Major pentatonic scale
Minor pentatonic scale
These examples do not reflect all the scales available to guitarists. However, they have been used by some of the most influential bands throughout history. Therefore, a reflection because Scales should be a fundamental approach to your guitar playing skills.
Our guest today is no stranger to the use of scales. In fact, she helps guitar enthusiasts by producing tutorials on learning how to play scales with ease. I watched a recent You Tube clip of Angela Petrilli giving a lesson of a simple scale. One of the first things I noticed was the joy it brought to her face by using this scale in her lesson. It reflects what comes from implementing scales as a guitarist.
ABOUT ANGELA PETRILLI
“Red River”—the dark, moody, slide-anchored epic that opens Angela Petrilli’s debut solo EP The Voices—draws inspiration from ancient Greek classics The Odyssey and The Iliad; given the trials, tribulations and loss Petrilli endured on the winding journey to this redemptive new set of songs, it’s an apt metaphor.
Back in 2019, Petrilli was one half of Los Angeles Americana duo Roses & Cigarettes, along with her bandmate, songwriting partner and best friend, Jenny Pagliaro. They’d already generated considerable buzz on the L.A. scene, opening for the likes of Jim Lauderdale, Luther Dickinson, The Record Company, Marc Broussard and Amanda Shires, and their impressive third album Echoes & Silence—recorded during Pagliaro’s treatment for Stage 4 breast cancer—seemed poised for a breakthrough. There was a tour in the works, and on March 25th of that year Rolling Stone named Roses & Cigarettes’ new single “Fast As I Can” one of its 10 Best Country Songs of the Week. But in a heartbreaking and tragic turn of events, Pagliaro—who had been fighting off cancer for years—passed away the very next day. She was just 35.
For Petrilli, losing her closest friend and collaborator, and the band they’d both worked so hard to build—right at the doorstep of success—was the most difficult experience of her life. So for the better part of a year, the grieving Petrilli put down her guitar, left L.A. behind and set out across the world. She traveled to Nashville, New York, Paris and Italy, eventually making it as far as Australia. Along the way, she spent a lot of time on the ocean, where she was able to find some peace and clarity. As she began to heal, she could feel her muse calling once again.
Finally back home in L.A., she reached out to some musician friends and booked a bar gig under the name The Petrilli Players. The idea was to shake off the cobwebs, play some covers and have a good time—and that’s exactly how it went down. With a reinvigorated sense of purpose, and a band of simpatico players—Brett Grossman on bass, Stephen Haaker on drums, Matt Lomeo on harmonica & backing vocals, Bobby Victor on keys, and Vic Vanacore III on percussion—Petrilli was inspired to start writing again. After several months playing shows around Los Angeles (including opening spots for Billy Bob Thornton & the Boxmasters, The Immediate Family, and a performance at Joe Bonamassa’s 3rd Annual Stream-a-thon concert), the new songs felt studio-ready, and Petrilli booked a session at Hollywood’s legendary Sunset Sound—the same hallowed ground that has hosted sessions by The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Van Halen, Ray LaMontagne and countless others.
Grossman and Haaker co-produced the EP with Petrilli, with Geoff Neal engineering. Working at peak efficiency with well-rehearsed material, they tracked live and came close to finishing five songs in a single day. Petrilli was able to knock out all of her guitar parts in the session, using her 2013 Gibson Custom Shop R9 1959 reissue Les Paul, a 2012 Custom Shop 1958 reissue Les Paul Junior, a 1998 American Deluxe Strat with Fishman Fluence pickups, and a Fender Brown Derby resonator. For amps, she went through a Mesa Boogie Fillmore 25 for dirty tones, a Fender Vibroverb with a JBL E130 speaker for clean, and a Supro for the washier tremolo textures.
The following day, sessions resumed at The Vanguard in North Hollywood, with Vanacore adding additional percussion. A few weeks later, Lomeo, Jessica Mahon & Phoebe Crenshaw laid down backing vocals. The finishing touches—including Petrilli’s lead vocals and some inspired sax lines from veteran musician Paulie Cerra—were recorded at Grossman’s studio, Cosmic Voyager.
The Voices represents significant musical growth for Petrilli—at once, it’s her debut as a solo artist, band leader and lead vocalist. The EP begins with an ominous intensity as if to herald her arrival, droning organ seeping out like blood over the languid yet insistent drum beat of “Red River.” The song’s haunting slide riff finds Petrilli channeling Robert Johnson via Jimmy Page, tracing a ghostly line from the Mississippi Delta to late-’60s London to Sunset Sound, while her vocals rise from the ocean depths like a siren possessed.
The EP’s title track is another gorgeously meandering launch pad for the band’s live sets, the album version ebbing and flowing like an open-ended “Dark Star”-esque Grateful Dead jam but delivered with a gritty soulfulness worthy of The Black Crowes. As its name implies, “The Voices” is a musical and philosophical conversation, illustrated by the animated call-and-response between Petrilli’s ripping guitar leads and Lomeo’s wailing blues harp.
The horn-anchored “High Roller” and instrumental showpiece “Slapjack” are hard-grooving modern updates on Meters-style New Orleans funk filtered through Petrilli’s native SoCal breeziness. Throughout both, she delivers the kind of slippery double-stop guitar hooks that would make Stax legend Steve Cropper proud.
Bringing The Voices home is “Ghost Inside a Frame,” a sighing, heartfelt, and emotionally potent nod to Petrilli’s beloved Roses & Cigarettes bandmate. The idea came from a conversation Petrilli had with her mother, who also lost a close friend at a young age. She’d told her that the strangest part of losing someone is when you look back at pictures—you keep changing over time, but they look the same. After several false starts, one day the song finally came, as if a transmission from beyond. Petrilli was caught off guard, but opened herself to the moment, got out her notebook, and the words began to pour out. The result is a disarmingly honest and vulnerable song; one that takes the personal and makes it universal.
Reflecting on the events of her life over the past few years, and the ways she’s evolved as an artist, singer and songwriter while making The Voices, Petrilli says that, above all, her journey has been about finding and maintaining an authentic voice and being unapologetically herself. The songs on The Voices celebrate the joy and fragility of life, and for Petrilli—who is embarking on a new musical journey—recording them was a deeply profound and satisfying experience.
Guitar Thrills: Hi Angela. It is nice to catch up with you again. It has been a while, and you seem to be busy in your career as an artist. We will get into the details momentarily. Regarding the topic of Scales, how important are Scales to the average guitarist?
Angela: Hello Edward! Thank you for having me back. Scales are a great way to get new guitarists to learn the fretboard, the notes of each key, and as a tool to build dexterity in their hands and fingers.
Guitar Thrills: Do you believe it is something that a beginner guitarist should focus on, and if so what point?
Angela: A beginner guitarist should certainly focus on learning the notes on the fretboard, and learning scales is a great way to begin that journey. I often have my students learn their major scales along one string so they can easily see the notes from a horizontal perspective (like a pianist.) This allows a guitar player not only to see and hear the notes of the scale, but to see the intervals of those notes. It's a great way to map things out and gain perspective before you build fuller scales using multiple strings.
Guitar Thrills: At what point, did you identify the importance of Scales?
Angela: My guitar teacher Jimmy Scott instilled it in me to learn notes on the fretboard and my scales very early on in my playing.
Guitar Thrills: Do you recall when it first made a huge impact on your progress as a guitarist?
Angela: Seeing the hard work in learning the fretboard through scales opened up a pathway to be more creative with lead lines and chord inversions.
Guitar Thrills: I compared scales with a road map. It helps a guitarist to navigate the fretboard in a way that takes them to another level in their skill set. What type of Scales have you found favorable to your playing style?
Angela: As an admirer of players such as David Gilmour, Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Blues Scale and Minor Pentatonic scale, and Dorian scale often come to mind. I don't always think of "scale shapes" but in terms of notes, tonal centers, and common tones, ect between the chords I am playing over. A melodic and hook driven lead line is what I aspire to play when I play lead. I want to tell a story through a melody of notes and phrases.
Guitar Thrills Broadcast
Guitar Thrills: Scales add to the emotional experience of a song. Is there one of your songs that you feel connected to on another level due to the type of Scale used?
Angela: My favorite song to play live with The Players right now is "The Voices." It's a song that revolves around dynamics and improvisation. We never play it the same way twice.
Guitar Thrills: I mentioned some favorite titles by highly qualified artists. Does any particular one resonate with you to the scales, and what specifically did you appreciate about it?
Angela: "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd is such a beautiful song filled with emotion and great storytelling. The ambiance of the song and David Gilmour's less is more guitar approach are a few of the reasons that this song resonates with so many people all over the world.
Guitar Thrills: Thank you for your feedback. I am going to make a note of who I need to go to for advice on improving my Guitar Scales. I had an opportunity to watch the documentary on Norms Guitars. Did you happen to see the documentary?
Angela: Yes, the Norman's Rare Guitars documentary was beautiful. Devin Dilmore truly captured the magic of the store and Norm's passionate heart.
Guitar Thrills: There are many artists that have been impacted by Norm to some degree. What was your impression of him?
Angela: I have had the honor to know Norm for ten years. He is like an uncle to me. He is one of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. I am so grateful to have Norm in my life.
Guitar Thrills: One of the key points I came away with is his desire to help others succeed as artists. Undoubtedly your success as an artist takes priority, but have you had an opportunity to help other artists, and in what way?
Angela: I believe it is so important to support and lift up other artists. We all have unique gifts and perspectives to bring to our art and our craft, and any opportunity I have to help a friend and colleague, I do it. Whether it is helping a friend by subbing in on a gig, or referring another incredibly talented colleague for a session, helping each other makes this world a better place.
Guitar Thrills: I think you are highly qualified to make a HUGE impact on the music industry. Which is one of the reasons why we wanted you to interview with us again. So, please continue to keep us in the loop. We will do anything in our power to promote your future projects. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule.
Angela: I don't think about legacy. What's important to me is to create great art that speaks to me and my experiences and to be a kind person. We are all students of life, and I try my best to always keep learning and growing.
Guitar Thrills: What are you currently working on, and what kind of timeline do you have in mind for finishing it?
Angela: I am currently working on a new set of songs with my band, Angela Petrilli & The Players. We're loving how the new tunes are sounding. I'm taking my time with this release, so I don't have a timeline in place.
Guitar Thrills: We know that Norm is going to leave behind a highly valued legacy. How important is Legacy to you? Would you like to make that kind of impact on other artists?
Angela: Thanks for having me!
"This song is about love,” says Stefani about her newly shared song. “A love that can’t be broken, a love that no matter what is always going to be there, and a love that can always bring you back home.”
A RECAP OF WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED
