Last month Justin Derrico showed us some ways to take a solo outside, and this time he’s getting even further out, as evidenced by Ex. 1. “This is something I might play over C7, and it’s basically a diminished scale,” he says as he plays A, C, Eb, and Gb. “What I’m doing is taking each of those notes, and stacking fourths on top of them and playing them with hybrid picking.” The last two sets of fourths don’t strictly follow the diminished scale, but they set up the bluesy lick that he uses to come back to reality.

“Another thing I’ll do over a dominant chord,” he says, “is play pentatonics but slide up a half-step and then back.” He then plays Ex. 2, a deceptively difficult-sounding passage.

“Over a minor chord, I’ll do the same thing but slide down a half-step,” he says while blazing through.

To get just a little crazier, Derrico dishes this last nugget in Ex. 4: “Over Cm, you can play a melodic minor scale starting a halfstep up from the 5, so in this case that would be G# melodic minor [enharmonically in Ab: Ab, Bb, Cb, Db, Eb, F, G]. I try to find things that are simple and get as much mileage out of them as I can. As long as you don’t stay outside too long, you bring it back, and you’re confident about it, it sounds great.”