When it comes to his musical influences, Wayne Krantz takes an approach to the guitar that is at once counter-intuitive and wholly original. “My sound has always been a reaction against the guitar players that were of greatest importance to me,” says the Oregon native and New York City–based guitarist. “My playing was shaped by an intentional step away from the influences that I’d had up to the time that I got really serious about playing, because I realized that the lesson all of those guys were teaching me was to not be like them—the whole point was to try to find my own thing. So I realized I couldn’t go on expressing my love for them through my playing anymore, and I had to begin a search for something else.”

Welcome to my new instructional column for GW. I'd like to start by showing you a method that I use to practice soloing with a specific scale. Over the years, in addition to playing gigs and writing songs, I have strived to find practice techniques that improve my knowledge of scales and chords — specifically how to play and use them in a variety of contexts. This inevitably leads to the subject of music theory.