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Play This Easy Shape ONCE a Day! (HUGE DIFFERENCE)

Posted by Andrew Wasson Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Understanding the guitar neck is one of the most important things to study as a guitar player. There are several important ideas that need to be explored when it comes to learning the neck and they can include everything from note drills, to shape geometry as well as, scale training...

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If you've experienced any confusion while trying to learn the neck in the past, or if you feel that you just don’t have the right plan in place when it comes to learning the fingerboard, you really should watch this video.

In it I’m going to show you one scale pattern study that you need to practice on the neck which will instantly help you with any confusion about; note layouts, keys or scale tonality.

This exercise will help you understand short scale patterns and how they can operate regionally across the neck in both Major and Minor. Plus, you'll learn more about; scale location, regional shapes, and tonality, as you realize how easy it can be to develop your true strength for notes and keys all around the guitar.

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SCALE TONALITY DRILL:

In this post, I want to show you one thing that you can do every day to help you better understand three ideas;

- your guitar neck

- your key signatures

- Major and Minor tonality

In fact, this exercise is not just easy to learn, but it takes almost no time at all to learn how to play, and it’s so simple that you will probably commit it to memory the first day that you try it.

This exercise involves walking through the first "five notes," of a Major tonality scale section, as well as, doing the same thing through the first "six notes," in the Minor tonality.

How it works, is each scale section will be performed in five different areas of the guitar neck (so you can fully understand how a scale section might be relocated to different octaves and to different ranges of the fingerboard).

If you run the exercise through all the keys over a period of at least three weeks, you’ll find that all of the keys will become better known to you, the notes on the neck for Major and Minor tonality will be much better understood, and the locations of how scales sit all over the guitar will make more sense.

So, let’s get started by learning the first step of this exercise…

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KNOWING TONALITY:

To start with you’ll need to select a root note and a key signature. Along with that you’ll need to know the parallel scale tones that relate to the Minor scale layout from the chosen root.

For our exercises we’ll select the root note of “F.” This means we’ll need to know all the tones that are found within the “F Major” key and the “F Minor.”

The scale tones for “F Major” are the tones of, “F, G, A, Bb, C, D, and E.” The scale tones that form, “F Minor” are, “F, G, Ab, Bb, C, Db, and Eb.”

Once you know these scale tones, you’ll want to start the exercise off by working through one of the Tonalities. For our exercise, we’re going to start with the Major Tonality.

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MAJOR TONALITY:

1). Primary Shape: “F Major” (string 6)

Start by locating the lowest “F” tone, and play the scales first 5 notes.

2). Find the next nearest “F” and play the same shape (string 4)

3). Find the next nearest “F” and play the same shape (string 2)

4). Find the next nearest “F” and play the same shape (string 5)

5). Modified Major Shape - Third String Root

The final shape will need to be modified since we have a tuning difference between the 3rd to the 2nd guitar string (a “Major 3rd” instead of a Perfect 4th). The modified shape ends up looking like this.

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I wanted to take a minute to let you know, that if you want to learn even more about scales and theory I have a great offer for you.

With any donation over $5, or any merchandise purchase from my Tee-Spring store, I’ll send you free copies of THREE of my most popular digital handouts.

One is called, “Harmonized Arpeggio Drills” (it’ll train you on developing your diatonic arpeggios).

Another one is my “Barre Chord” Handout which includes a page showing all the key signatures along with a chord progression that applies barre chords.

Plus, you’ll get my Notation Pack! It has 8 pages of important guitar worksheets for notating anything related to; music charts, guitar chord diagrams, and TAB.

As a BONUS, (from my "Over 40 and Still Can't Play a Scale" video), I'll also throw in a breakdown of all of the chords that are diatonic to the "F Major" scale.

As an EXTRA BONUS for my Phrygian Dominant video, I'll also throw in a breakdown featuring all of the chords that are diatonic to the Phrygian Dominant scale.

Just send me an email off of the contact page of CreativeGuitarStudio.com to let me know about either your donation or your Merchandise purchase and I’ll email you those digital handouts within 24 hrs.
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MINOR TONALITY:

1). Primary Shape: “F Minor” (string 6)

Start by locating the lowest “F” tone, and play the scales first 6 notes.

2). Find the next nearest “F” and play the same shape (string 4)

3). Find the next nearest “F” and play the same shape (string 2)

4). Find the next nearest “F” and play the same shape (string 5)

5). Modified Minor Shape - Third String Root

The final shape will again need to be modified since we have the tuning difference existing between the 3rd to the 2nd guitar string (a “Major 3rd” instead of a Perfect 4th).

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CONCLUSION:

If you’re somebody who doesn’t know their key signatures, or if you really don’t comprehend why a scale is Major or Minor.

Or, if you’ve never taken the time to learn very much about fret-board range (or exactly where the different octave layouts of root notes are on the neck), then this lesson will go a very long way to helping you learn all of this stuff.

The fret-board doesn’t have to be confusing. All of the scale tones and root notes will always form unique geometrical patterns on the neck.

All you need to do is continuously run through new note layouts for new shapes and new patterns for scales so that you begin getting a very good orientation for exactly how this stuff works on the guitar.

Your entire guitar neck will start making a whole lot more sense to you when it comes time to strum chords and play solos.

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Always Do These 6 Steps BEFORE Learning a Song!

Posted by Andrew Wasson Sunday, June 14, 2020

Guitar players that set out to learn a new song often fall into the trap of only learning short segments of the song without ever learning the whole thing. Generally, this is because they ride off of the enjoyment of getting one "part" of the piece so much that they never bother to learn the entire song...

When you train yourself to only learn a small part of a song, you are feeding into an imbalance that is not only costing you a chance to have the full symmetry of learning an entire musical piece, but you fail to build higher level musical skills in the process.

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I want to run through six steps that you could start doing before learning every new song. These six steps will;

♦ improve your understanding for a song when you first set out to learn it, make you feel better about how easy or how complex that new piece of music will be – before you start your study of the song,

♦ it will help you better organize every new piece that you set out to learn,

♦ and it’s going to help prevent a lot of that frustration that goes along when you’re just getting things going with learning how to play a new song on guitar.

Let’s jump into the breakdown of these six steps – right now.

1). Get an audio copy (an MP3), of the song that you want to learn. You can buy any individual song at iTunes, Amazon Music or Google Play, so getting a copy of pretty much any song that you want to learn is fast and easy!

Once you have a copy of the song, you’ll want to get it into a player that has the option of slowing the song down. There’s an app called the, “Amazing Slow-Downer” and it’s quite good, you can find that one at, ronimusic.com …Another one that’s good is an online web-app and it’s called, “Tune Transcribe.”

2). Once you have a copy of the song as an MP3 and you’ve got an app to be able to slow the song down, the next step is to LOCATE some information about the piece.

One of the largest collections of song information can be found over at “Ultimate Guitar.com” Look up the song (that you’re planning to study) and find both a lyric and chord chart along with a TAB of the piece.

3). At this point it’s important to start doing what’s called the initial, “listen through” of the song. During this stage of learning you’ll want to determine how many sections the song has. Like, is there an intro.? Is there a pre-Verse, or just a Verse that leads to a Chorus? Is there a solo and does the song have a separate Ourto to it?

All of these concepts are really important because they help you form a big picture view of the song and this can be really good for determining two things..

(1) is how much of the piece you decide to study and

(2). how much of the song you might want to leave off to the side for practice at a later date.

You can organize this information really easy by simply grabbing a piece of scrap paper and writing down the various song sections. Then, make a note of which parts that you’re going to focus on first.

4). Once you’ve organized the song into its various parts for learning, the next stage is to begin study of the first section of your piece.

Normally, if the intro of the song is some kind of a really catchy riff, it’s probably a good idea to work on that part first. Riffs and picking patterns are generally quite important to slow down because they can run by your ear very quickly at regular speed and it can be tough to hear one note to the next at the original album speed.

One thing to keep in mind here, is when you’re learning picking patterns or single-note lines always pay a lot of attention to the lowest note and the highest note of the phrase.

That understanding will give you the range of the line and it will help you to understand the location on the neck of where you’re going to play the part. If you were able to find a TAB chart on Ultimate Guitar, then make some comparisons of what you figured out by ear in relation to the TAB that you found.

The TAB’s on Ultimate Guitar are all user generated, so there are no guarantees that they’re correct. So, you’ll need to go by your ear and make the judgment call of the correct notes in relationship to what sounds the best to how you hear things.

My golden rule (that I always follow), is if I can play along to the original recording and it sounds really great, then I’ve most likely got it, (and I am playing ), the correct notes.

5). The next thing to consider is what key the song is in. And obviously, this can be a tough area to get down if you are not aware of the basic principles of; key signatures, scales and chord harmony.

So, it’s always a good idea to have a regular routine in place for studying the theory until you memorize theory principles. Every piece of music is composed around key signatures. And, quite often a song will drift between a keys Major and Minor tonality.

Like for example, a song might start in Minor, have a Verse that’s also in Minor, but then switch to a Chorus that’s in Major. Or, all of that could just as easily show up in reverse – and this can happen in any song that you’re leaning.

So, if you’re good at how to organize chord types, and scale tones (so that you can spot the key forming), you’ll be able to take a lot of the guess work out of song learning by simply testing different chords of the key as you hear each section entering.

Let’s try this with a made-up song example of a Verse and a Chorus so that you can understand for yourself – exactly how all this works.

Verse Example:

Chorus Example:

6). The last step is to make an itemized breakdown covering exactly how each section of the song you’re studying moves - part by part, through the entire piece.

Now, if you’ll recall, back in Step 3, we organized our song sections. But, now we’re going to fine-tune everything in greater detail.

For example, if there’s an Intro and it lasts for 4 bars, write that down. If the Verse happens next, and it has 8-bars but they repeat, jot that down as well. Maybe there’s a Chorus with 8-bars and another Verse, but that Verse doesn’t repeat – write that down.

Perhaps, after all that we get an 8-bar guitar solo with a 4-bar Bridge... Whatever the structure is, write it all down so that you’ve got a formula to follow as you’re learning the entire piece – section by section.

Example Breakdown Chart:

Not only will this help you understand the layout of a song much better, but you’ll also have a section by section flow-chart of the song so that as you’re learning the whole piece, you’ll stay on top of everything in a more organized way than as if you never bothered to map out the piece using the sections and bars layout.

CONCLUSION:

So, if you want to start learning songs on your own, absolutely apply this six-step method… When you’re learning any song - having a method like this comes in real handy.

Back when I used to play in a lot of top-40 bands (and work the clubs), it wasn’t uncommon where I would get a call, and get asked to learn 30 or 40 songs in a week to step in as a side-man in a band for a weekend booking in a bar, or at the casino.

When you’ve got to organize a lot of songs like that - having a system like this one I just described - goes a long way to speeding up the success of learning each piece.

So whether you’re just learning one song, or you’re having to learn a collection of songs, this method is fantastic for moving the whole process along much faster and much more efficiently.

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1 Blues Scale Can Change Your Life! (INSTANT RESULTS!)

Posted by Andrew Wasson Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Did you know that a majority of the world's most famous guitar players never stay within a fret position when they play a solo! When the world's guitar greats are ripping out their guitar solos, they tend to focus on smaller vertical span scale shapes. Normally the shapes that they use will only have 3 or 4 strings at the very most. In fact, the scale patterns the pros apply will tend to sit on the neck with a much wider horizontal framework...

Scale shapes are one of the first things that are taught to guitar students when they are developing their ability to play lead guitar. The thing is, those scale shapes are typically taught within a fretting position and they're played across all six strings (within 4 frets).

When I first learned about this it shocked me. I thought the top guitar players always used the scales shown in all of the guitar books... but they don't. The reason why is because learning scales that are limited vertically and have a wide span horizontally will get you playing with enhanced phrasing ideas.

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Can One Blues Scale Change Your Life?

In this lesson we'll study a powerful Blues scale layout that will help you start playing guitar solos with more explosive sounding lines, licks and riffs. This unique Blues pattern will help you explore more interesting lines that will tell people that you're "in the know" and that you can perform strong melodic ideas without having to work at it!

Is it possible for one Blues scale pattern on the guitar - to change your life? Well it is, but you’re going to have to re-think how you’re doing some of the old classic Blues scale patterns on the guitar... So, how is this possible? How can one scale pattern change your life? Now, I’m not one who’s about to tell you inflated promises if I can’t back them up.

The "Frying Pan" Shape:

Before we go any further, I want to refer you to an old lesson that I posted back a few years ago (in 2017), called the, “Guitars Most Important Pattern - The "Frying Pan".”

If you haven’t seen that lesson, then be sure to go and look it up. Because the shape that I’m going to share with you today is similar to that older lesson. These ideas are all about breaking away from common in position scale shapes and instead, learning new patterns.

Keep in mind that these patterns are the types that famous guitar players use to create flowing solos that we hear in all of their perfectly phrased lead guitar parts.

Now, the reason we hear such smooth sound from; Van Halen, Clapton, Hendrix, BB King, Jimmy Page, Santana and all the other legendary guitar players is because of the way that they’ve learned to lay out their scales on the fingerboard.

They’ve developed shapes that sit in much more lateral ways across the neck. And, their layouts for those common scale shapes are generally more limited with how many strings are covered. In fact, their scale layouts are often organized into just a 3 or maybe a group of 4 strings.That's it!

Add to all that, the shapes they use are more lateral and less vertical which help to promote playing lead guitar with greater use of phrasing devices.

In the end this means that the solos that they perform tend to have more; slides, vibrato, trills, bends, hammer-ons and pull-offs. There’s also more opportunity for wider intervals, and more chances along the neck for performing unique interval combinations as well.

So, let’s get going on this idea by learning a Blues Scale shape that I was first shown almost 30 years ago. A shape that really changed my approach to playing in a lot of styles; Blues, Funk, Motown, Soul, R and B, Jazz and Rock… Let’s get into this - right now!

BLUES SCALE TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE:

NOTE: All examples will feature the “E Blues” scale. But, can be transposed to any other key that you’d like!

Example 1).

The ex.(1). “E Blues,” scale layout is very lateral and it’s construction has it built off of the 6th string’s 12th fret “E,” and it’s covering a seven fret range from the 7th fret 5th & 4th string up to the 13th fret of the 5th string. The pattern applies notes located from the low 6th string, to the guitar’s 4th string. Here’s how it can be practiced…

Example 2).

The ex.(2). shape is identical geometrically to what we had back in ex. (1). This patterns neck layout has it built off of the 5th string’s 7th fret “E,” and it’s also covering a seven fret range from the 2nd fret 4th and 3rd string up to the 8th fret of the 4th string. The pattern uses notes located from the low 5th string, to the guitar’s 3rd string. Here’s how this layout operates…

Example 3).

The ex.(3). shape is slightly different geometrically to what we had seen back in ex. (1 and 2). This is because of the guitar’s tuning difference between the 3rd to the 2nd strings.

Our neck layout for this shape has it built off of the 4th string’s 14th fret “E,” and it’s also covering a seven fret range from the 9th fret 4th string up to the 15th fret of the 3rd string. The pattern uses notes located from the low 4th string, to the guitar’s 2nd string. Here’s how this layout looks and how it sounds.

Example 4).

The ex.(4). shape is once again slightly different geometrically to what we had seen back in ex. (1, 2 and 3). This is once again related to the guitar’s tuning difference that exists between the 2nd to the 3rd strings.

Our neck layout for this final example is built off of the 3rd strings 9th fret “E,” with its range reaching out to the 11th fret of the 2nd string. The pattern uses notes located from the low 3rd string, to the guitar’s 1st string. Here’s how this layout looks and sounds.

If you get yourself a copy of a diagram of the “key signature wheel,” and you work your way through all of the musical keys, (transposing the scale shape that we covered in this lesson, over to all the keys), you’re going to totally nail down this pattern in no time flat.

If you don’t have a copy of the key signature wheel, it’s in the “Key Signatures and Barre Chords,” handout that’s a part of my “donations” and “merchandise,” promotional offer (that I’m running right now).

Once you’ve learned how to take this Blues Scale shape all over the guitar using the principles I’ve outlined in this lesson, you can invent more patterns similar to this one of your own creation and start coming up with even more scale ideas all over the guitar fret-baord.

And, I guarantee to you that if you do this, it’ll open up a whole new world of how you’re playing lead guitar! And, as you start applying these ideas, it’ll be something that I’m sure you’ll find changes your “guitar playing” for the rest of your life when it comes to both composing and improvising melody lines.

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Play This Easy Shape ONCE a Day! (HUGE DIFFERENCE)

Always Do These 6 Steps BEFORE Learning a Song!

1 Blues Scale Can Change Your Life! (INSTANT RESULTS!)

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