Live Stream | 05
Live Stream | 05

Week 3 Chord Progression Homework

Thanks again for being here. I'm so so grateful for YOU. Yes you. I hope you're enjoying your time here and I hope you feel excited to pick up your guitar every day.

This "live!" is the third week of chord progression homework. If you've just joined, here are the links to the last two weeks of chord progression homework. We're gently building layers of complexity for each week of homework, so I'd recommend watching week one and week two!

Week one: https://www.patreon.com/posts/39112891

Week two: https://www.patreon.com/posts/tune-in-today-at-39334605

Read More
Live Stream ArchiveScott Johnsonlive stream | 05, homework, Live Streams 1-30
Live Stream | 04
Live Stream | 04

July Homework Updates

Hi Everyone!

It's Wednesday which now means its livestream homework assignment day! From now on, I'll have a homework assignment every Wednesday. If you can't catch it, I'll link it here within an hour or two afterward so you can watch it later!

I'll have updates about what lessons are coming up and I'll assign some new homework related to last weeks chord progression homework. Then it'll be a Q&A session with whoever is watching about whatever questions you might have.

I hope you can join! Catch up on last weeks homework assignment so you're ready for the next layer!

Read More
Live Stream ArchiveScott JohnsonLive Stream | 04, homework, Live Streams 1-30
Live Stream | 03
Live Stream | 03

The First Weekly Homework Assignment

Hi Everyone!

This is big news. From now on I'm going to have a weekly livestream every Wednesday. I'll hand out some homework at the beginning of every month, and every week I'll check in on the progress, talk about more ways to explore the homework, and possibly feature a few choice examples of completed assignments.

I want to stress the importance of not just absorbing and watching these lessons, but really spending time getting to know things. The videos I've been making for this community are designed for you to really spend time practicing and understanding, so I thought a central weekly video to tie things together ought to be a fun and useful idea.

Check in each Wednesday this month for more different ways to make and manipulate chord progressions.

Read More
Live Stream ArchiveScott JohnsonLive Stream | 03, homework, Live Streams 1-30
Song Analysis | 02
Song Analysis | 02

“Can’t Help Falling In Love” Pt. II (Melody Analysis)

We already broke down the chord progression in the previous lesson. Now it's time to analyze how the melody harmonizes with the chords. This type of breakdown is helpful for both songwriters and lead guitar players who want to understand how soloing and other lead lines work over chords. At the end I discuss briefly how to practice writing your own melodies using the simple rules:

1. Start your melody on a note in the current chord

2. If moving through the scale, continue through the scale until you reach a chord tone

3. If skipping notes, only skip to another chord tone

Read More
Song AnalysisScott Johnsonsong analysis | 02
Soloing | 02
Soloing | 02

Pentatonic vs Full Scale vs Chromatic

In this lesson I wanted to talk about how different kinds of scales sound when you're playing a solo and how you can mix and match as long as you're focused on notes in whatever chord is going by. The idea here is that chord tones are so important, you can almost do anything you want as long as you're following the chords.

Read More
Soloing LessonsScott JohnsonSoloing | 02, soloing lessons
Song Analysis | 01
Song Analysis | 01

“Can’t Help Falling In Love”

In this lesson, I'm breaking down the chord progression of this song into their appropriate roman numerals - talking about what key(s) the song is in and how everything is organized. If you've watched all of the Music Theory Monday series, you should understand whats going on. If not, I'll have livestreams to help clarify your questions and my formal music theory course will make a lot more sense of it.

Read More
Song AnalysisScott Johnsonsong analysis | 01