This month I surprised everyone with my new camera guitar and I've been talking about general CAGED concepts.
I've been working out a few more bugs with the camera guitar and I think I'll hopefully have a few cool and educational visuals prepared for you.
Read MoreEvery Wednesday at 11am PST, I go live and talk about the topic of the month. This month I surprised everyone with my new Guitar Camera and I've been talking about CAGED concepts.
Join me while I discuss Major and Minor in the CAGED system. I'm talking chords and scales.
Read MoreIn this livestream, I continue to investigate some different ways to think about the CAGED System using the new Guitar Cam.
Jam track I used: F Major I V progression
Here is the same track without the Rhythm Part: F Major Jam without Rhythm Part
Read MoreSurprise! If you've seen my youtube videos, you know that the camera guitar with fingerboard dots is kind of my thing. Well, in this live stream you get to see the first glimpse of the live camera guitar I've been working on for months. It's a lot like my Youtube lessons, except live.
I'm still working out the kinks and I'll be continuing to refine and hone my visuals to be as clear and helpful as possible so that this place can be a badass place for learning. I hope you're excited to learn. I certainly am. I want you to see the fingerboard the way I do and I think this guitar will help tremendously.
Read MoreContinuing with the Music Theory for Guitar series, the next set of lessons are about Triads! Starting with Major Triads, I talk about how to make them, the language to use when discussing and thinking about them (to keep things from getting too confusing), and how we typically use voicings and inversions on guitar. This gives you the info you need to work on the homework and the practice track. This also prepares you for the next lesson about minor triads!
Other lessons in this series:
- Homework
Read MoreFor the final week of Fun with Rhythm Guitar! we get into add11 chords and talk a bit about how weird they are to figure out on guitar, how certain voicings don't sounds very good, AND how when you find a nice voicing they can be quite beautiful.
Jam tracks used today
Read MoreIn this lesson, I talk about add9 chords and how they are similar to sus2 chords, but not identical. Then we tinker with how to use them in a rhythm guitar context. From there, we combine this add9 thing with concepts from previous weeks and create some tonally interesting rhythm guitar parts. The homework is to come up with your own ABAC pattern over this jam track:
Read MoreIn this MTM I discuss theory that is not exclusive to the blues, but tonally related. I introduce a few ideas about bending - how you always want to think about bending TO a note - and a few thoughts about how “The Blues Scale” is or isn’t directly related to the Blues depending on how you use it or look at it. I also get into this bluesy idea of playing a minor pentatonic scale over the IV chord in a major key - stealing a blues concept and plopping it into a non-bluesy song. Sometimes it sounds awesome and sometimes it sounds a little too risky!
Jam Tracks linked here:
Read MoreWe're taking on another chord concept today: sus4 and sus2 chords!
C Major I - IV Progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBNDndQDlAA
F Major I - V Progression: https://youtu.be/X_FKHdiNw2c
You can also download a few audio versions on the Week One post here.
I also mentioned the rubik's cube lessons which I think would be a fantastic set of lessons to review if you want to get more familiar with this material.
Read MoreThis lesson is kind of an overview of where I'm headed with these CAGED Soloing lessons. Some of you might take this lesson and the PDFs and be able to start practicing solos over all of myyoutube jamtracks, others of you may not be far enough along at this point. And thats OK! This stuff takes practice.
Another reason I made this video is because a few people have expressed a sense of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of chord progressions there are out there. The thing is, if you work hard on one of these CAGED Soloing lesson series (the I - ii Series, for example) the next one you work on will be considerably less work, and the one after will be considerably less work.
Essentially, I wanted this to be kind of a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-sneak-peak for people to get a sense of how expansive the CAGED concept can be. Sometimes its nice to just have a overall sense of how something works.
I should add, this video is entirely about the G shaped Pentatonic scale - not even any of the other CAGED shapes.
I hope those of who you are ready to tackle this can enjoy trying out solos over new progressions and those of you who aren't ready can enjoy a sense of perspective and a clearer idea of where I'm headed with the CAGED Soloing Series.
Read MoreIn this lesson I dig into the essence of what makes the 12 bar blues so bluesy: using dominant chords for the I - IV and V chord instead of just for the V chord as in traditional music theory. This is the first time I’ve dug into the blues on Patreon so I spend a bit of time talking about the tonality of the turn around, how the 12 bars typically lay out, and how to think about soloing over the progression depending if you want to sound like a traditional bendy blues player as well as some other ways to approach the chord progression. We also talk about a #9 chord, which makes me think it’s about time to start on a Rubik’s cube series for 9 chords.
Read MoreIn this video I'm breaking down Hotel California. First, we'll talk about how the chord progression is an excellent example of Melodic Minor. Then, we'll talk about how the melody fits over the top of the progression.
Read MoreIn this stream I'm talking about the theme for September: Fun with Rhythm Guitar!
We take a basic I - IV chord progression in C and use music theory to play with "chord phrases" using maj6 and maj7 chords.
This is the jam track I used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBNDndQDlAA
You can also download a few audio versions below! Normal, Slow, and Slower
Read Moren this lesson, I discuss the two ways to think about modes - specifically Mixolydian mode. One way to think of it is as a Major Scale with a flat 7, and another way to think of it is if we create a new scale starting on the 5th note of a major scale. There are some fun chord progressions to be made in mixolydian mode, but we can also borrow mixolydian progressions for our major key progressions. I demonstrate what mixolydian sounds like and show examples of a few popular songs that use mixolydian mode. This is also related to the blues in some sense, while also distinctly being its own thing.
Read MoreIf you've been following my CAGED Soloing series, you know whats going on. In this installment, we'll be working through how to solo over a I-IV progression using all five CAGED shapes. The idea here is to give you a few bite-sized ways to practice soloing over chord progressions.
This is the first in the I-IV series and we're focused on the C shape.
Read MoreIf you've been following my CAGED Soloing series, you know whats going on. In this installment, we'll be working through how to solo over a I-IV progression using all five CAGED shapes. The idea here is to give you a few bite-sized ways to think about and practice soloing over chord progressions.
This is the second lesson in the I-IV series and we're focused on the A shape.
Read MoreIf you've been following my CAGED Soloing series, you know whats going on. In this installment, we'll be working through how to solo over a I-IV progression using all five CAGED shapes. The idea here is to give you a few bite-sized ways to think about and practice soloing over chord progressions.
This is the third lesson in the I-IV series and we're focused on the G shape.
Read MoreIf you've been following my CAGED Soloing series, you know whats going on. In this installment, we'll be working through how to solo over a I-IV progression using all five CAGED shapes. The idea here is to give you a few bite-sized ways to think about and practice soloing over chord progressions.
This is the fourth lesson in the I-IV series and we're focused on the E shape.
Read MoreIf you've been following my CAGED Soloing series, you know whats going on. In this installment, we'll be working through how to solo over a I-IV progression using all five CAGED shapes. The idea here is to give you a few bite-sized ways to think about and practice soloing over chord progressions.
This is the fifth lesson in the I-IV series and we're focused on the D shape.
Read MoreI had intended to release a lesson about Mixolydian Mode today, but I think this lesson will be awesome to watch beforehand. It may clear up some confusion about how dominant 7 chord can function AND give you some fun things to play around with before next weeks MTM kind of throws a wrench in the whole concept of Dominant 7 chords.
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