Easy Blues Guitar Lesson - Lead with just 6 Notes - Phrasing Lesson - EP219

this week's guitar lesson is going to be a breakthrough for those of you that struggle with phrasing or what to do with all this information that you've learned I mean I know a lot of you know how to play some scales you know how to play some chords you have a lot of the basic mechanics down but when it comes to improvising if we were doing a blues for example you just kind of sound like you're playing the scale you're going up and down the scale which is fine you're technically right but it doesn't have soul and soul is something that actually can be taught I've really believed this I believe it comes from learning phrasing and phrasing is knowing when to play when to stop you know when to let the other instruments have their say and all of that so phrasing is kind of a creative more of a creative approach than a scientific approach so we're gonna learn how to do that with just six notes actually it's just four fretted notes and then there's gonna be two bins out of those fretted notes so it'll be a total of six notes we're not going to be worried about what scale were in we're not going to be worried about chord changes or any of that we're just gonna be focusing on these six notes and I'm gonna show you how to play a meaningful lead with six notes and with phrasing and I think this is gonna make a lot of light bulbs go off for those of you that have been struggling with this topic so let's go ahead and take a listen to what we're gonna learn and then we'll break it down [Music] [Music] all right so it's a simple lead but you're saying something with it and that's what I want you to start thinking about doing is how do you say something with just a few notes just a few words how do you say something meaningful to this video we'll go ahead and learn how to play that lead now if you want to download the jam track I've actually got 12 jam tracks believe it or not twelve that go with this lesson so I've got what we're gonna learn in every key so we're gonna be learning it in the key of a but I wanted to include every key so that you can practice playing all of these phrases in other keys if you wanted to play in G sharp or whatever key you want you can just grab a jam track and it'll be the same jam track just transposed to a different key so let's go ahead and break down this lead and talk through phrasing all right so one of the biggest problems I see right now with learning online any topic but especially guitar is overwhelming amount of information a lot of you feeling overwhelmed and what happens is this sort of human nature is we start learning one thing but then we see a shinier object over there and we jump over and we start learning that and we just are jumping around all over the place it's sort of like going to the very large buffet and when you're hungry and you used to sample a little of this and then you look over there anything oh that looks good and you try a little of that but you're not actually having any any kind of meaningful meal you're just eating a lot of little things and so that happens to us musically I think with all the information online and so the point of this lesson is to break it down we're gonna focus on just six notes and we're gonna have a meal with those six notes we're not going to worry about scales and scale positions and patterns and all that we're just kind of concentrate on these six notes let me show you those notes first then I'll show you how to find them in any key and then we'll learn the solo okay so the notes we're gonna start with just four of them so we're actually gonna break the six down into four you could actually make a very meaningful solo you could have a meal with just these four notes a great meal and a lot of artists do this like you BB King jumps to mind but here's here's the notes so we're gonna start with our middle finger on the 11th fret third string index fingers on the tenth fret second string ring finger is on the twelfth fret second string so we have one two three now look at what you've created there if you can just visualize on your neck it looks like a little triangle there that's how I always pictured especially if I put my fingers on those strings I can just see a little triangle so that's kind of a visual reference I always like to see shapes and things I think it just sort of helps so you have one two three and then if you take the twelfth fret second string you do a full Bend you have four those are your four notes now a full Bend by the way that just means you're gonna hit the note that's two frets higher than the note that you started with so that's the note you're trying to hit so we have one two three four now what can you do with four nodes you can see you can sing with four notes you don't need a whole you know you don't need to get overwhelmed with scales and where do I jump from just just find a little corner and get really comfortable with it that's what I like to do is just you know you can just relax right here so we're playing by the way I should have mentioned this this is in the key of a so everything that we're learning here is all a relative to the key of a and what we've just played with those four notes that's the major pentatonic scale pattern for now if you don't know what that means that's okay we'll uncover this stuff but but look at it this way here's how I think of getting there so for playing the key of a and make my a major Barre chord and then I know we're pattern one is and I know most of you know we're pattern one of the minor pentatonic scale a lot of minor pentatonic scale folks out there and that's cool so minor pentatonic scale would be right there right and if you don't know what I mean by that just check out the Blues leap course I go through all five patterns of the minor pentatonic scale that's all available at active melody calm for premium members okay so pattern one is there now pattern two is here now what's cool about this note this note right here that's an a note remember we're playing in the key of a but that note is also in that little triangle that we just learned so there's that same note so look at where it is in reference to pattern 2 that's how I think of getting to this pattern 4 of your major so you can have this real bluesy sounding lead here but then you can switch your fingers and have a much sweeter happier sound just by shifting where they're both sharing that same a note and that's what you know that makes sense because a isn't either major or minor it's just the tonic it's the root of the the key we're playing in but that's that's your little happy place and that's how you can find it so that way you can you can practice finding it in different keys and obviously you've got all the jam tracks you know all twelve of them so you could try it in another key and just try and find that pattern for in that little sweet corner because that's where we're gonna be playing we're gonna make a whole solo here alright so now let's break down that lead that I played in the intro and as a premium member you have access to the tablature I should have mentioned that in the intro and you also have access to the on-screen tab viewer so that might make it easier to play along and follow along but let me show you how to count this in that's always important so the way that I would count this is 1 & 2 & and so what we just played there was a little phrase so when I talk about phrasing that's just a little word you know and so is so it wasn't a big thing it wasn't like running up and down a scale it was just a simple word I just said something and said I said something in context with the key that we're in so it made sense but but little simple phrases like this are what really make your playing sound professional you know it's you know a lot of misconception that people have thinking that what's gonna wow somebody is you know play really fast or jumping from here to here it's not it's that you know so so that's how I counted it in it's 1 and 2 and right on the and after 2 that's the first phrase I don't say anything else I wait till the jam track goes to the 4 chord in that case in this case it'll be at the D chord and then I played another little simple phrase now we're still using those first 4 notes that I showed you now what I did here I did a a half Bend so I'm I've got my ring finger on the 12th fret 2nd string do a half pin that's just hitting that note there half Bend is just 1 fret above where we start do a half Bend and a release then I come back to the 10th fret 2nd string and then I conclude there on the 11th fret 3rd string so isn't that nice just now we've said two things so we have all right now the jam track goes back to the one chord and then I played really cool to bins that don't go anywhere they've been it's kind of like singing to me and so that's why phrasing is so important because in your you're creating vocals with your fingers you know when you're singing something you would sing it this way you wouldn't just you wouldn't sing like this you know walking up and down a scale no you'd have little phrases so let's learn this third phrase so we're gonna slide with our middle finger up to the 11th fret 3rd string and then index finger goes down back on the 12th I'm sorry on the 10th fret 2nd string and I go between those two so it's 3 2 3 those are the string numbers and then I do two full bends on the 12th fret 2nd string and then as soon as I reached the the top of that I just kill it so I don't let it go I don't release it I just go so now we've got three things so here's what we've said here's the fourth thing that's the next thing we're say so we're still in those same four notes so we have 11th fret third string back to the 10th fret second string and then I do a hammer on between the 10th fret and the 12th fret on the second string and then I go back to that a note on the 10th fret 2nd string so you can see we're just dancing around those notes so some of it is being creative with the notes you don't have a lot of variables so notice that time I did a hammer on the other time I did a bend you could do a slide you but it's a combination of those things and then the vibrato you use do you do vibrato at the top of the bend or do you you know I mean it's singing that's the thing that's what gives you your unique sound is how you phrase these things so the fourth time so now we're switching at this point in the song going to the D chord the 4 chord and I went and then I repeated it [Music] let me show you that so this now we're introducing another of those six notes we're gonna do a full Bend here on the 13th fret second string and then as soon as I've been that I release it without making a noise so that I can come down to and I notice my middle fingers already in place they're on the twelfth fret second string so I can do a half Bend just like we did in the very beginning that like the second phrase second lick so we have that sound and so by doing this bin we're bending into the minor pentatonic scale so you can you can feel that it changed from happy to sort of more bluesy got serious right there and the second time through it's really just a repeat I just changed the feel of it I want so it's a quick Bend and then a quick band again and then to conclude that on it so that goes back down to the 11th fret third string back to the 10th fret 2nd string then I do another full Bend on the 12th fret 2nd string back to the 10th fret 2nd string and then I concluded that time on the 11th fret 3rd string which would be the F sharp note instead of the a so it had a different feel wanted to land on a different note instead of the a alright so from the 4 chord and then the song switches back to the 1 chord right there when I did that Bend so we're back to the a alright alright so then while we're back at that 1 chord I played I came back and just hit did this leg same little triangle area I started on the 11th fret 3rd string and I did a hammer-on pull-off that's between the 10th fret and the 12th fret on the 2nd string you can see isn't that nice sounding you're just singing so it's getting creative with the little techniques that you have hammer-ons pull-offs bends vibrato slides that's really really a bow all there is and then those few notes and what you can do with it how you can make it sing hopefully this is starting to make sense that these little licks are all part of just phrasing in general you know how do you phrase something how do you make it sound meaningful like you're singing so it's not just notes it doesn't sound like a scale it sounds like you're saying something all right let me back up then and play us up to that point we've covered a lot of information here we'll start from the one chord from the a and then we'll work our way up so we have [Music] [Music] is that liquid just learned and then at this point the song we go to the five chord now what I played was this little leg and I love this because it's the same little triangle the only differences we're landing this note is a as a B note and so we're landing in a different place now most of the time we've been landing on the a right but now we're landing on the B and by the way you can land on any of these notes and in the scale and it's gonna work now your ear will tell you for the most part it's gonna work your ear will tell you if you need to adjust it if something sounds wrong just fool around too you get your way out of it but I know that in this lake any time you're at a five chord I use this lick all the time so remember that that's a big take away because you can get to that from whatever key you're in that's easy to find works great over the five chord okay so your five chord would be your E chord and then it goes back to the four chord and I play I love that too that's a very kind of BB King sounding thing that's doing that half Bend on the twelfth fret second string and then I'm doing a slide up to the same little area here the only difference is I'm sliding up to this note so remember I said sliding that's one of your techniques that can make it sound different so we're sliding into the note which is the 11th fret third string and then we're resolving on that a note again the 10th fret 2nd string so we have it's a great lick all right so let's back up and take it from the 5 chord here's your 4 chord and then I played that same bin that's the 13th fret 2nd string do a full Bend it's actually a prebend release that means I go ahead and pre Bend it then play it release it then I come down here to the 10th fret 2nd string that same a note and then I conclude that liquid doing a it's really a hammer on and a Bend on the twelfth fret second string so it goes so you can see just with those three notes a lot was going on there there was a bend actually is a pre Bend playing the note with vibrato and then a hammer on with AB in but you can see how it's got that vocal quality or at least it does to my ear okay and then to conclude this whole thing I just went and that sounded like I don't even know where that came from I'm trying to think of what who I've ripped that off but that's what I'm doing over the the turnaround there and that's just playing two notes out of the triangle 11th fret third string tenth fret second string and I just slid into it and then it walks up to your five chord and then back to the one and that's how I like to think about playing solos like this now you don't want to always time it exactly the same so in other words when I started it I went if I did it the same every time it would start to get boring it like if I always came in at exact in other words if I waited for the chord then I played a response waited for the chord play to response that would get old you don't you can use it sparingly but again just think about like kind of how a vocalist would do it and it's gonna take some practice and and how do you learn this stuff well some of its you know someone like me showing you how I would do it but a lot of it is just listening to other artists you know how does Albert King do it I've always been fascinated with his phrasing because it's so elegant and it's so predictable too once you understand his cadence and his style you can start to hear it in other things or at least I do it and that's why you have guys like Stevie Ray Vaughan who would gravitate towards that style because it's just so it's just powerful it's very powerful so so take a listen that could be a good homework assignment once you've practiced downloaded the jam tracks and played along with them and learn how to play this in different keys you know listen to Albert King will be a good one to someone like Albert and you know how is he doing his phrasing he's not just playing scales he's phrasing it you know BB King's another one okay I hope you've learned something I hope this has been helpful to any of you that have been struggling with phrasing and that's what we have this week I hope you've enjoyed it we'll see you next week oh I should also mention if you haven't clicked the subscribe button on YouTube make sure you do so I put out new lesson content twice a week so just hitting the subscribe button will help you stay in the loop

Channel: Active Melody

Views: 1,879,689

Keywords: phrasing guitar lesson, understanding phrasing, what is phrasing, blues guitar lesson, blues guitar lessons, simple blues guitar lesson, easy guitar lesson, easy blues guitar lesson, basic guitar lesson, guitar lesson, guitar lessons, easy lead guitar lesson, simple lead guitar lesson, easy lead guitar tutorial, music education, teach, learn, class

Id: zSTAvmXG5m8

Length: 20min 27sec (1227 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2017