How to SOLO on GUITAR | Part 2: Harmony

have you ever sat down to play a solo and you've thought why does the scale sound weird right now [Music] sometimes those notes that are part of the scale and part of the key they feel weird what's going on there well today we're gonna talk about is how to kind of how to access the secret chords how to access the chords that are going by in a chord progression you're playing and how to kind of superimpose them over the pentatonic scale let me play that progression back again and I want to show you there's some little chord shapes that are hiding in the pentatonic scale so here we are in the key of F major I'm going to play this now I've got the shape going on right here but in orange I'm gonna put here's the actual notes in the F chord and here's the actual notes into the C chord today what I want to show you how to do first of all is just how to even get the hang of thinking about those shapes there which is not as scary as it might seem the other thing I want to show you how to do is how to even practice thinking about getting that into your solo because it is kind of a heavy thing to think about but before we go there I gotta give you just kind of a quick conceptual thing here so this pentatonic scale the one that we all know and love if you put your pinky on C and you line up the scale then we're in the key of C major the heck is my key block well if I capo where my first finger was playing all those notes and I play a G chord this is actually it's a g shape it's no longer a g chord because it's not down here it's actually called the G shaped pentatonic scale because in open position here it's in the key of G if you're feeling theory overwhelmed here and you're feeling tricked like hey I thought we were gonna talk about soloing we're gonna get there very soon but this concept is gonna help you a lot I moved that chord up sort of the same way you would move a bar chord so with bar chords you know this is your root note and then this is your shape that kind of attaches to that root note well everything on guitar is movable in the same way a bar chord is and when I say everything I mean every why is this important this pentatonic scale in open position is in the key of G but if it's in the key of G it means we can also take other chords that are part of the key of G and just move them along so before your eyes glaze over well let them glaze more I promise it's worth it check it out here's a little set of chords you've got the chords in the key of G major and the chords in the key of E minor notice those Roman numerals one two three four five six seven also just take a second to think about those are all the same chords the key of E minor and the key of G pretty much all the same chords that little F sharp circle thing there is called an F sharp half diminished and we're gonna we're not really gonna talk about that shape today at all so don't worry too much if you've never seen or heard of that before maybe we'll get into it another time in the key of G a one four chord progression is a G chord and a C chord so if I just capo that even just one fret maybe two frets I'm playing the same thing but these are not the same chords anymore I've actually moved up this G shape the root note is on a now so this is actually an a chord and this chord here that was a C chord is now a D chord everything just moved up one note why am i showing you this well if we go up to the key of C major on the eighth fret here pinky on eighth and I'm playing a 1/4 chord progression I know that and hopefully you will know at the end of this lesson now that in the key of G a 1/4 chord progression is a G and a C chord but since the pentatonic is just stealing the shape of the key of G I can superimpose this little this G shape here and the C shape here which also includes these notes back here so I got now when I go to play a solo I can just you can practice kind of picturing those chord shapes being there and you can think about ending your phrases on notes that are part of the chord here's what I'm talking about with this progression let's just to set up the scale so we're on 8th fret now let me show you the chords for a second here here's your one chord here's your four chord so I play a phrase [Music] that kind of cool so if you're gonna play at 1/4 chord progression in the key of D those shapes are still gonna be 1 and 4 in that key let's go down to the key of a here's a 1 4 same shapes so this is one of those things it's always true if we go to this little list here again these chords are just the shapes that represent 1 4 1 5 1 2 2 so let's talk for a second I'll really want to drive this concept home let's talk about a 1/2 chord progression which in the key of G is 1 2 G major a minor so let's say we want to put that chord progression in the key of a well just for the sake of kind of clarity here my capo here I've essentially raised what was a G chord here up two frets so now this is an A and this is this was an a-minor now it's a b-minor but it's still an a minor shape say other shapes are the same so if I put that jam track I'm just gonna strum for a second so you can see we got [Music] so those are the courts now if I take this capo off I can still [Music] now because I'm playing lead I don't need to strum the ports but I do need to know where they are where the notes in the chord are so that when I play a riff [Music] sorry I got carried away let me just run you through a couple quick chord progressions here so if we go back to this one five chord progression in the key of F which we'll play up with the 13th fret with pinky on 13 there's the one chord shape here's the five chord shape which is a d-shaped it's always going to be a d shape so I could play a little riff on one something like [Music] now I've landed on a note that works with the court if this is feeling kind of wild and difficult I'll give you some ways to practice in a minute that are very relaxing and comfortable and not too stressful let's talk about some minor progression so we've got the cube G here and then up earlier I had the key of E minor what's that all about well not to get to theory on you but G major an E minor are what's called a relative major and minor keys so e minor is the relative minor of G and G is the relative major E minor and all that means is what you see right in front of you now they all they share all the same notes they share all the same chords it's just that in the minor key E minor is the one chord meaning it's the most important chord and in the major key G is the one chord which means it's like it's the home chord that the song tends to push toward so what that means is if we're gonna go into a minor key here our first finger now is gonna set up the key for us so I'll show you what I'm talking about so you already know if C is on the eighth fret but this is gonna sound bad at the C major we need C minor so put the first finger here now here's that shape here's the one chord here's the forecourt the four chord is an a minor shape one for one so [Music] sorry I can't help it sometimes it's so hard to try to pack all this into 15 minutes please let me know if you want a more in-depth music theory lesson because we just don't have time in this video otherwise I'll be editing for like two years in the minor key though if a minor is one a minor is for B minor is five now this B minor chord is already an a minor sheep so we got to figure out a way to make it fit kind of in this pentatonic zone a little bit this next progression is a G minor and it's a one five progression so here's the pentatonic scale and then here is the the E minor chord these notes here are actually also part of the E minor chord you wouldn't want to strum them necessarily especially this guy but you could definitely include it in your solo here now the five chord if we go up here we've actually we've actually ditched a lot of notes from the pentatonic scale so if we want to kind of play a different voicing of it this is not a really a chord I would ever enjoy playing but to visualize you can think of it as a b7 but without this note it's almost like a little comb shape so this [Music] it's a weird shape it's the weirdest one we'll talk more in depth about it at some point but I just wanted to give you as many tools as you can so I'll show you what I'm talking about here's this progression so this one's in G minor here we go [Music] so we've set up the progression here now there's the one chord here's the five chord which you could usually either visualize up here or you could visualize down here back to G minor these guys are also part of that chord and then we're gonna go back to B minor could think of it down here or up here so let me show you how I would play a phrase over that [Music] these concepts are really big and kind of hard to swallow sometimes but what you got to keep in mind here is it's really only five or six shapes and those chords are transpose ax below everywhere along with the pentatonic scale and it's it's one of the coolest things so if we're gonna talk about how to practice here I recommend using the a major 1/2 chord progression because it goes by kind of slow you get a minute to kind of think about each chord and the shapes are kind of easy to see practice method number one just get used to those shapes being there and prove to yourself that they sound the way that you might expect them to sentence so if you line up your key here in the key of a major then you're gonna take your basically you're just gonna arpeggiate to the chord progression and make sure that those notes that I'm telling you or part of the chord make sure that it sounds the way you might expect it to sound considering its part of the chord that's happened and maybe you can even try the opposite and make sure that it doesn't sound as good for them to be flipped around so line up your scale a major now arpeggiate just proven yourself these sound right there's an a minor shape then we'll go back to the G shape [Music] you can kind of play around with the rhythm as long as you're on the right chord so now the thing you can do that the backwards is you can deliberately play the shape that doesn't go with that chord just to kind of prove to yourself that it's not gonna sound as good here's what I'm talking about I'll play the two chord shape over the one chord sounds kind of wonky now play the one chord over the two court see what I mean so if you're now I'm back on track sounds really nice you can kind of train your ear to go I know I'm on the two chord because I'm playing notes for the to coordinate feels right that's your practice method number one is just arpeggiate get used to those shapes being there and prove to yourself that it sounds nice to play along with the actual chord and it's also really important to remember that it fits inside the pentatonic scale maybe give or take an extra note somewhere around there so practice method number two is gonna be end phrases on a note that's a part of the chord whatever chord is happening now and an easy way to do this is just make a phrase that you know is gonna end on a note in the one chord like this so I know that I've got this note here is definitely part of this this G shape here so now when the two chord comes around I'm gonna go change that last note or add a note to include a note that's actually on the next chord let's hear how that sounds for a second so so we got sounds good now I'm gonna fix it for the tube there we go try another phrase here [Music] simple phrases that fixed try another one kind of a long phrase but it just sounds so deliberate doesn't it and keep it simple because the idea here is you're trying to integrate this concept into your playing and you're not trying to you don't need to rush it it's gonna sound nice keep it simple and and what you're trying to do is just get your brain used to the idea of going oh there's a little bit more specific information just inside the pentatonic scale so if that's feeling easy then what you can do is I will call this practice method number two is you can start and end phrases on notes that are part of the chord and this is where it starts to get a little tricky but totally doable here check it out we use that same so I'm gonna start here because that's part of the one chord so now I got to adjust my starting point I could go here and I've essentially done a relocate a diatonic transposition which is really cool [Music] and I can do the same thing there we go I'm just trying to start and end on a note that's part of the point it's a little tricky and here's something to keep in mind a little important side note is music is weird music is awesome but the thing that's awesome about it is there aren't any rules there's just this concept of if it sounds good it is good so why even bother learning this stuff well it's because part of what sounds good is sounding deliberate and if you can work towards making sounds that you are intending to make that can usually take you really far in your kind of creative journey of being like I want to create this kind of sound and I actually have some tools to be able to do it instead of just saying I hope I sound like that at some point but I am a big believer in whatever sounds good to you is great and if this stuff is overwhelming don't worry about it but if it sounds like a fun challenge by all means let's do it let's keep going practice method number whatever whatever number we're on right now this one is just kind of playful you can think of it as sort of like a walk or jump kind of concept and what you're doing is you're just sort of really loosely walking through the scale and when you know you're on a note that's part of the chord you can jump to another note that's part of the chord so if you're just walking through the scale and you go okay I know I'm on the one chord I'm gonna do I'm just jumping jumping around and the trick with this game is you can only jump meaning not play the next note jump in this case it means like going 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 notes away so this would be a jump and that's a walk I'm just walking through the scale now I jumped so this game here you're kind of trying to challenge yourself to see like how well do I know this shape and how how much control do I have over my hands that I can go jump from one note in the court to another note in the court and then when you change chords and that you can be kind of sloppy with this because it's gonna sound good and this is also gonna help you interact with the chords in a less kind of formal way like we did with the other two and I'm I really think that sloppiness is what makes music awesome but if you can combine so happiness with understanding these concepts it's gonna go really far so I'm gonna leave you here on this kind of practice method and if you've enjoyed this today and if you have questions and if you want to know more let me know cuz I'm just starting this YouTube adventure of mine and I'm having a lot of fun so far so please subscribe if you want more and let me know what you want more of anyways this sloppy practice method of walk or jump here we go okay [Music]

Channel: Scott Paul Johnson

Views: 1,015,895

Keywords: jam track, pentatonic, how to solo, guitar lesson, improvise, soloing, improvising, part 2, harmony, chord shapes, tutorial, lead guitar, how to play lead, how to, electric guitar, education, teacher, how to jam, jamming, guitar harmony, paul davids, techniques, explained, intermediate, advanced

Id: xjH7x3-JZCI

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 27 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/scooter_j]

I tried to record this lesson like 6 times and kept deleting it because I couldn’t decide wether to talk about theory or just show people what to do and leave them hanging - as a result I ended up with a 22 minute video and I was like “screw it this will help someone a lot.”

I’m new to making Youtube videos and I’m having a lot of fun putting way too much work into the editing. I know I can kind of ramble sometimes but I hope its helpful and entertaining to a few people.

[u/SuperSam9930]

Incredible lesson thanks. The visuals outlining the shapes at the bottom are very well done. One of the best formats I’ve seen for a YouTube lesson.

[u/[deleted]]

Great job making music theory more visual

[u/Mrpickleo]

Don’t apologise I just found myself looking all over my screen!! The most important thing about teaching and learning is having fun!! I’ll definitely subscribe to you because I can tell you know a lot a don’t try and over complicate things when you’re playing

[u/NerdHeaven]

Subscribed! I love the format.

[u/Deadfishfarm]

I love the design of your videos! The fret highlights are super helpful and you're very clear with your explanations. That said I would love more chord videos like your "top 3 strings" one. Makes finding chords on the neck way easier to understand and digest

[u/hezaplaya]

Yeah, this was super good. I already understand a lot of the concepts you are talking about, but the guide you setup with the chord tone overlay was fantastic visually.

I would love if you could do one of these videos with each of the (five or six) major chord shapes as the one chord all in one lesson.

It could totally be a short one too, just show something like A major in every position where the I chord, is a different chord shape because it's in a different position. But, then obviously show the ii, iii, IV, V, and vii chord in each position too. Relate it back to the open chord shape.

Love it, and thank you so very much for your contribution to human knowledge..

[u/grossRealist]

Hey man no need to apologize for a longer video, it’s all really useful. Just want to echo others that your format is innovative and super helpful with the steady fretboard camera, dot overlays, color coding, and transparent fingers. I will say it feels too busy at times, but rewatching helps pick up on some of those nuances.

Part 1 was also great and I hope you keep putting out videos. It’s clear you put a lot of thought and editing work into them and many of us are learning from you. The backing tracks are nice and so is your soloing!

[u/Mrpickleo]

Me too!!