MASTER the Guitar Using The Circle Of Fifths

years ago i was at a jam session i'd been playing guitar for about five or six years i knew some led zeppelin songs i knew some bad company songs i had some bad licks i knew like some things i thought i was a badass i could probably play just about anything i got invited to a jam session with a friend of mine who was a bass player and a few other people that i didn't know but i was like i got this i'm a badass no problem get to the session everybody sets up their equipment and the keyboard player says let's play louie louie in the key of a and i was like yeah um yeah i got this one two three four [Music] the keyboard player stops everybody he's like stop stop and we're like what what what happened what's going on and he points at me he says you're you're playing the wrong chords there i'm like no i'm not i got this right see he's like no no that last chord that last chord he's like yeah that's supposed to be e minor and i was like hey everybody i'm back my name's chris if you haven't seen me on marty's channel i was actually marty's guitar teacher i taught marty how to play guitar when he was in college so he's invited me back to share my knowledge do the guitar teacher thing here on his channel thank you so much any chance i get to get in front of this group is pretty cool because there's so much guitar goodness coming through this channel it's just sort of an honor to be part of it so thanks for having me on board so that keyboard player huh sort of a dick but what was going on why was that important to him right that e minor chord calling me out in a jam session e minor why is it important here's why because louie louie doesn't go like this it goes like this [Music] e minor if you want to play louie louie correctly you need that minor chord right i had been playing for years but i didn't know what a minor chord was and i was flabbergasted right meanwhile that sent me on a journey that that's still going on to this day for me to discover what's going on here because i never want to be in the position again where i don't know what's going on but that's just me so minor chords they're clearly important so i ask a question of you do you know all your minor chords right maybe you do maybe you're like yeah you know what i play i play minor bar chords all the time i got them i know what i'm doing okay cool c sharp minor f sharp line b flat minor a sharp minor if any of those terms those chord names sort of get you off balance you don't have your minor chords down enough right you don't have the confidence of going yeah yeah i could do that no problem i can i can play you an f sharp minor right now we're going to use bar chords for this exercise you may already know all your minor bar chords right you may have them down you may be like yeah i got this stick around anyway because i'm about to show you a drill to drill minor chords to really get them under your fingers and in your brain and you know and and really know them in a way that you might not have done before minor chords are important right can't play louie louie without a minor chord right we need our minor chords do you have your minor chords down was that a sharp sounding confusing c sharp b flat minor f sharp minor d sharp minor have you ever played those before you may know that you can play them but have you ever played them before there's a difference there's a subtle difference we're going to be using bar chords and we're going to be using minor bar chords so let's just quickly review bar chords just hang on a second if you already know this if you don't just this should be a review for most of us but just check it out if it's not bar chords come in two flavors root on the e string and root on the a string when your root is on the e string it's based on this chord this e chord so if i take that shape up like let's say to the third fret that's g right e f g so if this is e and this is e minor that makes this g and g minor just take that middle finger off g minor same thing for the a string when the roots on the a string it should mimic this a chord right so if this is a major and this is a minor on the third fret a b c this would be c major and c minor i'm just moving that top note down right just a little barre chord minor bar chord review okay let's drill these things we're going to drill them around the circle of fifths whoa i don't know the circle of fifths don't worry you don't have to i brought one with me here it is circle of fifths is a really cool thing you don't have to memorize it it makes a really good drilling tool i'm going to show you how to use that right now but why would we use the circle of fifths well for two reasons one this is every single minor chord there is there are only 12 minor chords that's it there are fancy ones like a minor 9 b minor 11. but these are all the vanilla minor chords a minor b minor c sharp minor f sharp minor d sharp minor b flat minor there are only 12 of them and they're in this order these are these are moving in in the interval of a fifth you may ask yourself well so why i can play the same thing if we're just going to use minor chords why don't i just play a minor here and then i go up a half step that's a sharp right and then this would be b and this would be c so if i just go up in half steps i'll be able to play every single minor chord anyway but there's a big difference because i have no idea what chord this is now i turned my brain off down here somewhere while i was trying to rationalize the idea of going up in half steps half steps are great to make sure your hands are working but they have no absolutely no value to your cognitive capability to recall a chord this is just training your hands right that's why we use the circle of fifths because we're going to have to find these notes we're going to find each one of these notes look for them on the fretboard put a minor chord down move to the next one right meanwhile that's easier than it seems okay let's just get started we're going to start on c because that's our first note third fret a string c minor bar chord so far so good move to the next one is g we're going to just flip back to the e string root now the g minor next chord we're looking for is d minor look at this a string root on the fifth fret there's our d minor right across the street is our a minor you can see this pattern starting to happen follow the pattern to the e minor which is our next one right across the street is d minor follow the pattern to that f sharp minor maybe you've never played an f sharp minor chord before here it is right across the street is our c sharp minor that's the next note in the series maybe you've never played a c sharp minor before follow the pattern to g sharp minor there's a pretty rare one right across the street is d sharp minor follow the pattern to a sharp minor alternating between e string and a string roots and then the last one is f cool not hard to do we've just played every single minor chord there is using barre chords and alternating between a string roots and e string roots that's pretty cool let's do the same thing now but we're going to start remember how we started on the a string now we're going to take it and start at the c note again but now we're going to start on the e string root e f g a b c c minor is our first chord there it is the next chord we're looking for is g minor now we switch to the a string root g minor now the pattern sort of starts over again right across the street is our d minor [Music] following the pattern we go up to back to the a string root for the a minor but i'm gonna say you know what this a minor is way down there i'm gonna continue the pattern down here here's our a minor next note in the series is e minor nice big old open bar chord that's i mean open chord that's kind of fun next note in the series is b minor [Music] switch to the a string root again follow the pattern to f sharp minor follow the pattern up back to the a string root for your c sharp minor follow the pattern for the g sharp minor history back to the a string root for your d sharp minor right across the street from the a sharp minor and then we're back to f [Music] boom we just played every single minor chord there is every single one in two different spots on the neck right it may not sound very impressive but this kind of exercise has a real dramatic impact okay dramatic impact what is the dramatic impact like how come i can't just go up in half steps like i did before right the dramatic impact is is is twofold one is doing an exercise like this around the circle of fifths you will have played every single minor chord that there is in two different places on the neck that's pretty powerful like even if you just do that a couple times in your life you get a sense of confidence that you've already been there you've already played that i i've played every single minor chord i've played them all in a number of places like even if it's subconscious that builds your confidence the other thing it does is that you've actually been there you've trained your hands and your eyes to do it and you've actually had the experience so when somebody says play an f sharp minor you've got it right you know it you know where to go you know how to get it and you got the confidence that you've been there before and that's why it's more powerful than just playing them in half steps and sort of falling asleep during the middle of the exercise keeping your brain engaged and knowing where you are on the fretboard build some fretboard knowledge build some fretboard capability some real fretboard freedom i can play any minor chord on the guitar in at least two places that's a big deal okay marty thanks so much for having me back to the channel everybody else thanks for watching i hope this was helpful i hope you find this helpful and again do this two or three times in your lifetime and it'll have that dramatic effect in fact try to do it this week right just play minor chords around the circle of fifths two or three times this week and drop a note in the comments and let me know and let marty know if this didn't have a profound effect on your ability just to see things on the guitar and your confidence on the guitar i bet it does okay have a good time with this i hope you enjoy it and i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Marty Music

Views: 145,568

Keywords: Marty Schwartz, guitar, marty music, generic atlas feet, guitar lessons, how to play guitar, guitar for beginners, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, marty schwartz guitar lesson, marty schwartz guitar, circle of fifths, minor circle of fifths, key signatures, minor scale, circle of fifths progression, how to use the circle of fifths, circle of fifths music theory, circle of fifths chord progression, circle of fifths explained, circle of 5ths guitar, circle of fifths guitar

Id: 9rYUdJxALjY

Length: 11min 33sec (693 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 14 2021