"Patterns on the Fretboard"

hey guys brian kelly here from zombie guitar here in this video i want to talk about patterns on the fretboard patterns on the fretboard is the number one source of confusion for almost every single beginner slash intermediate guitar player that every reaches this very specific point it's like right here all right this this point right here that point is the point where everyone reaches where you're trying to learn how to solo in key across the neck of the guitar up and down the fretboard in one single key such that let's say you're jamming with a band and the band says hey take a solo in the key of b minor we're all over here jamming in the key of b minor the piano player is playing in b minor the bass player is playing in b minor everyone's in b minor we want you to stay with us we want you to jam in the key of b minor you as a lead guitar player you're like okay i already know how to solo right here in this one little area in the key of b minor but i want to use the whole fretboard i want to use the entire neck of the guitar and i want to remain in the key of b minor that is a very specific point that's that's this point right there that we're talking about that's the purpose of this video that very specific point is exactly where all of the misinformation starts getting fed into your brain all right all of it [Music] so why all this confusion what's the deal well this thing right here this fretboard right here has 12 notes on it no more no less there's 12 notes on this fretboard it looks like a lot more because we have you know 22 frets some guitars have 24 frets we have six strings some guitars have seven strings it looks like more than 12 notes but it's only 12 notes on a piano there's also only 12 notes the difference between a piano and a guitar is that on a piano you can only go up or down in pitch in one single direction you can go left or right if you go left on the piano then you go down in pitch if you go right on a piano then you go up in pitch on a guitar you have three directions in which you can go up or down in pitch you can go down and pitch this way you can go up and pitch this way you can go down and pitch that way you can go up and pitch that way you can also go diagonally you can go this way down in pitch you can go this way up in pitch you have three ways or three planes of motion for which you can go up or down and pitch on a guitar for that reason these notes are they form this matrix right these 12 notes there's only 12 notes they form this matrix and in order to make sense of this matrix of notes such that you can play in one single key these notes they form these patterns all right and that's that those patterns are non-existent on the piano to play in key on a piano you just have to say or you have to know the certain combination of white keys and black keys it doesn't have the patterns thing the guitar has these patterns and what's even more confusing about this is that there's more than one way to visualize what is known as the diatonic scale so the most common ways the three ways that i always teach are the three patterns way the five patterns away and the seven patterns way all right so let's just take a look at the three different approaches the three pattern the five pattern and the seven pattern approach so let's say that we're trying to do this for the key of say g major for example the band is jamming in the key of g major or the backing track that you're trying to jam along with is in the key of g major you want to utilize the entire neck of the guitar playing in the key of g major in order to do that you need to know where the seven notes of the g major scale are up and down the entire neck of the guitar which are g a b c d e and f sharp those are the seven notes of the g major scale so in order to map out those notes you can do so via the three patterns method the five patterns method or the seven patterns method let's start out with the seven patterns method [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so that was the seven patterns approach to visualizing the diatonic scale for the key of g major alright so keep in mind that the numbering or the labeling of these patterns is completely arbitrary you can call them whatever you want you can call this pattern one pattern two pattern three pattern four five six and seven you can assign letters to them you can you can call this the red pattern you can call this the brown pattern you can call this the yellow pattern you can call them whatever you want people commonly call them the ionian mode the dorian mode the phrygian mode if that's what you do if that's what makes sense to you in your head to label these patterns by these modal names and it allows you to get this job done for this very specific task that you're trying to achieve then that's fine all right you're getting your specific goal accomplished but just be aware that that's not what modes are those are just arbitrary labels that you're assigning to these patterns all right modes is something else if you want to learn about modes i'll post some lessons to that below you can dive into modes um but yeah so so arbitrary numbering arbitrary labeling of these patterns whatever you can call this pattern two you can call this pattern 12. you can call this pattern 57 whatever allows it to make sense to you in your own head so that you're like oh okay i'm here i'm playing pattern whatever whatever gets the job done go for it just understand they're not modes all right it's a seven patterns approach so then you have the five patterns approach so let's just run up through the five patterns again real quick [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] all right so what we just did there was we visualized the diatonic scale for the key of g major via the five patterns method we previously did it using the seven patterns method now we just did it for the five patterns method you have options you can choose the seven patterns approach you can choose the five patterns approach you can choose the three patterns approach you're you're it's the same thing you're trying to play the diatonic scale across the entire neck of the guitar such that you can play in one single key and jam along with a band or a backing track that's also playing in that key again these uh these patterns they're arbitrary you can label them however you want you can call this pattern one two three four five you can call it pattern a b c d e whatever this is where the confusion with the cage system comes into play people commonly misunderstand the cage system and they think that this goal which is right where we're at right here where we're trying to connect the diatonic scale patterns i think that that's what the cage system is for it is not this they call this the e pattern they call this the d pattern the c pattern the a pattern and the g pattern again it gets the job done if you if you're if you think you're studying the cage system and that's what you came up with because you're here and this is your specific goal and it allowed you to achieve that specific goal at that specific time and you can now jam with musicians that are playing in a key and you can utilize the whole fretboard cool it got the job done but you're missing the point of the cage system that's not the cage system the cage system is much much more powerful than that the cage system magical okay the cage system is mind-blowing stuff for a lot of people because it's all about chords it's all about chord tone targeting it's all about hitting those magical notes it's all about slowing over chord changes it is not about connecting the diatonic scale patterns together alright so if you want to arbitrarily label these patterns as the e pattern and the d pattern and the c pattern a pattern g pattern knock yourself out just understand there's a lot more to the cage system than that if you want to learn about all that cage stuff check out my free lesson which i will give a link to i already said that but i'm saying it again that's what the cage system is all about this is not the cage system this is the five patterns approach to visualizing the diatonic scale and then you have the three patterns approach so this is my favorite one because it's the least amount of patterns that needs to be remembered in my opinion that makes this the simplest approach to visualizing the diatonic scale [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] so i have arbitrarily named these three patterns the home box the a string home box and the three note per string pattern those are just the names that i came up with those are the names that i have that allow me to you know assign labels to these different patterns these three different patterns just because one of the patterns is called the three note per string pattern that does not mean that that's the only three note per string pattern there's the seven patterns approach to visualizing the diatonic scale that's seven three note per string patterns all connected to one another it's not modes it's seven three note per string patterns though so if you like three note per string patterns and you like doing legato runs and stuff like that then the seven patterns approach may be one that you prefer in my three patterns approach home box a string home box uh three note per string pattern those are just my arbitrary labels that i assigned to them some common questions which is the best approach to use the three patterns approach five patterns approach or seven patterns approach and to that i just say well it depends it depends on what you want to do the the seven patterns approach is beneficial because each of the patterns is three notes per string and people like three note per string patterns because it allows for some nice legato runs it's nice for alternate picking too because it's down up down and then when you get to the next string it's up down up and then we get to the next string it's down up down so three notes per string allows you to keep with your alternate picking and stuff like that people like three note per string patterns if that if that's uh your thing if you like three note per string patterns i love three and upper string patterns myself the seven patterns approach might be for you the five patterns approach so people like the five patterns approach because typically one of the first scale systems that you learn on the guitar is the five pentatonic positions so the five patterns approach to visualizing the diatonic scale is nice because it's basically the five pentatonic positions but with the addition of the two additional notes to create the full diatonic scale the pentatonic scale is just five notes the diatonic scale is seven notes so each of these five patterns within the five pattern approach is the pentatonic scale plus two additional notes remember there's only 12 notes in total on this guitar so pentatonic is five diatonic is seven the five pattern approach it it's it coincides with the whole five pentatonic position line of thinking so that's the benefit of the five pattern approach the benefit of the three pattern approach as i already said you only have to memorize three patterns it's the simplest one in my opinion every single scale that i teach on the zombie guitar website is done using the three patterns approach at least in in the courses and the soloing courses you can visualize any seven note scale using the three patterns approach another question do these diatonic scale patterns are they the same for all of the modes of the major scale and the answer is yes so once you know this diatonic framework which is what we just looked at right here whatever it takes for you to learn the diatonic framework across the entire neck of the guitar whether you choose to do so via three patterns via five patterns or via seven patterns whatever it takes for you to do that once you know the diatonic framework that framework is exactly the same for all seven modes of the major scale the only difference between each one of the seven modes is which one of the seven notes is dictated as the tonal center within the patterns remember we're only dealing with seven notes here all right there's only 12 notes in total on the guitar in this lesson we're only focusing on the key signature of g major which is seven of the 12 total notes so of these seven notes dictating the first note which is the note g in this key signature dictating that note as the tonal center that's what the ionian mode is dictate the second note as the tonal center that's where the dorian mode comes from dictate the third node is the tonal center that's where the phrygian mode comes from this is even strengthened when you when you use this as a soloing framework over the associated chord so in any given key signature you have seven chords in any given key signature you have seven notes so first chord first note that's your tonal center ionian mode second chord second note that's your total center dorian mode third chord third note that's your tonal center phrygian mode check out my mode series it's called this is why you don't understand modes again i posted a link to that for a detailed explanation about all that kind of stuff but in short that's that's what modes are so yes they all share the same diatonic uh scale patterns it's just which note you're dictating as the tonal center within the patterns that's what dictates the mode that's the answer to that question another question do these patterns apply to minor keys as well and the answer is yes absolutely because a minor key typically a minor key it's just the the aeolian mode that's all it is a minor key is where you take these patterns this diatomic framework and the sixth note within the patterns that's your tonal center which associates with the sixth chord of the key signature as i said any given key signature has seven chords in it it has seven notes in it so in the key signature of g major the sixth chord is the e minor chord the sixth note is the note e so play using this diatonic framework write chord progressions using the chords that are found in the key of g major but everything is e e e e minor e minor e minor everything is emphasized on your e minor terminal center with the e being your tonal center there you go you're playing in a minor key you're playing the key of e minor and then the fourth and final question is is zombieguitar.com as awesome as you make it out to be you being me and the answer to that is yes definitely zombie guitar is very awesome it's probably even awesomer than you imagine it's actually the greatest guitar lesson website that has ever been added to the internet it's the greatest guitar lesson website in the world all right let's watch my video see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Brian Kelly

Views: 29,530

Keywords: guitar, zombie guitar, guitar lessons, diatonic, pentatonic, scales, modes, CAGED, diatonic scale, scale patterns

Id: 0kpiPG5AlqM

Length: 22min 29sec (1349 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 17 2022