Why Beginners Always Struggle With Guitar Solos

if i've learned anything from agonizing over trying to find the perfect tinder profile byline it's sometimes you just got to keep it simple and go with what you know is going to work i wish i would have done that on guitar okay so i'm going to share some stuff with you that i have just kind of now recently learned trying to do something way more complicated that i wish i would have known as a beginner and i think it will definitely help beginners kind of jump into lead playing so we're going to talk about some one super easy shape that's really going to help you out and then also why just beginners kind of struggle playing lead in general okay so this is the shape we're going to learn it's going to be open two four open two four open two four all right you start on the e string hit open go to the second fret go to the fourth fret use whatever finger you want use one finger and slide it work on that stretch work on that stretch doesn't matter and then do the same thing on the a string and the d string you've just played all the notes of a major okay so that might be kind of counter-intuitive to think about because you're starting on e and it's like all right well you're going to confuse everybody if it's like oh play a major the a major scale the notes in it and start there well i think the the brilliance of learning it this way and why i think this will help a lot of people is because of the shape okay uh guitar is an instrument of shapes and a lot of times when you think of like learning something shape wise uh for a lead or solo playing we go to like minor pentatonic or some kind of pentatonic shape right like five eight five seven five seven five seven five eight five eight and then you start soloing with that okay now the issue with that well first let's talk about the positives the positives is that every note or every string has just two notes so it's kind of easy you must have like a left note and a right note if i'm looking down at it right like top bottom top bottom top bottom top bottom top bottom top bottom right but what i have experienced a lot with uh just different students i've taught because i'm like everybody else i teach pentatonix to beginners and stuff probably not anymore though is i can hear them instead of using their ear to solo they're using the shape to solo so you know maybe if they're playing something in a minor like i'll just do like a super simple like just a minor guitar loop like uh right and then it's like okay i'm gonna solo [Music] then maybe switch [Music] and it's like that doesn't really sound like a music doesn't sound musical at all because i can hear and see them using the shape instead of using their ears okay now with this guy right here this super super simple shape does is allows you to not have to use your brain to visualize where your fingers are going and then you can kind of like flow around in between them right so a major the notes in a major you don't have to remember this it definitely helps are a b c sharp d e f sharp g sharp and a okay now what i've been doing recently for this channel for this entire month is kind of reteaching myself to fretboard in the three notes per string method to kind of just get better at like shredding okay so what that does is what i used to do is like all right a major i'd go middle pinky index middle pinky index ring thank you and i have this shape right and i got really good at this shape but that's like a very complicated shape especially for a beginner because you have all right you have one interval here you have a whole step then you switch then you use a different fingering pointer middle then a different fingering you repeat that then the first one again then yet like another so it's like there's different fingerings all throughout there okay if you were to play that same scale three notes to string wise you would get five seven nine five seven nine six seven nine okay so with the exception of that one note right here [Music] we have this really really easy shape that you can link in different parts which i'm going to demonstrate for the rest of this video all right let's start just with these first two strings okay now this might be a huge reach for somebody just starting out on a guitar right [Music] a whole step two frets and then another whole step two frets but it's more about being able to visualize this in your head and then thinking about it or even not having to think about it when you're trying to play music with it right this is a super easy shape like even if you have like a graphic right here it just shows how easy that shape is because of the symmetry and then we're going to talk about how just movable it is all right so now when i said we're in the a major scale but we started playing open e open two four open two four open two this is like the whole key that i'm kind of basing this concept around is like all right e is a very important note in the key of a a b c d e it's the five if you haven't if you if you don't understand like the numbers definitely check out the patreon because i go into like much greater detail about breaking down like chords and numbers and stuff like that but just know that in the key of a e is a very important note and chord in any key the fifth note away from it is super important there's like just there's an unnatural pull or a natural pull however you want to look at that between those two spots all right now the great thing about playing three notes of string is if you find an e and then like we already did on this one let's do it in a different spot let's find the the seventh fret and the a string is an e our our pattern is gonna look like this to play those same notes seven nine eleven repeat that same thing a string down and repeat that same thing a string down seven nine eleven seven nine eleven seven nine eleven basically you have a starting point and then you have two frets higher and two frets higher and then that repeats those neck those subsequent strings okay so now you can start playing around in that shape you don't have to stick to the same fingering now if you're doing it for shredding purposes the fingering is definitely very important but if you're doing it for just kind of exploratory purposes which is how beginners start to kind of unlock the fretboard then it's a lot easier to do so it's like all right we'll start here and then just kind of like just play around maybe start combining different notes [Music] and it's like right there that just mindless noodling sounds so much more musical than [Music] minor pentatonic stuff in my opinion you can definitely come at me in the comments if you want would love to hear it but i really think that just kind of like seeing this one shape is so much more musical and you can do so much more with it [Music] just kind of exploring around and then just having a touchstone to begin with and then kind of basing everything off that one spot okay now the reason that this pertains to a the the main key that we're in is it's essentially the same shape you start the exact same way but then when you get to that third string you make one correction okay this is where the major seventh interval of the the key is again i don't even want to get too far into it because it's not what it's about like definitely of course it it helps to know that like a g sharp is the seventh note in the key of a then into a major 7 chord et cetera et cetera but for the purposes of just seeing the fretboard i wish i would have done this first because you can still kind of play around with it [Music] and then just kind of see it within the context of one shape and a small small alteration and even if you get that alteration wrong it's not a huge deal like if we play the open two four open two four open two four but start on the a string it's just that open g string which isn't in the key that sounds a little bit off but when you're flying it doesn't really even make that much of a difference okay now i think the biggest eye opening thing is something that i never even really understood until i really took some time with this and is just how easy this is when it comes to the first six notes of both of these shapes and how they lay up across the other the higher set of strings okay now what you notice is we haven't gone to the b string of the guitar yet because that's where it's like a lot of the symmetry from these shapes end because again the b string is tuned differently uh than the other strings right so we have to compensate for the b string no no i don't think so i've always i've always been of the mind like all right learn your shape and then when you get to the b string compensate go diagonal one but i think if we just use this kind of touchstone method it makes a lot more sense all right so again we've got we've got two shapes here we've got the a shape [Music] and the e shape [Music] and again it's just starting note two frets two frets down a string same thing right if you take the first six notes you'll notice they're identical it's only that seventh note that is different okay uh in music theory terms we would say the e or the fifth note in any key has a flat seven compared to the root note that's what makes those two kind of scale shapes different that would be a mode of each other if you guys have ever heard that term before that's very confusing for people but if we start thinking about it all right just those first six notes there's no difference those are just the same intervals that give us all the notes okay so on the b string let's find the e okay so we count through the notes either by going b c c sharp d d sharp e getting to the fifth fret there's our e we can do that same shape [Music] okay just the first six notes and again you don't have to do it all with one big reach like this you can still [Music] kind of explore around in there because like let's face it usually in guitar solos you end up in the higher register of strings it's like alright so cool that same shape applies to the higher note starting on that b string rooting that note on the b string let's see where the a is okay i always think it's almost easier to count backwards because again this is the b string the octave that 12th fret is where the next b is and then go back down b flat a so the 10th fret is where your a is and remember we said the first six notes have exactly the same shape so here's a root note a whole step a whole step and then repeat the same thing there okay so now we have two starting points where it's just the root note two frets higher two frets higher and then repeated there's the e and here's the a [Music] e [Music] so right there by using the same shape and having two starting points you actually get the entirety of the scale across the strings okay and that kind of takes into all of like the interval training like if you ever heard of like okay the major scale is just like whole whole half whole whole half well this is exactly what you would get if you started on a whole half whole whole whole half into it but again we're just thinking it as two different shapes and those half steps are exactly where those shapes connect okay so by learning really one shape you cover so much ground on the fretboard you just have to know where an e is and where an a is and then all this stuff will be movable relative to each other in any other key you just know where the one and the five is right we can start just by flying through so those are all the all the notes right here in this spot i can find the next one here's a all the notes right there i could go to in the open a string there's all the spots there i can go to the e on the a string there's all the spots right there i can go to the the octave a for either of these i can go high up i can move that like we just did and it just repeats and then essentially you have all the notes in this entire key laid out just from one shape and i think that's just like super super easy to do way way better than being like here's the ionian mode and that sits right next to the dorian mode and then you go into phrygian and then you go into lydian and mixolydian all that stuff is great when you want to like try to capture a certain sound but all that stuff is so so confusing for beginners to get into so that's why i really think that this is the best way for beginners to start thinking about soloing forget about pentatonix unless you really are in love with the sound of pentatonic solos which definitely has a certain sound but like are like would anybody ever think that way i just really want to get into guitar just to play the sound of pentatonic solos because you're going to sound like pretty much everybody else out there i love pentatonix i'm not hating on pentatonix it's like they've got like a just kind of like an at-home feel that you can really kind of fly through but even stacking five pentatonic shapes and navigating between them i think is more difficult than actually taking the full scale all seven notes and then just learning it with one shape and then just having kind of touchstones to like learn where those notes start and then again when you transfer it into other keys it's going to be really really easy so again that's my best advice is to just take that shape whether it's just the first six notes or if it's actually nine notes across six strings or three strings right like uh again that a with the alteration go for it if you want and then just really start by maybe like striking the root note and then kind of [Music] back home maybe in different one [Music] and then just really play along and then teach your mind to see just that really easy shape even if it's way outside your reach just have your mind kind of anchor those touchstone points and you'll kind of get get back to it and that's something that like in hindsight i see a lot of like really good guitar players that i kind of idolized when i was first coming up i would see them do these kind of runs where they kind of do these like full step slides and then always end up on the root and i was like well that's interesting i always thought it was like oh they're going between two shapes but really it's one shape that's slightly more extended than i had seen before and they're just kind of like just using it as contacts for their fingers to kind of fly through and that's going to be the best way to build speed and it's going to set you up for like way more complicated and advanced stuff which i'm going to be tackling on the channel uh coming up soon in the next couple weeks and i've already started on the patreon uh so definitely stay tuned for that but yeah i just kind of wanted to share that in in the context of a beginner because it's really easy to kind of just play those those open uh those hammer-ons you know like like the double hammer on i'm gonna do another video on that just like the joy of the double hammer [Music] and how it makes you sound like you're super fast even if you're not uh because again it's a lot of fun any beginner can do it that reach isn't so bad especially if it's just your pointer finger to your pinky and then just visualizing that all over the fretboard all right so rocking the angelico deluxe ss out uh this is the official emerald rider guitar if anybody asks but uh yeah that's all i've got for you today please let me know if you have any questions or comments in the comment section uh and then go follow me over on instagram twitter and like i said check out the patreon and i'll talk to you guys soon thanks a lot

Channel: Sean Daniel

Views: 1,219,255

Keywords: guitar, sean daniel, guitar lesson, sean daniel guitar lesson, intermediate guitar lesson, beginner guitar lesson, easy guitar lesson

Id: _OOA1tEyei0

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 09 2022