Description
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn to become familiar with the sounds of chord extensions the flat 7, major 7, 6 and 9, and you’ll learn how to easily find those sounds on the fretboard.
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Slow Walkthrough
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I had a friend you used to say, “context is the source of all meaning”. This applies here – when you put that Eminor triad on top of a C, you get a totally different sound than when you put it on top of a low E. Which is why harmony (especially jazz harmony) is so fascinating – and difficult!!
🎶👌
Brian , this is the lesson I have been seeking for far too long. I’m looking forward to light bulbs and revelations as I work on this. Thanks,Ron
Good stuff, straightforward, really good, easy as pie once explained so simply
Outstanding! Very usable explanation. It really brings prior lessons into focus for me.
There was nothing ‘Micro’ about this superb ML109 lesson Brian. Extremely well presented and explained. The beauty about this style of lesson is that the chords, triads and scales you demonstrated and cleverly connected can be used everywhere in our playing.
Richard
Another foundational lesson, Brian, to layer on to the improvising fundamentals you have taught all along. I’m amazed at how you continue to find new twists to reinforce concepts you may have taught before but suddenly become clear in a way that are usable for me. That’s one reason I’m still here.
Thanks Brian this is very helpful, going to watch again!
This is going to help simplify playing over the changes for me. Thanks Brian!
… and I thought alternate chord shapes just kept the playing a bit more interesting. Oh boy. This lesson wasn’t a light bulb, it was a flash bang. It has made me appreciate that subtleties make the master. There are a lot of boring lead players out there. The ones who shine are those who embrace the concepts you are teaching us in this lesson: understand the sound and mood you want to create and know where those notes live, in the chord shapes, relative to the root. This lesson will definately become a reference in your archive of teachings. I am so grateful to have you as a teacher.
Thank You Brian! More Ear Training please!!
A great lesson teaching us how to hear and see these minor, major, 6th and 7 chords from a new perspective.
ET is a fantastic complement. More ET!! Thanks Brian
Really very well explained and very useful, thanks Brian.
I have a feeling you read my question in the last comments section. 😁 This is a great lesson and I am just so thankful for AM. This is like a family, a guitar family. We get to hang out with Brian every Friday. You are awesome!
thank you! i feel the same.
Great lesson. Slowing down sometimes and hearing what you’re playing is fundamental. Thanks for continuing to remind us the basics are the key!
great learning tool all your stuff is good, and I am improving in spite of myself hanks to your help A quick side note if you were going to play 605 an’t she sweet for someone with no sound stack, solo would you make changes to add more rhythm somehow or just let it rip as is?
i would probably just play it as is
Sorry, but I feel more melody is needed.
for “Ain’t She Sweet”? what do you mean “more melody is needed”? please elaborate.
This is a wonderful lesson, Brian, even though you “borrowed” the jam track from the March site member challenge and called it a microlesson! 😉
It is rather an information-packed MACRO-lesson, I’m gonna have to rewatch it at least once to get it all and looking forward to it.
i was wondering if someone would pick up on that. leave it to you!!!! 🙂
Sorry for the late comment. Another wonderful and very helpful lesson. One thing that confuses me a little is the fingering sometimes. When we start to play the 2nd octave of the C scale in the E shape we use our 4th finger on the root or C note. But when you start to play this lead part you start with the 3rd finger to play the C note. This will often puzzle me and I have to think a bit about which finger is the most comfortable for me to begin with on the C note. It’s often the fingering that will throw me off on a lot of tunes. I am assuming you are starting with the 3rd finger because that is the way you finger the chord in that position and it’s the most comfortable. When playing through the Caged system from one position to another I will mix up which fingers to use. Sometimes I want to stay strictly with the the scale fingering and other times I stay with the fingers that I might use because of fingering the chords. Which method do you think works best or what is the best way of thinking about which fingers to use when going up or down through the Caged system. In ML102 (The Covid Blues) you use the 3rd finger again to start the piece and work your way to the major 7th chord. So I’m thinking when you play lead you are mainly using the fingers dictated by the way you make the chords in each of the Caged positions and not using the fingers that you would use to play the scales?? Hope I’m not too late for you to see this. This question has been on my mind for awhile.
Hey Mike – good question. I should cover this in a future lesson… but essentially i go with the path that allows each finger to line up over a fret and play 3 notes per string. So in the E shape I start with my middle finger over the root note (6th string) and then my fingers will naturally fall into place after that for the rest of the scale (both octaves)
Great lesson. Will definitely inspire my Improv.
you always make it seem so easy. I like when you explain why it works.
What resonates for me is your thinking in chasing the sound first, then apply a single note, partial or complete chord and feel your way through it, great advice.
This is cool! I’ll need to watch it several times. Thanks Brian
Anybody who has got their music theory down:
I understand why a 9 is referenced as such, but why isn’t it just called a 2 since they are actually the same thing?
let me know if you find out i always wondered that also maybe different octave
It’s because it’s above the octave and because it includes the 7th (whether that 7 is a regular 7 or a flat 7) – i.e. if the notes of the chord are 1, 3, 5, b7, then the note you would stack on top of that would be a 9 (not a 2). It is technically the same note though.
got it, thank you Brian
Awesome lesson! Going thru several times to get under my fingers! Had several Ah-ah moments! Thanks!
Hi Brian,
Thank you so very much for this lesson. Sometimes it’s like you know exactly what the stops on my guitar journey are that are keeping me busy. It’s probably because if someone follows you for a while, they come across questions and topics that are obvious at a certain point and that you had come across yourself before. Anyway, I’m making progress step by step. The ear training and at the same time becoming aware of which intervals pull a piece into a certain direction makes listening, playing, and reading the fretboard even more accessible.
All the best,
Georg
This is maybe your best video ever, Brian, in helping us better understand musical theory and how it connects to musical sound. I have never paid much attention to theory but hearing how it connects to sound is very helpful and instructive. I have spent a lot of time studying this lesson since it was posted. At almost 89 years old, studying your lessons is one of my favorite pastimes.
I think I pretty much understand it from a purely theoretical perspective, however the aches and pains of old age sometimes get in the way of actual playing. If I could have had your lessons when I started playing guitar many years ago I think I would be a better guitar player today.
I was glad that the key you used in creating the sound track was in C since that is the key I learned in—basically to avoid the sharps and flats as much as possible. I don’t know if it matters that much in terms of learning or not—I would think it would.
Emotional music !!!
Very informative lesson, thanks Brian
Excellent lesson that led me to revisit some older lessons, like EP571 (playing the flat 7 over chord changes). The understanding becomes more intuitive as they build on each other.
This is all such a helpful foundation!
One question: Can you play 2,3,6 minor triad tones over a tonic and still sound good? Say, over C drone…playing Dm triads, or Em triads or Am triads?
Excellent lesson Brian
Brian: I know you want to hear from us when the lesson resonated for us, and for the last few weeks your have been hitting home runs, but, in the case of ML 109 I came away uncomfortable with my lack of understanding of the topic.
I did take away the lesson idea that you do not need to be literal with you chord choices and can look for abbreviated versions of them when it works for the composition, but I was left gasping for clarity on much of the rest of the lesson. Worse, I watched the whole thing twice and parts more frequently. but often could not follow where you wanted to lead me.
Although there were on-screen chord diagrams, I think it might have been helpful for you to create a printable cheat sheet for the major and minor chords and their 6ths and 9ths that were the focus of the lesson. Yes, I always stop the video to sketch these out, but doing so really breaks the flow of the video. When you do provide sheets like these, I study them before I watch the video and am able to listen to your words rather than focus on the on-screen diagrams.
Yes, I’ll go back and try it again, but I certainly did not have the clarity on this topic that the rest of the contributors here appear to be have achieved, I guess that means I have some work to do, but thought you might want to know that at least one of us did not quite make it up the learning slope.
By the ways, nice guitar.
Yes, I must admit I feel the same, in a way. I was following to start with, but then found I was struggling to take it all in and relate it to the fretboard. However, I have returned to the video several times, and each time I pick up a little more and am able to use it. As many above have said, there is so much here for a ‘micro-lesson’ and is one that I will often return to. Whatever our level of playing and understanding, there is always something in each lesson that we can go away with. I have been following your lessons for a year or so now Brian, and constantly return to previous lessons and find that each one is becoming clearer and easier – and so satisfying when I can play along without hesitation, even on the slower speeds.
Thankyou again Brian – from here in the South of France!
Brian, This was a great lesson.
It would be helpful if you would elaborate on an aspect you touched on around 14:00 minutes in…regarding notes that “Pull” the sound in-to or draw the sound towards the next cord or note of a, say 1,4,5 progression or lick.
Many thanks!
This is a challenging lesson for me as well—which I think is a good thing. I’ve been studying the 1,4,5 piece and I believe I’ve worked it all out in the context of this lesson—hearing the intervals and relating to CAGED chord shapes, etc.
One part has stumped me—measure 11. It looks like a C minor arpeggio over the F chord..and then the flat 7 to the Cm is added. I’ve missed how that fits in with the concepts in the lesson, and how that music theory-wise works? Moving it a half step higher would be a C9 in the stairstep shape…but?
Help?
Great info on 6ths, 7ths and 9ths – although my head is spinning a bit. I really liked that you can focus on “some” of the notes to represent the chord – will definitely try developing that. I do enjoy these deeper dives like this – great job !
The interactive tab now has on-screen text added that indicates when it’s a major 7 when it’s a flat seven, etc.. as being played. I find it very useful. Thanks
Great lesson, Brian!
Thank you! Another great lesson and I love listening to you play! This belongs in your top 10. I will keep playing this over and over for sure.
Thanks Brian… The whole lesson reminded me of Peter Green’s “Albatross”. So dreamy.