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[Music]
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[Music]
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hey this is brian with activemelody.com
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for this week's guitar lesson we have a
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very laid back
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lead it's played in sort of the jj kale
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style
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um it's also got kind of a tony joe
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white thing going on
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but it's very it's much more emotional
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than it is technical i
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i guess that's probably the easiest way
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to say it so i've got the lesson split
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into two parts in this video we'll take
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a look at the first half if you'd like
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to watch the second half
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and download the tablature and get the
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mp3 jam tracks which i have in multiple
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tempos
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you can get all of those learning assets
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by going to activemelody.com
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go to the weekly lessons page and do a
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search for ep373
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alright so jj kale is one of my favorite
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all-time guitar players because he's so
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laid back and chill and that's what i
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called this this week because it's kind
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of this laid back it creates a type of
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mood and i think of tony jo
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white in the same way another guitar
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player songwriter
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that just creates a the kind of thing
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you could listen to
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intently if you wanted to or you could
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just have it going in the background
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and it's going to work in both scenarios
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it's just emotional music
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and that's why guys like uh you know i
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look at
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bb king or bonnie rate these sort of
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household names
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why they're so much more popular they
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resonate with much more people
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than say um larry carlton you know larry
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carlton's a great player very technical
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but not a household name not in the same
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way that bibi or bonnie
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is they're all great players but
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what to me like bb and bonnie are more
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emotional and that's what i get when i
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when i listen to um the simplicity of jj
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kale and what he's doing it's just a
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cool vibe
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and so i wanted to recreate that this
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week i wrote the jam track and i
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just sort of made up a lead on top of it
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and so let me walk you through
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um what i did at least my thought
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process for playing this lead
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it's not as advanced as you might think
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so i started with the
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the two chords we're going to be playing
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over which is a d minor
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and a g it goes back and forth between
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the d minor and the g or g7
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so you got a minor chord
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and a major chord notice i threw in that
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c chord in there as well
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that's just a transition to get you
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between those two but it's really the d
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minor and the g
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we're going to be playing over so the
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first thing i had to do was figure out
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where to start where where's my home
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base with this when i hear those two
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chords well
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i always always 100 of the time i start
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with the pentatonic scales
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and i know i'll probably be knocked for
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that from
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you know some guitar players that are
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more advanced but to me it's the best
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foundation to start something for
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especially when it comes to playing lead
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when you're improvising
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i always look at the the pentatonix
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first as my framework it's sort of my
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rough sketch if you're doing a drawing
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that's your rough sketch you can color
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it in later but
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it gets me in the ballpark and so that's
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how i think about
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lead plane so i knew that first chord
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was a d minor so i went right to the d
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minor pentatonic scale now what i want
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to do i'm going to play along i'm going
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to put the jam track on
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and i'm just going to play up and down
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the scale the d minor pentatonic scale
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by the way we're going to be
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in pattern one just to keep it simple so
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that would be
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if you're playing your d chord up here
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your your bar would be on the tenth fret
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this is your d minor pentatonic scale
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pattern one i go through all five
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patterns in the blues lead course
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uh if you're a premium member you have
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access to that but this is pattern one
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now let me play along and i'll just go
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up and down the scale and show you how
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we can add two notes to that
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here we go
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it doesn't sound very good at all right
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[Music]
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i'm just going up and down the scale
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[Music]
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but you can see that even with those two
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chords that works now watch when i add
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this
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that note right there twelfth fret first
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string
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[Music]
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let's add one more twelfth fret second
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string
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so now
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[Music]
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all right so i've added two notes
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[Music]
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there's the same note again but it's an
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octave lower so now we're on the ninth
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fret third string
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and the ninth fret fourth string so
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these two notes are the same as
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these two notes but adding those two
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notes to your
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minor pentatonic scale now you have this
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sophisticated sounding scale that has
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shared notes between those two chords
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now how did i come up with those notes
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well i'll be honest with you
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i just noodled around a little bit i
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know that it's going to be
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either this note or this note
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you know it's going to be one of those
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two notes in between these two
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notes i know i can add one there and
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then same thing between these two notes
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there's going to be one of these two
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notes it's going to work and depending
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on which
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notes i choose puts me in a different
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scale for different
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tonalities so i had to so i just sort of
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did that very quickly i was not thinking
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about it and very quickly i was playing
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that
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um that scale all right so let me just
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go off on a tangent just for a minute
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here
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uh and just talk about the theory that's
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going on just because it's kind of
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interesting for those of you that are
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into that
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if you're not just bear with me we'll
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get into the the emotional playing here
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in just a minute
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but one of the things i when i was
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playing those two extra notes there
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in the d uh minor pentatonic scale i
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thought that we were just playing d
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minor but then as i analyzed it i
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realized no that's not d
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minor scale that's d dorian mode so this
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is d dorian well i was thinking wait
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dorian why would that work
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over the g chord and then i realized
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wait d
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dorian is exactly the same scale as g
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mixolydian
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g mixolydian and d dorian are the same
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scale they have the same exact notes
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so that led me to kind of think about
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this a little further and then i thought
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wait a minute d
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dorian so dorian is the second interval
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in if
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in the c major scale so your one chord
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would be a c
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right the two chord would be a d minor
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which would be your that's where the
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dorian thing comes from so then i went
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up the scale one two three four
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five the five is the is g
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and the c major scale so that's in
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actual fact you're playing this
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in the key of c now the crazy thing is
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yes that's d
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dorian mode and yes it's g uh mixolydian
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mode
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but in actual fact all of this is the c
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major scale
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mind blown that blew my mind i don't
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know i don't know why but i mean
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some of you would be like okay yeah duh
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but to me that was pretty interesting so
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really
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all of this is just the c major scale
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it's just starting on a different note
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so you could play the c major scale over
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this entire thing and it's going to
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sound great over the d
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minor part and over the g part all right
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so that's the theory
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i just wanted to kind of share that
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because i thought it was interesting
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let's get back to the
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what i actually played then so we're not
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going to be thinking about that i didn't
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think about
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c at all when i played this i thought
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about d
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minor pentatonic scale and i went
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right
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[Music]
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that's the first two licks that we're
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going to learn so we're
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down here in pattern four
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of the minor pentatonic scale for d
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and i'm i'm using my fingers for this
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i'm not i didn't use a pick you can use
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a pick if you want i just
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i was kind of trying for that i watched
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jj playing he uses his finger so i was
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trying to
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emulate that but anyway i'm gonna slide
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from the fifth fret to the seventh fret
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on the fourth string
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[Music]
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fifth fret third string seventh fret
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third string a little box here
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[Music]
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and i love little boxes like that
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there's another one
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[Music]
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on the sixth fifth and fourth string
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here down here between the third
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and the fifth fret because you've got
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with boxes
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it just makes it very easy to pull licks
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from them because you can visualize them
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and it's it's
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easy it's not like a strange shape
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okay that's the first thing we learned
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then i go into it again i went
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[Music]
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and played the same box but then i went
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to the sixth fret second string
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and then a quick pull off between the
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seventh fret and the fifth fret on the
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third string
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and then a hammer on to the seventh fret
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fourth string so let me play along with
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the slow version of the jam track so
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that you can hear that in context
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one two three four
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[Music]
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all right so after that i went
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so i'm up here on the eighth fret second
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string fifth fret second string
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sixth fret second string seventh fret
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third string
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so it's just sort of a staggered effect
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and you find that quite a bit when
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you're
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trying to come up with different
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patterns for playing your instead of
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just playing up and down the scale
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sometimes it's good to find a pattern
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that's kind of what i was doing here
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and then i went fifth fret third string
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seventh fret fourth string
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back to the fifth fret third string and
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then watch this
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this one note is pulling us into the g
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that's the b
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note which is right in that chord that's
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why
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i went there i could hear it
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[Music]
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right i could hear that that i wanted to
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pull into that g
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chord but that note is still in the
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c major scale
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right it's also in the d um dorian mode
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and the g mixolydian mode same same
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scale for all three of those
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all right so while we're in g i went
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[Music]
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and that's just playing out of the chord
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shape so at this point i'm actually
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playing the changes
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i played the g triad there because i
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knew that g uh
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chord was going on here's something you
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might try to practice is to get good at
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it
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play along with the jam track but every
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time it comes to the g chord
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try playing like a g triad in different
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positions this is a good
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practice because you can just pick the
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three notes you could go
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right find them in different spots but
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see if you can see if you can pull those
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notes out of it just as the g
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passes by you know just try it over and
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over again so
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[Music]
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we played that g triad there then i slid
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up to the eighth fret
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second string which is just matching the
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note we played okay so then the song
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goes back to the d
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minor and i went right i pulled the
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notes right out of the chord
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it's just your d minor chord but i
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played strings one two and three
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instead of making the full chord with
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the bar i just made the chord shape like
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this the triad
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fifth fret first string sixth fret
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second string seventh fret third string
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and then i just went to another voicing
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of the d chord
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i'm sorry of the d minor chord so
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there's your d minor there i was
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thinking where's another one oh yeah
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there's one up here
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and so that's what i did i did i went i
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went
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came up there it's got kind of a triplet
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feel one two three
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so once i played the triplet i'm in
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position now
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to play in the d minor pentatonic scale
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pattern one
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[Music]
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right so any of those minor pentatonic
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scale pattern one licks are going to
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work fine here too
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so just remember this you don't have to
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play that dorian mode you don't have to
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play those extra two notes that i showed
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you
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you can to color it a little more
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differently
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but you don't have to so i went
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so that's 13th fret second string down
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to the 10th fret 2nd string
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and then i did a quick slide from the
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13th fret 3rd string down to the 12th
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fret
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so yeah
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quick slide down and then there's a
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hammer
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on that so i'm going to bar there the
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first three strings
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on that uh 10th fret i'm going to play
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the third string
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hammer onto the 12th fret and then the
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10th fret second string and then back to
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the 12th fret third string so we have
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i think i had to conclude that like i
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want a pull off
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and down to the 12th fret 4 string let
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me back up i'll play along with the slow
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version of the jam track
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again up to that from the beginning up
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to that point so we can put it in
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context
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one two three four
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[Music]
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[Music]
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all right so hopefully you're seeing
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that most of what i'm playing is just
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minor pentatonic
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scale stuff but i've got those extra
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notes that i can work in and i do in a
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few spots
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i would encourage you to play along with
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the jam track and just try and play
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through that scale
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it's in all your five positions of your
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pentatonix just add those two extra
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notes you can work that out
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and just you know you can start to come
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up with some pretty cool sounding stuff
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okay so after the so
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after that i went
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[Music]
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and that's actually where we're going to
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wrap up this lesson i'll show you or
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this part one rather
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i'm going to show you this leg
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so what i'm doing there is the the
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classic blues lick so i've got the
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strings one and two barred here on the
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10th fret and i'm going to
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play the 12th fret third string full
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bend with i use my thumb for that
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and then strings two and then string one
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so you have and then you're back to the
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second string and then
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a full bend on the 13th fret second
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string
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[Music]
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and then back to that 10th fret first
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string so all together slowly
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and then i did this lick
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now i got this from jerry garcia he does
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this quite a bit these little series of
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pull-offs
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so while i've got my index finger on the
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10th fret first string
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i'm going to come up here with my ring
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finger to the 12th fret first string
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and then i put my middle finger on the
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11th fret first string so that i can do
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this
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series of pull-offs so just practice
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that
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and then we're going to come down and do
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a hammer-on to the
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13th fret second string
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so all together yeah
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[Music]
00:16:10
all right so let me play through that
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slowly so we have
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[Music]
00:16:17
after that we're back to the 10th fret
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first string and then
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back to the 13th fret second string
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and then i wrapped it up there on the
00:16:26
10th fret second string
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so you have
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[Music]
00:16:35
one two three four
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[Music]
00:17:13
now that's as far as we're gonna get in
00:17:15
this part one video and i want you to
00:17:17
take these licks
00:17:18
and really practice playing them along
00:17:20
with both the slow version of the jam
00:17:22
track
00:17:22
and the up tempo version just kind of
00:17:25
get get your
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get get the feel for it and then start
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strain from that and see what you can
00:17:30
come up with now that you understand the
00:17:31
scales that are being used
00:17:33
and and how everything is tied back to
00:17:36
the pentatonix all right so that wraps
00:17:37
up part one i'll see you in part two
00:17:39
where we'll cover the rest of this and
00:17:41
if you're not a premium member look into
00:17:42
it it's extremely affordable you have
00:17:44
access to jam tracks
00:17:46
tablature all of the lesson materials
00:17:48
and i have
00:17:49
over 370 of them and there's a new one
00:17:52
every week so it's definitely worth
00:17:54
looking into
