Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

Vocal Guitar Phrasing; How to play it like you would sing it. Guitar Lesson – EP634

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a melodic lead that is full of harmonies and pauses and is played the way a vocalist would phrase it.

Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson

Part 2 - For Premium Members

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Slow Walkthrough

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Video Tablature Breakdown

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Comments

  4. Scott T says

    Anxious to get to this one. I am really starting to get some traction with these chord/lead/caged stuff
    Caged expired….just signed up for 1 year….nice savings.
    keep doing what you are doing Brian. Your are an incredible player,composer,teacher
    your passion is very clearly communicated
    thanks,
    Scott

  5. RIFF DIGGER says

    Lovely harmonies. Once I study how you play the positions (I totally relate to your ideas) I can’t wait to print the tab (I enlarge the font) and play the arrangement exactly or very close to your, active melodies. Every once in awhile you find a lesson that really connects and this is one of them- and your jam tracks are great! Thanks, Brian!

    • Michael D says

      Hi: When you indicated that you “…enlarge the font” did you mean you enlarge the page? I have done that but it still doesn’t quite get me the size I would like. Instead, I have taken to printing out of theSoundSlice App while enlarging the zoom slightly, since it provides bolder text for the music. and tabs, but would gladly know whether or not you have found some way to actually enlarge the font as it would be very useful to me to be able to do so. Thanks for your help.

  6. Mike R says

    Nicely done Brian. I really like the gospel sound and how you re-purpose a lot of the licks you are teaching us. I agree that phrasing to sound more vocal creates a special sound. I know I tend to get that run around the fretboard sound but I think for me it’s because I’m still starting to see how one chord or scale can blend into another and it’s hard to stop sometimes. This playing like you are singing is really what I hope to achieve. Always like to have stops in the song because it really pulls you in more and just sound cool. Keep up the great lessons.

  7. RIFF DIGGER says

    Just wanted to add- First thing I did was just play the rhythm chords with the full SLICE playthrough, especially going from C to F as the melody comes in-past the 1 on the F chord (and Brian mentioned) so if your hitting a F barre chord you can really hear how precise your stand alone low F note resonates (or not) on the low E string since there is space to hear it. One can’t be sloppy here-in my case-and with fine adjustments you can get the full barre chord to sound great and in time at this 130 BPM swing tempo. Or, playing the Hendrix F chord with clear articulation. I play the ‘cowboy C chord’ which sounds great underneath this lead melody- I push the nail of my ring finger to mute the G on the low E string so there is no over-ring on the cowboy C chord, strum. I learned this from someone along the way-and it’s quite handy. This is such a good lesson, you can take Bars10&11 and just do the hammer-on while in hybrid mode, picking those D&B strings – getting to ring clear and clean. I chose those 2 bars because they sound get and by going slow-you get it, and then add other key measures of your choice. They all fit and lock quite nicely.

  8. David H says

    Brian, great lesson as ever. Your explanations of where the notes come from are second to none. As are the choice of topics each week. And the onscreen tabs and looping facilities make your lessons invaluable. You are an inspiration. Many thanks.

  11. KIRK E says

    All good. Fits my program, which is mostly background noise. This is perfect, I’ll get a lot of mileage outa this one…same deal in another key, keep rolling. If there’s a chance you could do that, with another backing track, that’d be great. Thanks buddy

  12. EpiLP says

    A suggestion for future lesson(s)? What about the process of composing your own backing track in lieu of just downloading some random tracks.

    While the lead parts get the most attention, the rhythm tracks are foundational. For those of us that like to compose it would be interesting and helpful to get Brian’s insights.

    This backing track seems to have more than just chords. I hear embellishments, different strum patterns and a bass part as well. My 2 cents.

    • Michael Krailo says

      How to create chords all over the neck is covered in the CAGED system. All chords can be played in partial versions or arpeggiated or the popular finger style. Brian has many lessons on chord progression theory and thoughts on how he creates his compositions in various lessons. Maybe search on rhythm to get started. The bass guitar parts are very simple in all the backing tracks. There is no need to get fancy with the bass parts. In this lesson he simply used a 1, 5, 1, 4 pulse in the beginning and later added in the 3 in a very natural way. For the VI chord, it walked down to the 6 and it was a simple 6 3 6 3 pulse (open A and E). Again nothing fancy.

      I agree the rhythm parts are foundational to the rhythm part of any song, but they are literally just chords, usually bar chords or simple open chords. Again, many lessons on this stuff already. Once you pick a key, you instantly know all the diatonic chords that you can use. In this case it is C and the relative minor is Am. Not sure what else you need to know other than the more involved finger picking style that definitely requires work on mastering.

  13. Imerio A says

    great lesson Brian. A beautiful melody aslo. I love the ideas on measures 28 and 34….so blues. the lesson is a nice way to review harmonies and practice hybrid picking at the same time. thanks a lot

  14. Paul N says

    My light bulb went on finally (after years with you), when you played the 2 note progression from the A shalpe C chord to the E shape C chord. I’ve known and played these for years with you, it just did not sink in until now that all your were doing was moving from Shape to Shape on the Same Chord. Takes me a while, but sooner or later I’ll get it.
    Very good lesson Brian. Thanks!

  15. Edward says

    This is working great for me. I’ve played songs (acoustic) with friends for years but never understood what I was playing. I was Just memorizing chords to play at the right time.
    I’m now learning where I can get off rote memory and add a little variety to our sound.

    Thank you so much!!!

  19. Andrew B says

    As usual Brian a highly practical approach to working out of chord shapes. It initially it is a lot to take in but I find, days, weeks later I’m playing one of those licks that have been stored away especially if I put the backing track on and play sparingly.

  20. Steve says

    good thoughtfull lesson. like you mention i would like to see harmonic runs on 2 strings, possibly with a bass drone. i have been thinking about spread voicings recently, and how adjacent strings give a guitar fourth quality but skipping a string ‘x’ leads into either 1,x,7,3 or 1,5,x,3 more open voicings., or less mud.
    Adjacent → fourths
    Skip one string → sevenths
    Skip two strings → thirds

    • Michael Krailo says

      Yes sir, knowing your intervals leads to hearing the intervals which eventually leads to a trained ear if you work on it. Simple intervals is where it all starts, then those spread triads and chord voicings just add another dimension of sound choices.

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