MicroLesson 099

[Georg B]

Hello everyone,

I have been with ActiveMelody for over two years now, but so far, I have only done Brian’s lessons and never posted something on the forum. I heard from the reference videos that the forum is an unrestrictedly supportive and positive platform. I think that Brian’s “signature style” is also noticeable here; he is an absolutely outstanding teacher.
As a non-native English speaker, I can understand Brian’s lessons well, both in terms of his English and the content, and I can follow what he explains. I recently decided to analyze an old MicroLesson, namely MicroLesson 099. However, I didn’t get very far and need some help. I haven’t been able to identify the notes Brian plays between the chords as belonging to a specific major or minor scale, arpeggio, or pentatonic scale. Perhaps someone here in the forum is knowledgeable and has the time to tell me where the notes in bars 3, 5, 6, 7, and 11 come from. Thank you in advance.

Best regards,

Georg

[Rob N]

Hi Georg,
I haven’t gone so far back as these early Micro lessons with no explanations or breakdown. First bear in mind that bar 1 is just a brief intro and the 12 bar in A starts on bar 2, Brian has done a quick change in bar 3 to D9 which is a jazzy version of the ‘A’ chord shape at frets 5 to 7 and wherever that A shape chord appears, pentatonic shape 5 fits over it perfectly. Brian is mainly in penta shape 5 but picking out a note or two from the full major scale within penta shape 5.
Bar 5 is in A again, the D shape (or actually the C shape) is imagined at frets 9 to 12 (sounds an A chord). Over C shapes, penta 4 fits nicely.
Bars 6 and 7 are in D, Brian seems to pick out notes from the D9 chord then slides up to penta shape 1 (major) between frets 7 to 10 but he occasionally picks out notes from the rear end of Penta shape 1 (minor) at frets 10 to 13.
Towards the end of bar 7 he’s hinting at returning to the A (the C shape between frets 9 to 12 again).
Bar 11 is similar to bars 6 to 7 Brian is playing D major Penta (shape 1) with odd D minor notes from shape 1 shifted up three frets.
I hope that is accurate and it helps? Hope I haven’t timed out to reply, it’s taken a while but very useful for me too.

[charjo]

Hi Georg,
Exactly the sort of things thst confused the heck out of me in my early AM days. I think all of Rob’s info is accurate but I hope I can add some context.
Short answer is that in a major blues you can play minor pentatonic or major pentatonic but the real magic happens when you combine the two within one phrase and that’s what Brian does in Bars 3 and 5.
The other magical thing that you’ll see again and again in Brian’s lessons is making licks around chord shapes. Consider that over the D7 in Brian is playing a lick over an A shaped D chord, or more accurately, the first inversion where the D root on the 5th string is replaced with the major 3rd F# on the 9th fret(or you could see it as part of the D chord coming out of the “G shape”. Here, again, Brian mixes the major and minor pentatonic but actually coming from the key of D.
If you dig deeper into theory you will understand that a major blues, ie A7, D7, E7 is not really one key. These are the dominant V chords of 3 different keys, ie keys of D, G, and A. The scale that fits perfectly over a dominant chord is the mixolydian mode of it’s root note ( dominant chord is the 5th chord of a key, mixolydian mode is the major scale of it’s parent key starting on the 5th note or root of the dominant chord ).
The A minor pent is a compromise that you can make work over the A major blues but it’s not perfect. There are many options. A popular way is to play A major pent over the I chord and A minor pent over the IV and the V. A purer option is to play the “mixolydian mode” of each chord as it passes. Mixing the major and minor pentatonic basically produces the mixolydian mode but with an added bluesy minor 3rd. What Brian does over the D7 chord in this piece is essentially mixing the major and minor pentatonic of the key of D. The other way of looking at it is that he created bluesy sounding licks around the first inversion D major chord shape.
Hope that helps, Sorry, I often get a little overinclusive in these explanations.
John

[Richard G]

Hi Georg,
If I’m understanding you correctly, all the notes Brian plays between the chords are shown clearly on the SoundSlice tab.

Richard

[Georg B]

Hello Rob,
Thank you very much for taking the time and making the commitment to assist me with micro lesson 099. You answered exactly the questions I had and even more besides. Great! It’s precisely this analysis that helps me learn Brian’s pieces more easily, because it lets me know which scale or pentatonic I’m playing, or whether it’s the arpeggio of a chord I’m playing, etc. I’m going to print out your message and put it next to my printout of micro lesson 099. I’m sure that with your help, I’ll make much more progress the next time I try to analyze a piece myself.
So, thank you again and have a great rest of the week,
Georg

[Georg B]

Rob N wrote:

Hi Georg,
I haven’t gone so far back as these early Micro lessons with no explanations or breakdown. First bear in mind that bar 1 is just a brief intro and the 12 bar in A starts on bar 2, Brian has done a quick change in bar 3 to D9 which is a jazzy version of the ‘A’ chord shape at frets 5 to 7 and wherever that A shape chord appears, pentatonic shape 5 fits over it perfectly. Brian is mainly in penta shape 5 but picking out a note or two from the full major scale within penta shape 5.
Bar 5 is in A again, the D shape (or actually the C shape) is imagined at frets 9 to 12 (sounds an A chord). Over C shapes, penta 4 fits nicely.
Bars 6 and 7 are in D, Brian seems to pick out notes from the D9 chord then slides up to penta shape 1 (major) between frets 7 to 10 but he occasionally picks out notes from the rear end of Penta shape 1 (minor) at frets 10 to 13.
Towards the end of bar 7 he’s hinting at returning to the A (the C shape between frets 9 to 12 again).
Bar 11 is similar to bars 6 to 7 Brian is playing D major Penta (shape 1) with odd D minor notes from shape 1 shifted up three frets.
I hope that is accurate and it helps? Hope I haven’t timed out to reply, it’s taken a while but very useful for me too.

Hello Rob,
Thank you very much for taking the time and making the commitment to assist me with micro lesson 099. You answered exactly the questions I had and even more besides. Great! It’s precisely this analysis that helps me learn Brian’s pieces more easily, because it lets me know which scale or pentatonic I’m playing, or whether it’s the arpeggio of a chord I’m playing, etc. I’m going to print out your message and put it next to my printout of micro lesson 099. I’m sure that with your help, I’ll make much more progress the next time I try to analyze a piece myself.
So, thank you again and have a great rest of the week,
Georg

[Georg B]

Richard G wrote:

Hi Georg,
If I’m understanding you correctly, all the notes Brian plays between the chords are shown clearly on the SoundSlice tab.

Richard

Hello Richard,
Thank you for your message. Soundslice is a great help in many ways. However, my question was more aimed at what Rob and John answered, namely which pentatonic scale or which major or minor scale or even which arpeggios these notes can be traced back to. If you read through Rob’s and John’s messages in the chat history, you may find it interesting and insightful to learn why certain notes appear where they do.
Best regards,
Georg

[Georg B]

charjo wrote:

Hi Georg,
Exactly the sort of things thst confused the heck out of me in my early AM days. I think all of Rob’s info is accurate but I hope I can add some context.
Short answer is that in a major blues you can play minor pentatonic or major pentatonic but the real magic happens when you combine the two within one phrase and that’s what Brian does in Bars 3 and 5.
The other magical thing that you’ll see again and again in Brian’s lessons is making licks around chord shapes. Consider that over the D7 in Brian is playing a lick over an A shaped D chord, or more accurately, the first inversion where the D root on the 5th string is replaced with the major 3rd F# on the 9th fret(or you could see it as part of the D chord coming out of the “G shape”. Here, again, Brian mixes the major and minor pentatonic but actually coming from the key of D.
If you dig deeper into theory you will understand that a major blues, ie A7, D7, E7 is not really one key. These are the dominant V chords of 3 different keys, ie keys of D, G, and A. The scale that fits perfectly over a dominant chord is the mixolydian mode of it’s root note ( dominant chord is the 5th chord of a key, mixolydian mode is the major scale of it’s parent key starting on the 5th note or root of the dominant chord ).
The A minor pent is a compromise that you can make work over the A major blues but it’s not perfect. There are many options. A popular way is to play A major pent over the I chord and A minor pent over the IV and the V. A purer option is to play the “mixolydian mode” of each chord as it passes. Mixing the major and minor pentatonic basically produces the mixolydian mode but with an added bluesy minor 3rd. What Brian does over the D7 chord in this piece is essentially mixing the major and minor pentatonic of the key of D. The other way of looking at it is that he created bluesy sounding licks around the first inversion D major chord shape.
Hope that helps, Sorry, I often get a little overinclusive in these explanations.
John

Hello John,
Thank you very much for your detailed breakdown of the analysis of micro lesson 099. I want to take a close look at your comments this coming weekend, because I know that what you wrote to me contains a lot of valuable information. It’s great that you took the time to help me and bring me a step further in my guitar journey.
All the best,
Georg

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