Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

Learn an entire solo using just 3 fretted notes – Less theory, more emotional – EP422

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play an entire solo using just 3 fretted notes (plus one bend). You’ll be focusing more on the emotional aspect of playing (as opposed to scales and chord shapes). These notes are incredibly easy to visualize because they make up a triangle shape.

Lesson Video

Slow Walkthrough Video

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Video Tablature Breakdown

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Comments

  6. Rich F says

    A beautiful lesson,, Brian! John, it is also perfect for my morning cup of tea on a beautiful sunny morning here in the UK!

    Brian, you are such an inventive genius! Simple, beautiful 3-note triangle lead over brilliant chord changes! What I love about this is your wonderfully thought out choice of chords for the backing track. So then, the same 3 notes are A major pentatonic pattern 4, B minor pentatonic pattern 2, F sharp minor pentatonic (being the relative minor of A), and then back to major pentatonic at the end for the A, D ane E. So you are subtly showing us, “keep the same 3 notes for the lead, let the chords pass by, and you will be shifting between a major and minor sound…”

    Incidentally, I guess the B major chord (B7). Is a borrowed chord for the key of A?

  7. Rich F says

    Just to add, this lesson reminds me of the very first lesson of Brian’s that I ever saw on youtube, many years ago! I was searching for a good BB King lesson, and found the attached…

    https://youtu.be/_uXZiDNw51w

    This lesson hooked me, I loved his style there and then, and I investigated and joined Active Melody.
    Brian, is this lesson on active melody anywhere? Is the backing track available? Would you be able to post it, perhaps in the micro-lessons?

    The other thing I remember puzzling on was why the notes you chose in that lesson looked like the A minor pentatonic pattern 2, just shifted up 3 frets? I did not know then about the major pentatonic scale. Since then, from my years on AM, I have learned from Brian about the major pentatonic… also, I have been investigating on youtube the BB Box, which I think this is… so Brian, how about a lesson on the BB box?

  8. Rich F says

    …. oh, and the other thing that grabbed me with that lesson was Brian’s Scrabble Rack t-shirt! That would certainly be the end of the game if you had those letters!

    And Brian’s t-shirt choices have been brilliant ever since!

  9. alasdair L says

    Love this, Brian. Not complcated in theory (which I get) nor in technique (which at 72 I don’t think I will ever get) but high in emotion, which is the one thing that keeps me going (along with my wife Pat, my dog Jess and my guitar Emilia). Your classes have kept me going thro Covid and cancer etc. Keep it up. Premium is brilliant value.

  15. Vernon says

    Brian, I love the way you teach. You run counter to pretty much all the other ways and methods of teaching guitar. It’s brilliant. A touch of theory, a simple scale or two, and some chord shapes. It sounds ten times better than the most complex riffs that are more ego than actual music. I love this site. So glad I found it.

  16. Charles R says

    It may be just me personally, but for me by far the most difficult of the three pieces is the technical piece. I get the theoretical side very easily, and the emotional side is always there, such that we just have to learn to draw on it, but even simple things technically can be damnably difficult for me and take forever. It could be the shape of my hands, or my capacity to hear, but I can spend a really long time just trying to get down one piece which is theoretically straightforward. So the challenge of this lesson for me actually the technical part. For this reason, the most useful aid for me would be maps of the lessons, that is, for example, strum description starts at 1:30, riff 1 starts at 2:45, etc. Because I have to go over particular sections again and again because of the technical challenge, I spend a lot of time making my own maps so I can just jump to the parts that are hard for me.

  18. Michael W says

    Great lesson-Love the on-screen tablature. On a slightly different note, thank you Brian for not trying to sell us a bunch of different crap every month (You NEED this lesson!!! only $39.95!!)

  19. Edison says

    Oh my gosh! Great groove Brian.

    I m not getting the weekly lessons in my email inbox. I updated it in my activemelody account about two weeks ago. I just checked it and it’s right. Can you look into it.

    I look forward to getting your weekly email notifications.

    Thank you Brian

    Ed

  21. Laurel C says

    Awesome lesson on how to get more with less. What you can do with 3 fretted notes and a bend, broadens the horizon beyond just a lick or two! Using simple ingredients, but not just for a bite of a sandwich but to make a whole packed lunch. Clever artistry. Many thanks Brian for all you do.

  24. Rich F says

    What is brilliant about this lesson is the subtlety of the mix of chords in the backing track, the major and minor chords that go together perfectly: with the right backing chords (which these are), we can focus on just playing these same four notes throughout, and focus on the emotion and phrasing, and sometimes it will sound major, coming from the major pentatonic, and sometimes minor, coming from the minor pentatonic. Subtly superb!

  25. Rich F says

    Hi Daniele,

    Thanks for pointing out that the B7 is a secondary dominant chord. I have just been investigating secondary dominant chords. So, in the key of A (which this song is), B7 would be the secondary dominant chord of the fifth (E)…..?

    Here is an excellent video on this which AM members msy be interested in, especially if you are writing your own songs.. (I love the Beach Boys song Cocomo, mentioned there!)

    https://youtu.be/py4HaueW50Q

    Thanks again, Daniele, for igniting my interest in secondary dominant chords!

  26. daniele f says

    Hi Rich
    F#is the 5th of B , secondary dominant .
    We are in the key of A but we use
    F# as-the dominant (5th)in the key of B (our temporary key )which makes it secondary dominant .
    Took me a while to get it too but Brian uses these secondary dominants pretty often… nice too.
    If you see a chord which is not part of the key used, look at the chord before it. If it is the fifth of it then
    You have your secondary dominant.
    Hope I am not making it more confusing for you !

  27. George P says

    HI Brian i love the new lesson i have one hangup. I have a takamine acoustic at the moment. What can i play when in youre lesson you play a few full bends. I know it sounds more authentic on an electric guitar. Can you give me any tips. Take care George Cornwall UK.

  29. alasdair L says

    I’m probably getting boring here, Brian, but what makes your version of this lesson so good is the vibrato which doesn’t seem to get a mention in the walkthroughs. Can we, at least, see them marked on the tab!

  30. Rich F says

    Hi Danielle,

    You are confusing me! I eas asking where the B7 came from. I watched the Jake Lizzio video thst I provided in my message above… that is a brilliant video! So clear. The dominant chord is always a seventh, such as B7: a very unresolved restless sounding chord, 5 intervals above its tonic. . Yoir ear hears it and wants to be pulled back to the tonic. Jake Lizzio then talks about secondary dominant chords. He writes out the full scale for the key that the song is in (he is using the example of G, while Brian’s somg is in A). Underneath each chord, he writes the dominant chotd of each of those chords, each one being a seventh. So, as he says, you can have the fifth of the fifth. Then he goves great examples of replacing any of the chords in the major scale with a secondsry dominant (-as he says, a temporary modulation) before being pulled back to the chords in the major scale.

    So, in the case of Brian’s song, I was thinking, write out all of the chords in the A scale: the fifth chord is E major. The fifth of the E (its secondary dominant) is B7. So the B7 in Brian’s song, to use Jake’s terminology, is the fifth of the fifth. Watch Jake’s video: it is brilliant and so clear, wirh some great examples.

    In terms of the F sharp minor, that is in the A scale chord family. It is the sixth chord, and, as Brian pointed out in the lesson, is the relative minor of A.

    Hope I am understanding all of this! Fadcinated by this music theory (and the practical sound of it)..

    Cheers,

    Rich F

  31. Rich F says

    A private place in Hawaii, Danielle? Sounds heavenly!

    We have been to Hawaii three times (a long flight from the UK: 10 hours to Los Angeles, then a second flight, 5 hours Los Angeles to Honolulu…)

    Beautiful island, wonderful people, lovely culture, great music… I bought a ukelele there, but do not play it, as it would confuse me for my guitar playing! Only 4 strings, different chord shapes, different scales!

    • daniele f says

      Look up EP370 in Brian lessons
      Always the 5th of the chord you want to play next
      F# to B7
      Once you get it no problems !
      Glad you like Hawaii, been here 18 years but originally from France , still go visit family yes very long trip.
      Sorry I confused you.

  33. hankunck@gmail.com says

    Great lesson for all levels, Brian. This is very much the way B. B. King played his solos, on both slow and fast Blues. Besides his 3 or 4 fretted notes, his “additional” notes were through bending and pre-bending not fingering (as you state in the lesson), When I first learned his style, I didn’t find it difficult to get the basic technique down, but putting the soul (emotion) into it is where the real talent lies. Fortunately, it’s a talent that’s not difficult to develop with patience, practice and persistence, and your lesson makes it even easier for those wanting to learn this. For years it’s been my favorite way to just “noodle around” on my guitar.

  34. Rich F says

    Hi Hank,

    Yes, a beautiful lesson with a brilliant BB King feel… this is what drew me to Active Melody in the first place… when I discovered this lesson online quite a few years ago… I love BB King, so I had to explore AM further, and subsequently joined…

    https://youtu.be/_uXZiDNw51w

    One of my favourite lessons is EP041: such a laid back BB King vibe…

    I am also investigating the BB Box online… that is fascinating… BB was a genius!

  35. Rich F says

    This is what I love about AM, and the beautiful AM community! I asked where I could find that lesson on AM… and Gary W told me: LEG012… thanks Gary! I just looked it up, and there it is! Brilliant: so I now have Brian’s backing track fir this.

    While there, there was a link to another BB King lesson that I was unaware of; EP339… just looked at that… fantastic! I will be working on that now. Major pentatonic in D: The triangle and square shape connected to the D Major chord! Lightbulb brilliance! All thanks to Gary, and following the little threads through the AM lessons!

  36. Rich F says

    Sorry to “gush on” about this lesson, but I am besotted with it! Lol!

    I just love the combination of the emotion, the simplicity (the focus on the triangle: thr three notes, or the four notes with the bend: I also love the sound of the slide/trail off way down from the high frets to nothing), and then the subtlety of the backing track chords, which mesn that the triangle lead alternates between sounding major and minor.

    Just thinking about this for my own compositions now… if, in any key, we strum this sequence of chords: the one chord (major), the two chord (minor), the relative minor chord (the sixth chord) and back to the one (major) chord, maybe also throw in a secondary dominant (following Brian, the fifth of the fifth)… then playing the relevant triangle over it will sound great!

    Just love the theory, (and the practical usage of) of all of this! Thanks for the flashing lightbulbs, Brian!

  38. Brian Canadian in the UK says

    I love lessons like this, you spend your time doing theory but you need something to break way from it and this lesson does it, and what’s also great there is important skills bending and learning you don’t have to play at a Ferrari pace to sound great,

    When I look at online lessons, this is the one for me , the best money I spend on learning, and I am a Premium Member !

    Another great lesson Brian, you keep me playing , there is days when I get despondent and think about should I continuing to learn guitar , then a lesson like this comes along you get me inspired again,

    Thank you Brian 🙂

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