Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

Mapping the fretboard for a slow, country style lead – Guitar Lesson – EP538

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn the difference between playing a solo “in the key”, versus outlining the chords of the song. You’ll also be visualizing various chord shapes all over the fretboard to highlight those notes, and give your lead a more melodic sound.

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

  5. Peter R says

    The big take away for me was that I still have a lot of work to do on the minor and major scales as I am unable (yet) to make it sound like anything you did in the first part of the video. I think what I struggle with is that I understand what you are saying and I get the mapping but I just lack the fluency to make it sound good. It really is like learning a new language like you mentioned before.

  9. charjo says

    This chord mapping opend my eyes an important transition trick.
    You walked chromatically up to the root of the A7 from the G chord. I’ve seen you walk up to the major 3rd of the next chord in prior lessons. I now realize you could also walk up to the 5th of your next chord. Maybe there are even more options here with extended chords.
    John

  12. Nick Ll says

    Plenty of good ideas here Brian but what I’m not understanding from this is the extent to which you can work out such leads on the fly. For example, if you were to just turn up at a jam and a rhythm guitar or something is playing those chords and the sequence is not previously familiar to you. Have you reached a point where you can quickly process the progression in your head such that you can intuitively map what you are going to play just seconds or microseconds ahead of playing it? Or is that simply an unreachable target for even the most musically gifted player? I genuinely don’t know. I can sense when people are, or appear to me to be, more musically talented but I cannot gauge the comparative degree of that greater talent. And I don’t really understand how some brilliant guitar players seem to be able to effortlessly come up with amazing solos without apparently having the faintest understanding of music theory while others, presumably, rely almost as much on their study of theory as on the physical mechanics of practice.

    • Brian says

      I could improvise this having never heard it – the difference might be a slight delay in playing over each chord… since you don’t really know what’s coming next. So it wouldn’t be quite so syncopated. Most of the chords in this are predictable and you can kind of guess where things are going… but then something like that last C minor chord would trip up most people… but a good improviser can adjust quickly on the fly – and the listener wouldn’t really be able to tell the difference.

      • Nick Ll says

        Ok, thanks Brian for answering. That certainly helps me understand where your current capabilities lie, though it still leaves me questioning whether you (or anyone else for that matter) could reach that ability level with or without studying/understanding the underlying music theory. Obviously you can’t speak for anyone else, you can only say what worked for you – and obviously you must believe that the theory would be of benefit to others or you would not be making such (excellent) efforts to explain such concepts in addition to showing us what you play. I guess I should just accept the (slightly annoying) fact that there are some people who just happen to be so naturally gifted musically that they can appear effortlessly to produce what others have had to work much harder to achieve. So it goes.

        • Mark H says

          Hi Nick, I think having some familiarity with the genre the song falls into helps a lot.

          If you already have a number of songs in your repertoire in various keys from, in this case, the genre of mid-20th century country music (including Western swing which shares a lot of similar ideas), you have an arsenal of material from which to draw. Once you have a lot of licks, progressions, harmonies etc already in your ‘fast brain’ you can then weave them into your playing ‘in the genre’.

          Same applies to country blues, Chicago Blues, Gypsy Jazz, Rockabilly, any genre. Being in a band whose members had eclectic tastes in music was the best way I’ve found to expand my grasp of material I probably would have never played otherwise.

          • Nick Ll says

            Hi Mark

            Yes – I imagine full immersion into a genre and style will bring forth the benefits you describe and might very well explain how so many players reach a level of intuitive soloing without ever having studied any theory.

            Speaking as a ‘bedroom guitarist’ who has never played or jammed with anyone else I can only imagine the benefits gained from playing in a live band, and I guess for people like me the theory that Brian so cleverly works into his videos takes on greater importance.

            Thanks for your input.

  13. Mike R says

    I like how simple it is and how complicated it is at the same time. It’s really amazing how close all the different chord sounds really are. Just takes me a long time to actually see it, on the fly.
    Like Nick mentions above, I wonder, as we get better if our ears just hear where to go without actually thinking too much about what we are playing. Knowing the major and minor pentatonic scales and how they overlap is really helping me. Is there really another way to think about the guitar neck without using the CAGED system? I’ve tried to understand it for many years without CAGED but never really got very far. This is a beautiful piece, you always amaze me how you come up with one hit after another. Glad your feeling better.

  14. slopace says

    I don’t know Brian, it sounded pretty awesome when you played just in the key too, major or minor. God I wish I could do that on demand so easily as you make it look! I’m getting better every day tho thanks to you.

  16. Alan V says

    It might be old-style country, but the class shines through and for my money, it beats Pentatonics hands down no matter how well Pentatonics are handled. The same ideas rock up well anyway!
    Excellent lesson as always, Brian. You have helped my improvising skills enormously as I find I am looking for the nearest triad, and using some of the connecting ideas.
    The only thing I struggle with is the string bending. Feeble fingers I expect! I make do by sliding instead

  22. David S says

    Brian, Getting a lot of good stuff out of this lesson.Have always had trouble leading into the chord.This as helped me more than you know.Learned to play chords first with lesson , then learned how to lead into the chords.This is where I have been lagging.Thanks so much for this lesson.

  25. Dennis R says

    I love this kind of lessons,. I have altle adhd in the top,so I jump around alot. And I offen dont Complite the lesson. But this kind of lessons I do complite,in a week or so.., Now I can play this nearly like you.. :/.. hahaha.. No that I cant do. You are Great. I dont Understand how u build this melodys. How u make up the steps and so on through the melody. Some time I feel I understand it,and then a minute later I dont understand nothing. Then my brain simply can get it.. LOL.. Thanks for the lesson.. Ps hope u understand my bad english. I am Danish. 🙂

  27. Andrew Davey says

    What I find is that you use mainly the same chords from lesson to lesson but you use them in a completely different structure rhythm and sequence its a real talent
    I learn it and then if I don’t go over it every day I forget it only a tiny bit sticks its addictive though you most probably feel that you are teaching us all the same stuff but in different ways
    your a great teacher Brian don’t stop

  30. simplydelboy says

    Probably the best yet. Over the years now I’ve really got the caged system and played along to this pretty well because of the way Brian teaches this stuff. It just seems to enter your skin somehow and you know what to play because your ears hear it. Mind you the fast stuff is a bit more challenging.

  31. jaystrings2@aol.com says

    Fretboard mapping is a great name for this concept. Made the learning deeper. a great, memorable lesson. Wish I’d known this 7 – 8 years ago when I was jamming with a bunch of virtual strangers just to be able to back my sister. This style of playing would have really made a difference. I was so heavy into cowboy chords. No one in the jam band could take the lead. Thanks, Brian. Jay

  32. Guy C says

    So much ‘Gold’ in this track, wow, the D7 trick in bar 15 leading to the G, I have heard that sound so many times before in country, never managed to work it out, the voice leading to the A7 chord, the semitone country bends, not playing the whole dim arpeggio over the C#dim, each bar has soooo much to learn, steal and assimilate…

    Thank you!

  33. Eric G says

    This is amazing.
    A year ago I couldn’t play anything but memorized licks (I could play all-ish basic ‘cowboy’ chords without thinking too much, but that was it, I couldn’t put it all together).

    Thanks to Brian’s lessons, I can play to this backing track, literally watching my hand play melodic notes (major scale over different ‘inversions’ of the same chord) and actually changing with the chord changes. WHAT!! a few months ago I thought ‘there is no way I could ever do that in real time’

    I was actually watching my left hand play the notes and I didn’t even have to struggle with it!!!! it was simple, mind you, but it felt amazing!

    Thank you Brian for sharing your knowledge !!!

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