Description
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a harmonized lead by pulling those harmonies directly from the corresponding chord shapes. This lesson is a great way to familiarize yourself with chord voicings and playing all over the fretboard.
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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Lots of useful information as always Brian, thank you.
Great chord structure and explanation…very useful, there’s a lot of digging to be done here! Thanks again.
nice tune. will study this teaching a lot this week. food takeaways for me.
good takeaways
sounds like the Hag. very nice
Also sounds like something that Chet would teach.
when he was playing up the major scale playing harmonies. Wasn’t there another lesson where explained that by I can’t remember the exact phrasing but called the two shapes little and big or small and large. Something like that? Ring a bell anyone?
Jeffrey, check out EP363. He gave us print outs. I have gotten so much musical miles out of them!
Daniel that isn’t the one I was thinking about, but wow is that a good lesson, thank you
Since this was essentially harmonies with 3rds, I just used 3rds as the search term and was amazed how many lessons have been done about them.
EP606 Connecting double stop harmonies to chord shapes
EP592 Easy way t visualize harmonized guitar leads
EP551 Slow, Country Harmonized Lead Guitar
EP532 How to play harmonies when soloing by finding them in basic chord shapes
EP504 Using harmony when improvising lead. An easy way to visualize harmonized 6ths and 3rds
EP490 Harmonized leads that live inside triads. Easy to visualize
EP456 How to play harmonized leads when improvising
EP423 Easy way to harmonize a blues lead
EP388 Pedal Steel licks for electric guitar
EP191 Country lead guitar, Bluesy with pedal steel licks
And the hidden gem that I just found today: EP399 How triads can change the way you play guitar. The Part 1 of this video is EP362 if you want to start at the beginning. I’m really seeing the benefit of learning all the three note triads on every string set. Brian kind of dismisses the lower string sets, but I think that is a mistake and leaves more mystery about the fretboard. Just learn all of them on all string sets and you demystify the entire neck.
The part about harmonized 3rds and 6ths is in the second half of the video. He shows the formula for how the shapes changed based on Maj Min Min Maj Maj Min Dim. For some unknown reason he leaves out the diminished part. Again this is a mistake, put it in there and be done with it. Even if you don’t use it often, we should all know what it is and how it works to clear up all the mystery about the fretboard.
“Pause the video and soak that in for a minute.” 🙂
Such a clever chord structure. A dreamy, catchy, harmonic lead. And another excellent lesson.
Your compositions get better and better as a writer.
Thanks Brian!
this is a great triad lesson, thanks Brian
Liked this one a lot. I need to focus on seeing the chords more and picking out notes from each chord in tight harmony. Really pretty also. I have to experiment with playing this harmony and then mixing in the pentatonic scales. This was also a good explanation of secondary dominants and how they fit in the harmony of the tune. You have a way of coming up with lessons that leave me thinking and amaze me how much music there is without moving around a lot.
Hey Brian and every one, hi from France.
Nice composition here. It’s good to go out of the I-IV-V format for a moment (even if we all love that in other blues lessons), good to change our habits a little bit.
Thank you very much.
This is a favorite for me. Great lesson!
Such a relaxing and very musical melody against that jam track. I’ll be cranking this one up today as I finished going through the bones of it yesterday. Been doing a lot of triad and arpeggio work and that has made all of this much easier to understand quicker than usual. Also the chord structures and how they are created keeps getting clearer and clearer.
So happy you did a lesson on playing the changes. BUT … more important, I am so grateful for your explanations of song composition and chord relationships.
As an aspiring songwriter/composer those comments are GOLD!
Thank you Brian.
No apologies necessary for this lesson! Good material review and good new material. I don’t recall you spending much lesson time on augmented chords… they sound cool. Perhaps an ML introducing augmented chords would be good?
great lesson Brian. I think that the explanation on chord structure and chord relationship is very useful so please do it more times.
the composition is very good sounding and I can’t stop playing it over and over.
thanks a lot
So Practical and Useful !!!
Great lesson Brian.. Lots of take aways. The 5of the 5th and so on is great info too.
There were lightbulbs going on all over the place. This lesson tied together a number of thoughts about strings 1 and 2. And the chord progression sounds great with several fingerpicking patterns.
Fantastic! If it is possible, I think I will probably wear this lesson out playing and replaying, disassembling and reassembling these licks and the chord structure you have set up. I dig this! Thanks. -G
Hi Brian – taking a crack at why the C note works when playing that run in bar 18 over the E7 chord. Could it be thought of as an altered dominant 7th. In this case E7 flat 13th. Jazz chord adds a dark tension that resolves nicely to its tonic. As it does here when you go to the A.
The jazz explanation is a bit out of my depth, but sounds right – playing an E7 (no 5th)b13 (E G# D C) on it’s own I notice it resolves nicely to a G chord as well as an A.
This makes sense because two of the notes in the E7b13 (D and C) are shared with a D7 chord and three with the E7 chord (E G# D).
This works really well in the context of this song, because it pulls us back to the home chord G and the key of the song whilst also pulling us towards that A7 which acts as a detour.
Your a great teacher Brian I hope you know that and I hope you get as much joy out of teaching as we get from learning , from you!
Great lesson, love how you were finding things you didn’t fully know how to explain in the augmented area, very interesting and that little bit at the end when you contrasted with minor pentatonic, giving all the flavours.
Hello Brian,
What a wonderful melody you’ve conjured up from these chords. I perfectly understood all your explanations of why these chords occur in the video, which is publicly available. Your explanations are crystal clear and to the point. I also realize that what you keep saying, namely that you learn something and soon forget it, is not completely forgotten after all. It’s just a matter of consistently doing your lessons over a longer period of time. Then, little by little, more of what you learned will stick in your memory permanently and be easier to recall.
Unfortunately, I can’t answer the question you asked in the video for premium members about where the two notes come from (possibly from an augmented chord). I’m still too much of a beginner for that. But I can well imagine that there are a few experts in your large and wonderful ActiveMelody community who can break this down from a technical harmony perspective. In any case, everything in your composition sounds elegant and sophisticated. And that’s what ultimately counts. Thank you for the many valuable insights in this lesson.
Have a great start to the new week!
Georg
Wonderful lesson Brian. If I may make a request – I especially value when you explain your thinking process regarding chord choice. Speaking as someone who finds it hard to think ‘out of key’ or creatively like this. For me, this this the heart of this lesson … it’d be great if you could do that almost more ‘routinely’ in your lessons where possible. 🙂
Agreed
Liked the chord structure explanation at the beginning of the lesson
Just tried this lesson over Desperado, and sounds really good. Thanx Brian
great stuff as usual but esp the last couple months. I heard you say several times that you use the Helex line 6 to get the great sound esp for blues. which model do you use? i have a Roland40 that sounds good but is limited. would a Helex work well with this?
thanks for your help
i use the Matchless amp for everything
thanks i dont really know much about how the Helex type systems work but i am going to research it. Which model of the Helex do you use?
The Helix is such a great (and simple) tool. I love it.
Brian I have been with you for years now and I have to say, this lesson is no different then all the lessons I have studied and I always get so much out of them. Once again you have turned on the light bulb in my thought process. Thank you for helping me become a better guitar player.
my thoughts on why that note works.You told us in part 1 that you can always slide in to that note upbove example b to c
thank you . very nice little Ricards twang in it.part 1
Keep m comin .
Brian – What a sweet, soulful melody. And your instruction is impeccable. Lordy, keep ’em coming. You are on a roll this year.
I’ve been working on part 1 exclusively since it came out and am about 80% satisfied with my progress and will start part 2 tomorrow. This melody is very smooth and has been an earworm of sorts for me. Whatever it takes to get it ingrained.
I appreciate your suggestion to write down the two progressions on a sheet of paper. Setting them next to a circle of fifths wheel helped me understand the chord relationships. Thanks
Thank you for the great lesson, Brian. I love the explanation behind every phrase, chord, and how it connects to the “CAGED system”. Thanks again!
I just came back on the site after taking a break, and I am super-pleased to see that you somehow got rid of the “more videos” popup from YouTube. Thank you! It really makes a difference to a lot of people (based on the Internet postings).
I took a break to try out another course, and coming back to Active Melody feels like getting back into a warm pool from the cold air. These courses are precious, so thanks for doing exactly what you do.
Blocking out the theory of the chord progressions for a moment, this is simply beautiful and somehow touches me deeply.
I love this lesson! Now to work on it and practice it.
Wow !! What a beautiful piece. Once again your special talent composing, for teaching, great music.
As always all the best
Nafatli K
Hi Brian, I just did a bit of research on the augmented fifth in the second video. It looks like it may be from the altered scale (7th mode of the melodic minor); an augmented dominant chord.
Even though i dont feel like i know much theory, i understood everything you said Brian. You are an extraordinary teacher, so well organised, and every Friday you come up with a gem of a lesson, its impossible not to make progress. Thank you for all that you do
Part 1 – Free Guitar Lesson / Guitar Lesson – EP623. Somehow I stumbled onto this video while surfing the web and just LOVED it. I went right to your site and signed up for a premium membership (something I NEVER do) — but, I just have to learn to play guitar like that. I’ve never before been so inspired to put more effort into playing my guitar. Thank You, RRR
from watching your videos i have really improved in using my little finger ….. thank you