Description
In this MicroLesson (ML068), you’ll learn how to play major, minor, 7 chords, and the major and mixolydian scale and connect them to a single triad.
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It amazes me that the simpler the concept the deeper it seems to resonate. I just love these kind of lessons.
totally agree.
Totally agree. Memorising minimises your learning. Guess it’s in the name active melody 😎
I too am a big fan of the ML series. An excellent idea and concept. And indeed so informative.
Excellent Brian……thanks.
Nick.
Thanks Brian, especially for these last two micro lessons. With your patience you make it it easier to understand rather than just memorizing. I like to use these concepts even just noodling around. I look forward to all of your lessons every week.
great lesson brian love these micro lessons help me alot.
Absolutely love this Brian. I’m hoping you will follow up the exact same treatment with other popular triad shapes …. personally this way of learning suits me absolutely perfectly. Thanks a million.
I certainly had an aha moment!
Now if only I could remember all that, I’d be all set. But for now, I will enjoy the lesson
Absolutely wonderful lesson!!!!
Great lesson Brian … triads are changing my life.
Great little lesson Brian. Amazing how the triads and scales just all fit together. I always tell my acoustic friends that they need to play as many strings as possible so I can hear them. With my electric, I play the triad and maybe up the volume a bit…haha.
Great lesson Brian,thanks so much.
Nice by the time I watch 14 times it might stick with me. Putting this in the great lesson category
Great lesson Brian,
In addition to a wonderful lesson on Triads, I really enjoyed the “Simple Triad Ideas” sheet you made for us. It really made visualizing these concepts so much easier. A truly great lesson with so many ideas that are now coming to mind from lesson too.
Thanks again
Ray P
I want you to know how much I appreciate the diagrams showing frets and finger placements.
I know it takes extra time to do that.
Last year you posted a video with your headshot looking down on your guitar as though I was looking at the neck
the way you were seeing it. In the same video, you showed green dot fingerings.
That was the day a bought your yearly plan.
You offer a quality product. I’m having a lot of fun.
Thank you
.
Great Lesson – simple concept of a triad but then linked to other concepts – scales chords: A lot of useful information, the journey continues along the fret board. Just great thanks B
Much appreciated to all your hard work week in week out, Excellent lesson and so much information.
Thank you Brain..
That was Good, that was real Good.
In this lesson I hit a new plateau on a mountain, at least to me it is…
Great detail sure made this lesson work 4 me.
Thank You much
Hello Brian,
thank you very much for the diagrams and for simplifying the subject. If you want to discribe these subjects you have too little words (shape, scale, form) to make things clear and that is why for some people things get confusing. With the best intensions I would add some words to the last two diagrams, which I hope makes it more clear. C Major Scale played in the G-shape (of CAGED) and C “Mixolydian” Scale played in the C-shape (of CAGED). And this is why this pattern is so easy to understand. Because what you call C “Mixolydian”Scale is i.m.h.o. in fact the G Mixolydian of C. So you if you are playing in the region 5-8 the major scale you use the G-pattern and if you are playing mixolydian you use the C-pattern in this region (with 5 becoming the 1=Root). I understand why you are calling it the C “Mixolydian” to show the difference with the C Major fingersettings. Mayby C-scale with mixolydian-mode (b7) is better, because i.m.h.o. C Mixolydian stands for C Mixolydian of F. The diagrams explain more easy than words can do. B.t.w. I love your site Active Melody and the way you put in a lot of energy to learn us to understand the guitar. You have put the lightbolts in my mind and that’s is why I am happy to be part of your community.
Thanks,
Wil
Great lesson. I agree with others that these micro lessons are super helpful. Little chunks of gold. I like how you combine the theory with the finger patters allowing us to choose how we relate to idea. This way we remember it one of the ways or better yet, in multiple ways.
Wonderful lesson ! I’ve known the all the concepts you presented for years, but never knew how to put it together to make music until now. I really like the way you always trace things back to its origin . That’s just what I need to understand things.
Your teaching ability is excellent Brian. I love the fact that you provide a very musical composition to give the instructions a meaningful outlet. Real music rather than unmusical distortion
That was an awesome lesson , I always learn new skills and understand how to use them in any key.
Wow, you teach the way I learn. I love how you take a shape and expand on it and WHY it works, Then throe in a little pentatonics. I use other teachers on line but they never do what you do, you move to another location and show that it is just a small chord that we already knew. but didn’t SEE it that way. You make me visualize the fretboard so that I don’t get lost. Suprer job.
I get confused when you show a diagram of the fretboard. You show the 6th string on the left side. Why not flip it 90 Degrees counterclockwise and it matches the guitar as if I were laying the guitar on my lap. maybe its just me.
Great lesson Brian, but can someone clear up a confusion I am having. At 06:30 -Major scale pattern one, isn’t this the Major scale pattern five?
Correction, Major pentatonic scale patterns
This is really confusing me as well. Brian, you keep saying, “Major Pentatonic Pattern 1” but isn’t that the MINOR Pattern 1? Sometimes words like pattern, position, shape get intertwined for relative newbies like me. Would love an explanation, as I thought I knew this stuff!
Minor pentatonic scale pattern 1 and major pentatonic scale pattern 1 are the same pattern – just 3 frets apart. That is all covered in the Lead Guitar Course, under My Account > My Courses – or click on the big green “Start Here” button at the top of the lessons page
I’m afraid I found your beginners courses confusing Brian, you were suggesting that we learnt your 3 pentatonic patterns whereas
I had already learnt the 5 traditional patterns, so it just muddied the waters (no pun intended) for me.
I think the problem is, as Mario suggests, the mixed terminology. What you referred to as Major pentatonic pattern 1 is also described as position 5 or alternatively shape 5 or box 5 etc and in fact Justinguitar actually refers to it as position 5
A small note… The lesson is ‘ML068’ but it states ‘ML067’ on the brownish square button for the PDF. Is that correct? / Ingemar
Good catch – I have fixed this
…did you forget one of the file names…?
Great……but if you are in A (which is the 5th fret can you also play the major pentatonic positions there??? Confused…
Is it the fact that we are not using the 5th string? I can see that the 4th string is C….? What if we are using only strings 1/2/3 is that not an A triad with the 3rd string on the 6th fret?
OMG….I get it hahaha the penny dropped…wow!!!! Brillant haha so cool!
You can move it up to use the triplet using 123 strings in the C position using the E shape and then use the pentatonic scale up there to!!
Pearls!
It would be great to have you demonstate similar lessons on all the chord shapes.
thanks for all your hard work and thoughtful lessions.
So glad I joined Active Melody.
This really helps my understanding of linking scales to chords. To be honest, I sometimes find the full lessons a bit overwhelming, whereas these micros are more easily digestible!
Wow! Brian, what another great lesson. This one is the glue, keep em coming, you’re a really great teacher. Thank you so much. RonT
Wow! Really like these Micro lessons.Now,If we could get one like this from each position in the caged shapes it would be fantastic.Keep up the good work. Dave
Excellent, excellent lesson. Thank you
Brian, Since I am a 69 year-old Newbie, this lesson is much more my level. It still took me a couple of hours to fumble through it – as opposed to many, many months required of your regular lessons. Great job! I am so ecstatic at learning to play something new today! Thank you! 🙂
I love the idea of your micro lessons, but sometimes I think you’re trying to fit too much in. I’m a teacher as well (math not music), and I will always try to shorten explanations. This went a bit too long and too much was crammed in. It became more like a regular lesson. Everything was valuable but micro lessons, in my humble opinion, should never be more than 10 min and focus on no more than 2 simple ideas.
Brian- Awesome micro lesson. I will echo what a couple of other students have asked: any chance you can anchor concepts to the other triad shapes?
The concept of anchoring to a chord shape makes licks so much more accessible!
I think it would be helpful to point out that the fretted notes for the open E, open A and open D chords are all 5, Root, 3 (from bass to treble). Knowing this makes it easy to visualize making all types of triads using these chord shapes. This can be extrapolated all the way up the neck.
Brian, you are an expert at pointing out the connective tissues of the guitar. Great little lesson.
Excellent , you know this but then you realize that you have been kind of winging it which makes it rather difficult to repeat . GREAT LESSON, THANKS for the foundation.
The fret diagram is helpful. Once again great lesson.
Brian, I’ve been on your site for 3 + years now and am a huge fan, but I still cringe every time I hear you say “easy.” LOL
What’s hard is developing the subtle touch you have, not to mention your ear is excellent. But, practice makes perfect, and it’s important as you once said, to record yourself!
Things are coming along for me… so thanks again.
Wow! A light bulb didn’t come on, but a flood light came on instead. I like the lick connections and the embellishment examples in the ML068 lesson. Do you have lessons or planning lessons that cover the same concepts in ML068 for the other two triad forms? Many Thanks.
Excellent! I had seen the is before but it really resonates the second time around thank you for the repeat!
Any chance you could do the same thing in F & G? To make a progression.??? or have you already done this I missed it?
Hey Brian, another great lesson. I hope I’m not the only one, but I have a bit of confusion surrounding the Mixolydian pattern. The same pattern sometimes appears as Dorian. What makes one Mixolydian and the other Dorian?
All 7 modes are just the same major scale patterns… – depends on the chord underneath it to determine. check out EP374
A chord is three different notes …A C# E G B D etc