Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

MicroLesson: ML112 – Find the ROOT! One note can guide your whole solo. Guitar Lesson – ML112

Description

In this MicroLesson (ML112), you’ll learn how to play over the 1-4-5- chords of a Blues by simply finding a single starting note (the root note of the song key), from there, you’ll learn which notes to land on over each chord and how they relate to the root note.

The Part 2 lesson in this 2 part series can be found here.

Free Guitar Lesson

Slow Walkthrough

Video Tablature Breakdown

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Comments

  7. Joe S says

    A brilliant lesson! I’ve been playing for years and have never seen this put forth in this way. I wish I could have seen this lesson when I was first starting to learn lead. Brian is masterful in teaching concepts in a fresh way!

  9. John P says

    This is a really useful lesson – thanks. I have been digging into some older lessons – it’s always fun to see what I’ve missed. EP289 is a current favourite (thanks for the intro to Lonnie Johnson) – identifying the box associated with the chords in that lesson was also really useful. Thanks.

  12. Tremelow says

    I love these lessons, where you take just a small portion out of the fretboard and show us how much we can do with it. They’re invaluable in situations where you got lost during a jam. Also, they are a great springboard for longer, more elaborate solos. I am looking forward to the full lesson next Friday!

  18. Danny R says

    Hello, I am a new Premium member. I have followed you for some time, but had not jumped in to get the benefits of the membership.
    As always, this was a great lesson. I had recently started working on looking at the pentatonic patterns from root note and associating it by string, major/minor and the pentatonic shape that correlates. This lesson helped solidify my understanding, and then you always have those cool tidbits of theory and ways to add a little sugar.
    THANK YOU for sharing your knowledge, and you make it fun to learn.

  20. houliAK says

    Such a simple idea that I never connected. The b3 of the I is the b7 of the IV. I play it all the time and never knew why it worked or sounded good. That unlocks so many other ideas! This simple lesson is a brillant way to make that connection. Thank you!

  21. Robert M says

    I have gotten alot out of your lessons over the years. Several stand out as break thru’s in learning. This is will rank up there as one of them. Looking forward to seeing where this is going in next weeks lesson. Keep them coming. Bob

  22. William Y says

    I also have been taking your lessons for a long time. This one is one of the best. I know all the pentatonic shapes but can never figure out what to play over which chord so that the lead flows smoothly and melodically. This approach is invaluable. I’m looking forward to build on this concept in the next lesson.

  23. Georg B says

    Hello Brian,
    Your explanations are wonderful. They are superbly structured and absolutely comprehensible.
    I started with ActiveMelody about two years ago. At first, I only understood part of what you explained. But that wasn’t because of your explanations. It was simply because I didn’t know that much about the fretboard. Over the course of the past two years, I then picked out one detail per lesson that was unclear to me and only studied that detail. Thanks to your explanations and examples, it became clear to me what these details were about. One small lightbulb per lesson – that was important and made it all worthwhile. The fact that I didn’t understand everything that was in a lesson didn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is that it’s down to the student and not the teacher and that ActiveMelody gradually comes together like a big mosaic of details to form a beautiful overall picture.
    Your lesson number ep 609, for example, finally made me realize how secondary dominant chords work and how I can find and implement them when playing. Super!
    What is also very helpful is that you repeatedly address one and the same subject in different lessons and examine it from different angles. Sometimes I found it easier to look at something from one perspective than from another perspective. One person might find it easier to grasp a subject from the “left” and another person from the “right”, even if it’s the same subject. It was always a lightbulb moment for me that it was often not a matter of 1000 different subjects to learn, but one and the same subject looked at from different perspectives. I still need this form of repetition today, where you shed light on subjects from different perspectives. This helps me to consolidate my knowledge and helps me to understand what I have not yet understood.
    For those who discovered ActiveMelody and are at beginners’ level, it is certainly very helpful to know that you have extra lessons designated on your website to help learn the basics (Essential Theory, The CAGED System and Lead Guitar Course).
    What I also find very helpful is that in some lessons you fade in numbers from previous lessons that explain something in more detail that you can’t go into in the current lesson because it would otherwise become too extensive.
    For me, ActiveMelody is an absolute stroke of luck.
    Best regards,
    Georg

  25. Keith M says

    Brian,
    Your lessons are absolutely the best!… and I wish there would be a short description of the guitar you’re playing within each lesson.
    You have the coolest collection and it would also teach us to recognize guitars at quick glance.

    Here’s an idea for a lesson somewhere down the road that could be of interest to many.
    “How do you select the right guitar for the occasion or song if you have a bit of a collection to choose from?”

    And that’s a beautiful guitar you’re playing in this lesson! Thanks again!!

  26. Mark V says

    Great lesson Brian ! I spent many hours Saturday and Sunday playing with this. Great fun. Played over your jam track, and then applied it to the outro on my rendition of Ben E King’s “Stand by Me”. Stand by Me is a 1645, but I was able to “feel” the intervals and how they worked and quickly zeroed in on a groove that sounds great.

  30. Rocky C says

    love these lessons where you make us aware when playing a lead or chord embellishment ,that we run into the 7th note of the next chord, it opens the board up. one of the things you made me aware of was the A natural minor scale where the same notes as the C major scale, totally opened a lot of pathways. more like this I would love.

  32. James S says

    Brian: This is the lesson that I’ve been waiting for — how to hit the sweet notes when the chord changes. I have lots of questions, but I’ll limit them to a few. First, you were not really playing the changes here, right? I mean you’re sticking with the E pentatonic scales — with major and minor notes thrown in. Do I have that right?

    Second, why does the flat seven of the scale of the 4 chord work, but the fifth of the scale of the 5 chord deliver the sweet note? It sounds to me like the fifth of the 4 chord could work, but the flat 7 of the 5 chord doesn’t work at all. I’m probably overthinking this, but why?

  33. Lance J says

    Very cool. I regularly over complicate things and end up up with a whole bunch of stuff I can’t actually play properly. This is very helpful. So many of the songs I love are amazingly simple when I stop and have a look at them. This is a great reminder of that.

  35. glen d says

    Thanks again Brian for an illuminating lesson. Just one thing I have to ask you, could you please turn up the volume of the backing tracks that you demonsstrate on ? It makes it difficult to get the context.
    thanking you in advance, Glen.

  37. Michael G says

    Great additional way to visualize the fretboard. It reminds me of “I go out walking., after midnight…” Patsy Cline and I am thinking that the mix of minor and major pentatonic scales IS the traditional American sound that distinguishes it from say traditional Irish, Scottish, or English traditional music.

  38. Michael G says

    Great additional way to visualize the fretboard. It reminds me of “I go out walking., after midnight…” Patsy Cline and I am thinking that the mix of minor and major pentatonic scales IS the traditional American sound that distinguishes it from say traditional Irish, Scottish, or English traditional music. I just played over the backing track and felt like I was down south at an outdoor Baptist revival. Pass the corn on the cob.

  42. Steve says

    Seemed too simple at first, but then I started joining it with CAGED and the new pattern joined up and opened more understanding of the fretboard and the different mental images joined up over this week.

  47. William S says

    Thanks Brian, I sort of was aware of this idea from some of your earlier lessons, but your simple lesson today just clinched it, I really appreciate these little snippets, looking forward to next week, you are a great inspiration Brian, thanks again, take care and have a great day. Will

  54. John T says

    Thanks Brian for this lesson! It’s just shows how much you can do with so little! This is toe-tappin music.! The rhythms along with a few notes really get your attention. Keep up the good work! John

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