Transcripts
1. Introduction: Many of you may have
heard of the major scale. But what is it and
how do we use it? [MUSIC] I'm Wes Singerman, I'm a music producer
and guitarist, and my career has led
me to work and play alongside artists such Kehlani, Travis Barker, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson.Paak, Carly Rae
Jepsen, and many others. In this class, we'll be diving
into the major scale and figuring out its uses for developing chords and
creating melodies. First, we'll learn the scale in different positions
up and down the neck, then we will discuss how to find chords within the scale, and finally, use the major scale to come up with some
catchy chord progressions. Grab your guitar and any app or effects that you'd like
such as reverb or delay. [MUSIC] By the end
of this class, you should have a much deeper understanding of
what the major scale is and how we use it in modern-day music.
Let's dive in. [MUSIC]
2. Getting Started: [MUSIC] In this class,
we're going to take a look at the major scale, learn how to play it
up and down the neck, and figure out some
really cool ways to use it in any style of music. You need your guitar, a pick, a quarter-inch cable, and an app if you'd
like. Let's jump in.
3. Exploring The Major Scale: [MUSIC] Scales are the
building blocks of music. We use them to create melodies and also chord progressions. There are many scales and music, but the major scale is
something that's used in almost every modern
style of music. How do we create a scale? A scale is made from
a set of intervals. Intervals are the distance
between two notes. The major scale has seven notes before it cycles
back to the octave, and it consists of a pattern of whole steps and half steps. For guitar, a whole step is two frets and a half
step is one fret. The pattern for the major scale, starting from the first
note is whole step, whole step, half
step, whole step, whole step, whole
step, half step. I'm going to demonstrate
this for you in the key of C. Starting with the C, we're going to go whole
step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step and now
we're back to our C. This will stay the
same with other keys. If you start on an F and you do that same pattern starting
from F, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. The sound of the major
scale is inherently happy. But as we dig in, we're
going to find a ton of sounds and chords that
you might not expect. [MUSIC] In the next lesson, we're going to learn a system
known as the caged system to play our scales across the
neck. Let's check it out.
4. Discovering The CAGED System: [MUSIC] Playing scales
can get a little tricky. The caged system is a
way that we can organize the fret board to make it easier to play scales
up and down the neck. To start, we're going to
use our open chords, C, A, G, E, and D, otherwise known as caged. [MUSIC] Here's C, A, G, E, and D. We're not actually
going to play these chords. Mainly we're going
to use the shapes of these chords to play in the
key of C going up the neck, so almost as if you put
a capo on the guitar. We're going to start [MUSIC]
with an actual C chord. Then continuing with C, [MUSIC] from here,
this is our A shape. It's almost as if I put
a capo on the neck and played an A chord right
here on the fifth fret. Our [MUSIC] A shape
leads to our G shape, which looks like this. You don't actually
have to play this, [MUSIC] but this is our G shape. My finger is essentially a capo and the G shape
is what I'm doing here, but it's mainly just [MUSIC] for the positions that we're
trying to develop. Then it becomes
E, so right here. [MUSIC] As you can see, this looks like our E shape, but I'm still playing a C note. Then our D shape,
same thing up here. [MUSIC] With these chords, these are going to be the
building blocks for our scales. With each of these chord shapes, there's a corresponding
shape for the major scale. [MUSIC] I have major scale
that can fit in here. The best way to do
this is to start from an open C position [MUSIC] and learn the
scale from here first. Starting on C, [MUSIC]
this is our root note, and then from here, I'm
going to go up the scale. We're going to have
[MUSIC] open D, then we're a whole step up to E, half step to F, an open G, A, B, back to C. We're
going to continue up, open E string, F, G. From here, we're going to
take it back down. [MUSIC] Then we're going to
go down from here to the A, G, F, all the way down to the low E, back up and we're
going to finish on our C. If I start and end
that again real quick, I'm going to do it a little
faster than I did before. Starting on the C note. We are going to go all the way down, come back up, and
try and land on this C, which is our root note. You don't actually have
to play the chord, but it helps us with the sound. When we get more
comfortable playing this, we're going to move
on to the A position, which is going to
look like this. [MUSIC] This is our
A chord or it's our A shape rather,
but still a C chord. We're going to take
this, I'm going to start with my middle finger here. [MUSIC] We're going to
start moving up the scale, so we have from C
whole step up to D, then I'm going to move
to the next string. Let's do a little
shift here with my first finger so that it
goes on the third fret. We're going to keep
going up all the way to this C and then we're
going to slide back down. From this C, we're going
to keep going down to this G and come back up, and here is where we end. I'm going to do
that one more time for you a little faster. We're going to
start here again on the C with our middle finger [MUSIC] and we're moving
up in this A shape, back down. Then we're going
to go all the way down and come back up to the C. This is going to take a little bit
of practice to get used to. Again, I want you to focus your right hand on alternate
picking the entire time. We're going to go
down, up, down, up. Never lose the
alternate picking. Once you get comfortable using this first C position
and the A position, try messing around with
connecting the two. If I'm here [MUSIC]
starting in the C position, I can come up all the way here and I'm going to continue up this string until I get to the new position, and I'm going to come
back down the A position. When I go down, I'm
going to go all the way down now to the open string, come back up, and
land on the C again. We're going to continue this
all the way up the neck. The next position
that we're going to do is our G position, [MUSIC] which is going to be right here in the
middle of the neck. Our C this time is going
to be on the sixth string, starting on the eighth fret. This is our root note. Here I'm going to play
this with my pinky because we're going
to go like this. [MUSIC] Here's our C, we're moving up the scale. Then from here we
come back down. Want to go all the way down to A and
then come back to our C. I want to play that one more time
for you a little quicker, so starting again
with your pinky on the eighth fret of
the low E string. [MUSIC] Remember to always
alternate pick. Here's our root note.
We're going to keep going down and come back up
to the root again. We're almost done
with the whole neck. We're going to move
on to our E position, our E shape, which looks
[MUSIC] like this again. This time I'm going to start same fret, eighth
fret of the low E, but this time it's
with my middle finger [MUSIC] and I'm going
to play up the scale. Here I'm going to move up just a little higher, come back down. Then from here, I'm going to come back
to the root note again. I'm going to do that one more time a
little faster for you. [MUSIC] We're here,
going up the scale. We only have one position
left and then it recycles. We're going to start
with our D shape, [MUSIC] which is up here. I'm going to start with my
[MUSIC] middle finger on the 10th fret of the D string and we're going to go
all the way up then all the way down and come back. We're here, we're going to go [MUSIC] then back down. Then here we're
going to keep going down and then go all the way to the root and we're
going to come back up and finish on
this C note again. After we get to that
last D position, everything past the 12th
fret recycles again. We have this C position
again [MUSIC] and we can continue playing that
all the way up and down, but it's the exact same position that we had and the
same finger pattern as when have the
open strings down here and it continues going
all the way up the neck. Effectively, we've
now mapped out the entire neck with the major scale and
I would recommend doing one position at a time. As you get comfortable, we can start to mix and
match the positions, we can start to move
in-between them. Like I said, [MUSIC]
try out starting from here and then as we get up, we can move to this
next position, and then maybe when
we're down here, we'll move on to the
next position here. I can continue the E
shape and again here. [LAUGHTER] If we want, we can just keep going
all the way up the neck. By taking the time to
explore all these positions, we end up mapping out the entire guitar neck
with the major scale. This takes some time
and a lot of practice, so make sure that you're
practicing at home.
5. Practicing The CAGED System: [MUSIC] When we
practice the scale, it's important to practice
with a metronome at a slow pace first and then
gradually move our way up. Make sure that you're
playing all the way up and down the
position that you're in. So I have a metronome
app on my phone, any metronome app will do, any real metronome will do. I'm going to run it at
about 100 beats per minute. I'm going to play one note every time the
quarter note comes in, every time the click comes in. So let me try that with
a position real quick. Right here it's like 1,2,3, and I'm just going to play
up and down the scale, making sure that you're
alternate picking, go all the way up, come
all the way back down. Then here I'm going to
try the second position. Do the same thing. All the way back down. Come back up. Now we can continue this
with each position. But if you're wanting to take
a step up in a difficulty, obviously you can increase
the tempo of the metronome. But another fun
thing that we can do is we can play the
scale in thirds. Doing this is where we start on the first note and we actually
skip the second note, go straight to the third note. So in this case, instead
of playing the D next, we're going to go to the
E. We're going to go C, straight to this note, and then we go down to the D and then skip a note, go down, skip a note, go down, skip a note, down, skip a note, and continue. So I'll do that again a
little faster for you. It's going to sound like this. Then when we get to the top, we're going to reverse that. So we're going to
start from here, skip a note backwards
down to this open string, then up, skip a note down, up, skip a note down, and so on. All the way back down
and then we go back up and end again on the C.
So let's try this again. I'm going to put the
metronome back on. I'm going to still be at
100 beats per minute, but I'm going to try
it with the thirds. So we have 1,2,3,4 and backwards, all the way down. Coming back up and ending on the C. If you want to try
this with other positions, I could try this with the second position here, this A shape. I'll start the same thing again. We're going to do thirds, all the way down, and back, let's go all the way down, and then come back up, go back to the C. I would recommend practicing
thirds in all the positions. As you get comfortable
with practicing just the scales and also the scales with the thirds
and all the positions, you can increase
the metronome and that's going to make it
harder and more challenging. This is really helpful for
getting yourself out of the habit of just going up and down the scale all the time. It actually sounds very musical. Another fun challenge
is to play four notes, then start on the second
note and do the same thing, I'm going to
demonstrate for you. So starting on this, C, I'm going to go up four
notes, so 1,2,3,4. Then I'm going to start on the second
note, and I'm going to do the same thing, 1,2,3,4, and start on the third
note, do the same thing. We're going to
continue this pattern, and then coming back down, we're going to go
down four notes. Then start on the next note down and then go down
four notes again. So we're starting here, and then coming here and then
doing another four notes, and here, another
four notes, and go all the way down
and come back up. When you're back
to C, that's done. So I'm going to do a
different position. I'm going to go up to the E
position that we have here, starting on the eighth fret, middle finger on C, and I'm going to do
that same thing. So we have here 1,2,3,4, and then we're going to
start in the second node , and then keep going. As you start to get comfortable, you can build some
speed out of this. Then the same thing
going backwards. This is something you
hear a lot of metal and rock guitars
doing in their solos. But it's also a great
way to practice. Doing this will help
strengthen your memory of the scales and allow you to view the scales in
a different way. In our next lesson,
we're going to look at an alternative to The CAGED
System. I'll see you there.
6. Testing an Alternative to CAGED: [MUSIC] Although the caged
system is a great way to organize the guitar neck,
it's not the only way. One of my favorite
alternatives is to learn the major scale on
one string at a time. We'll start in the key of C, and we're going to begin
on the high E string. My root note C is going to
be on the eighth fret here. Now as I move up, I'm going
to do that whole step, whole step, so we
have whole step, whole step, half
step, whole step, whole step, whole
step, half step. And by the time we're
done with the scale, we're all the way at
the top of the neck. I'm going to come back down. [MUSIC] Here's my C again, and I'm going to go
back all the way down to the open string
and come back up, and on C. Now as you can see, the seven notes that we have
in the scale are taking up a much larger
area of the neck. And what's interesting
about this is it changes our mindset when we're
soloing or playing melodies. We can no longer shred up and down the scale as
fast as we want. Instead, we have to be more thoughtful and careful
about our note choices. Normally when I'm
using my cage system, it's really easy to just
go up and down the scale. But with here, if I try to
do that, it's very hard. [LAUGHTER] We have
to be a lot more mindful of the guitar neck, the position of the scale. I would encourage you to
just try that a little bit. Try that with this one string. Go up and down the scale, play some melodies,
get a feel for it. When you feel like you're
pretty comfortable, we can move on to the B string. On the B string,
the C is going be on the first fret of
the B string here. We're going do the same thing that we did on the
high E string. We have our scale. Now I'm all the way
at the 13th fret, I'm going to keep going. [MUSIC] That's the highest
my guitar let me go, so I'm going to come back down. All the way down to the C
and then the B and C again. Take some time, practice
this a little bit. [MUSIC] Now we're going do one more. We're going to do the G string. On the G string, our
fifth fret is our C note. I'm going to start here and I'm going to work
my way up again, the scale, same pattern. I'm going to keep
going all the way up. That's as high as my
guitar is going let me go. I'm going to come back down. Now I'm going to go
all the way down to the open G string, come back to C. Take some time, practice each one of these
strings individually. As we start to get comfortable with a
couple of these strings, let's try combining them. I'm only going to do the high E and the B
strings right now, and I'm only going
to play notes from the C major scale.
See what happens. [MUSIC] Now I'm only going to use the G string and
the high E string together. We're going to skip the B
string, try not to play it. [MUSIC] This allows us to start seeing the guitar in ways that we haven't
really ever seen. It allows you to stretch out the guitar neck
instead of just thinking about the box of your positions of
the cage system. There's only three
strings left to go, let's try out the D string. On the D, our C note is
going to be the 10th fret. We can continue with this same pattern that
we've been doing. Going all the way up, and then all the way up at the
top of the neck is my C again, coming back down. Then all the way down
and coming back up to the C. If I move down
to the A string, my C note starts
on the third fret. We're going to do
the same thing here. I keep going all the way up, coming back down, all
the way to this open A and back to the C. And then our last string we
have is the low E string. That's going to be starting
on the eighth fret, here is our C. We're
going to go up, all the way up here
and come back down, all the way down
and then back up to the C. Now that we have
all six strings covered, take some time and think of different string
combinations that you can do. The more you limit yourself, the more you're going to learn. Let's try just using our D
string and our B string only. We're not going to play
any of the other strings, just the C major
scale on those two. [MUSIC] You get these nice wide
interval combinations where you can stretch out big things like that as opposed to running up
and down the scale again. Get creative with this, try some different
string combinations. Combinations of 2, 3, 4 until you get comfortable enough to where all six strings feel natural going all the way up and down the neck
in this direction. Next, we're going to take a step further and learn how to
create some melodies.
7. Creating Melodies: So even though
shredding up and down the neck is super fun, one of the best things that players can do is play melodies, rather than just going
up and down the scale. I'm going to play this nice little chord vamp in the key of C. Let's just take some time to play
melodies from the scale. Use your ear and think about
what sounds musical to you. I'm going to be
using a combination, of the cage system
positions that we learned, as well as the single string
approach that we did. [MUSIC] Sometimes the singing along and trying to match what your voice is
doing is actually a great way to get ideas straight from your brain
to the guitar neck. This is something that takes
time and the more you do it, the better and more natural
it will be for you. The loop that I just
played is available for download in the class resources. It's in the key of C. So try your hand at the
single string scales, the cage system, and
using your voice to help create melodies.
Let's see what you got.
8. Finding Chords Within the Scale: [MUSIC] There are
seven basic chords that we can find in
the major scale, one chord for every
note of the scale. To find these
chords, we start on the root node and we start
moving up in thirds, which essentially is
skipping every other node. If we start on C,
[MUSIC] we skipped D, we end up with E and then
we skip F and we end up on E. What we have here is a
nice little C major chord, which makes sense since
we're in the key of C major. These specific chords
are called triads because they are composed
of only three notes. We can do this with every
single note of the scale. Starting on D, [MUSIC] if
we skip a note we get D, F, and then another
note and we get A. Now, this is a D minor
chord, which is interesting. It sounds very sad. Doesn't sound like
it really belongs in the key of C major,
but it actually is. If we keep going, we have E. Skip a note. We got G and then B, and that is an E minor chord. For the major scale, the chords in order are going to be starting on the first note, we have one major. [MUSIC] The two chord
is going to be minor. The three chord is
going to be minor. The four chord is
going to be major. The five chord is major. The sixth chord is minor. Then our very last seventh
chord is a weird one. It's diminished chord.
Little spooky sounding, and then we're back
to C. Notice how you can still hear the scale as we move up and
down these chords. [MUSIC] We can use
open chords or any other voicings that we know to play the chords in the scale. Practice up and will continue to develop the chord voicings
in our next lesson.
9. Expanding Your Chord Vocabulary : [MUSIC] Now that we know the
chords of the major scale, let's look at some ways
that we can develop chord voicings and expand
our chord vocabulary. The same way we skipped
every other note to get our triads going, we can continue that pattern and add one more note to
get seventh chords. In the key of C major
our first chord, C major becomes a C major 7. So we had [MUSIC]
C major at first, and now we add one more
of the skip notes. We're skipping A and adding a B. That sounds like this. A more common way
that guitarists like to play this chord is starting [NOISE] with
your first finger on the route and instead we're
going to rearrange the notes. Instead of going
directly up like this, we're going to actually
play the same notes, but just a little
bit rearranged. We have first finger here, [MUSIC] then we're
going to play our G, B, and E there. As we continue this pattern, starting on the second note, we're going to get a D minor 7, which looks like this. We're going to bar
our first finger across the fifth fret, we're going to add
our third finger to the seventh fret
of the D string, and our middle finger to the
sixth fret of the B string. We're going to
strum, starting from the A string down all
five strings here. [MUSIC] That's a D minor 7. As we keep going up the scale, we're going to move
and we're going to get an E minor 7 instead
of an E minor. Same chord voicing
that we played before. Now we're going to
move up to the F, and instead of an F major, we're going to do an F major 7, which is the same chord that we played down here for the C, but now it's up at the
eighth fret instead. [MUSIC] Moving on, our fifth chord is a
little bit unique, it's a G dominant chord. Now we covered dominant chords a little bit in our blues class, and the voicing that I taught you is going to
remain the same here. We have our G note here
on the tenth fret. [NOISE] Third finger
is going to be playing the 12th fret of the D string, and the pinky is going to be playing the 12th fret
of the B string. We're going to be barring
our 10th fret here, and we're going to play [MUSIC]
from eighth string now. Now as we continue, A minor
becomes A minor 7 and we're going to use that same chord voicing [MUSIC] for the minor 7, and our last chord, B diminished, becomes
something unique. It's called a B minor 7 flat 5, sometimes also known as
a half-diminished chord. Now when it's a little
zigzaggy of a shape, we're going to be
playing starting from the B that's on
the 14th fret here. Third finger is playing on the
15th fret of the D string. Middle finger is
right underneath here on the 14th fret
of the G string, and then the pinky 15th
fret of the B string. [MUSIC] Has a little
bit of tension, but it's a beautiful chord, and then we get back
to our root note, which is C. If I go all the way from the
bottom of the scale to the top, you can hear this with
the seventh chords. [MUSIC] That's our
one chord, the two, three chord, four chord, five chord, which is
that nice dominant. The sixth chord,
the seven chord, and back to our root. The sound and feel of
these chords are much more sophisticated and colorful
than just our basic triads. This is the starting
chord vocabulary for most jazz musicians. Let's learn some of these
voicings on the lower strings. I'm going to start
with my first finger on the eighth fret
of the low E string. Now here I'm going to
skip the A string, and instead I'm going to play my third finger on the
ninth fret of the D string. My pinky on the ninth
fret of the G string, and my middle finger
is going to go on the eighth fret of the B string. We're going to use the pad
part of our first finger to mute [MUSIC] the A string so that even when you're strumming, you don't really hear it. It should sound
something like this. This is the same C major chord that we were playing down here, just with a slightly
different voicing. That nice high note in
there sounds beautiful. If we continue moving this up, we're going to get a D minor 7, which on the sixth string, we're starting on
the 10th fret here. We're going to bar all the way across the 10th fret and add our third finger to the
12th fret of the A string, and just strum all
the strings here. That's a nice D-minor. We're going to take this
up to an E minor 7, which is the same
exact chord voicing. We just play the D
minor 7 and we're going to move it up
to the 12th fret. You could even do this down
here at the low strings with just a bunch of open strings and your third finger on
the second fret here. If we continue,
our next chord is going to be an F major 7, and I'm going to play that down here at the beginning
part of the neck. First fret is going
to be my F note, and then my third and fourth finger are going to be playing the second fret of the
D and the G string. My middle finger
is going to play the first fret of the
B string, and again, we're going to try and use
that finger pad just lightly to mute this A string so that if we strum really hard,
we're not hearing it. It's really nice
sound. Then we go to our G dominant chord, which again, this voicing should look familiar
from our blues class. [MUSIC] So we have that
nice big bar on fret 3, and then we're going to
move to an A minor chord. It's going to look the same
as both the D minor 7, and the E minor 7 that we did. This time it's A minor 7 because I'm holding
onto the A here. [MUSIC] Now for this last chord, the B minor 7 flat 5, we're going to start with
our middle finger on the B. We're going to again
use the pad of the middle finger to
mute that A string, [NOISE] and then
we're going to use our third and fourth
finger to also play the seventh fret [MUSIC]
of the D and the G string. Our first finger is going
to get tucked right back here on the sixth fret. We're going to just
play those notes, and then from here we are
back to our root note. The whole thing together is
going to sound like this. We have our one-chord, our two minor, our three. I'm going to take it down
here for the fourth chord. The five dominant, our six chord is a minor 7, and then our seventh chord
is that B minor 7 flat 5, and back to C major. [MUSIC] Now let's
learn the same chords on the higher set of strings. So instead of the C down
here at the eighth fret, I'm actually going to
move way up here to the D string on the 10th fret. [MUSIC] This is my C,
and what we're going to do for our C major chord is just bar our third finger
across the 12th fret of the G, the B, and the A string. It should sound
something like this. It's got a nice delicate sound
to it. Really beautiful. If we move this up
to our D minor 7, it's going to start here. We have the 12th fret, and I like to play it like this. I'm going to do with
my first finger here, and my pinky is going to play the 14th fret
of the G string, and then these two fingers
are going to sit here on the 13th fret of the
B and the E string. It's a little bit of a tricky
position to get used to. [MUSIC] But when you get
it down, it sounds great. You can also play the same chord down here on the low strings, so it'd be open D string. There's my D minor 7. We're going to move
this to an E minor 7, so now, same chord voicing
is gonna go up two frets. We have E. Here's
our minor 7 chord. Now it's F major 7
is our four chord, we're going to do F in that same chord that we
did for the C major 7. We have hear our F major 7. Moving on to a G dominant chord, we have our G, and here's the shape. I'm going to use my third finger to play the seventh
fret of the G string. Middle finger plays the
sixth fret of the B string, and my pinky plays the seventh
fret of the high E string. Now this chord voicing should
look a little familiar. It's the same chord
voicing that I taught in the blues class for that D
dominant chord down here. Except we no longer have the open string that
we have to use, so instead, we're covering
that with our first finger, and that's on the G. [MUSIC] Now we're going
to play an A minor 7, that's our six chord. We're moving up, same weird
shape for that minor 7. Then the very last chord
is a B minor 7 flat 5, which is actually pretty
easy on these strings. We play the B here, and then I'm going to
use my third finger, and I'm just going to bar
the 10th fret right here. It's a little squishy looking, but [LAUGHTER] these were nice
little beautiful voicing, and then that leads
us back to C major 7. If I play all of those together, we have C, D minor, E minor 7, F major 7, G dominant 7, A minor 7. A minors 7 flat 5, and back to our C. Another thing that we can
do is start with only one chord voicing. Let's try this C major 9. We call this a C major 9
because this note here is the ninth note in our
series of notes in the scale. We have [MUSIC] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. We're adding that note in there. It's a really beautiful
colorful note that's also in the key. We'll take this chord and move every note up one in the scale. Starting from this C, think
about your one-string scales. We're going to go from C to D. This E note that
we we're playing is going to go to
an F. This B note that we we're playing
is going to go to a C, and this D note that we're playing is going to go up to an E. We have this, and if we move
everything up one, the chord that you should
end up with looks like this. Now, this is a D minor 9. Again, because we're playing the ninth note in the scale. Now if we keep pushing
this up one at a time, we're going to get more chords. We have this E minor, and this time, this note
is a little bit rubbing. Doesn't sound too great, but that's what it is. If we continue again, we're moving this up to an F, and the F becomes an F major 9. The same voicing
that we had down for the C. If we move up, the G dominant that we had
becomes a G dominant nine, which is the same voicing that I taught you guys in
the blues class. [MUSIC] If we move that
up again in the scale, that's going to become
an A minor 9 here. Then if we go down one more
to our last chord voicing, I'm going to play it down here at the low part of the neck. We have a B minor
9 with a flat 5. Very spooky,
weird-sounding chord, and then we're back to the top. If we take any major chord, or major seventh chord
and move it up the scale as a group will find all
the chords in the key, but with matching voicings. Keep expanding your
chord vocabulary and catch me in the next lesson.
10. Writing Music in Major Scale: [MUSIC] When writing music or
learning songs from others, knowing the chords in a single
key is extremely helpful. We use the numbers to
describe the chords, like one major two minor, three minor, four major, five major, six minor,
and seven diminished. Once you have the
chords memorized, you'll be able to refer to
just the numbers as shorthand. If I say 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, you'll know that since
it's in the major key 2, 3 and 6 are minor without
having to say it. In pop and rock music, it's very common to make chord progressions
using the one chord, the four chord, five
chord, and six chord. Let me give you a demonstration. Here's one, here's four, here's five and here's six. If we come up with a couple of little variations,
we can go 1-5, 6-4 [MUSIC] Maybe that
sounds familiar to you. We could also do the same
thing with our seventh chords, so C major seven [MUSIC] Let's try another
variation of those chords, maybe starting on
the six [MUSIC] Let's try it with some
other chord progressions. Even simple ones like 4, 3, 2, 1 can sound really good. Let's try it with
some seventh chords, starting on the fourth [MUSIC] Why don't we try instead of
going to the one, instead, we'll go 4, 3, 2 and then 6. See how that sounds
[MUSIC] As you can see, I'm using different
chord voicings, some of the lower ones, some of the higher ones
and you can use any of the ones that we've gone over
or any ones that you know, as long as they're
in the same key. Now that I've shown you the
various chord progressions, try and use some of these chords to write
your own progression. For your class assignment
record yourself playing your chord progression
and upload it to the project gallery
for others to hear. I'd love to see you
get creative with your rhythm or your
strumming patterns. Really make it your own.
I can't wait to hear it.
11. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] You've made it so far. We've learned to play scales
up and down the neck, how to find chords
within the scale, and how to create your
own chord progressions. Remember to record yourself
playing your own progression and upload it to the project
gallery and as always, keep studying, keep practicing, and join me in the next class where we'll learn the
modes of the major scale.
Wes Singerman, Music Producer, Guitarist
