Learn Spread Voicings on the Guitar

1. Intro: Hi, My name is Jacob Lam. I'm a musician, a teacher, and the owner of lamb lessons. Have you ever wanted to play like Mathias Asada or Tom mesh? Well, to do that, we need to understand something called Spread voicing. And that's what this whole course is about. Spread voicing is a special type of chord. It's taken the modern guitar world by storm. You'll often see it unpopular Instagram or Facebook or TikTok posts. In this course, we're going to cover what spread voicing is, how it works, and the shapes we need for it. We'll also cover how to put these into a chord progression to make our chords have this special spread voicing quality about them. By the end of this course, you should have a much better understanding of spread voicing intervals and how to use them effectively to fit your songs. I'm looking forward to seeing you in there. 2. What Is Spread Voicing: Now, before we learn the actual shapes and how to utilize spread voicings, we need to learn what it actually is. And there's a really simple definition. Spread voicing is just when we take a close, close cord and spread it out past an octave. Now, e.g. in a mode, there are seven unique notes. And to play a chord, we typically borrow notes 13.5. If we're playing a seventh chord, then we'll also borrow the seventh note from the mode. So e.g. if I'm playing a major chord, I can take my major scale. Playing a chord, all buyer or the first, third, and fifth note from my major scale. If I'm playing a minor chord, well, I would take a minor scale. And then to play a chord, I'd borrow the first, third, and fifth note. Now, of course, when we play chords on guitar, we often have more than just three notes at a time being played, because a lot of these notes are repeated. So in a G chord, maybe you'll have G, B, D, G, and another G. And so it's the same three notes, 13.5 out of a G scale, being repeated over and over to make a G chord. Now, when we're playing a chord, a common standard chord notes are often in order 13.5. So when we're playing them out of the scale or the mode, we've got 13.5. Spread voicing focuses in on the 13.5 and says, what if we expanded this past an octave? What if we took 15? And then for our three, maybe we move it up, an octave up. So we'd have 1503. That would be a chord that is not close voicing or closed voicing, but spread voicings spread out over the guitar. Now, this typically creates a much more clear sound, a very unique sound, and a very full balanced sound. 3. Using the Shapes in a Key: So we know that spread voicing is any chord that expands those three notes beyond an octave. So what we're going to do is we're going to learn two shapes, major and minor, both on the sixth string and on the fifth string. So by the end of this course, we will have the sixth string, major, sixth string minor, fifth string major, and fifth string, mine. Then we'll finish the course with some extra special chords that just cover, bringing in 6.7 eighths to create some really nice and unique chords that could be used in neo soul plane. To start in this lesson, we're going to learn about the major scale and how each chord shape fits within that. The reason that's so important is we can use the major scale to create a progression. The major scale has seven notes in them. In each of these notes can be turned into a cord, either major or minor. So when we learn a major shape, it's going to fit the major notes in the scale. When we learn a minor shape, it's going to fit the minor parts of this scale. Here's what I mean. Say there are seven notes running through the letters of the alphabet from one sea to the next, C an octave up. So we have C, D, E, F, G, a, B. And we're back to a, C. No matter your starting and ending place. In a major scale. Cords fit like this. We have a major chord, a minor chord, a minor chord, a major chord, a major chord, a minor chord, and another minor chord. Now, the reason that's important is that we now have all of the chords that fit within the key of C. That would be a C major, D minor, E, and F major, G major, a minor. And you're bound to see when we learn our spread voicings shapes. To apply them to a scale, we just need to find whether the shape is minor or major. And here we have our answer. And then what note it starts from? So e.g. instead of an open seat, at the start here, I could play my C major shape, either from the fifth string or from the sixth string. If I needed a D minor, well, I could take that spread voicings shape once I know it. And play a D minor again, either from the fifth string or the sixth string. When we know our major and minor shape for both the six and the fifth string, we'll be able to fit them into scales and keys just like this. That way we can begin playing songs and chord progressions and fitting these shapes into the key. We will look at this a little bit more once we have an understanding of the shapes. 4. 6th String Major Shape: Now that we know what spread voicing is and how we can use it in a key. Let's learn the major shape for the sixth string, like a power cord or a bar chord. The use of spread voicing is that once we know the shape, it's movable anywhere. The biggest thing is that we're playing the right shape and that we're starting them from the right root. Note, for this example, I'll use G as my starting point, which is the third fret on the a string. But again, it can be used anywhere. I'm going to start with my root node right here. And then I'm going to borrow the fifth out of the scale. Now, if I know my major scale, I'll know that the fifth node right here. So I've got my room and my file. Now to make it spread voicing, I need a three that goes beyond the octave. So again, I can follow my scale and say 123-45-6713. That could be a three that's in the next octave up. So I've got my, my, my third. Now I've got a major spread voicing shape starting from the string. Again, this is from a G, but we could move this example anywhere. If I needed an a major and I wanted to play it like a spread voicings shape. I just slide it up two frets to lie man. Now, looking at the scale that we had looked at before, we'll see the major tones are the first, fourth, and fifth positions. So if I'm in the key of G, that means I could play a G major, D major, and an E major. Finding the key of C, that means I could play a C Major, F major, G major. 5. 6th String Minor Shape: Let's take a look at our minor sixth string shape. To start, we'll use the same root that we just used for the major shape, which would be the third fret of the sixth string, a G. Now, knowing my minor scale, I'm going to find the 5 min in the same place as the major fund. A quick note and reminder that what makes a chord major or minor isn't the root or the fifth, but the third, which means that the three will be different for this chord shape. So our root and our fifth are exactly the same. But now we want to find r three. There it is, right there is our three, an octave above where our room and fifth are. So I've got my five. And now my third. It's a little bit of a stretch of that middle finger on the same fret as the first finger on the third string. But now that we have a major and a minor shape, Let's see if we can work our way through a key, putting these spread voice and chords in there instead of regular courts. 6. Playing up one string: Let's talk about the key of G. In the key of G, we have a gene, a, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G again. And we know that the cords are major, minor, minor, major, major, minor and minor. This rule for major keys is just something that we're going to have to memorize so that we can pull and use it at any point. An easy way to remember is that you are 14.5 are major and everything else is minor. This means that our chords in the key of G, or G major, a minor, B minor, C major, D major, E minor, F-sharp minor, back to G. Now that we know a major and a minor shape for spread voicing, well this means we can use our spread voice and chords to work through the key. Let's do this. Our first chord is a G major. So I'm going to start from a G note. I'm going to play the major spread voicing shape. Next on this list is an a minor. So I'm going to move up to a. I'm going to play the minor shape. Next is a B minor. So I'll do the same thing up to b and play my minor shape that I have a C major. So I'll move up to see, and I'll play my major shape than a D major. So again, major shape from D, We're almost there. An E minor, so slided up to E and play the minor, F-sharp minor, back to a G. There. Now we know a major and minor shape. And we have a way to look at the chords in a key and figure out which chord sound good together. And that's fantastic. We can already use spread voicings and know that a lot of these chords will sound good together. But you'll notice how high up the neck we went. Something to solve that is to figure out our fifth string, major and minor shapes. So let's jump into that next and then take a look at another key using both strings. 7. 5th String Major Shape: Now we're going to take a look at our fifth string major shape. So a lot of the roots and fifths are going to stay consistent because the scale looks the same. This time though we'll start from a C note. As our example. It's on the third fret, on the fifth string. So I'll take my finger and I'll go to C. Now I'm going to find my fifth, 12345. So I've got my room and my now in our major sixth string cord, our third was right here, except that's not going to be the case for the fifth string. Now, our third is going to be right there. So I have my root. Fifth. Third. That's my fifth string major shape. And let's use the key of C instead of G as our example. In the key of C, we have C, D, E, F, G, a, B, and back to C. We know our majors are 14.5, which in this case means C, F, and G. So I could play C, I could play F, and I could play G major shape. You may be thinking already that we also know f and g on the sixth string now so I could play C, F, G. 8. 5th String Minor Shape: Now let's take the minor shape on the fifth string. You may be noticing already, but we'll point it out. The difference between a major and a minor is the third. And the amount that we're moving that third is one fret, one half-step. So when we looked at the major and minor chords on the sixth string, we had major minor, we were just moving our third down by one. It's the same exact thing from the fifth string. So starting from C, we have our major or minor, or note that the pinky is on is going to move down one fret. Let's also find that note using the minor scale, one to five. That's our fifth string. Minor shape. 9. Playing up two Strings: Let's take another look at a key. We'll do the key of G again. And so we know the chords well. G major, a minor, B minor, C major, D major, E minor, F-sharp minor, back to G. And again, this format of major and minor fits any key in the world. We're starting from G as an example. Now, if I want to play, I can use major and minor chords. Going now between the sixth string and the fifth string. E.g. I've got my G major, a minor, B minor. Now I can choose here to go higher or come down to my seat right there. D, E, F sharp, G. Instead of having to come all the way up here. For g. Now I can start practicing chord progressions using spread voicing. E.g. maybe I want G, C, E minor. That's my progression. I would do something like this. 10. Fingerpicking Example: Playing chords like that's really nice. And it adds a really unique feel to your song. Anybody can play regular chords, but by the time we get to spread voicing, well now we've narrowed out some of the competition and we're onto something that can give us a unique sound. Something else that helps a lot is finger picking your spread voicing chords. You'll notice we skipped a string when we're playing them. So picking with irregular pick is nice. And finger picking makes it even easier. E.g. let's play the same progression we just played in the past video. But now let's try finger picking instead. Whether you're using a regular pec or your fingers or some hybrid picking. Choose what you think fits the feel for the song best and experiment with these different shapes. 11. A New Approach: Now let's talk about some different approaches when using spread voicings. We've learned chords, but there are some really nice things we can do with these courts. E.g. let's say I'm on my one chord in the key of E. Something I personally like to do is keep my five consistent. I'm going to drop down to the seventh tone of my mode. Well, that five now becomes the minor six of the court, right? When I'm playing an E, Well, my five right, there would be a B. My three. Fine playing. D-sharp. B would be the minor six. This I think is a really nice spread Voicing chord and works well when we're walking down to the sixth minor. We can try that shape on the screen as well. It works from any point on the guitar. Maybe I wanna do it from a C to a, B to an a. We can do it on the sixth string as well. There's my major, minor, minor. So it's essentially a minor shape with the five raised by one, making it flat six. This works on the way up as well. If I'm approaching my route. It works well to fit into that second chord here is my minor shape. Then my room. So essentially the shape that we're learning right now, it fits in the place of the seventh chord. In your scale. I like to use it as a walk down from the root or from the one, or a walk up to the one. 12. Using the Thumb: You may have noticed me using a slightly different fingering with some of those sixth string chords. It's because there's actually an easier way to do it. I think, where we utilize the thumb instead of the first finger. See, all of our other fingers can actually say exactly the same. Here's our sixth string shape using the first finger. Now, I can swap out in the first finger for wrapping my thumb over the top. This is especially useful when we start playing the minor chord. When I switch to the minor chord using the first finger, I'll have to change this maybe to the pinkie and move this down to the same for it. It's not the easiest shape in the world. If I'm using my thumb instead of my first finger, all I'm changing is my second finger to my first back-and-forth. See which one is more comfortable for you to use. 13. Progression Practice: Now that we know are major and minor shapes on the fifth and sixth string, let's pick a couple of different keys and try some progressions. Pulling out of those keys. E.g. we could use the key of C like we've been using. And we could play 146.21 would be a C. So we can play a C major shape either from the sixth string or the fifth floor would be an F. And again, we could use either the fifth string or the sixth string. Again, using that thumb there. Six would be an a. So I could play that from the sixth string, or I could play it from the fifth string. Now you'll notice this shape looks a little different. That's because I'm taking that minor shapes and moving it down to the point where we're using an open string. And then finally we have a D minor, which we could play six or from the fifth. Now you have two options. You can pick version either six or fifth for the court and you could stick with it, or you can jump back and forth. Sometimes it's nice to slowly work your way up to higher notes and land on lower notes. It has this nice deep resolve to it. Let's try this progression. You may notice as well that we can throw some other notes in there if you're familiar with sustained chords. Instead of just playing a standard cord, we could play sus4 as spread voicing or a sauce to spread voicing. Let's try another progression and this time we'll use the key of a. Now, in the key of a, we have an a, B, C-sharp, G-sharp. So that would be an a major. B minor, C-sharp minor, D major major, F-sharp minor, G sharp, line back to. And by the way, if you'd like to play that seventh chord perfectly, well, we typically have a flat five on the seventh tone. That means we would play are minor shape and flat. The five. Let's do a progression of 1235. So in this case, we would play a minor, B, C-sharp Minor. And practice these progressions or make some of your own in a key of your own. 14. Congratulations! Final Project: Congratulations on making it to the end of the course. As a final project, pick one of the chord progressions that we've already gone through in this class or make your own. Then play it as a spread Voicing chord progression. You can pick if you want to stick to the sixth string shapes, the fifth string shapes, or go back and forth between the two. Upload your submission either as an audio or a video file. If you have the ability to record video, if you're a little camera or recording shy, then you can submit just the core and you chose to use and how they went if they were difficult or if you found them easy. And what you thought the best part of the class was, I'm looking forward to hearing your submissions. If you have any questions or comments from me, you can reach out at Jacob at lamb lessons.com or visit at lamb lessons.com where we have many more courses. And we'll see you there.