apparently it’s now time to get rhythmic in my musical journey – 12 Bar blues is one of the most popular “formulas” for chord progression in modern music.  At its most basic it is simply the I, IV and V chords in a key (1, 4, 5).  For example, in the key of G we have the following notes.

So to play 12 Bar Blues in G, we’ll play G, C, D. The basic pattern would be

Or in our case of playing in the key of G, the notes would be.

I am a computer geek by trade, so I like patterns – they make my brain happy so here’s something else that’s nice about 12 Bar Blues on the guitar.  If you play it in basic barre chords the example above would look like this (in it’s most basic, stripped down format).

|-----------|
|-----------|
|-----------|
|-----------|
|--5-5-5-5--|
|--3-3-3-3--|

|-----------|
|-----------|
|-----------|
|--5-5------|
|--3-3-5-5--|
|------3-3--|

|-----------|
|-----------|
|--7-----7--|
|--5-5---5--|
|----3-5----|
|------3----|

Why is that cool?  Because it’s a movable format.  Find any note on the low E string (nice diagram here) and you can use that as your starting note in the key or your I note.  Keep your finger position the same but move the root note down a string to the A string for the IV note.  Then move your hand position up 2 frets and you’ll find your V note.  Pretty cool, very simple.

This is less of a lesson – more of a stream of consicousness – it took me a while to wrap my head around this lesson – so you, the reader are made to suffer too… sorry about that.

The basis of most western music is the C major scale (also called the Ionian scale)

C D E F G A B C
1  2  3  4  5 6  7 8

Major scales follow the pattern of
Full Step | Full Step | half step | Full Step | Full Step | Full Step | half step | Full Step

Chord formula for Major Chords 1, 3, 5 – so if we take the C scale above and extract the 1, 3 and 5 notes we end up with C E G – the notes that make up a standard C Major chord

A major 7 adds in the 7th note – so for the above example the B is also added bringing the chord to C E G B

Wow I am not sure where to start on this one – we covered a bunch of stuff tonight, I’ve really got my work cut out for me. I guess I will start with pentatonic scales since that is the bulk of what we covered. There are really only 5 shapes that cover all pentatonic scales – learning them will be the tough part.

Tonight we covered starting with an E root note for the scales – acknowledging that simply shifting the root note up or down the neck totally changes what scale you’re playing – and based on where you start the shape changes weather it is a Major or Minor Pentatonic…fun stuff even though a bit heady.

so 5 shapes.

Shape One: (for the E pentatonic the root notes on this are simply the open strings)

Shape 2:

Shape 3:

Shape 4:

Shape 5:

The sixth shape to complete the octave is really just the first shape played again.

A couple of noteworthy things here.

1. The back notes of one pentatonic are the front notes of the previous – they all fit together much like a puzzle (a really really complicated puzzle)
2. Here’s where it gets really heady – the root note separates the major from the minor so on shape one for example – playing the open E string first makes the scale an E Minor Pentatonic – Playing the G note on the E string (3rd fret) first makes it an E major pentatonic

We also dealt with writing the scales out tonight – all 12 of them – but I need to wrap my head around that one a bit more before I dive into trying to”explain” it.  So stay tuned for the “Guitar Lesson 3a” post.

Ran across

this link after posting – worth checking out.

This week I am to build on the C-Major Scale that we addressed last week.  Last week was to be played in quarter, half, and full notes – this week we add eighth notes via “perfect alternate picking”.  The pick is to continually move up and down – never up twice – never down twice.  By the end of the week, I should be able to tap my foot, keep rhythm and have the pick move up as my foot moves up – the pick move down as my foot moves down.  Sounds easy…it’s not!

In addition we covered the G Major Pentatonic scale:

|----------------------0-3--|
|------------------0-3------|
|--------------0-2----------|
|----------0-2--------------|
|------0-2------------------|
|--0-3----------------------|

And how based on which root note is started with (the 0 or 3 on the low E string) this pattern can either be a G Major Pentatonic or an E minor pentatonic scale. I believe that it has to do with the notes that are played and how they correspond to the notes played within the chord (G Major or E minor). I will find out next week for sure.

My first guitar lesson was last night.  I am getting over my issues with taking a “class”, having “homework”, and feeling like a dork since I have no earthly idea why I want to play the guitar in the first place.  – Enough about all of that, done venting.

So obviously the best place to start any journey is at the beginning – and I am not very good so baby steps suit me just fine.  Last night we went over the C Major Scale

|------------------------------0-1-3--|
|------------------------0-1-3--------|
|--------------------0-2--------------|
|--------------0-2-3------------------|
|--------0-2-3------------------------|
|--0-1-3------------------------------|

My challenge this week is to:

1. learn the scale (doing alright on this)
2. learn to play it on the whole, half & quarter notes
3. learn to play it to a metronome – optional (who are we kidding – - I’ll make myself do this)