I Can Name That Key In ___ Notes...

i teach with a very open attitude - i like to let things flow freely between the student and myself. as a result, a lot of open jamming tends to happen. during these jams a student can learn the ins and outs of a simple scale, a song, or even themselves. it's very liberating for the student and rewarding for me to watch.

however, most of my students tend to ask the same question as soon as i give them something to play over: "wait, what key is this in?"

today we're going to discuss some simple and logical ways to figure out what key you're in on the spot, without taking too much time or asking out loud. after all, sometimes the band is too loud to speak to you! onward...

we're going to pull up the diatonic chord structure for some reference to help us out...

I     Major
II    Minor
III   Minor
IV   Major
V    Major
VI   Minor
VII  Diminished 

we've discussed before that chords appear in this pattern in every diatonic key. because of this, we can use it to help us determine what key a particular chord progression is in by looking at how the chords are built. let's take a look at this example progression...

E- D- Gmaj A-

the clue here is in the chords that fall next to each other in the alphabet. in this case, D- and E- are the clue. there is only one spot in the diatonic chord structure that allows for 2 minor chords to be next to each other, and that is the II and III positions...

I     Major
II    Minor
III   Minor
IV   Major
V    Major
VI   Minor
VII  Diminished

therefore, we know now know that II = D- and III= E-. this only occurs in C major. success!

some of you might be saying to yourself, "but A- and Gmaj are next to each other in the alphabet as well. how come you didn't use those chords?" the answer is simple - a Major chord followed by a Minor chord happens twice in the scale structure (I->II and V->VI). this would have narrowed down the key possibilities to two, but in this case that wasn't necessary.

another example...

DbMaj EbMaj F- AbMaj

this one should be easy. we've got 3 chords in alphabetical order here. two Major chords next to each other, followed by a Minor? that's gotta be IV, V, and VI. yup, we're in Ab Major.

this is all well and good, but so far we've only been looking at chord progressions that have triad-based chord structures. what happens if we don't get full triads, like in a power chord jam, or even worse, a single note riff that might not imply chords at all?

enter some note analyzation. remember how to play that major scale?

|---------------------------------|
|---------------------------------|
|---------------------------------|
|-------------4-5-----------------|
|-------1-3-5---------------------|
|-1-3-5---------------------------|

let's convert this major scale to a one string setup. this way we can see all the whole and half steps that make up this scale...

    w w h w w  w  h

|-1-3-5-6-8-10-12-13-|

given a power chord or riff based progression, we're going to be forced to use the notes themselves instead of the chord structures to help us out. imagine we're playing over a certain punk rock tune from the 90s (fill in your own rhythm)...

Eb5 Bb5 C5 G55 Ab5 Eb5 Ab5

we've got 5 notes to go by in this example...

Ab Bb C E G

again, we're taking an interest in the notes that happen to be next to each other alphabetically, but now we're also interested in the half and whole steps that occur between them as well. since the major scale consists of more whole steps than half steps, the halves are much more valuable. we've got one set in our little green riff, and it falls between G and Ab. so now we know we've got two possible scales...

Ab Bb C x Eb x G

and...

Eb x G Ab Bb C x

hmm... still not enough information! let's have a look at this progression in tab format...

|------------------|
|------------------|
|------------------|
|-8----------8-----|
|-6-8-10-5-6-6-8---|
|---6-8--3-4---6---|

each power chord consists of TWO notes. let's add those extra notes into the mix, and we end up with...

Ab Bb C D Eb F G  

looking like we have a lot more options here. now all that's left to do is arrange the notes around so we have the only way to make the whole and half steps appear in the right spots. we end up with...

Eb F G Ab Bb C D

Eb major! 

wow, that was a lot of work! well, not really. the first few times you try to figure out what key you're in on your own it might take you some time, but after a few tries you'll not only start to remember these tricks, but you'll begin to hear them as well. most people playing through this basket case of a riff will be able to pick out that they're in Eb major just by hearing it. if you can't, though, there's always these tricks we spoke about today. check for chord qualities, notes and chords that fall alphabetically next to each other, and for the arrangement of half and whole steps. with practice, you'll be able to hear and feel each key in less and less time.

until next time, grasshoppers!

How To Properly Not Practice

for this lesson i'm going to offer another mental consideration to think about that is somewhat related to The Apex Shredator's Shreditation article. we've all been there - you're practicing lick A for a painstaking amount of time. you're tired, your fingers are red and ripping up, and while you were progressing nicely 30 minutes ago, you're somehow falling on your face now and regressing to sounding even worse than when you started. what's going on here?

cut to another day. and another situation entirely....

it's 9am. your Stand Out! guitar lesson is today at 1pm. you haven't practiced your frosted mini sweeps all week, but you figure since Shredator said to work on these for 30 minutes a day that 4 hours straight before your lesson will work even better. hey, you'll even be nice and warmed up for when he gets here. 4 hours later at 1pm, you never got there. what happened?

both of these situations are seemingly different, but both have the same reason for failure - you didn't not practice correctly.

every time you learn a new lick, your brain, hands, arms, and eyes need to work together to make it happen. the first time you play a new passage, most of this is a mechanical process. all of your associated parts have to figure out how to physically make lick X happen. think about the first time you learned the blues scale - it sounded nothing close to 'bluesy' - it was just a bunch of notes getting plunked down on your instrument for reference. it's only after mindlessly beating it into your brain over and over again that the notes start to sound like something. start to mean something. start to have some soul to them. while it's true that practicing over and over helps you to cross over to this point, the time spent not practicing also helps as well.

your hands and arms need time off to release tension created from learning harder passages. your brain needs time off as well, but something different happens inside your head while you're not playing. when you relax your muscles, they get to recharge their batteries. when you take your mind off guitar playing, your brain is still working on what you were practicing at a subconscious level. it's like that awful math lesson you had to sit through one day at school - it seems foggy the day you learn it, but a week later the concept of the lesson becomes clear and 'easy' to think about. it works the same way, and i know nobody practices math class on their own time to get better at it!

now let's keep this in mind - you still need to practice regularly. you can't just merely think about guitar on your off time and expect to get better consistently. this is more about budgeting and prioritizing your practice time and time off from the instrument. you cannot get these skills hammered into your brain by trying to 'cram' for hours before a performance or a lesson. however, if you try for a '30 minutes on, 1 hour' off kinda of a schedule, you might find yourself learning things quicker, with less overall time spent hammering on the instrument. everyone's time limits will be different - i recommend practicing for a decent amount of time up until you begin to get frustrated. once that happens, you're likely to slow down any progress, and just get more and more angry. don't quit in 5 minutes, but anywhere from 20-60 minutes spent on a single topic should be good enough for one practice session.

the next question - what to do when you're not playing? the answer is simple - anything else. sports, video games, social activity, sleeping - any of those healthy (in moderation) activities will help keep your mind fixed on something else besides your instrument, which will in turn relax you and prepare you for your next practice session. when you do return to your instrument, you should feel recharged and calm, ready to hack away at whatever you're working on.

give it a shot, and see if any differences in your playing show up. practice is important, and so is 'not practicing' - but only in moderation!

Harmonization 101

this week i had a request from a student to explain the process of harmonizing single note lines. as you may know, lots of harder rock and metal lately involve 2 guitar players playing single notes that somehow interact with each other in a cool way. we're going to talk about some basic harmonization that occurs in lines like these.

it all begins (as always), with the foundation of music - the Major scale...

you'll notice this particular diagram has numbers written in place of note names. these are the scale degrees of this particular Major scale. at the moment the actual key is not important. let's keep it universal for now.

all of these notes bring a certain color to the table sonically. we're going to structure these sounds into 'intervals' to get an idea of what they sound like. the way we're going to analyze these notes is to compare all of them to the root of the scale, which in this case, is D. play all of these combinations of notes together to get a quick little primer as to what these harmonizations will sound like...

D against D
D against E
D against F#
D against G
D against A
D against B
D against C#

you might find some of these are fairly pleasant. you might find others are more angular or boxy, but still quite cool. you also might find a couple that just sound all sorts of wrong. that's ok - these are the flavors that we're given.

remember that diagram earlier of the major scale with the numerical degrees on it? let's check it out again...

the scale degree you play will also dictate the harmonization's name. in other words, if you play D against G, you'll be harmonizing a 4th. if you play D against E, you'll be harmonizing a 2nd.

this system is pretty easy to deal with. if you have a melody that you want to harmonize, decide what sound you like, count up that many scale degrees, and play your original part in that new location in the scale.

let's practice one. let's stay in the key of D for the moment. play this melody to get it in your ears...

|-------------------------|
|-------------------------|
|---------------6-7-------|
|-------------7-----7-----|
|-5-7-9-5-5-9---------5---|
|-------------------------|

i know, i'm a regular mozart. deal with me.

what i'd like to do now is take this and harmonize it up a 3rd. 3rds are very common starting points. let's look at the melody in english, now..

D E F# D D F# A C# D A D

if i'm harmonizing up a third, i'll take each note and count 3 degrees up. take note you must count the original note as the 1st degree! so up a third this harmony will be..

Original - D  E F# D  D  F# A C# D  A D

Up a 3rd - F# G A  F# F# A  C E  F# C F#

makes sense? good. keep in mind that in our example we harmonized a third higher than the melody. you could just as easily harmonize below the melody, just counting backwards in scale degrees. that's pretty much it! it might take you some time to figure out more harmonizations at first, but in time you'll learn to hear and feel them in the same way you feel the scales on their own. also feel free to experiment with different harmonizations in the same passage - they dont have to all be 4ths or all 5ths or whatever. play with it!

Pentatonic Shapes You Don't Care About

everybody knows the standard minor pentatonic shape that our first teachers make us fiddle around with to a half forced, fully generic blues progression...

while this scale is fantastic (and necessary!), sooner or later the shape of the 'box' becomes a little bit stale. how many times can you rocket up and down the same shape before you start to yearn for more?

well, you're in luck. just like the modes of the major scale, we can alter the appearance of this humble shape by using a different note at a starting point, and building a position-based scale from there in a different area of the neck.

let's begin by moving up one note from where we left off on the original minor pentatonic scale. yes, we are staying in A minor penta, so now our shape will begin with a C note...

notice i am still labeling the root notes of A minor pentatonic, even though they are no longer at the beginning of the scale shape. what we have here is the Major Pentatonic scale - and if you are used to playing the diatonic major scale in position, you will notice it is very similar, minus 2 notes per octave. yes, you can use this over any ionian-based progression. if you were to do so, however, your root note in this particular key would shift over to C.

the remaining 3 pentatonic shapes are shown below. they unfortunately go by many names, so i will simply omit any labeling for simplicity. for reference, most people prefer to simply number them from 1-5.

please note the fretboard positions - the first 2 patterns shown have diagrams that run from frets 5-19, instead of 1-12.

once again, i've kept the minor-based root notes in bold. if you were playing a major based-progression, you'd shift to C in this key.

you may notice that while the patterns share the same notes, they also share 'ends' with each other. for example, the notes that end the A minor pentatonic shape are exactly the same as the note that begin the C major pentatonic shape, position-wise. see them? if you can visualize adjacent patterns while you are playing another shape you'll be able to borrow notes from them, which will only expand your 'box,' and your playing overall.

here's what all of them look like laid out on the fretboard at once. note the colors of each note to visualize the shapes, and to see where they intersect with each other...

this fretboard diagram runs from fret 3-17

this chart should get the point across - pentatonics are very powerful and useful! combine this technique with the the use of superimposition and you have an insane array of options without ever leaving the key!

Superimposing Pentatonics

ladies and gentlemen, the minor pentatonic scale:

 
you've seen this before. if you haven't, well, now you have. in case you need to be reminded, the minor pentatonic scale has been the building block for the better amount of blues and rock solos for basically of the electric guitar's life, and likely beyond. the reason for its success is in its simplicity, i think. 2 notes per string, very easy to remember, and very easy to play with minimal practice time.  

it has one problem though - most players that get addicted to this scale tend to complain about being stuck 'in the box.' this shape is so memorable and so easy to learn, its often hard to break free from its grasp to find new sounds.

we're going to use this scale's simplicity to help us break from the cycle.

i just gave you an A minor pentatonic scale. let's have a look at all the notes that make this scale up...

i usually teach this scale first in my private lessons, and then when we move on to minor scales, i make mention that minor scales and minor pentatonics are interchangeable in real time. so, having said that, we can safely use A natural minor in place of its minor pentatonic relative. this makes sense, because the notes of A minor pentatonic are built into A natural minor...

A B C D E F G 

see them in bold? good. now let's expand on this idea even further.

it's easy to see these two scales contain the same notes, but on the subject of A minor, if you do some digging you'll notice there are actually two more pentatonic scales hidden in A natural minor... can you find them?

A B C D E F G - A Natural Minor
A     C D E    G - A Minor Pentatonic
A     C D   F  G - D Minor Pentatonic
A B     D E    G - E Minor Pentatonic


sneaky, right? do yourself a favor now - fire up a backing track in A minor, and give D minor pentatonic a shot. then try E minor pentatonic. you will find that all the notes work, but the riffs you are used to playing in A might sound a little odd. this is because although you're playing the correct notes, the notes are in different places under your fingers. this is a good thing - because now you can come up with new licks that sound entirely different from your usual riffs, all without learning any new scales!


furthermore, you'll also realize that in addition to having your same old A minor notes in different areas under your fingers, you'll also find that these scales inhabit different areas of the neck...

it would be smart to remember how far apart these scales are, so you can get to them easily while improvising. i highly recommend basing everything off of the pentatonic scale that is interchangeable with the natural minor (A), and thinking +/-5 and +/-7 frets up or down (its the same thing!).


now, with all that said, there's just one thing left to do - combine them all in realtime! 

i used multiple colors to show you where all the pentatonic scales fall. please note i also used the E minor pentatonic in two octaves, just to show the area you can cover. notice D and E minor pentatonic overlap each other a bit - that's ok. what's really important to notice here is that with these three scales, we can essentially cover the entire fretboard - how's that for breaking out of the box?

enjoy your newly rekindled relationship with the minor pentatonic scale.


 

Major/Minor Relativity

hello again! so we've been beating our major and minor scales to death, hoping to somehow use them well enough to create melodies, solos, and in the end, wonderful music for all to behold.

now i'd like to point out something interesting about these two scales. let's have a look at them...

 at first, these both look like ordinary run of the mill major and minor scales - and they are. however, you might have noticed that i took two scales from two different keys.

...or did i?

let's take a second look at the scales, this time with the notes labeled...

if you look closely, you'll notice that both of these scales contain the same notes, they just use different starting points in the scale. therefore, we can say that these two scales are related. now take notice of where the two scales intersect with each other, and you'll see that the relative minor scale starts off the 6th degree of the major scale (A), and the relative major scale starts off the 3rd degree of the minor scale (C). 

no matter what key you're in, this relationship never changes. 

now i bet you're thinking, so what? what good does this do me? well, for starters, if you have to play an improvised solo in the key of, say, B minor, not only can you use B minor, but you can also use D major, which in turn now doubles the amount of space you occupy on the fretboard, and gives you double the options. that's a very powerful thing. how often do we get bored with scale shapes, and annoyed that we can't find ways to 'break out of the box' - this is one way to do so!

it's important to be able to call up your relative majors and minors in any key in realtime - if you are proficient in both of these scales, it's a technique that will make you sound more interesting and sophisticated almost instantly. add in your superimposed pentatonics (to be discussed later), and now all of a sudden you can cover the entire neck with just three simple scales that most guitar players are very proficient in!

 practice!

A Diatonic Primer.

so if you're reading this article, you've got a few scales under your belt, your essential chords, and probably more than a couple of songs and guitar solos in your head. but what does it all mean? how does it all come together? what decides if a lick sounds good or bad?

we're going to take a look at some ground rules for the theory behind things. notice i said 'theory,' not 'rules' - this is all truly theoretical and what you might perceive as beautiful might be someone else's 'wrong.' what we will be delving into will be the agreed upon harmony of things, and it is to be used as a guideline for creating real music, not the absolute law.

we're going to start with the basis of all diatonic harmony - the very humble, yet powerful, major scale. surely if you're one of my minions you'll have played this, likely in at least two forms...

Major - 3 notes per string
|-------------------------------5-7-8-|
|-------------------------5-7-8-------|
|-------------------4-5-7-------------|
|-------------4-5-7-------------------|
|-------5-7-9-------------------------|
|-5-7-9-------------------------------|

Major - position based

|---------------------------4-5-----|
|-----------------------5-7---------|
|-----------------4-6-7-------------|
|-----------4-6-7-------------------|
|-----4-5-7-------------------------|
|-5-7-------------------------------|

now, this is not a lesson on how to play the major scale, but instead a lesson on how to use it as a building block for other scales and chords. most theory students learn to utilize the major scale a skeleton for all other aspects of music, and we will do the same.

very simply, i'm going to take the same scale, and number each note. let's take the key of C, and lay it out.

C D E F G A B

1  2 3 4  5  6  7

all we're doing is numbering the notes of scale instead of using the original note names. this will allow us to work with it without the bias of what specific key we're in. oh, and we're no longer calling them 'notes' when we leave out the keys - we'll instead refer to them as degrees. 

so now that we have eliminated our letter names, we can begin to use this scale as a roadmap to other scales. the beauty behind this system is we can take the original numbers, and alter them to suit our needs, to create new scales.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 - Major scale

1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 - Minor scale 

what did i just say??? all these numbers is giving me a headache. nah, not really. i'm implying a simple set of rule changes to the major scale to make a new scale. if you take the 3rd, 6th, and 7th degree of a major scale, and lower them by one half step (one fret), you end up with a minor scale...

Major

|--------------------------------7-9-10-|
|-------------------------7-9-10--------|
|-------------------6-7-9---------------|
|-------------6-7-9---------------------|
|-------5-7-9---------------------------|
|-5-7-9---------------------------------|
     1   2   3  4   5  6   7   1   2   3  4  5    6   7    1    2   3   4


Minor

|--------------------------------7-8-10-|
|-------------------------6-8-10--------|
|-------------------5-7-9---------------|
|-------------5-7-9---------------------|
|-------5-7-8---------------------------|
|-5-7-8---------------------------------|     

     1  2  b3   4  5  b6 b7 1  2  b3 4  5   b6  b7 1     2  b3   4

the students on my roster learn both the major and minor scales at about the same time, but most do not compare the two to each other in this manner. if you can memorize how to play the major scale, you'll be able to alter it very easily into any new scale.


let's take a look at a previously undiscussed scale - 

Harmonic Minor

1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7

maybe you don't know this scale. maybe you don't want to know it. but using your pre-existing knowledge of the major scale, you can alter it in real time to create this scale - and it's way easier to remember b3 and b7 than to remember a whole new scale!

take a breath. are you still with me? good.

let's move on to chords now. using the same basic principles, we can start to analyze and alter chords in the same manner. let's have a look at a typical C major barre chord:

|-8--|
|-8--|
|-9--|
|-10-|
|-10-|
|-8--|

 if we break down the notes that make up this chord, we get C, E, and G, with a couple of repeats in there. if i refer back to the original C major scale, you'll see that these notes match up to 1, 3, and 5.

so then, just like how we numbered out a C scale in degrees, we can do the same thing for chords. the numerology for a major chord will simply be called '135.'

now that we have a basis for major chords, we can begin to alter it to get different chords, as follows...

Major -          1  3   5

Minor -          1 b3  5

Augment -     1 #3  5

Diminished - 1 b3 b5

Sus2 -            1  2   5

Sus4 -            1  4   5

we can very easily modify our major chord into any of these shapes by following the instructions above. let's do an easy one, and switch c major to c minor. all i have to do is take my 3rd degree (in this case, E) and lower it to Eb.

|-8--|
|-8--|
|-8--|
|-10-|
|-10-|
|-8--|

how about you try to build the other chords listed in the same way?

study this, my young minions. we'll be using this technique of altering major scales and chords from here on out.