Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hi Tomo!! Your content is quite very good but not a really beginner friendly.
I've been subscribed to you for about 2 months and managed to unsubscribe recently since I'm not really understanding some of the content. I know some of the beginners here feel the same way as I, here are some of the things I look for on your contents:
- Ear training
- Scales and Shapes
- When and How to use scales

I would re-subscribe in a heart beat if I saw you uploaded new content about this. Thank you so much!

JM-great comment. I’m not sure how “beginner” you are so I’ll assume very new. The value I see in Tomo’s videos is he stresses learning chords, triads, 4 nite chords and then the inversions.

Try this technique to see if your knowledge base increases exponentially.

LEARN Degrees
Tomo teaches you how to build chords rather than just pointing to position on a string and a fret. This may be slower but in the long wrong you will be able to build chords without looking at Tabs or a chord book.

Tomo refers to the root R, 3rd and 5th. He’s referring to degrees of a chord. C chord is comprised of C E G notes. Or R 3 5.

INVERSIONS

You can play the chord vertically and hmm horizontally on the fret board. Often Tomo plays the same chord at different locations on the fretboard to generate a different voicing.

PRACTICE APPROACH

Try learning how to play a C chord in its first position with root note on 5th string 2nd fret. Then find the notes elsewhere on the fretboard. You will get different voicings.

Then learn an F chord and some inversions. After you ate comfortable with the C and F begin to play a C F progression and use the inversions.

Then add more chords and then a Maj 7th, and so on. It takes time but soon it will come natural and you will be able to follow Tomo’s lessons.

Hope this helps.
Rick

Just to add to this a little, I find it really helps to know the shape of all the intervals on the guitar neck as well. For example if you pick a note like A on the d string 7th fret. Now you want to find the major 3rd, you should immediately know that it's one string down and one fret before, so G string 6th fret. Or on the higher octave it's E string 9th fret. For the 5th you can find it either 2 frets up on the G string (power chord shape) or on the same fret but one string lower 7th fret A string. Once these fretboard relationships become easy to visualize it's really easy to build your own chord shapes and even come up with some uncommon voicings yourself. Throw out your giant chord dictionary :)

I think I am a total newbie even I've been playing guitar for almost 10 years...
But it is true that I would love Tomo to make it a bit more clear and practical on when and how I can apply these theories to my playing.
Sometimes I get lost easily in his tutorial

Beginner’s mind is the way :)

Personally I think it would be great to have goals set out at the start and end of the lesson, What we are learning and how the knowledge can eventually be applied.

For example, the videos for Theory lessons 1 & 2, where we learn the C, G and F major scales. What are we trying to achieve? IS it understand the major formula, solfege, learn about the degrees. Where does learning this lead us? Is it being able to play the major scale from any root position across the kneck? Understand the relative position of notes to the root to solo/create chords?

As a beginner, it helps to know where the path is leading :)

It's nice to know that there are others too facing my dilemma, it would be nice to have these tutorials on Tomo's site.

I watched tomo's lesson but I stopped because I get lost. Glad he did music theory lesson's but my main problem is still there which is how to apply these modes/scales/degrees to make music. I know the goal is to make your own style for playing but as a complete newbee I haven't figured it out myself. I get inspiration from the guitar players I like but I still dont know the concept of how they play that style or how they came up with that riff/lead part.

Cheers

I will tag on to this, as I'm feeling the same way.

I love the first few lessons, the notebook is great, and grip lesson is nice to learn too.

The 3rd or 4th lesson jumps right into bending and I'm lost. In all of these lessons I can understand the concept in a vague way, but the approach in each lesson is quite advanced. I've heard the word triad, I've heard inversion, I've heard root and 3rd and 5th, but they don't mean anything to me and the introduction at a base level to these concepts are lost.

I'm not hoping for patterns, cheats, etc. I want to learn the full concepts, but each video has me scratching my head. I'll be on the lookout for some updates but for now I'm going to have to unsubscribe!

Dear friends, I recently signed up and initially felt that most of the concepts were too advanced for me. And that Tomo was not breaking down and explaining each idea clearly enough. I thought I made a mistake in signing up and perhaps these lessons were not for me. They in fact may not ultimately be for me. But I reasoned that I’ve already paid for the month so may as well get the most out of the month. So I watched and rewatched the first few lessons. Little by little the concepts therein ceased to feel so conceptual as my fingers began to slowly grasp some sliver of actual facility with a snippet of an idea or two or three contained in the lesson. In short I was practicing like I’d never really done before. I’ve learned a bunch of unrelated licks and patterns and tunes but this type of practice feels different.

I’m ten days or so into this journey and I’m going along for the ride with Tomo and all of you. I’m letting Tomo lead the way, mostly because I’m bored to tears with the material I was playing before. And I’m happy that adopting a beginners mind approach is beginning to bear fruit for me.

I hope this helps :)

I’ve posted a lot on this thread. Rewatching the videos and grappling with the content pays off. Soon enough concepts begin to makes sense. Also, you can browse his other videos complement this video. I have learned a lot and my practice sessions have become more productive. Keep on Playing!

Rick

Hi all,

for those wanting more depth on Tomo's teaching philosophy and insight into how and why he teaches the way he does, just found this video via Instagram:

Discussion about intervals starts at 15:40 then Tomo goes onto his teaching style and why he approaches lessons the way he does.

While I agree with what Rick says that the lessons shouldn't be spoon fed, there are some concepts that still need to be explained in a more detailed manner.

I think there's a need to recognize that some people have zero idea what's going on (my hand is raised as I type this) before Tomo-san starts the lesson. I'm just a regular dude trying to get an inch closer to being John Mayer lol. Kidding aside, I will try my best to learn from Tomo because I believe in his curriculum but I may need a slower pace/more detailed explanations for the material.

Maybe additional material for the beginners that the more advanced guitarists here can skip over?

Hi guys just subscribed. Exited to see how i will grow . I know bits and pieces stuff from every where and got me even more lost than i was in the beginning hope this course will help me to fix that. wish you all the success in your guitar journey as well :D.