Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hey everyone, nice to meet you all.

Quick word about me. My name's Jesse, I'm 30 years old and have only been playing for a week. I play 5+ hours every day (Doing warmups/stretching before and during every session, and I also take short breaks, but my hand is getting rather tired I should say.)

I have been practicing TF Lesson 004 but I wonder if I am doing it wrong.

Later in the video, Master Tomo explains how to go through the E string, and names out notes according to the chromatic scale when doing so: up to the 12th fret (after which its rinse n repeat.)

However, earlier in the video, he was doing a Do-Re-Mi exercise: Solfege. Are we supposed to sing the Do-Re-Mi along with the chromatic scale? I have been doing that thus far. But I am now wondering whether the Do-Re-Mi exercise was a different exercise meant to be done along the C-Major scale on every string. Which, if this is true, would I start it on the 8th fret on the 6th string? (Also to doublecheck, the 6th string is the thick one right?)

Sorry for my noob questions, would appreciate any and all help. Also if you guys have any practice exercises that'd be great but I also follow the Justin Guitar course to do some of the more practical stuff. But I feel much more drawn to Tomo's material. I don't want to just know a D chord, I want to know why a D chord is a D chords and in what other ways I can make one.

Love you all. You are all beautiful. Keep working hard!!

Hi Jesse,

Do-Re-Mi is a movable scale, 7 notes, really for interval relationship. i.e. do (1) re (2) mi (3) fa (4) so (5) la (6) ti (7) do (1). Do (1) mi (3) so (5) a universal 1-3-5 as opposed to C E G 1-3-5 of the C Major scale.

TF 004 is about learning the notes on the guitar, and in each scale, therefore the connection of note and name of note are more important because you are learning the scale and the place on the fretboard.

Do Re Mi becomes more important in triads and melodies, but Tomo does a good job of explaining. Hope that helps!

Cam

Ah, so Do just stands for the root, Mi for the third and So for the 5th?

And if so, does it work differently for the B string? Since on the B string it's a half-step less to get to the 5th from the open B note.

Right on Do Mi So, it can be used in any major scale. But. it works the same on the B string since the relation between notes/ intervals don't change regardless of string. (Root Whole Whole Half Whole Whole Whole Half). The only thing to really remember with the B string is that is a half tone lower in relation to the others, meaning you just shift a fret up when moving to it from another string in a scale shape.

I think of each string as a 12 note section of a piano keyboard (one octave repeated beyond the 12th fret), on piano Sharps and flats are black keys and whole notes are the white keys. Because the sections are running in parallel to each other, the nature of music and having 6 strings, the B section does not fit neatly in with the other 5, it's flat by half a step. But the 12 notes on the B string works the same as all the other strings musically. You can try it with your guitar, starting from an open B string, whole whole half whole whole whole half will land you on the 12th fret B octave. If you were to start from the B on the 2nd fret of the A String, same notes, you would end 12 frets higher (one octave), on the 14th fret of the A string.

Thank you very much for the in-depth answers, Cameron. I really appreciate it a whole lot. That brought a large deal of clarity in regards to the B string, because I noted that when starting a (vertical) C-major shape from the D string, I had to move up one fret for the last two notes on the B string. And now I finally know why. That was the piece to the puzzle I was missing.

Fantastic piano analogy. Makes a lot of sense. And the Do-Mi-So section also makes sense now. (knowing the relation between notes/intervals don't change regardless of string was a nice confirmation. I was aware of the rwwhwwwh concept, but with all of the theory I've been absorbing in a short time, I was getting rather confused.)

Thanks for making everything clear again!

My plan for tackling the strings is:

1 (Main Level) - Use Chromatic scale on each string, starting on open, to learn all the notes and their position up to the 12th fret. For instance, on the e string, knowing that the 1st fret is F, the 3rd fret is G, and so on. Also quizzing myself in a random order, or reversed order, rather than just ascending.

2 - Run a horizontal C-major scale on each string, and say the name of each following note before playing it for further note recognition.

3 - Sing Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do before playing each corresponding note in the C-Major scale, for each string.

4- Sing Do-Re, Do-Mi, Do-Fa, Do-So, Do-La, Do-Ti, Do-Do (Higher octave) before playing each coresponding two notes in the C-Major scale, for each string

Does this seem like a good 4 step plan to you? And/or would you change anything?

Happy to help, guitar is difficult instrument to wrap your head around, best advice is just to keep playing. I think your plan sounds great, really thinking about how the notes and how the sounds connect will help you down the road. I played for 10+ years thinking I was one of those "don't need to know the theory" guys, but it is extremely important if you want to be a complete player. One drill that I found helpful was simply starting at the low e string, and finding all the e's on the fretboard, i.e starting at the open 6th, to the 12th fret 6th string, 7th fret 5th string, second fret 3rd string, up to 14th fret 3rd string, and so on. You can repeat for all whole tones, I think or say the note to reinforce the tone, works your ear since you will have to listen for the octaves and same note the whole time.

The other thing that I would think about is that there is A LOT to learn on guitar, and more than one key. Much of it only makes sense once you have context by learning other lessons. If you haven't gotten into triads I would as you learn the names of notes since you can connect them to each other. I.e., knowing the C-E-G 1-3-5 major triad, knowing F-A-C is the 1-3-5 in the key of F. This is chord building in it's most basic form. I think it's also important to say these lessons are challenging to me, even though I have some degree of chops. Maybe it's my lack of traditional training, but I would rank Tomo's course as precollege to college level work further on. If you can pick up what he is putting down you'll learn more quickly than I did trying to compile knowledge at random, but understand that Tomo is working a specific system. You shouldn't rush through it, one of my favorite Tomoisms "develop your personality," by going slow, but at the same time breakthroughs come from learning more. Don't be afraid to move forward knowing that you won't understand some of the lessons at first, but do go back to them and pick up pieces until it makes sense. On Youtube Tomo often teaches by "3 levels." He doesn't break down the levels explicitly here, but what I have noticed is that each lesson progresses in a similar way, there is a beginner, intermediate, and mastery level to most lessons. My method is to try and get 2/3rds of a lesson, write it out in my notebook so it makes sense and I digest it, then go back to the lesson until I have 3/3. I'll work a hand full of lessons per week like that until they all make sense.

Here are the Triad videos I have found really useful:

https://tomovhxtv.vhx.tv/start-here/videos/tf-lesson-006

https://tomovhxtv.vhx.tv/videos/theory-12-diatonic-triads (putting triads in a major scale)

https://tomovhxtv.vhx.tv/videos/tf-lesson-012

And some non guitar specific music theory channels on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTUtqcDkzw7bisadh6AOx5w

https://www.youtube.com/c/AdamNeely/videos

Here is Tomo's comment:

"The best way to learn is to practice something you understand. In this case, try to work on an easy, simple part first. For example, Do Re Mi… then don’t worry about the chromatic scale right away. Focus only on what you understood in the lesson. Then you can go back a few steps, review, and work on another part later."

I'm a new member and had the same question about Do Re Mi vs chromatic scale in this TF 004 lesson. Glad I searched and thanks to all those who asked and answered before me!

Robert
Winter Park, FL

The Chromatic scale is every note 12 notes in an octave includes all #'s/ b's. like playing all the white and black notes on the piano or every fret on a guitar string from open to the 12th fret. The Ionian scale has only has 7 notes in an octave it skips chromatic notes at intervals like just the white keys on the piano is the C major scale which skips the black keys. The intervals are the same for all major scales where Tone(T) = (two frets interval) and Semitone (S)= (one fret interval)
TTSTTTS those notes are the do(two frets) ra (two frets) mi(one fret) fa (2)so (2) la(2) te (2) do (1) next octave.

For anyone finding this in the search for help for lesson TF 004, the information provided by everyone above is excellent and very helpful. It's absolutely correct with regard to the theory using the whole-half step method of identifying scales. However, it doesn't actually apply to the the lesson in question. In lesson TF 004 Tomo specifically states to keep everything in the C scale ("anywhere you start, keep in C scale") So, when doing the exercises on each string, you will start on the solfege of the note as referenced in the C scale. For example, if you start on an E string, the starting note of E will be "mi" - not, "do." If you follow the information given above and start with "do" on each string and find the scale using the intervals from there, you will be finding the notes for the major scale of that particular string note (For example, if you start with "do" as E on the E string, you will be finding the notes of the E major scale, not the C scale). To illustrate, Tomo goes to the A string and begins the exercise...he starts "ti, do, re..." and continues. ti is the 2nd fret (B), do is 3rd fret (C), re is 5th fre (D), etc. He demonstrates the same on the high E, "mi, fa, so..." (E="mi" in the C major scale) In other words, every note is always the same C-do, D-re, E-mi, etc no matter which string or where you start. It's all in C major in TF 004. The information provided by others above is good information, but it is not what Tomo is teaching in that lesson.