Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hi there. Are there any lessons on here about Happy Chords, which I haven't found yet? Tomo keeps posting demos of the chords on yt and I'd like to learn. I can use this youtube video:

It's great but there's a lot of information packed in there, towards the end it's a bit quick for me ...

I think what might help could be a written sequence of chord degrees, so that I can see where I'm at in the piece. I can learn the chord variants gradually, but it takes time and it would help to know the progression structure in the meantime. Ta.

Many thanks to Tomo for the wonderful lessons.
Tomo, you're the best.

I haven't seen a GW lesson for Happy Chords yet.

He does have a YT "short" which has fewer improvisational "distractions" here. You can set the speed slower in the settings and just write down the chords as you see them. There is a lesson for Just Funky, which uses a similar walk up for the jazzy part. It will explain fingerings in more detail.

I spent a couple minutes and wrote down what I saw:

E B/Eb C#m7 Bm9 E9 Bb13 AM7 (closed) AM7 (drop) E/G# G13 F#m7 E/G# A69 Bbdim A/B

I V vi (ii V of IVM7) with tt-sub I tt-sub of VI ii I IV69 IV7b9 V7(11)

You may see more detail and want to write down more accurately and add rhythm notes.

Oh wow thanks for giving me enough to get going with this. tt-sub means "tritone substitution"? I need to learn what that is, eh..

Nice, the short is easier to work with. Perfect, I'll work on it tonight. Writing it down seems like an important part of the learning process.

There's definitely a lot of similarity between some of Tomo's arrangements. I've already been working on Tomo's Isn't She Lovely chords, and there's plenty of overlap with this. I took a quick look at Just Funky last week too, and that seems like a bit of a bigger challenge. Good to know that this progression will get me closer to that too...

Thanks Brad

Well, there's an old English saying, "how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?". You have to observe, write down, and revise if you're going to learn something so it sticks to you... or else the time and effort spent on watching a video is wasted. More discipline, less noodling leads to more fun in the long run. Took me 50 years to learn that.

I forget which section covers the tritone-substitution, but it's a good tool to make things jazzier. When two chords share 3rds and 7ths, but with the roles reversed, you get a tritone-sub.

Subs, secondary dominants (V ofs), and slide-into chords are my go-to tools for spicing up blues and jazz progressions. It takes a couple of months to work through the lessons to get to those topics. Be Patient. Be Kind To Yourself. Plan the work and work the plan. Playing guitar is fun, so remember to have fun, too!

Nice quote, it appears in Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd, I'm guessing you know that. So I read it in the voice of a scary Scottish teacher...

Thanks to your comments I've been learning about Tritone Substitution from various sources, and it's an awesome trick to learn about. Very cool and it helps me realise where some of these patterns are coming from, e.g. those ones which seem to walk down bass notes.

BTW I've already been working on the Drop 2 voicings (Tomo's video) for strings 1-4, and now I can add in these tritone chord changes... fun stuff

Thanks for the pointers & kindness mantras