Guitar lessons, music theory and personal philosophy on video, presented by Tomo Fujita, professional guitarist and Professor at Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts USA.
So the one thing that I discovered lately is that when practicing triads and inversions around the fretboard. I started noticing that you can figure out the notes of the scale in between them (like when you do first inversion you can then fill in notes 3 4 5 6 7 1) and even playing scale notes to go from inversion to inversion on the same string set too. And they seem to resemble fragments of the CAGED system that I seen sometimes before online. Aside from practicing scale on each individual strings like in Essential Music Theory, I wonder is this a good way to find your way on the fretboard? I'm scared I'll stop pay attention to intervals at one point and just see shapes. How do you guys learn the fretboard?
(Also I want to play jazz and I know jazz is always changing keys so how can I practice that)
Thank you Duc for this thread! I would love to hear everyone's voices here!
To understand the fretboard is to learn Major Scale & triad inversions on One String Approach then you can learn all C triad inversions on each set of string sets. 123/234/345/456 And it is so important to learn this super slowly and do not write any shapes down on paper. Listen those sounds deeply. Think name of notes and listen those intervals.
Please keep learning each lessons at essential music theory section. Super slowly.
Hi Duc - As much as I try not to, I can't help but think in shapes. I think, and I'm still working on this, that drilling the Do-Mi-So part of the shapes is helping to not get stuck in the "shapes" frame of mind. It's also great for knowing which note is which in the chord which really helps with the minor third to major third which is so common in blues. I'm one of those guys that you hear Tomo talk about that learned the pentatonic scale and then never learned anything else. I'm not completely over it yet, but I'm slowly becoming more of a triad player, where I'm seeing triads on the neck instead of pentatonic shapes. It's a journey. But learning those in-between notes is great for adding some melody and movement to your playing.
Not that there's anything wrong with big caged chord forms, but I'm on a big country kick lately and what I'm seeing of players on line is that there doesn't seem to be much use for a barre chord. It looks to me like they're playing more triads or diads and incorporating some neighbor notes to add a little melody to their rhythm playing. One of my 5 minute daily practices is working on musically moving from one inversion of a triad to the next on the same string set.
Sorry this is kind of rambling. Wound up being a stream of consciousness response. I know Tomo has some videos on CAGED, maybe here on GW, but definitely on Youtube. I honestly don't recall what his opinion is on the subject. My limited view is that CAGED is kind of what put me on the pentatonic path that I'm trying to get off.
As for how to practice changing keys, I'm sure others that are more advanced than me will weigh in, but why not just practice changing keys? Work on I-IV-V in Bb, then after one or two times through, change to Eb for a round or two then keep working around the cycle of 4ths? Just an idea. Like I said, I'm sure someone will chime in with a better idea! lol
Edit:
And I just saw Tomo's response. Yeah, single string scales are really important. It's another mind bender for someone who has always played vertically on the neck to start playing horizontally.
The caged system was life changing for me on guitar. Its a very loigcal way to organise the fretboard , i see it as chopping the fretboard up into 5 different chunks/ positions. And at each position there is a scale, a chord and an arpegio that can be played at each position. It blew my mind because up until then the fretboard was a mystery to me in terms of how it was laid out nothing made any sense to me until i learned the 5 position caged system then suddenly i realised i could use caged to organise theory and information on the fretbaord. The goal is to not rely on shapes and develope my ear to hear the intervals, however i feel that having an understanding of the shapes , positions and geometry is helping me on the way towards that goal of developing my ear. The more i learn about guitar the more i realise there are always multiple ways of doing things on the instrument- like when sensei showed up major scale on single
String approach that opens up another world , until then i was always just thinking of scales played in position: vertically , i didnt even consider horizontal!
I begun to realise just how powerful knowing the major scale is, my old piano teacher said to think of the major scale as a “master key” and that every other scale is a variation of the major scale. And within the major scale is all the diatonic chords and arpegios and modes.
Ive been getting into intervals more trying to hear the different intervals and assosiate them to a sound
For example the jaws theme is a minor 2nd
The major 2nd is happy birthday
The perfect 5th is twinkle twinkle
The octave is somewhere over the rainbow
I find having these kinds of rererences helps me hear the sounds away from the guitar in my own head.
Like when i think of sus4 i think of queen- a crazy little thing called
Love intro
Thats why i really enjoy theory because we can put names/ labels to various sounds to describe what we are hearing
When I drill triads, I will catch myself recalling shapes. I usually stop myself when that happens. I sometimes practice vertical and horizontal triads with major / minor / diminished all together - that forces me to do chord construction by figuring out b3 and b5 (flat mi, flat so) rather than memorization. It is uncomfortable and slow. But I feel like any time I start to fly through a practice, I'm robbing something from my future guitar self. I don't think it's a right or wrong thing - just a matter of what you're trying to accomplish and what your timeline is. I do appreciate what Matt and Smooth are saying - I think if you learned CAGED first (I didn't), using Tomo's methods probably expands your understanding pretty quickly. I like Smooth's interval references - I always think of Pinball Wizard for sus4.
Hi all. Lots of interesting thoughts which I love. I have been working on triads with basic knowledge on CAGED shapes just before joining GW. My quick notes below:
1. Tomo's take on this.
a. He did teach CAGE but without the D Shape or the one closer to it (drawing references from the Leviett Volume 1 book; and the last shape is "half-assed" ("中途半端な" / Chūtohanpana - I don't know Japanese but he might have said) to him.
b. We should always learn CAGE(D) while thinking about intervals and specific notes. ALWAYS know where the ROOT is. Conversely, learning only the mechanical shape is the worse.
2. There are definitely connections between Triad and CAGE(D) shapes. E.g. on strings 3 2 1, root position is always part of "A" shape; 1st inversion "E" Shape; 2nd inversion "D" Shape.
3. Regardless of which route of Shapes we started on, we will get stuck into forms if learning shapes alone. That's why connecting them with 1 string 1 finger approach is important.
4. There are lots of reasons why guitars seldom do full barre chords now (I played "newer" songs selected by my local teacher before and found on tabs), including:
a. giving way to other instruments and nowadays newer genres can be very complex;
b. full barre chords actually can feel muddy as they contain repeated notes. People might want to be special (especially in guitar instrumental music).
c. similar to the use of Power Chords (only root and 5th) where it fits both major and minor scale, giving smoother transition to other chords or even keys too.
5. I also discovered that the CAGE(D) "forms" actually aren't really fixed - perhaps only more on the "middle" part (4 and 3 strings; but not definite), because IIRC, people expand horizontally for starting notes and ending notes due to space or tonal reasons. In other words, it's a "circular" and fluid connection between CAGE and Triad shapes; and we can always move notes on the spot to break free and create something else.
6. Definitely learning both Triads and CAGE(D) systematically (as in an organized way; different from "locked into a system" as Tomo said) with all scales in mind will make things faster. E.g. Think about the Major scale when doing them and convert them to minor or different modes (most notably doing the do re me do exercises too). I was preparing some notes but I had to stop due to allergies. I'll post once I've distilled everything.
I'm definitely not there yet, but here's my logic of tackling these, for now. Hope it helps.
another thing I was contemplating about guitar is that in many ways many of us learn guitar backwards compared to say piano.
first on piano you might learn scales then intervals then chords then arpeggios then progressions, each building block builds on the last.
but on guitar first most us of learn full chord shapes then barre chords then scales then triads then arpeggios then intervals is last!!!
Like for myself ive been deconstructing the caged forms, now looking at all the triads and inversions and scale degrees that make up the caged forms
and have been also looking at different intervals too
I think this can be one of guitars strengths in that any of us when we first begin can learn a few shapes and chord grips and get strumming our favourite songs and enjoying guitar without any prior knowledge of theory , but this can also hinder us too as we reach the intermediate stages with developing musicianship and
im beginnning to grasp what sensei is telling us in that often our hands and fingers can learn something quicker than the brain by forming shapes and grips, but our ear and our theory need to play catch up to understand the grip or shape we are playing , understanding the intervals , scale degrees , these are much slower than just learning the shape and moving it around to different pitches/keys.
But for me I think thats the first step to get us going and get a little momentum first learn a triad or a scale or arpeggio or interval and then just first been to play around with it and use it and have fun with it, then once it begins to feel more comfortable we can then begin to drill it and learn the theory and begin to master it in other positions on the and in other keys.
Its interesting to see everybody's thoughts on this and the different takes and perspectives of guitar.I don't believe there is only one path when it come to guitar I believe there are many different ways it can be approached and we can always learn from a new persecutive
💯 "often our hands and fingers can learn something quicker than the brain by forming shapes and grips, but our ear and our theory need to play catch up"
I still practice / review C Triad Inversions and F Triad Inversions. Vertical & Horizontal ways.
Very important to hear those triads inversons before you play them.
I try to play softer on 345/456 set strings / Vertical and I try to play softer on 7th fret to 13th fret / Horizontal. Plus I focus to sustain each triads and play them softer left hand touch and no finger noises.