Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Cruz, I thought that was beautiful. If you were trying to capture the sentiments of Tomo's quote below, I feel you nailed it.

Like you said...."beautiful and flowing..."

Thank you Linda so much :). I do love how Neo Soul flows. Its so fun to try to play.

Great job Cruz! Let me give you my advice on this song.

Thank you.

Tomo

Wow Tomo you continually blow me away with your graciousness in sharing with all of us. I never expected to get so much wonderful direction. I am now really digging into this feedback and so excited and grateful for what you shared here. Thank you so so much.

I am so inspired by what Ive been watching you play in some of your recordings and this brings it to life for me. Thank you !!!!!

Always good when Sir Duke enters the room

Thank you Sammi for the great context and quotes. I've been watching Tomo and Toshiki quite a bit still more to listen too so I can get the flow and approach.

The message you shared I may put it on my wall in my music room. lol.

Love this quote, "I could play blues technically, but emotionally I couldn't connect myself to the music. I tried to connect my soul with the guitar, to get away from any theory or technique, to stop thinking too much."

Thanks :)

Lovely groove and lovely playing Cruz! Thanks so much for sharing this!

Melody and chords! You can imitate the original melody of this song. That I would do. Without the original melody... a little hard to come up my own melody. I would do play like BB King too! Less notes, less range and more space!

Can you play chords? You can make your own duet video! You can play rhythm guitar part and melodic solo part.

Another idea is to play Major scale on basic chords in this key... then any non-diatonic chord(S), you can practice chord tone (triad & 7th etc) This way you can hear more intervals.

So happy to hear your performance! So good! Please keep going!

Tomo

Thank you for the guidance and will work to do better there. I was just doing a groove in CM just now noticing I was never even looking at the chords so I think you hit on something I really need to get better at. Melody as well. Good points all around.

Thank you!

My pleasure! I made my advice videos above! Please check them and let me know...

Don't look at any chord names! Learn all by ears! Better to know chords if you want to solo over!

Tomo

Tomo Totally dig those videos and they are exactly what I need right now in my journey. Diving in now and I gave a longer response above using the reply button.

Thank you again !!!! :)

Thank you Andy! Yes! Cool chord progression. Great thread from Cruz!!

Tomo

Maybe you can apply with this lesson.
https://tomovhxtv.vhx.tv/videos/at43-john-mayer-style-soloing-over-2-chords

Tomo

Hey Andy for me since I was just using Tomo's one finger scales on several strings. Finding I have to really know where to go, thinking in shapes is too limiting for me and Tomo opened my eyes to that I need to really know.

Once i really have the scales down I'm finding i can just flow any direction :).

Andy, so good!
Sounds right to me!

I spent a little time on this, got my looper out and realized it changed the sound, and stopped....

Your work is inspiring me to continue, right after my walk. "The motion is the lotion!" (as Linda says, so true.) Thank you my friend.

Great job Andy! These chords are not easy.... but you sholud keep going.

This song is based on typical Soul/Jazz music and it's original. I can help you more about chords.

I made this video for you.Please check it. I added aditional song idea too.

Tomo

Yes! Sunil! Andy's post is so ispiring as yours too!

Tomo

Thank you Tomo!

I love the video you made for Andy, and everyone above! Killer!

Thanks so much for making this video, Tomo! Yeah, I thought maybe I was making a mistake by playing Esus4 in the 4th bar, thank you for correcting that one!

For the D chord in the next (5th measure), I am playing D6/9 (I think!). Is that right?

OK, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy is on my list!

Great job Cruz! Hope you didn't watch that video to learn these chords! (I am hoping!)

Learn chords by your own. Only listening... then if you really cannot ... then you can look at something.

Can you watch my video of playing these chords? Please learn those basic forms too.

Loveky playing and sweet tone!!
For soloing, first you need to use "limitation"
- Only top 123 set strings
- Only up to 12th fret (highest note)
- Use more rest as much as you play phrases
- Do not fill space all the times
- Think about end of phrases (duration)

Melody, melody, melody!
Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm!

Tomo

Really nice Cruz!

Thank you Tomo so much for the continued direction and tips. Working on my rig as the better it sounds the more inspired I am.

I wish I was good enough to learn those complex chords by ear. Not quite there yet but learning.

I spent most of my time watching your video and some of the fingerings I wasn't able to find. I have never learned these complex chords before. I'm still mostly a novice on guitar who knows a little theory and my lack of knowledge shows up quite often. Thats why I'm Im here at GW :).

Here's the sheet I created and used to try to find the inversions I used. One question on multi note chords that have like 5 notes, how do you decide which notes are kind of optional?

Thanks for the tips on improvisation and you are right I dont leave space. Started looking at Santana as I love his approach. :)

My number one thing is to have fun while making music otherwise my guitar doesn't get used :). No one noticed the bar scene background I used on the TV to inspire me lol.

Thank you for sharing that! Like that... I wll avoid to look at.... So when I have to learn music from YouTube... Nornally I like to download only the music so I can use my ears!

I will not look at the chart like that. Those will ruin your dream!
No need to write all out those notes! You can think about them if you want.
Guitar chords are voice a litte different way than that chart. That's basic 4 notes voicings with tension. It is correct but guitar chords are not voice R 3 5 7 9..... R 3 7 9 is better. Case by case... omit the 5th. Or R 3 6 9 5 .... R 6 9 5 etc....

So idea is do as much as you can and try to find parents of THAT song!
I already sort of knew those parents song of THAT song... that's why I can figure all chords first. Even just BASS and MAJOR or minor... that's way better than lookin at the chart like that.

So great to know what's going on.
You can learn those chord from my videos and think about those notes.... C#7(#9) = R M3 b7 #9 etc.... You can figure them out then think about intervals.

Thank you for sharing! Later I will make a video for suggestion on how to learn chords by ears.

Tomo

Thank you for the in depth demonstration. I can see why you know so well as you understand the sound your going for. I'll start working toward it will take a while to get some of this down but I understand what you are saying.
Thank you so much Tomo

You're very welcome! So happy to hear that you understood what I am trying to do here. It will take some time but you are going to be happy with the result in future. I can hear chords and song form clearly so I can jam with people. Thank you for your understanding.

Tomo

Man - there's a lot packed into this one. I'm blown away by what you did with Autumn Leaves. I'm actually re-thinking my whole study / practice regimen as I sit here. I'm not using the songs I'm learning nearly enough to study applied theory. I'm too focused on "how" to play, and not nearly enough on "what" I'm playing.

Thank you Clay! I really appreciate it! Autumn Leaves = R 3 7 & Triads! So much to learn! Very effective song to apply those 2 items effectively. Theoy itself is nothing but once you use songs and apply them. To play well.... need some techniques ...not to practice songs over and over.

Tomo

Nicely done