Guitar Scale Theory - The Source of Chords (How to Learn Guitar Chords, Ep 2)

Welcome! Jared here from soundguitarlessons.com. This is the second video in a series called How to Learn Guitar Chords and today we’re going to talk about guitar scale theory. In the first video of the series I went over the 14 basic guitar chords for beginners so if you want to keep up with the series and follow along make sure you check that out if you haven’t watched it yet. I’ll put a link in the description with a playlist of all the videos in the whole series, and that’ll be updated as they come out. So I’m making this series on how to learn guitar chords because i don’t want the idea of learning a chord to be simply looking up a chord shape learning the name learning how to physically play it and say cool i learned a chord yes you did but i want to go much deeper i want you to be a sorcerer of chords that’s why the second lesson in this free course on chords is of course called the source of chords that’s right what’s the source of chords where do chords come from of course the source of chords is scales i want you to say that three times of course the source of chords is scales of course the source of chords of course the chords in scales are chords of we have to learn guitar scale theory to be able to do any of the cool deep understanding stuff that i want us to be able to do with chords and that means labeling the notes of a chord not the letter names but the theory numbers of a chord so we can manipulate it move it around add cooler notes to it add color to a chord add sevens add extensions analyze what chords are in a key so we can figure out that key and improvise something that’s guaranteed to sound good in it analyze the chords of a key so we can choose a selection of chords that we know is going to sound good together for composing or writing songs or jamming all of this stuff and this is exactly all the stuff and more that we’re going to learn in this series for this lesson it’s very simple we just need to be able to do one simple thing to lay the foundation to get to all of that awesome stuff and what that is is that we need to be able to count the numbers of the major scale off of any note off of any string off of any fret anywhere on the guitar then we can easily start to understand design and analyze chords now i said it that way that we need to be able to count in a major scale count the numbers of a key using the major scale instead of saying i need you to be able to play all your scales all over the guitar learn your scale forms play scale patterns you know play in every key in every position it’s not quite that and i have other videos on exactly that and i’ll put a link to those videos in the description but for this it’s actually not this idea of practicing and running scales but just this idea of being able to count through them as a map with this map if we can count with a major scale anywhere on the guitar then we can find and analyze target construct anything having to do with harmony and chords and it doesn’t matter if we’re looking at a minor key or a minor chord or a diminished chord or an augmented chord or if it’s major or if it’s something totally different this major scale structure that we need to be able to just kind of map around on the fretboard nice and slowly is fine is our measuring stick we just use it to find anything it’s our compass so we just need to know two things to have this skill that i’m talking about here one we need to know the structure of the major scale and two we need to know the interval distance of a whole step and a half step along any string but as well as crossing strings and that’s it you can literally place scales all over the guitar anywhere everywhere if you know those two things so first the structure of the major scale and if you’ve watched any of my other videos this comes up all the time because this is the foundation of any theory if you just know this you can start to build everything else off of it and all that is is that the major scale is seven notes one two three four five six and seven and there’s a half step between three and four and seven and one as our shortest distance that’s a single fret distance half step between three and four and seven and one and the rest of the notes are a whole step away so if we study that major scale structure along one string if i just take our lowest fret first fret sixth sixth string this happens to be the note f so if i call this one i’m going to play an f major scale and i have one whole step up to two two to three is a whole step three to four is a half step as we said four to five is a whole step five to six is a whole step six to seven is a whole step seven to one is a half step we just have to know that and then we can go in reverse nice and slow single finger is fine this is not about running scales it’s about seeing this structure if this first note is one the note right below it is seven one seven one two one seven one two three four three two three one two seven one okay so easy enough that our whole step is two frets on the fretboard and our half step is a one fret distance on the fretboard when you’re going along one string the whole steps and a half steps across the strings are the catch here that if we know this then you can start to go all over the place so the whole step distance when crossing strings is a total of spanning four frets and i would use my first finger and my pinky to play that so out here i’m just going ahead and saying all right my first finger is on the fifth fret and my pinky finger happens to be on the eighth fret that’s a whole step shape interval shape okay so here’s how i like to practice this okay there’s a total of four frets spanning and there’s two frets in the middle that is a whole step you can test it out by checking a whole step up on one string going two frets same note okay now i have that whole step shape between string six and five same exact shape between the next two strings five and four same exact shape between the next two strings four and three and then the unfortunate inconsistency here is that the strings three and two you have to have a different whole step shape that spans a total of three frets and has one fret in between that’s now a whole step between those two because of the tuning of the guitar if you do any tuning uh by ear with this kind of standard tuning method by ear you have to shift over to this fourth fret to tune between the third and second string same difference here that’s that’s why that’s happening back to string one and two uh we go back to the original whole step shape so you have whole step whole step whole step whole step whole step i actually like this as a little exercise to just drill that in play the whole step play the whole step play the whole step on each string set as for the half step it’s simply a stretch beyond that one fret if you stretch either finger over you’re going to get a half step nice crunchy sound half step half step so now we’re spanning a total of five frets and having to reach over this half step on the strings two and three is now spanning four frets total the same shape the whole step is on the other string sets we have to be able to see those now simply your practice homework is this make sure you can do this fun little exercise it’s a very kind of freeform exercise i want you to play any note on the guitar anywhere all right choose a random note okay i’m choosing that no and then i want you to choose a random number between one and seven okay i’m going to choose three and then we say okay this is the three of the key don’t worry about letter names don’t worry about actually even the root of the key if you want to explore what the root of the key is that’s okay but don’t think about the letter names of each note definitely don’t you think of the numbers if this is three well four is right next to it you can go up to four you can go up oh four to five is a whole step okay you can go anywhere you want and just cross strings whenever you feel like it or continue on a string whenever you feel like it so this is now five and i know well five to six is a whole step i could either go up there or i can use my whole step shape to go up to that same pitch and we hear how that same pitch is uh sounds the same as the one i just said okay six to seven okay seven to one is a half step just for fun i’m going to go half step cross string i’m on one just for fun i’m going to cross the string again one to two way over here knowing that that is my interval distance of a whole step look where i ended up playing 2 oh well 3 is here hey that’s the same pitch that i started on but i’m on a different string different fret okay 4 5 6 7 1 7 six oh well i’ll go six to five crossing with a whole step five oh i’ll go down a whole step on the string four three i’ll cross strings now two now i know i’m on a one i know i’m doing this kind of quickly seven six five four four three oh that’s the three we started on actually three two one seven one seven one two one seven seven six five um i’m all over the place right so if if you practice scale forms and scale shapes that like a scale and a position this is what we’re doing now is just weaving in and out all between them not thinking at all about any kind of scale shape or scale form but just simply what note am i on in the structure of the major scale what’s next to it on either side and then do i want to move all along the string or crossing strings and let it be a brain buster i mean the more it’s kind of like uh challenging you that’s those new neurons firing and building and making pathways we want it to be hard we want it to be a puzzle and so a little bit of that five minutes ten minutes that is amazing practice okay so just make sure that is at least clicking and making sense that ability you’ll see how in the next lesson in this series and other videos in this series how this is gonna be crucial i’m gonna talk about this i’m gonna say hey count up the strings in this way count up to the next note in this way just like we talked about that we need to be able to do doesn’t need to be fast but you need to be able to get it and say oh hold on i can do this cool let me think through it cool found it okay you’ll see how that’s going to pay off if you want to jump ahead a little bit and just look at something that’s down the road not in this series but just kind of separate and parallel to this i have a super cool um little booklet that i made called chords with color and i really put a lot of effort into it and it’s it’s a ton of chord shapes chord-shaped diagrams a big chord chart that shows the theory numbers of each chord which is what we’re leading towards here with the numbers and how um standard chords and basic chords like the ones we talked about in the first series can be manipulated into really rich and interesting and colorful sounding chords so i’m really proud of it and i encourage you to download it if you just go to my website soundguitarlessons.

com/chordswithcolor 10:58 - you can get a free copy of that there i just had a student email me recently that said wow i can’t believe you’re giving this away for free i would totally pay for this so i i really just want it to be a valuable thing for people so if you’re interested in checking out chord charts and interesting chord shapes some of them very easy to play and very kind of rich and beautiful sounding then uh please check that out there’s a link in the description as well in the next lesson of this series episode three we’re going to talk about the actual chord theory chord structure and labeling chord tones using the same method that we just learned so we’re going to start to say hey if we know these numbers now with a scale we can start to build chords with them by selecting specific numbers and analyzing chords by using this again as our compass as our measuring stick to measure things so it’s going to start getting really cool so continue to follow along if you haven’t subscribed yet please do and i’ll see you next time thanks so much.