HelloGuitar!
Lessons by Robert Johnston
The Vault:
unlocking the mysteries of music theory
to reach your untapped potential
I call this section the "vault", because I'm about to unlock and open the vault, so to speak, and show you some of the best-kept advanced guitar secrets. Ok, maybe they're not really "secrets", just the stuff that your average player doesn't know, stuff your average teacher doesn't know how to teach, and the stuff that only a handful of the best guitarists on the planet have figured out for themselves.
I realize that I've written at length here, because there's a lot of ground to cover, so I've divided this page up into sections for your convenience. Once you get an overview of where all this is going, you may want to go back and comb over the material more carefully and take several days, weeks, or even months to go over it one section at a time, just to give yourself time to digest each concept and internalize it to the point of second nature.
1) A lot of the tools in this first section deal with areas like jazz improv and progressive rock.
When I first started teaching full-time, around 2008, I was frustrated with the lack of material out there that really explains all the complicated concepts related to guitar, particularly fretboard theory, so I set out to devise the most comprehensive set of tools possible to help take your average guitar player and help advance them to the next level. This was the genesis of "Hello Guitar". I was pretty successful with it. At one point between 2010 and 2012, I had more of an online presence with players all around the world following my material. But I found that the internet marketing stuff to be tedious and time consuming, more of a full-time gig that took me away from the things that I really wanted to be doing with my life. So nowadays, I have less of an online presence, still enjoy teaching privately, and make my materials available for free so that I could still spread the gift of guitar and players like your can benefit.
So what is "Hello Guitar" all about?
First of all, my method is based on something I call the musical compass with intervals or degrees arranged in a circle in chromatic order. Sometimes people glance at my compass and think it's the circle of fifths. It's not! - It's laid out chromatically, and it's useful for many things like determining notes of a key, analyzing chord tones, visualizing chord relationships within a key, and transposing music from one key to another. You'll see it again and again in my material, as all the key templates are laid out in this circular fashion. You can make your own musical compass with page 104 of my ebook; Hello Guitar - starters kit
2) The other common feature of my method is root note mapping, a variation of the popular "caged" method. Every time you play a scale pattern or arpeggio, it's useful to know where in the pattern is the root note of that scale or chord found. As there are only five positions that octaves can be found on the guitar within reach of one another, and they're linked together like a chain, I've simplified this concept to a number system. When you see it, it'll look like this; P1, P2, P3, P4, P5. Often times, riffs and licks will move outside the box and span the fretboard horizontally or diagonally. For these occasions, it's useful to have something I call a root note map, which is just an abstracted version of the fretboard. Think of it like one big movable shape. There's just one little thing to get used to; The end of the neck will fall somewhere within the map depending on what root note you're on. So the edge of the map is not necessarily the same as the end of the neck. Because there are twelve possible notes of the chromatic scale, this saves the trouble of having to wade through twelve different illustrations that essentially illustrate the same concept twelve times, when it's really just a single abstract pattern or movable shape. You follow me?
A clear explanation of my approach to this is found on page 6 of my ebook on basic chord inversions, and you'll see root note maps at the top of each page for each chord type. Check it out; Chord Inversions ebook.
The advanced version of this is the musical compass chord bible, (see pdf below).
3) I'm assuming if you've been playing for a while that you've already learned most of your major scale box patterns, right? If so, look at the document below on "Major Position Cycles" - this shows you how to harmonize scale pattern in three-part harmony, i.e. how to play your basic I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, VII chords within a particular scale pattern. (each arpeggio/chord pattern within a circle is in the same scale pattern. Square=root note, White=chord tone, Green=scale pattern.) I've also included my hand-written notes on this same process applied to harmonic minor and melodic minor keys, although I have yet to take the time to illustrate it digitally. Why is this useful? - Well, when you improvise you want to be able, not just to play in key, but also to target and emphasize notes of each chord as they occur in the progression, a concept known as "harmony note targeting". And it's really just another layer of learning your scales. Practice this enough and your fingers will better be able to feel where your ear wants to go. Got it?
A lot of the advanced material that I'm about to show you is not available in any book or anywhere else on the web. In fact, it's so advanced that there isn't even much of a market for it outside of players like your who have been playing for a decade or longer and just need to get a better handle on the advanced stuff. It's also a blueprint for how to master the guitar without sounding like everybody else. You can master the guitar and still be yourself, or better yet, discover yourself through a more masterful approach. I should stress that this stuff is not for newbies or the faint of heart. But as long as you're a seasoned veteran player, you should be able to follow it ok.
4) When analyzing music, often there are moments that sound good but it's hard to explain why. These tools help you do that. Some songs just have those moments that give you goosebumps, but we often can't put our finger on what it is. When this happens it's usually because the music has color.
Now, where does "color" come from in music. After all, it has to come from somewhere right?
Outside of modes and chord substitutions, color comes from one of three places;
1) Borrowed chords from closely related keys
2) Secondary dominants, (which is really just a special case of borrowed chord)
3) Using blue notes, which can also be embedded in chords to make them sound "bluesy"
Before I go further into borrowed chords, I should talk a bit about blues, and blues theory, and why it's so pivotal to guitar.
The pentatonic scale, the five-note scale which the blues scale is based upon, can be found embedded within the major key in three different modes; dorian, phrygian, and aeolian. There are also hints of it in the harmonic and melodic minor scales. When you add in the rest of the notes from the major scale along with the blue note, you now have three basic types of blues, dorian blues, phrygian blues, and aeolian blues. Phrygian blues is less commonly used, so that leaves only two types of popular blues styles; dorian blues and aeolian blues. The aeolian mode is the natural minor mode, while in dorian blues, it's become conventional to also add a major third interval, sometimes called mixo-dorian mode, giving it a more "major" sound. For this reason, dorian and aeolian blues are more commonly referred to as "major" and "minor" blues. Cool?
Here's a simple example of how to go about this;
5) Now take a look at the "Structure of Music" illustration. Here you'll see a circular arrangement of keys, with major keys, harmonic minor, and melodic minor keys all interwoven. Unlike the musical compass, this IS laid out in fifths. Each line connecting one key to another, means that there is only one note different between one key and the next. Like, for example, the key of C is comprised of the set of notes {C, D, E, F, G, A, B} while the key of G is made up of the notes {G, A, B, C, D, E, F#}, and the key of A harmonic minor consists of the notes {A, B, C, D, E, F, G#} So the key of C is only one note different (F to F#) from the key of G, and the key of A harmonic minor is only one note different (G to G#) from the key of C, but the key of G is two notes different (F# to F and G to G#) from the key of A harmonic minor. This is because we had to connect via two lines to get from the key of G to the key of A harmonic minor. See how it works?
I know, you're probably thinking; "Ok, looks cool, but how is this useful?" - Well, now you know the secret, not only to understanding jazz, but also how to make music more catchy. Nine times out of ten, when you hear something catchy in music, it's because borrowed chords are involved. Even the success of chart-topping pop/rock songs both classic and modern, from Bon Jovi to Lady Gaga to William Pharrell, can be attributed to the use of borrowed chords. Without them, they would probably sound more bland and less catchy. Heck, the success of the Beatles can also be attributed to the use of borrowed chords. Take away the "color" and you take away that "catchy" essence of what helped the music succeed. - so now you know this, as a musician, you can use this to your advantage.
As a general rule, the less related a key is to the key of a borrowed chord, the more "jazzy" it's going to sound.
Below is also an example analysis of the jazz chart "Airegin", so you can see this process in action.
6) In the basic key templates, I showed you how to find the basic 3-and-4-part harmony chords in each key. If you open up the "Major Keys Advanced", "Melodic Minor basics" or "Harmonic Minor Basics" pdfs, you'll see that there are actually dozens of possible chord combinations in each key. When you add a blue note from one of the blues modes, then you may get another few dozen options for voicing. - and this is not even including stripped down harmonies or chord inversions.
Now, the last piece of the puzzle is knowing what chords can be substituted in a progression. Take a look at the "Chord Family Tree". This tools shows you how chords are divided into "families", giving you a sense of what chords can be substituted. As a general rule, only chords in the same family can be substituted for one another, and usually only a simpler chord for a more complex one, not the other way around.
7) Once you've had the chance to wrap your mind around all this, I want you to try the following writing exercise to help expand your playing. It goes something like this;
Step A) Pick a key and a mode, and use the basic key templates to come up with a chord progression.
Step B) Experiment with adding borrowed chords from a nearby key. Also think about adding secondary dominance or blues elements, if you wish. Be sure to write down your progression on paper, so you can follow it better in the next stages.
Step C) Use chord inversions to create a sense of call and response, or an "A version" and "B version" of your progression
Step D) Use the advanced key templates to experiment with "jazzing up", or "beefing up" your chord progression with chord substitutions. The key word here is experiment. Let it be a process of exploration and discovery.
Step E) now it's time to come up with melodic or solo ideas for your progression. As a general rule, I like to come up with ideas for solos in three areas of the fret board; at the end of the neck, the mid-neck, and upper range. You can dip into this idea bank for when you need a down n' dirty mean-sounding lick, or wailing and moaning flying high "money note" kind of lick, and everything in between.
Here's an example;
Conclusion - All this is pretty much my guitar method in a nut shell. There's other super advanced stuff that I could talk about too - like chromatic prioritization or scale matrixing, but you can worry about that when and if the day comes. I once had a student that asked me if there was really such a thing as a "wrong note", to which I replied "Not really, just some notes that are more important than others." Music theory is as deep as the ocean; most people just want to get their feet wet while others are out there scuba-diving with the sharks and whales, so how far you want to take it is totally up to you. If after you've had a chance to gloss over this material, you're still having trouble wrapping your mind (or fingers) around it, don't fret! It usually takes people years to tackle all of this stuff, and while there's no substitute for paying your dues and putting in the time, at least now you won't have to figure out too much for yourself. Think of all this kind of like a road map or overview. Now dig in!
Your friend in guitar,
- Robert J