Hi, how you doing? Justin here again.
Welcome to IM-113, where we're checking out the major scale position 1.
Now for those of you that are following on from the beginners course
this will be the first look at a major scale.
And I want to share with you a couple of principles
about learning scales, before I show it to you,
Which are really, really important. And the big one,
and it's a really, really, really important skill that you should develop.
Which is when you are learning scales you do it slowly and accurately.
Now the reason for this is that as you are learning a scale,
it's like programming a new kind of code
if you think about how complex it is playing a scale,
the amount of neurons that have to fire off in your brain
to tell exactly what finger to move where
and the pick hand to pick at just the right time.
That's a whole lot of code, if you like,
that your brain has to send down to your fingers.
Now, if you get it right from the very beginning,
and you make sure that your fingers go in the right frets at the right time
and, you know, you get it 100% correct,
when you're finished learning the scale,
and you've played it through maybe 4 or 5 times really slow,
you can then tell your brain:
"Hey do that thing I've just been doing,
but do it faster, please." And you won't have any problems.
It really works like that.
If you start making mistakes at the beginning,
and you play it, and put one finger down and lift it off
and put the right finger back on and pick the wrong string
and all of this sort of stuff,
it means that it'll take you an awful lot longer to learn the scale.
And this is probably the most important thing you can get from this lesson,
it's this technique of doing things really slowly
and getting it right at the beginning.
Don't pollute your mind with the things that are wrong,
and just, if you get it right from the beginning,
you'll have a lot smoother journey all the way.
As I show you this scale,
I want you to go on the web site, have a look at the diagram
and do it yourself real slow. Really slowly.
You might feel a bit ridiculous doing it so slowly,
that's how slowly you should be doing it. Like,
looking at my diagram and go:
"OK, It's the 2nd finger, and it's on the 3rd fret of the thickest string."
"So it's the 2nd finger, the 3rd fret, of the thickest string, is that right?"
"Yeah, that's good, OK." Then play the note.
Then look at the next one, and go:
"OK now, it's the little finger on the same string,"
"OK that'll be that one there, OK"
"Let's check, yeah that's it." That kind of thing, REALLY slow.
And it might feel a little frustrating,
especially for you guys that are teenagers.
Now I never did this, I've got to be honest.
when I was learning scales and stuff, I just used to rush through them all the time.
But I also made loads of mistakes
which took years, and years, and years, of practice to get through
and start playing them the right way every time.
The more mistakes you make, the more often those little mistakes sneak in,
just when you don't want them to.
It really makes a big difference if you can learn it right from the beginning.
So, that's really important.
Second thing I want to mention:
make sure that you play with your fingertips.
Now, this is one of those things that you need to do at this stage,
but later on, we might start changing it a little bit,
because eventually your fingers will have more than one task.
They're not just playing the note
but they're also probably muting some stings and stuff like that as well
But, at this stage you really want to be playing right with your fingertips.
The same part of your fingers that you want to be using for the chords.
Right on the ends, make sure your fingers are nice and round all the time
keeping it technically really solid would be an excellent, excellent idea.
Now the other thing that I want to mention is learning one position at a time.
We're just learning now major scale, position 1.
I want to teach you major scale, position 1:
how to use it, how to play it.
Be able to make up a little solo with Major scale position 1
before you think about learning any other positions.
This is really important.
The amount of times I've met guitar players that can play 5 positions of the major scale
all up and down the neck,
but can't do even a simple basic solo
with any one them, it's just unbelievable. It happens all the time.
I'm forever meeting people who say the same thing,
"I know all my scales, but I can never make music from them, I can't play a solo."
Don't learn 5 positions if you can't make music out of one of them.
Learn this one position and make sure you stick with this one position,
before you start trying to learn other different positions.
Make music out of that position 1.
It's really possible, you don't have to know lots of positions to make up a good solo.
You only need one. You don't even need one really,
you just need a good ear.
But you need to be able to use that one properly, right?
Really, really important.
Next really, really important thing -- there's a few of them, sorry --
is that we're going to start and end on the lowest root note.
Now the root note for the scale is the same as chords and with the barre chords,
where we have one note which determines the note name of the scale.
That's exactly the same with the scale we're about to learn now.
We're going to learn G Major scale.
And we're gonna be starting with our 2nd finger in the 3rd fret of the 6th string.
And that's the note G,
as you hopefully remember from your barre chord playing.
And starting on that note G,
will give us -- at the 3rd fret -- will give us the G Major scale.
. . .
If we started with that 2nd finger on the 8th fret
What's the note on the 8th fret of the thickest string?
C, well done.
If we started with the 2nd finger up on the 8th fret.
. . .
We'd have the C Major scale.
So, in effect by learning this one major scale,
you're in fact learning all of the Major scales.
One of each, one position of each Major scale.
Which is a pretty cool thing.
And this is the idea of using a root note
and then just having to move that scale around.
Being able to move a scale around the neck is obviously really important,
to be able to play every scale in every key is kind of the long term aim.
And that's why we make sure that when we're practicing the scales
we always start and end on the lowest root note.
This is also something I think is really important.
A lot of people kind of get off on the wrong foot
or get shown by someone not to do it this way.
I really think it's important.
The reason for that is that you learn where to move your scale shapes too,
to create a different scale straight away, you know.
If you know the root note is there, with the second finger,
and you want to move it to a D Major scale, you know to move it up to the 10th fret.
The idea is very simple,
and you should hold this with every scale that you learn.
Every new scale,
you start and end on the lowest root note.
In this case, we're going to be starting on the note G.
. . .
Going up as high as we can.
. . .
Down as low as we can,
and then back up finishing on the note G.
We sound like this:
. . .
Really important, starting and ending on the lowest root note.
You can also hear it.
You can hear as well this, "do ré mi fa sol" thing.
Do ré mi fa sol la si do. Do ré mi fa sol la si do.
If it doesn't sound like that,
hopefully you know this "sol fa" scale, it's called.
If you know the sound of that,
and your scale doesn't sound like that, you've made a mistake.
Go and check it right away.
Make sure you let your ears switched on while you're learning the scale as well.
OK, that's more than enough talking from me.
Sorry for those of you that just go like: "Just get on with it."
We're going to get on with it right now,
let's go to a close up and check out G Major scale in position 1.
We're starting off here with the 2nd finger in the 3rd fret of the thickest string.
Then we're going to add the little finger in the 5th fret.
Next string, we're going to have the 1st finger in the 2nd fret.
Second finger in the 3rd fret.
and little finger in the 5th fret.
Next string, we're on the 4th string now.
First finger in the 2nd fret.
Third finger in the 4th fret.
Little finger in the 5th fret.
Next string, we're now on the G string:
First finger in the 2nd fret.
Third finger on the 4th fret.
Little finger on the 5th fret.
Next string: 2nd finger on the 3rd fret.
This is important to remember that, on this one string,
we're starting off here with the 2nd finger.
Then little finger on the 5th fret.
We are now up to the thinnest string.
First finger on the 2nd fret,
Second finger on the 3rd fret,
Little finger on the 5th fret.
Now, I'd recommend that you practice the scale
just going up to start off with.
Make sure you can get it right,
just going up.
Also notice that you've got this little pattern here
of 2, 4, 1, 2, 4. I'm talking about finger numbers, of course.
2, 4, 1, 2, 4.
Then 1, 3, 4, 1, 3, 4.
Then again 2, 4, 1, 2, 4.
So if you divide it into kind of 3 sets, if you like,
you've got 2, 4, 1, 2, 4, and then 2, 4, 1, 2, 4
on the outside groups of two strings.
With 1,3, 4, 1, 3, 4, in the middle.
Let me just play it through for you now one time all of the way through.
And we're gonna be now adding in this note here, right at the end.
Because as I said, we want to start on the lowest root note,
which is the note G, play it up as far as we can.
. . .
Back down as far as we can.
. . .
and finishing on the root note.
So one more time, I'm just going to play it nice and slow.
. . .
Well I hope you are going to take my advice
and practice this really slowly and make sure that you get it 100% right.
You will certainly find the diagram on the website very helpful for doing this
and it's worth definitely looking at it while you're practicing it
to make sure you get it right in the early stages.
One more thing I need to mention here is the picking.
Now, when you're learning a scale for the first time,
the thing that I recommend is to use all down picks,
just to take the idea of picking out of the equation,
just concentrate on playing the scale,
and use all down picking, just to get it right.
Now, ideally you want to be doing alternate picking for this.
So we'll all the way through down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up,
down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up,
down-up, down-up, down. Up-down.
So when you're starting and finishing that root note,
actually the root note on the 6th string,
and the double octave root note on the thinnest string,
should both be down picks.
That's a good kind of a little check point to make sure
you're going along with that and that you're doing it right.
If you struggle with your alternate picking,
say it out loud as you do it.
Count and, you know, say it to yourself: down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up.
Just because it's very, very difficult to say one thing and do another.
Even if you DO do it wrong,
you'll recognize that you've made a mistake, straight away.
So really keep an eye on it.
Start with all down picks, learn the scale,
and as soon as you're cool with the scale
and your fingers kind of know what they're doing,
and you can think a little bit about something else
-- ie.; your picking hand --,
then start to concentrate on that alternate picking: down-up, down-up.
OK, now it's just time to put in some practice into this one.
Make sure again that you're using your timer for 5 minutes.
So you get 5 minutes of really concentrated, good, solid practice when you're doing this one.
Just practicing the scale up and down for now. That's all I want you to work on.
We're gonna get into using the scale very, very soon,
but, to start off with, you need to know the scale properly.
So, just start off with up and down, really concentrate, get it 100% right,
and I'll see you for another lesson very soon.
Take care, bye bye.