Hey, how are you doing? Justin here.
In this lesson we are going to be looking at the E minor pentatonic scale in the
open position. Now, we haven't really looked at lot of scales.
The basic idea of a scale is we're playing one note at a time. And this is
really a great thing to start working on. It's great for pick accuracy.
You're gona need it if you're playing your riffs and all of that sort of stuff.
So, there are lots of reasons that we learn scales. We could use them for
improvising, like I said, riff creation. And there are kind of usufull as an
exercice as well. Now, this particular scale that we are
doing today, I want you to use all down picks. OK?
We're gonna talk a little more about picking and I am going to do close-ups
on extra food for thought in the very next lesson. But just for this one right
now, I just want you to think about playing down picks with your picking
hand as we go through and learn the scale.
So we will start by playing the open thickest string...
and then the third finger is going to go down in the third fret of the thickest
string and you're gonna play that note.
Just with another down pick. Then we are gonna play the open fifth string.
Then we are gonna use our second finger to play the second fret
on that same string. Then we are going to play the open fourth string.
Then second fret, second finger.
Then open thrid string.
Again, second fret, second finger.
Open B string, the second string.
Then third finger, third fret.
Open E string or thinnest string.
String one. Then third finger, third fret.
Thinnest string. To go back down, we don't play that note twice.
We go back to the open string. Now, we are going to play the next note, we play,
is going to be the third fret on the second string.
Then the open string.
Then the second fret on the third string.
Still with the second finger. Then the open.
Then second fret on the fourth string.
With the second finger.
The the open string.
Second fret on the fifth string.
Then the open fifth string.
Thrid fret on the thickest string.
And then the open. OK? One more time.
Open.
Third fret.
Open.
Second fret.
Open.
Second fret.
Open.
Second fret.
Open.
Third fret.
Open.
Third fret.
Open. Still on the same string now, to the third fret on the second string.
Open second string.
Second fret, third string.
Open third string.
Second fret fourth string.
Open fourth string.
Second fret fifth string.
Open fifth string.
Third fret on the thickest string.
Open thickest string. When you first try this you probably
going to find it pretty challenging. Your're going to pick the wrong strings
regularly. I found it incredibly difficult to pick the right string all
the time. I'd have my finger on a note and then be picking just... it seems
every string except the one that I wanted to play. That's, it's just
normal. This is going to be a new challenge. It's a different thing
to what stuff we worked on. It's a little bit similar to the riffs and it's going
to be very helpfull for your riff playing, for sure.
But you're going to find this a little challenging. There is going
to be another challenge which we will talk a bit more about in the next lesson,
which is going to be string muting. I'll just let you know what that is.
That's what we will gona be discussing exactly how we pick and the position
of the hand and wether we rest the fingers on. So, all of that is going off
in just a second. So I will do that in a separate lesson in case there
are more questions about it. At this stage, you want to be
memorising the shape. This open, third finger, second finger, second
finger, second finger, third finger, third finger is on the thinnest two
strings. Then it's just second finger all the way down until the thickest string.
You want to start working on it as a shape, trying to envisage that shape
in your mind and remembering the pattern. Because you got to
memorise this, you know. It's fine to look at the actual scale diagram
for the first few times but you don't want to be relying on it all the time.
You just don't. OK? So, use a tab or use a scale diagram to learn it, to
memorise it and make sure you get it right. Actually that's something else
I should mention here. You want to be doing it slow enough to get it absolutely
perfect. Because if you do it really slowly and you get it exactly right and
you do it a few times, then your brain got's like a code, it knows what
insructions to send out and then it's alot easier to say "Hey brain, do that same
thing but do it a little faster please." And it won't struggle with it.
There's that old adage that you might have heard "Practice makes perfect".
Actually practice doesn't make perfect. It's ridiculous to think that you keep
doing the thing wrong and suddenly it's going to get better. It isn't.
Practice makes permanent. So practice perfectly. OK? This is really, really
important thing as we start getting into more complicated things.
You gotta practice it exactly right. Because every time you practice it,
You're making it more and more permanent. And if you've got a mistake in there it's
gonna take, might take some -- quite some time to iron it out and get it correct.
That said there are certain things in the beginner journey that I am kind of
showing you not exactly the whole right thing, because there's a bit of a
balancing act that I have to find as a teacher I go "Ah maybe do I teach them
that really difficult part of this yet?". Actually the next lesson is one of those
things where I have been weighing it going "Ooo do I teach them about
string muting that might just lead to confusion." So there's this little
you know, we have to try and find a balance here. I'll talk a bit more
again about that in the next lesson and I'll explain exactly what I mean.
So, just be aware of that, particularly with the shapes stuff. You don't
want to get the shape wrong. You want to take your time and be doing
it slow enough, that you can make sure you get the shape exactly right.
Now the part of it that I want to talk about before we get more into the
picking is playing with a metronome. Now, the first few times you practice
it you don't want to go near a metronome. Right. Maybe the
first three, four, five times. Just don't, don't even worry about going near
a metronome. Just play it really slowly and make sure that you can get it
exactly right. Once you feel confident with that, Then you might want to have
a go at playing with a metronome. Playing with a metronome is, you're
gonna be playing one note for each clic. A target tempo would be something
like 80 beats per minutes. So setting a metronome to 80 and just try to
play along with the clics so you'd be
going "Clic, clic, clic, clic, clic, clic. And just try and get it through...
so it's a nice easy tempo. Again, I'm saying a nice eady tempo, 80 BPM for
many of you will be an abolute freakout. OK?. You'll find that you miss some
notes altogether. You might be able to get one of the notes on the beat or
you get completely out of time with the metronome. If so, just slow the
metronome down. Find the tempo where you can do one note for each clic.
Maybe it's 60, maybe it's 50. If you can't get it at 50 then you probably
want to go back to just not practicing with a metronome and just work on
the dexterity and being able to pick the right notes. But don't be harsh
on yourself. If you're finding that your kind of OK at 80 but occasionnally
you are missing a note. Bah. It's no big deal. OK? The idea of
practicing with a metronome is trying to-- it induces a bit of panick
playing with a metronome which is what it's like when you play for real
because the beat never stops when playing for real. So playing with a
metronome is really good practice for that kind of thing. You know, building
in this idea of having to play in time. Because you should be playing in
time all the time. Right? So, that's-- the more stuff you do with the metronome
the better you develop your time feel. Your sense of time internally
as well as your ability to be able to play with another musician. OK?
Playing with a metronome, a metronome is not really a musician but it's the
same thing, getting used to playing, hearing a pulse and being able to play
along with it will help you play with other musicians as well.
So i've alluded to it quite a bit already the next thing we will be talking about
is how to pick and keep the strings muted that you don't want to
ring out. That's mostly to do with this hand. So we're going to talk
a lot more about how you actually pick the strings in the next lesson.
So stay tuned for that.