Great Lesson!!! I am looking forward to the videos where you will be elaborating and explaining in detail the wrist/forearm rotation in combination with the pulling back of the elbow for the "no fingers independance needed" waynof playing... And i hope some exercises will be included!!! Thanks!!!
hey ben, how do you learn the intervals of new keys without getting confused with other intervals from other keys? Right now I know the intervals of g major really well and I'm trying to learn the key of c now but it's hard to distinguish the intervals of c major without thinking of g major. For example in G, when I play an e note I know it's my 6th, but in C now it's my 3rd and this gets kind of messy for me quick cause then when I switch back to G the intervals of C start creeping in and I get mixed up and accidently think of like my 3rd note B as the 7th from c. Can you make a video on this because I see everyone has an easy time learning new keys and I don't see anything online for my problem. thanks a lot
Sure! The guitar generally speaking is a very visual instrument - most of the time it’s slower to think in terms of notes than it is shapes. The way you are approaching it is very saxophone or piano-like - this is incredibly difficult on guitar because you have multiple instances of the same note on different strings Consider the following - both C major and G major are the same CAGED boxes or 3NPS scales translated to a different part of the neck (eg: you would play C major starting on the E string fret 8, whereas exactly the same shape played on fret 3 would be G major). If you learn where the intervals are in all the shapes / boxes relative to the root, changing key becomes a matter of superimposition - simply work out which shape of G major fits in the same place on the neck as the C major shape in each instance. This way you always know what interval you are on as you have memorised all the intervals relative to the root in each shape, but only have to remember 5 different superimpositions for a given key change. This always works as well, so superimpositions for C to G can be applied to any two keys a 5th apart.
It’s a pretty complicated problem and that’s why most guitarists struggle with it. There are other clever superimposition methods as well which I may go through in other videos!
I don’t think you’ve explained it very well. I believe you’re actually referencing a new root each time using intervals to think rather than shapes. And I think you’re also thinking that D is the b7 of E so you’re seeing the relationship between the two. I don’t believe you’re thinking shapes at all. Shapes are terrible waste of learning time but intervals permits freedom which is what I think you’re alluding to. You’re a great player by the way, very cool. Loved your ideas
Thanks for watching! I would very much disagree with the shapes comment. Shapes are incredibly useful and extremely fast ways of navigating the neck - the caveat is that you need to understand what they consist of! Consider the following analogy - if you were to try and have a conversation and spell out every single word as you go, you would be incredibly slow to use even the most basic sentence. This is what happens if you constantly think of individual intervals. Just as using groups of letters as words speeds up your processing time massively, seeing groups of intervals on the neck will do the same - groups of intervals becomes some kind of shape! In my opinion, CAGED box players (Guthrie Govan is a good example) and other shape based players (Allan Holdsworth came up with a lot of his own) will always be quicker to compute chord changes because of this. The shapes are not at fault here - it’s the user’s lack of understanding of them.
So to answer what I’m doing when improvising - I know my CAGED system incredibly well I know my 3NPS system incredibly well I know where the intervals are in each system over each chord type. It’s a lot of work, but I think gets some of the best results!
Stumbled upon this channel a few Days back and my God these tips are great! I felt stuck for a while but now i have a place to go!
Great Lesson!!! I am looking forward to the videos where you will be elaborating and explaining in detail the wrist/forearm rotation in combination with the pulling back of the elbow for the "no fingers independance needed" waynof playing... And i hope some exercises will be included!!! Thanks!!!
great tips man thanks for sharing!
also, what guitar is that? love the natural blue thing.
Thanks man! UK based luthier Munson guitars makes these. Great builder!
hey ben, how do you learn the intervals of new keys without getting confused with other intervals from other keys? Right now I know the intervals of g major really well and I'm trying to learn the key of c now but it's hard to distinguish the intervals of c major without thinking of g major. For example in G, when I play an e note I know it's my 6th, but in C now it's my 3rd and this gets kind of messy for me quick cause then when I switch back to G the intervals of C start creeping in and I get mixed up and accidently think of like my 3rd note B as the 7th from c. Can you make a video on this because I see everyone has an easy time learning new keys and I don't see anything online for my problem. thanks a lot
Sure! The guitar generally speaking is a very visual instrument - most of the time it’s slower to think in terms of notes than it is shapes. The way you are approaching it is very saxophone or piano-like - this is incredibly difficult on guitar because you have multiple instances of the same note on different strings
Consider the following - both C major and G major are the same CAGED boxes or 3NPS scales translated to a different part of the neck (eg: you would play C major starting on the E string fret 8, whereas exactly the same shape played on fret 3 would be G major). If you learn where the intervals are in all the shapes / boxes relative to the root, changing key becomes a matter of superimposition - simply work out which shape of G major fits in the same place on the neck as the C major shape in each instance. This way you always know what interval you are on as you have memorised all the intervals relative to the root in each shape, but only have to remember 5 different superimpositions for a given key change. This always works as well, so superimpositions for C to G can be applied to any two keys a 5th apart.
It’s a pretty complicated problem and that’s why most guitarists struggle with it. There are other clever superimposition methods as well which I may go through in other videos!
I don’t think you’ve explained it very well. I believe you’re actually referencing a new root each time using intervals to think rather than shapes. And I think you’re also thinking that D is the b7 of E so you’re seeing the relationship between the two. I don’t believe you’re thinking shapes at all. Shapes are terrible waste of learning time but intervals permits freedom which is what I think you’re alluding to.
You’re a great player by the way, very cool. Loved your ideas
Thanks for watching!
I would very much disagree with the shapes comment. Shapes are incredibly useful and extremely fast ways of navigating the neck - the caveat is that you need to understand what they consist of!
Consider the following analogy - if you were to try and have a conversation and spell out every single word as you go, you would be incredibly slow to use even the most basic sentence. This is what happens if you constantly think of individual intervals. Just as using groups of letters as words speeds up your processing time massively, seeing groups of intervals on the neck will do the same - groups of intervals becomes some kind of shape!
In my opinion, CAGED box players (Guthrie Govan is a good example) and other shape based players (Allan Holdsworth came up with a lot of his own) will always be quicker to compute chord changes because of this. The shapes are not at fault here - it’s the user’s lack of understanding of them.
So to answer what I’m doing when improvising -
I know my CAGED system incredibly well
I know my 3NPS system incredibly well
I know where the intervals are in each system over each chord type.
It’s a lot of work, but I think gets some of the best results!