Your videos are so straight to the point and yet so informative. Your music theory turns complicated concepts into an easy to understand lesson. Thank you so much!!
+Sara D So glad to hear that, it took me awhile to figure a lot of this stuff out and I never felt anyone could explain it to me in a way I could understand, so I've been trying to break it down a little differently. Happy to help!
I started learning the guitar a year ago. I intuitively knew that theory was fundamental to becoming a musician. So I learned all the notes, scales, cords and arpeggios throughout the fretboard and how they’re formed. There is still much for me to learn, but I feel I’m on the right track.
5:48 No matter what instrument it's played on: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, violin, piano, every single time I hear that low G and the octave G, my brain immediately thinks that C# should come next. Thanks, Black Sabbath.
Sean you make guitar learning so easy. I'm 26 and I picked the guitar up like 3 months back. Not saying I'm the best but the way you teach makes me already sound like a funky guitar player and I'm already jamming with bands. Wohoo!
I’ve been trying for years to understand guitar and this is the first time someone has explained it in a way that I can immediately and confidently grasp. Amazing.
I've just started playing guitar mate and am digging your videos. No info overload, just the important stuff that everyone should know. Thanks for the help mate!!
This literally made life so much easier. Not only is it easier to learn scales but as you learn one you literally learn more at the same time. If you learn the E pentatonic major scale you have also learned the C,D,G and ETC. Thank you!
"Shame" That one hit too close. It's what has kept me from playing out. I've been playing for 30 years and your videos are helping to unlock things I should learned a long time ago. Thank you brother.
I have been playing for many years not knowing the notes on the neck. Never seen anyone describe it this way. It makes prefect sense don't know why I did not see this years ago. I got some work to do. Thanks!!
I'd like to say thank you, this video and the other video showing beginner triad information, is like a secret almost guitarists. I know most people won't agree with me but I've been trying to understand it for years. I've played guitar for 25 years, and never been able to understand music theory in guitar.. I've paid for tuition and that led me to your videos to try and practise what I've been learning. So really big thank you for your unique and condensed lessons
Have been trying to play guitar since 1965, hey perhaps I am stupid !!! Now retired and just bought myself a new Strat and am determined to give it my best and last shot. I can understand these videos, never could with the 1 to 1 teaching route. Thank you so very much, I am getting the basics now and feel I will get there now.....well here's hoping.
Thank you. One of the biggest question I had was about knowing if you had to memorize the entire fret board for understanding guitar music theory. It's good to know that you don't because I have found you to be very knowledgeable about guitar theory. So I will rest a little easier about that.
Always brilliant Sean. Started playing thirty years ago at the age of forty. Back in the day it was books, tapes and private lessons with no additional take home resources. So easy to forget what you were just taught. So much time and money wasted with very little progress. Now we have great internet sites like yours that fill so many gaps. I will never be a gifted guitarist but just get so much satisfaction from singing a few songs and picking out melodies, plus learning something new everyday. I would guess that so many people who love this instrument are just like me. Please keep the "good stuff" coming and ignore any negative comments from folks that have no concept of your offbeat approach and sense of humour. Always maintain that entertaining approach to your lessons, as, I for one really enjoy them.
You did a video a while back on fast chord changes... But it doesn't look like you've done anything on how to improve picking speed. This is my nemesis. I've been trying for a couple of years and, yes, it slowly improves, but it's not even close to where I'd like to get. It's like there's this barrier that I can't seem to get past and I keep trying different practice techniques to improve it. Started just doing scales, over and over and over again. Finally dug out a metronome and did them against the metronome, but eventually hit the wall and couldn't really move past it. I've tried practicing various ascending and descending patterns to see if they would somehow eventually impart speed. When I was really focused on speed, I'd spend at least an hour a day doing scales and patterns and stuff. I finally just got tired of trying to go for speed and moved on to other stuff. I don't need to shred, but there are a lot of solos that simply require a certain degree of speed that i have so far been unable to attain. If you could do a lesson on, not only how to get your speed up, but also where to set your expectations... "If you practice an hour a day, you should expect blah blah blah" kind of advice. Yeah, I know everyone's different. And I know tons of people have covered speed picking, but most of them aren't nearly as good at teaching stuff as you are.
That was great! I've been playing for years and wouldn't call it shame exactly but I get frustrated at times because I don't know this stuff and can't seem to understand it when I try, but this was really helpful.
I know this is an old video, but do you have anything where you show the practical application of this? I'm looking for ways to work this into my warm up and seeing you use this to make music would be helpful. Thanks for the vid man!
Sean, you should have a Patrion site, I mean you are a real serious instructor and a very nice person for imparting seriously useful knowledge to us, the interested guitar learning public. This is good instruction and useful for actually picking up your instrument and playing with more confidence. Keep up the great work! ~ Marco
Everytime I watch your vids besides the styles and modal stuff, gettin better at that, I think damn me and this dude know the same shit and even teach alike. Lol good stuff man
The first thing I learned when I picked up a guitar was how to tune using relative tuning. Basically I would tune the Low E using a piano, then tune the remaining strings by comparing the 5th fret of the lower string. (except fr the B which is actually the 4th fret of the G) This basically tells you another trick to learn part of the fret board 5th fret of the low string is the same note as the open next string (except for B).
+haeleypapa Very cool man, I'm the opposite. Started on guitar and picked up drums. Your drum background is gonna help you so much! Have fun and good luck!
Pretty handy to know your notes if you're like me and have stubby fingers, and struggle with some finger positions when it comes to lead. You can usually find alternative finger positions that are more comfortable. But also, I guess when you're going from one tuning to another, transposing. But that's probably for intermediate to advanced level stuff. I've been playing for 16 years so far--second nature whether I'm playing in standard, Drop C, Drop A# etc.
+bogdan matvienko Happy to help! The closest thing I have to something like that is this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-__VtlxQZhXs.html Hopefully that helps out, but I'm probably putting a blues 1 4 5 one up later this week. Thanks for watching!
Just looking for some advice from anyone who has got past this stage on the guitar. I Can play barre chord shapes quite comfortably and I am in the process of learning the notes of each string. I wondering on what the next thing I should focus on should be? Should I have a look at some scales? Maybe some different shapes/chords. I just want to be able to navigate the fretboard a bit better and be able to piece together riffs/licks
Hey Sean, I found it easier to find notes when I learned all the C notes, all the G notes, all the D notes, etc. Before the 12th fret each string only has one of each of the notes. And the sharps and flats are just simply a matter of finding the natural note and moving either up or down one fret. So essentially by systematically learning the seven natural notes on each string you can immediately find any note you want quickly without having to go through the gymnastics of octaves. It's a one step process rather than a two step process, and all the notes above the 12th fret just repeat what you already know. FWIW.
Great lesson. When I was a total beginner, I would have been somewhat distracted by the C#/Db. Yeah I was easily distracted, still am! So I would tell anyone to call this a C# going up in pitch, and a Db on the way down for memorizing. Then I would explain that yes it’s the very same pitch and why we need two names. Very briefly, this confusing fact actually prevents further confusion when we make scales. You could actually wind up with two C’s or D’s, which would be even more confusing. I would also point out that our language has a lot of things that can only be understood in context, why should music be any different? “I found a new way to work today “, what did I say? I made all right turns? Got a bigger shovel so I could shovel more poop? Thanks for posting.
Your tutorials are amazing man. Keep em coming. And one more thing!! You have an accent..You add 'uh' at the end of many words. Wheres that from? just curious..
