Major Lead 03 - 3 Note Patterns For Technique & Improvisation

Welcome to lesson 3 in this acoustic lead guitar series where we're checking out how to play the major scale in a pattern. So, uh, this whole series is about lead guitar, and to play lead guitar we tend to learn scales and techniques and things. Now rather than just practising and learning scales in scale order, so note 12345, etc. what it's really good to learn is learning it in a pattern, learning any. Scale and a pattern. And in this particular lesson we're gonna look at how to learn it in a pattern of 3. So learning the notes ascending 123, and then going back 1234345, etc. This is great for technique and knowledge, but it also really applies when you're coming up with melodies or any lead guitar solos, especially over a major key backing track. Let's get in for a close-up now and check out exactly how to do this. Now let's have a close up on this 3 note pattern, and I'm gonna demo this with the major scale in position 1 in C. So we're doing the C major, this is the 8th fret of the thickest Estring. Just counter pain frets and you will get here. And we need to start on the middle finger as before, but we're going to play 3 notes. 123. Then go back 1 to the 2nd note of the scale played by the little finger. And then play 123. And then go back 1, starting from what would be that 3rd note and go 123 again. And we're just gonna make sure we've got those 1st 5 notes before we move on. So 1, just to get the notes first of all, 8th fret. 10th fret And then 7th threat is on string 5. Then 10th fret 7th threat. Hey Fret And then 78, 10. All just on string 5, remember the tab for this, and every lesson in this course is available on the website andy guitar.co.uk as a free ebook as well as just underneath the video on each lesson page. So a recap over those. 23 Really good idea to sing it as well if you want to enhance that connection between what you're playing and the actual pitch of of the notes that uh that you're playing as well, not just the physical motions. Um, it's really best to try and get this either with alternate picking. So down, up, down, starting with the down, and then no matter what note you're playing, down, up, down, up. So that would be down, up, down, up. Up, down. One last time with that. OK, and we can even do this with finger style by using the uh claw hand method just plain with the thumb and then the first finger alternately, thumb first, thumb, first thumb, first thumb, first thumb. And that is where I would definitely make sure that you, you need to have this down and and be more comfortable with this before we move forward and before we go for the whole scale cos it does get a little confusing. And um I definitely think that um what's in the tab that I'm following, the the ebook that I'm following to to teach this is um after we've got this. I then really recommend moving it up each of those 3 octaves. That we covered in the previous lesson, in lesson 2 of this major scale series, where we started from here. 10th fret of the D string, but then do exactly the same finger motions. And also from 13 Fred. The idea is we've already got the mechanics down because you've learned it here. You already know where to put your fingers, as long as you start from the right note, it should feel very similar, and the letter names of the notes are the same. See. D E F E F G. Really good for your um uh fretboard navigation and you know, if, if you've done the work to learn this part, you may as well learn it here and here as well, cause you already know those finger positions. So that is uh the 1st 3 lines of the tab for lesson 3. The final part of the tab. In the e-book and on the lesson page shows us the three note pattern with the full major scale position 1 ascending to begin with. So the first um bar and um one note shows us, um, well the first bar at least. Is exactly what we've already done. So the last note. That little finger, that 10th fret, is the first note of the second bar of of that uh that little sequence. So then after 10, we go back to the middle finger and it's another back one but then forward 2123. Back 11. Back 1123. Now this lesson would take um a lot longer if every time I went through it, I was saying out fret numbers, and I feel it gets more confusing. What you need to do to really be confident to play the next set of notes to take us all the way up to the top. And then descending as well, is no position one. Of the major scale Off by heart. Which exactly how to do that is in lesson one of this series. You really need to have that um under your fingers as I like to call it, already, sort of the muscle memory is there, not too many note mistakes, a good acid test is to be able to play it 4 times through at any speed, so super slow is fine. But try and make no real note mistakes, no, no real blunders as it, as it were. And then you can get the concept when you've got that shape memorised when you're looking at the fretboard, not just following the tab. That we're snaking over the fretboard but always going um never missing any notes out, but going 123, back 1123, back 11. 3. That's where we've got to so far. 10th fret of string 5. Back 1, middle finger. 123. Back 1 is the little finger at 10. 12. Back 1, all on string 412. Now here is another big marker point which takes us up to uh nearly the end or really the middle of uh bar 3, bar 3 of this tab. Because that again is this octave. Um, so if you can get to that octave. If you can get to that octave. It's a really big marker point and again I would get there fairly solid before moving on. From there, it is tough on the little finger. But again, 123. Back 1. That one. Back one. Blam, Back 1123. And that octave is the last point of those first two lines of the tab. And in the resulting sound, it's very pleasant, it's very melodic, these patterns are a great way to sort of build, build melodies. 234. That is um that two lines of tab showing the three-note pattern with major scale position 1. Couple of things to watch out for and things that will help you get to this level if you feel that you're not quite there yet. One is the spider exercises, or what I call just the finger exercises um that we've looked at previously, which include just playing each note one at a time, or each fret one at a time. And then even going down. They don't sound too pleasant, but using these sort of geometric shapes. Is a really good way of training your fingers and uh getting the sync between your two hands much better, which will again stop any dead notes and any blunders as I call them. And the other thing is making sure that with your uh picking hands, no matter if you're doing finger style or whether you're using a pick, that we are somewhat muting, uh, at least the open strings and also any string that we're coming off of. Otherwise, when we play. Uh, this, we, it, what can happen. You can hear these other strings sort of ringing out when I play it sort of badly, but as I did then, if yours is sounding a bit like this, particularly on those middle ones. Either hearing open strings or just getting some strings kind of ringing out in the background like um like like getting a note, a background note all the time. We don't want that, we need to be really careful, and if I go from this middle octave. When we come down a string. With the picking hand. With the picking hand If I've just played string 4, for example, when I play string 3. As I pick, the lower part of my thumb here hits string 4. And when I come back to hit string 4, to pick it, no matter whether a downer or an up. The uh my fingers here, the the soft part of them or the nail, any part of them, can hit string 3. So only one of them rings out at any one time. It's much more in advanced when we start paying that amount of detail to it, but that's the amount of detail that you can add to every exercise that we're looking at in this course and others whenever you're playing single note lines of of any kind. If we want one note heard. It's no good if we have, you know, other notes ringing out as well. So we need to, um, as I say, have something rested on other strings, particularly on electric guitar, but it's so important. By the time I end up here, for example, if I'm with a pick, really the lower part of my thumb and the palm is rested over the thickest 5 strings. So all the notes. You know it's rusted all all those otherwise there there will be some that rings out and there will be this background noise.