 Guitar and Excel, C major, A minor scale fret number nine, focusing on the D note. Get ready, some coffee, and don't fret. No. Unless, of course, your guitar strings broke or something. My strings. But then I feel like fretting as part of the getting ready stage. After which point, you totally shouldn't fret at all. What have you done? You've destroyed music. Yeah, at least not until we start fretting stuff together. So I still feel like the intro, get ready, some coffee, and don't fret. Still works. It still works. You know, as long as you do it in chronological order. Well, turns out Granny Smith didn't know how to make a pig do the backstroke. Yeah, okay, Phil. I realize I didn't think about my intro very well. Uh-huh. Why don't you keep putting these photos in chronological order? I'm practicing my improv, okay, Phil? I'm practicing my improv. Because if I don't practice my improv, it'll never improve. How can I improve? Resulting in my improv being out-prov. You're stiff and monotone. Even though to improve was what I was out to prove. You need to project confidence. So stop trying to turn my efforts improv out, Phil. Turn your jersey inside out. Okay, stop trying to turn my efforts improv out. Leela, this is no time to show me your boobs. You know, God forbid you have to do a little editing work round here for crying out loud. Oh, show me again. Anyways, let's just get to the guitar. Here we are in Excel. If you don't have access to this workbook, that's okay. You can just follow along. But if you do have access, it's a great tool to run scenarios with. Quick recap of the project. Thus far, noting that you don't have to have watched all prior presentations to follow along with this one, but a general overview of the overall project can be useful. So let's go to that first tab to get that general overview. We've been looking at the C major scale and related modes starting out in open position defined as frets zero through three. Remembering that E represents the low or heavy E string, the one closest to the ceiling. Funnest way to map out all the notes in open position is generally to make the chords in a scale starting with the one chord, the C major chord, mapping it out, discussing it in detail. We then moved to the four chord because it also has a major chord construction, mapped it out, discussed it in detail, same with the five chord. Then back to the two chord, which is a minor chord construction, the three chord, the six chord, and then to the seven chord, which has that diminished chord construction. If we were to map out all the notes of all the chords that we looked at, we would basically be mapping out the notes in the C major scale and related modes, which would look something like the blue notes here in open position. We then moved to fret five to learn the middle of the guitar, not starting this time with chord shapes, but rather with scale shapes that we can link into the chord shapes that we learned in open position. We discussed the pentatonic scale as well as the major scale in detail and then tied out each of the notes in the C major scale and related modes. We then moved to fret seven and did a similar process in fret seven, learning the pentatonic scale shape, the major scale shape, and then mapping out each of the notes, tying them in from open position to the fret five position to the fret seven position, and now we're doing the same process starting on fret number nine. That's where we are at this point. We're at this location basically within the guitar. Let's get a quick recap of all the colors that we have here. Everything that has color in it is going to be part of our scale that we're working in the C major scale and related modes. However, you want to think of it. You can imagine the blue being the ones at the bottom, meaning the first color we put down, the base color is going to be blue at the bottom. Anything that isn't white has blue underneath is how you might imagine it. Then we put the pentatonic scale, which is the five out of the seven notes in green, which fits perfectly on top of the blue notes. Then we put the three notes of the chord that we're focused on. We're focused on the second note, which is note six or D and the related chord shape from it. We can construct a minor chord construction from it, noting that these three notes don't fit perfectly within the pentatonic scale because only really the C major and the related minor fit perfectly on that pentatonic scale because we constructed the chords using the notes four and seven, which are not in the pentatonic scale. We could see here, if I build out my chord, there's the F that we're going to be using. If you think in terms of pentatonic and then adding the crucial note, then you'd want to say, I'm in kind of like the C shape, the pentatonic shapes, and then add the crucial note, which in this case is going to be the F because that's the third of the D minor chord. Then within here, we've got these brackets which are basically breaking out the guitar into segments. We can think about the open segment where we learned the open chords. That shape number four, some people will call it the C shape, and the reason they call it a C shape is because when we look at the related major scale, if you think about it in a mode, meaning if we focus on the two note, then we would be building a D minor chord. We're not looking at a D minor scale though, but if we focus around that too, we would basically be playing and Dorian. But when we name these shapes, sometimes we name them in relation to the related major scale. So in this case, the C shape that fits in here is of course a C shape because it's in open position. So you can label the shape that way, noting that that shape will fit in multiple positions when we look at a seven note scale, but it will be unique to the five note pentatonic scale. So you can use that as a targeting mechanism. We'll talk more about the caged system specifically later, but we of course are focused on this time the D and the D looks like this. So within this shape, we have mapped out the D in the dark blue, which is a little bit difficult to see. If it's leaning back, we put the full box around it and it's over the top. So this is over the top of the next shape that's going to basically overlap here. So here's the next shape, which I can call position number five. You might call it an A position. Why is it an A position? Because if I go back to the C and then I map this around the string, you end up with an A shape, but we're not focusing on the C. We're focusing on the D, which is mapping out, in essence, minor shapes throughout. So the minor shape that we have is focused on this D, which I can bring back to this. So you can call this basically kind of like a C shape. It's a C minor shape, D minor chord. And so we'll talk more about the cage system later, but there's that and you can also see it on this side where you have this little shape right here. Now that's mapped out then in purple. The purple is inside of the blue in the overlap area here and that's the idea there. So then we go to shape number five around the horn to shape number one because we break the neck into five shapes basically. So now we're on shape number one, which we could call a G shape because if I go back to the related major, then the top of this is basically a C shape, which is boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Like that would fit the G, so that would be a G shaped C major chord. But we're focusing on the D minor, so the D is going to be right here. So you could see we have this shape, which is our basically A minor shape because if you had this in open position, it would be there. So now you've got kind of like an A minor shape up here. So that's going to be mapped out in red. The red is inside the purple because it's an overlapping. And then when I lean forward, the red is on the outside as it overlaps with the next shape. So boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's our shape there. And then when I go from the first shape to the second shape, if I think about it in terms of the related major, we can call it the second shape, which in terms of related major, you can tie it to an E shaped position. So that's going to be up here. Looks like that. If I was looking at an E shaped C major chord, which is like this, right? But now I'm up here. But of course we are focused in on the D. So within the D, we can reach up to this shape. So you have this boom, boom, boom leaning back. And you can think about that as basically a G minor shaped D minor chord because if it was a G major shape, it would look like this. Or you'd have this. They would convert to this. And then we drop back the third. So we'll talk about the Cajet system later, but just so you know, you have that there. That's going to be the major shape basically there. And then finally, we're moving up from position two to position three, where we are basically working at this point in time. And if we name that shape with relation to the related major, finding the major shape, it would be right there. So that would be a C, boom, boom, boom. Or you could see this little D shaped. But when it D shaped, I'm sorry, D. It's a D shaped C major chord, right? But if I'm leaning back, it's easy to hit that one, that one, and that one. But we're focused on the D minor, which this one gives you that nice full bar chord, which is a little bit hard to finger up in this position, unlike an acoustic guitar, because it's kind of a reach up top. But this is the minor, because if you had the minor would be here. So it would be an E minor shaped bar D, D minor bar chord. So that's going to be the major thing that we're going to construct from in this position. Now, when we're practicing the D then, we have the same kind of thing that we might want to practice. If we were doing this in open position, we might say, hey, look, if I'm practicing the two chord, I'm just going to throw it in as I'm practicing around a C major, right? So a C to an A minor, and then I'll throw in the D minor, and then back to the C or something. I'll try to throw it in the mix. But if I want to practice the D more specifically, and it's a D minor, I might just keep on saying D, but it's the two of this. So it's a D minor. We could then play around the D, go to the C, A minor, D minor. So we're basically going to start and stop on the D. Now, the D is that if we think about that, we can say, okay, I'm just going to make the two the tonic by starting and stopping on it. Or if we were to convert it to the one, that would be basically just a Dorian. So we're basically playing in Dorian, which you can think of converting to the one. Everything is the same, chords are the same. It's just that the numbering system would change. Or we could just say, okay, I'm just going to play around the two, which makes that D minor chord in essence making it the tonic. Now the Dorian is a pretty common mode, so it's not too difficult to make the D the center point, but we can use that same trick even on the minors and I can say what's the fifth of the D and the fifth of the D is the A. So we might then want to throw in an A to lead back to the D to give me that pull, that feel of a pull home. Now the minors don't have the half step going home. So that's why if I make this A for example, you can see that A that fits into our shape is not a major, it's a minor. But we can kind of cheat, right? And I can say, look, I'm just going to, when I'm going home I'm going to make it into a major A, an A major, and that might, or like this, right? That might give me a little bit more pull to lead home. So I might do the same trick that I would play like here's a D, here's a C, D minor, and when I go home maybe I'll go to the A minor that puts my head that I know it's in the same key and then switch it to a major pulling the third up. Which gives me kind of a leading feel back home. So if you're having trouble making it sound like the D is this tonic, the central point, then again you might throw in an A that you're hitting the white part, you're tipping your toe in the lava, but it should resolve a little bit more cleanly so it's going to sound a little out of whack until you resolve and it's like, ah, okay, I get it. I get it, the ears like, okay, that's cool, even though you put your toe in the lava. Okay, so then, so once we have that concept then in this green position, which is our point of focus up top, we could practice all of our chords and all of our shapes in this position because we should be able to play everything within a four to five fret position. It's a little bit difficult to do that with one worksheet though because we might not be as familiar with all the shapes even though we're going through them like one by one up here. We're probably more familiar with the shapes down here. So the next thing you could do to practice is say, okay, I'm just going to kind of noodle around what I'm practicing, which is the D in this position and then maybe jump back to play open notes in open positions. That's one way we can practice it of course. We could then practice by moving interplay between this shape and the prior shape to try to get a nice flow between these two shapes which is going to help us with our horizontal transitions of the neck. And then we could of course take that back one shape at a time and see if we can find lines going up and down the neck and basically be able to target the notes that we're targeting in which would primarily be the 1-3-5 of the chord that we're in. The 1 is shown in light green. The 3 is the second most important note given the flavor of the D minor in red and then the 5 in yellow. So those are the general strategies we could use. Let's start by just getting a feel for this shape. Let's play it out again just in terms of the scale shape but this time starting with a D, which is nice and natural because that's kind of like the starting point we would typically think of when we're just looking at that shape. We saw that when we played in the key of C we kind of started back here and led into it so it sounded like a C and when we played in the G we started down here so now we can start right at the top of the shape because we want that to be the tonic. So then we could count it out by counting 1-7 converting it to a Dorian but we're going to talk about the Dorian more specifically later so I'm just going to count it out in my mind going from 2-2 which is a little difficult to do at first but I think it's actually a good practice even when we go to the Dorian later so we can see the link between the C major and the Dorian. So I'm going to call that a 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-1-2 So now I've gone from here to here and so if I look at it this way let's cut this and so we went from here to there to there, ba-boom and then let's do that again and we're going to go from here to here this time so we went from let's do that again 2-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-1-2 so now we're on this D up top I'm going to say 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-1-2 and then I get to that D and again there's still stuff up top so you don't want to leave it out so I'm just going to say I'm just going to go 2-3-4-3-2 and I'm trying to stop on the 2 so I get my head in the flavor of Dorian so I'm not playing what I was doing yesterday or whatever so it sounds like it's in C major or G because I'm trying to emphasize the D and so then we can say okay we're going back now so we'll say 2-1-8-7-6-5-4-3 on that D right here and then we'll bring that back up top again so we'll say 2-1-8-7-6-5-4-3-2 now the other thing you can do as you hit those shapes is you can play the major or the chord that's associated with it so if I look up top this is the big bar chord for a minor so that's what most of what we're looking at will be built on so let's look at the chord of the minor chord construction within here so we have this boom boom boom boom boom boom that means you're barring all this with one finger and then these two fingers are up top a little bit difficult to play actually you can also use this finger to kind of emphasize the bar so to try to get that but if you can't play it all that's fine you want to get down to this it's kind of crucial to get to that F though which is actually a little bit difficult to play when you bar it because that's the only third that we have in there which gives us the flavor of the thing because the third you know so if I play this up here it would look like that so that's why we call this meaning this would be an E minor that shape moved up here we can call this then an E minor shaped D minor chord right if we want to so that's one way we could name it so then so then because this one's a little bit tricky to grab and so important a lot of times I would play it like this way which is nice and easy to grab and then I get that crucial note right there and then I can put these two fingers up here so there's the pointer and then my ring and pinky that's nice and easy to grab the top string and mute the bottom two with my palm so so it's a little bit inverted that way but way easier to make sure that you get that D if you don't get it up here you can always just play the power chord but you'd like to get down to that third if you're trying to get the full sound of it which again is a bit far down there so then we could play it this way let's do this and then like these two so now you've got these two and this that's not too difficult to play I don't do that quite as often but it's pretty simple to play and you still get the D as the lowest note and you can mute the one above it and I can mute the stuff below it so that's pretty nice and then you've got just these three which is nice although inverted so this has still got everything you need for a D minor but the D is the highest note in that one so notice what we're doing is we're just kind of taking the pieces apart of this full bar chord and I can play it piece by piece I can play the whole thing I can play this top bit like this I can play something like that I can play it this way and then I can play just the bottom bit and all those are three ways because you're kind of grabbing this crucial note right here which is the third which is something that we're lacking or we're short on in this whole bar chord but it's right in the middle so it's kind of nice that way so that's going to be that one and then you also have this shape up top that we could grab these two up here and boom and go up to here which is kind of nice if you're playing along the low strings so you can kind of get all your shapes with just these three strings which is kind of fun to do sometimes alright so that's the general idea let's then so if you're imagining in this shape now you've got the D minor what we learned thus far in this shape is basically the majors we've done the major chords in it so we've done the C we've done the C we've done the 1, 4, 5 the F and the G so the majors we know that if I can find the C the major I'm looking at which is that C, you have this L shape so there's the 1 right below it is the 4 and the 5 and then we could construct our chords from there so what we've done before is that C can be built into this D shaped C major and then down below it we've got the F that one's a little bit more tricky to that F or I can do it this way down here to that F and then I've got this G which is actually the G shaped like this it's an A shaped G so we've learned those in the past so you can kind of mix those in with our D so you could be playing like D this way or D this way moving to the C and then moving to the F and then the G and then we know that the A minor is something that's going to be or the A major could lead us in to going home because the A is the 5th so one way to play the A minor would be this way and we'll talk more about that later and then you can convert it to the major which will lead into the D so we'll talk so I don't want to spend too much time going from chord to chord in position we might do that more later though because we're only mapping out one position up top which is going to be this D minor so it might be easier sometimes to try to play something in open position and then jump up here so that we can practice the thing that we're focused on in this position so that we can get to this dusty area of the guitar I heard someone, one of the guitar players that I saw on YouTube, they call it the dusty part of the neck up top so the British guy it's the dustiest part so anyway we can jump up here to try to clean off the dusty part of the guitar from time to time so to do that we might take it one note at a time so maybe I focus on that D and I'm going to play something down here and then jump up to that D so if I jump up then it's like what am I going to do up here well I've got my full bar I might not play the whole thing up here I could just play the power chord so that's going to be the one and the five if I need that this shape is the whole bar is good here and here so you can play it so in other words this whole this whole column works which is cool because that means that I can go up all the way up and down which is rare like I don't think any other shape has it that you can actually walk all the way up and down and be basically safe with that so we've got that so we've got this box then that of course means that this whole box is safe right there and then I can kind of reach up to that F which is a little bit outside of it so I can do double stops I can do it this way this way I can reach up to that F and then I could of course reach anything below that so as I'm kind of newling around sometimes it's nice to hit that C like right under because that's easy one to reach out right there and then we'll go into the bottom part of that later so if I'm in open position I might play something like a D minor let's just start with a D minor and then jump up now notice I'm kind of playing some strings as I jump back because all the strings are good because we're in a C major in related mode so I can jump all the way up to take me back home so we can target that note obviously we can target okay what if what if I target like this note down here so if I'm like okay that's I'll target that note and then again I've got this beautiful box shape so I'm gonna say there's my D right there so this is my standard shape with my pointer here that's what I would fall to is my standard shape you can also play it again this way which is a nice shape although a little tight with an acoustic guitar that doesn't have a cut out but that's a nice shape as well so I have that and then of course I have my box around this D and so I have this box around this D I can play and I have the box below it as well that little G is kind of fun to bend a lot of times to lean back into this shape so now then we can also realize that we have this is where the shape extends in this middle bit so I've got these two notes back here that we can get to so double stop, double stop, double stop tensiony now it's also nice as we're up here to realize that we have an open D back here and we also have an open A that's why the minors are kind of nice when we look at the related minors to a C major scale because you got that open so if I play this D right here I mean I'm sorry if I play like just anything under this string basically should work so I can play this like F and I have the D over the top of it now there's a lot of distance between the octaves of this D and that F so it's going to give you like a little bit of a dissonant sound or different sound I get right there but then you can close it out with this D which is more in the octave that we're looking at so you can kind of play with that open D as well as we're kind of noodling around here so if we were to do that we can say okay here's an open D minor then we're jumping up here on a C so we can kind of noodle around that one and then of course we've got this this D down here so we have this shape that we can kind of jump to so what do we have around that D so this is just the bottom part of our bar so now we're down here and so I once again have this whole box and we have this shape which is the default shape of these three although it's not that heavy of a shape because the D's on the bottom so I tend to play that and then lead back into this it gives you a little bit more heavier of a sound when it closes but you have that and then you have these two up top this little box up top is good as well so you have this whole shape here and you can see the symmetry between these two shapes again where these two are together in a space and in there and then these two are together on this side so you can say okay so I have double stop double stop, double stop, double stop these three as a D minor closing it back out to this shape so if I was back here like that right so we can kind of go back and forth and practice those positions while we jump back and forth then we can try to go okay what can I do between these two positions and try to walk between them possibly so my home base is usually going to be like that D and this shape when I get up here so it's like okay how can I connect that maybe to the last shape so if I go from this green position 3 to position 2 then the pivot point is like around this D up top D down below you would think right so we have okay I have that and we know that we have this kind of shape up top which is like a G minor D minor shape a G minor shaped D minor so I could play it I could play it that way so and if you're not comfortable with reaching up to that pinky you can also play it basically with these you know these three notes in this position although it's basically inverted that way so we have boom boom boom we have it that or we can do boom boom boom boom so either way my pointer finger then is on this one and again we don't have to do it with the pointer finger all the time because you'll notice my pinky is already right here if I do it this way so I could lead my pinky into here but I think a lot of people get confused moving from shape to shape so including me I'm practicing here too I'm more of an accountant here so I'm with you but I'm thinking it's easier a lot of the time to be moving with the pointer that's the first thing we think about so if I'm here then my pointer is right here and so I can see my pointer is on that D and then I can say well what can I do there I can noodle around now I moved up the wrong one I can I did it again I want the yellow I can noodle around this like shape and then move up here and move into that D and then work my way around this D so I can say ok well if I'm right here what can I do that's kind of interesting I can go maybe and then now I'm up to this D and so in that D I could play in this shape so I just basically walked up that shape until I got to that F and then played my normal my normal most comfortable position so we'll see if I can do that again so I was on this one I'm going to say D minor and then I went and that takes me up to this D I could slide that up further here and then I just walked it down now if you're playing these three you can play it this way this D but I'm just playing boom boom boom these three notes and then I can do the same thing now I'm here because I'm looking at that finger and then I could see that I have up top this double stops up here and that takes me up to this D and then once I'm on that D I can walk it down doing some double stops or so on until I get basically to here I could take it down if I wanted to get basically to this D well then I can say okay if I'm on this shape again we're going to say so I can say okay I've got boom boom boom and then my pointer is here again so I have this shape I'm on this A above it is where my pointer is at so I can kind of work that around and say okay well and I just slid that up and that takes me to this D right there which I can so now I'm basically leading into these three notes and then back to my most comfortable shape these three notes so I can kind of walk it that way if we went back from the position 2 to position 1 then in position 1 in this red position at that D so now I'm over here in position 1 this might be most people's most comfortable position and you've got a nice A shape D so it's probably one of the most comfortable minor shape positions as well so this is a fun position to play you can just play it within that shape so if we're in that shape then we could say okay I'm going to go from here basically to this D and when I get to that D I can play kind of this shape up top so I can walk into that shape and then maybe I'm going to walk up from there to maybe that D up top which I can then walk down to like this D so let's try to say okay let's play with that so I'm going to say I'm on that I'm on this D and then like I say move up like these two fingers and say where can I move these two fingers but I'm going to keep on going back to my pointer because that's the easy thing so I have the 1 the 3 so anytime my pointer is on a minor as the root I can always reach up to that shape and get a nice third so I'm going to go to here and then basically so now I'm up to this shape and then I've got my same problem I had before which was so now I've walked up to this D and then of course I can walk it down I could do my third again grabbing my third out here so then I just kind of walked back to these two to double stop double stop and then back you know up there so again whatever shape you're working on you've got a noodle around in that shape this shape back here is probably the one you know the best maybe because it's position 1 so as long as I'm you can also basically play that open D so anytime you're down here you can kind of ring out that open D so now I'm in this shape and then I could reach it up to this shape so I just basically jumped up there back another one and say okay what if we've go down from this one to position 5 so now you have your D here so if I took this D that we pivoted on and lean it back then we get what you might call a C you know a C minor shape D minor chord something like that if that fingering is not comfortable that's here boom boom you could take these three in that shape it's like the inverted inverted shape so you can play it like that and then think okay so now I have my finger my finger is basically if I play that on this A so it's on the A so I could just walk that into my most familiar shape we haven't really worked on this shape 5 much so maybe I just take that finger and work it and walk it into my most familiar shape which is going to be here in the in position 1 most likely my most familiar shape and then I can walk it up to here and then I can pivot that around to here right and so I can say okay if I'm here and say there it is I'm just going to go just kind of cheat or I can take it to this one so now I'm in my most familiar shape so now I'm doing my D in this shape so now my pointer finger is here third so now I'm up to this D so now I'm into this shape boom boom boom and then once I'm in that shape I could go up again so now I'm in this shape there's my D up top which I could just turn around to this shape and then we could of course go all the way back home and say okay if I'm home my minor shape is here so I could do the same kind of routine so here my minor my finger is down here the finger that's easiest to move is kind of down here right so I can say okay I can kind of move that finger into this space which I know is kind of a legal space right here so I can be like okay and then maybe jump into this to this shape which was and so now I'm in here and now my pinky is on that A stop now I'm on that D you know this D shape and then I can so I tried to go to the bottom this time so now I'm on this D down here so there's that now just I always have to point out with these minors the fun thing to do is always to let that D ring out all the way across so this time I'll just say okay what if I just put my finger oh man what did I do I took one of these blue ones off somehow whatever whatever I'm not dealing with that right now so we can always play like put our finger on this A and then just play that string underneath it all the way up so I can say okay that's always fun to do so if I put my finger on that A I can finger that which gives me the third and then I can let go if I let go it's the D and the third and then I can finger that power chord adding the third right so I can go dude and I'm just muting everything else so I'm going to mute the A if you don't mute the A it's cool because the A is also the fifth but I'm going to try to mute the A for the most part you can also throw in the blues note maybe I'm going to go back to as I have my finger here I go back to this note and just pick it up to get a little bit of that tension even though that works more on the D minor but I think it still works on the Dorian and then again I can just follow this forward so that I'm just going to go here and then maybe to that G and then here and then maybe to that A and then here and then I'm just going to reach up to what makes sense and then here boom and then until I get all the way over to here so I'm going to go okay so I can go from here and then I can move my finger up to here to here so now I'm like okay so that's cool so then when I move up to this one I can play that C and the open D C open D and then I'm going to grab the A because that's the one above it and then I'm going to go up to the D and I can grab the B and I can also grab this F so that's kind of a fun spot to B because so now I've got my finger on a D and above it is a D so I've got a double D the double D I hear is a very large sound you've got the twin mountains with the double D so then you can go up top and go up here with that F too so that F so I can go to that F up top and then try to mute it and then I can go from that D to oh man I did it again I can go from that D to this E and then basically close it out once we get to here with our normal shape boom boom boom this shape so if I kind of play that back and forth so that's kind of my middle point and then and now I've ended on this D so I can go back this way so that's kind of fun to do so anyways that's the general idea