 Guitar and Excel see Major A Minor Pentatonic Scale fret number zero, in other words, open position and fret 12 fingering. Get ready and some coffee because, you know, people have been complaining about practicing the guitar because their arms are out of shape. People are starting to complain. And I totally understand, you know, but, but here's what you do. Who? Just people. Okay. The process is that, the key is decisiveness. Whenever our muscles complain about working out, muscle spasms, been under a lot of pressure lately. The muscles just need to be totally rebuffed. Eh? The muscles need to be rebuffed. I was refused, rejected, rebuffed, repugated. Yeah. Yeah. You know, my arms would be like, I'm too tired. I'm pretty tired. I'd be like whatever arms. I'm not hearing it. I ain't trying to hear that. Drink a protein shake and totally rebuffed them. That's what I'm talking about. Don't give me that I'm too tired routine arms. I'll show you what it's like to really be too tired. Show you. I'll show you all. And maybe wait until you get out the room to see that next time. And then, and then I took it too far. Too far. Too far. I'm not even seeing my arm for complaining by running it over with a wheelbarrow for some reason. Come back. Come back. Yeah. I mean, I can't even remember what my arm was saying that time. But it pissed me off. You know, it pissed me off. I know that. Anyways, at which point my arm taught me what pain really feels like. So, so there is a limit to the, to the arm rebuffing strategy. But whatever, let's, let's just rock. Yes, Phil. You can also roll if you want to. I just thought that since people's arms are tired, you know, we'd start off slow. Here we are in Excel. If you don't have access to this workbook, that's okay. You could 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 help to orientate us. So let's go back to the first tab to review that overview. We've been looking at the C major scale and related modes, started looking at it in open position defined as frets zero through three. This E being the low or heavy E string, the one closest to the ceiling. Funnest way to map out the notes in open position is to start out by creating the chords, starting with the one chord, the C major chord, map it out and then discuss it in detail. We then went to the four chord because it also has a major chord construction, mapped it out in open position, discussed it in detail, same with the five chord, then with the two chord, which is a minor chord construction, then the three chord the same, the six chord the same, and the seven chord, which has a diminished chord construction. And if you were to map out all the notes of all those chords in open position, you would basically be mapping out all of the notes in the C major scale and related modes, which would look something like this in the blue notes in open position. We then jumped to the middle of the guitar learning this spot, not by first learning the chords, but by first learning the scale positions, pentatonic major scale and then talking about each note in the scale that we're looking at in relation to that position and how it could relate to the open chords we learned in open position. Similar process we then did to the next shape, which we can call the E position or shape number two, mapping the pentatonic shape out here, the major shape and discussing how we can basically blend it to the prior shape and to open position. Then we did the same process for the next shape up, which we might call shape number three, starting on fret number nine or a D shape, you might call it mapping out the pentatonic scale and the major scale here. And then how can we blend that together to open position and the prior shapes. And now we're moving to the next shape up, which you can call shape number four, or we can call it a C shape. Now this one is interesting because we can see it up top. We've been following along from shape number one to two to three to four. And now four is this blue one, but we're starting over again because the open position shape back here is also something we can define as the same shape, shape number four. So we're actually going to go back to the open position, which we learned first by mapping out all the chords in the C major scale and related modes. And then looking at all of those chords in here, which basically map out once again, all of the notes in the C major scale and related modes. However, we didn't really go through and just play through the scale much when we did that. Now we'll go back and play through the scale. As we do that, we're also going to be seeing how the nut here is going to cause us a little bit of difficulty to recognize shapes in open position because the nut, depending on what we are playing, will adjust our fingering. So recognizing this position here and this same position when the guitar repeats up top can be a little bit difficult, a little bit disorientating because you're actually going to be using different fingers. So many times people, including me, when learning the guitar, learned a lot of chords in open position, but didn't spend a lot of time learning the scale in open position, actually spending more time learning the scales up the fretboard. And then we can go back and basically make sure that we have a better understanding of playing all those notes kind of in order, basically now in a scale shape within the open position and how we can visualize what that scale shape will look like. If it wasn't blocked by the nut here, and we were playing it in some other position so that we can easily shift that shape if we're playing different types of things, that's the general idea. Also note with the scale shapes at the nut here, the other problem is this scale shape fits here, but sometimes you're going to run into the nut and the scale shape will not completely fit and it's not like you can go behind the nut, like if I was playing the scale shape up here and I had to go back to the prior fret, I can do that. When you're at the nut, it is what it is. You can't go behind that, which once again makes the scale shapes a little bit more difficult to visualize sometimes in the part of the neck, which usually we're most familiar with at least when playing open chords. So again, if you don't, if you might feel bad sometimes to think, well, I know all of my open chords here, but I don't really know my scale shapes here as well. And that's not really that unusual, again, because of these differences in terms of how you're going to finger the scale shapes here versus fingering them up top and the fact that when you're back here, you're usually going to be playing chords. Okay, although again, you could play the scales. You want to be able to play the scales within the chords as well. All right, so that is the general idea. The color scheme that we have here, this is going to be our fret board. Remember that this is representing the low or heavy E string on top, the string closest to the ceiling. And then we're mapping out only the five notes out of the seven notes, those being the green notes, which is going to be our pentatonic scale rather than the full seven note major scale. So when we think about the whole seven note major scale is down here, by the way, so you can kind of see the difference between the two. All the colored notes down here are the full seven note scale. Up here, we only have the five notes. Now, some people like to visualize and start everything out from basically a five note pentatonic scale. And if you do that, that makes sense, you can. But just remember that the pentatonic scale fits beautifully when you're talking about the one, the C major, and its related minor because all of the chord, the major notes in those chords are in the pentatonic scale. So it works beautifully pentatonic scale on the modes of the major or Ionian and the minor or Aeolian. When you move to like a Dorian or something like that, then you're going to have to say, okay, which of these notes, there might be a note in here, the fourth and the seventh, which has been removed, which is important for something like a Dorian because that fourth is going to be the third of the chord construction. So you have to basically augment your pentatonic scale, adding the note that's going to be important. So a lot of some people like to think that way. The other way you can think about things is to think about the major scale and removing the notes that you need to go back to like the pentatonic scale to pick those notes up, which are often the most important notes oftentimes. So that's the general strategy. So the other thing on the pentatonic we want to be aware of is the numbering system can be a little bit tricky because obviously we have a five note scale, just the green notes out of the seven notes. So we could number that when I'm counting up one, two, three, four, five or if we want to see it in relation to the major scale, which is often what we want to do because the major scale is like home-based for Western music, I can kind of count it up as it's going to be the one, two, three, five, six and then back to the one or eight. So when we count out the five note pentatonic scale, you might try out each of those methods so that you can kind of get the numbering system down and also see how you might fit the numbering system into the seven note pentatonic so that when we move to the pent... I mean the seven note major scale, so when we move to the major scale, you can see how kind of like the pentatonic fits into the major scale. All right, so then this blue represents position number four. I start down here on position number four because usually people think of this G shape as position number one. So that's just a convention. You can also name it by the shape that's inside of it. So just be aware of that, this shape is a G shape. If I look at the related major, you see boom, boom, these three and these three, which would be a G shape up here. Most people kind of think about that as position one because it's like your major, it's your primary position for rock and roll and a lot of bluesy stuff really works well in that shape. It's also right in the middle of the guitar. So that's often been designated just generically as the position one shape or the G shape. And so that means that if I go backwards from that, then we're gonna get back to the A shape position, which if I look at it with relation to this C, then I'm gonna have my C here and there's my A shape. So that's gonna be here to here. If I look at it in relation to the C chord and then if I go back to here, then if I look at it with relation to the C, then of course I have my C shape, boom, boom, boom. So that's why we might name the shape a C shape, even though I can play that same shape elsewhere on the guitar. And then I could still call it like a C shape, even though I'd be playing in this case, like a E or something like that or like a D right up top, that's the general idea. Now remember that this shape has five notes in it, meaning we're playing five out of the seven notes and the chord construction has three notes in it. So the three note chord will still fit uniquely into one of the pentatonic shapes. So but it will not fit uniquely into these seven note shapes. So when you're thinking and naming shapes by the open position finger positions, remember that you kind of wanna fit it into the pentatonic and then add the other two notes to make the major shape because if you think of it just does it fit in the major shape, then it will fit in multiple shapes. And that's another reason why sometimes I think guitarist kind of like thinking in pentatonic because they can label these shapes based on the open position chord shapes a little bit more easily, but anyway. So that's gonna be that one. And so up here 12 at fret 12, the fretboard starts over. Now note that I have my electric which I haven't been using much and the strings are ancient. So it's probably not gonna sound as well. My chord plug-in is not always perfect. So hopefully it won't short out on us and whatnot. But I think it'll do the job just to kind of finger through our shape. I've got some, I'm gonna fix it shortly hopefully. But so we could, let's start actually up here in fret 12 to finger this as we normally would and then see how we adjust the fingering when the nut is basically in the way. So let's go up here to fret number 12 and finger through this now when we do this, we're gonna think of ourselves either usually in the key of C or in the key of A because if you think about any other mode, then the other modes work great for the major scale. But if you think about them in terms of the pentatonic, you probably wanna add like I say those notes that would make say like a Dorian-ish. So what we're gonna do is think about it in terms of the major scale and then possibly the minor scale which means I'm not gonna start the shape up here to be playing it up top on the E. I'm gonna start basically playing it where the C is which is right here which again my guitar's a little wonky sounding. So you have this shape which would be back here like this. And then if I move that up here, so there we have it up top. So then if I was to play that with my pinky, remember our rules with the pentatonic shape is that we never have two notes together like right next to each other as we do down here in the major shape. That's what's been removed which removes a lot of the possibility for the tension which is often safer, right? Although the tension can be useful when we want to put it in there intentionally. So then we always have, and we never go over four fingers, four frets. One, two, three, four. This is our longest stretch pointer to pinky. And so that's gonna be our longest stretch that we have there and that's basically the general rules. We're gonna intentionally start and stop on a C so we get that C major feel in our mind. And I'm gonna count through it starting with a five note scale which is what it is. But note that if I compare that to my worksheet which is based on the seven note major scale, it would be one, two, three and then this is gonna be four and five if I converted it to a five note scale. And then we'll count through it again using the seven note numbering system so we can see how it fits in. That would be one, two, three, skipping the four, five, six and then eight or back to one. So let's start just counting it up. It's going from one back to one or one to six, right? So this is gonna be one, two, three, four, one. And that's gonna bring me back down to here. So now we're on this one. I'm gonna count it up to the rest and then go back down so I can get the full scale in there. So I'll go back to one, two. So now we're back to this C here and then again I'll count it back down. So now we're gonna go, so this is gonna be, once again I'm gonna call it a six this time. Six, five, four, three. So now I'm on this C up top and I'm gonna count it down to this E and then back up to the C. So whenever I practice my scales I'm starting and stopping on the note that I'm focused on in this case, the C. So I'm gonna call that a six again. Six, five, four, three, four, five, six. And so that goes back to our C there. So when we practice just playing through the scales we probably do not wanna practice starting with a note that seems most like the best notes to start with if I just start at the top of the scale and I was just trying to memorize the scale which is kind of hard to do cause a lot of people try to orientate like this shape how it fits into the top note which makes sense but what you wanna be able to do is be able to see these shapes from each of the primary notes especially pentatonic shapes with regards to how they fit into the primary notes of a C major or it's related minor is the general idea. Let's do the same thing now and a lot of times people don't count it through in their head but if you do that and at least in the morning then that's gonna help you to kind of play through these scales too and see how they fit into the major scale. So let's do the same thing as we finger the five note pentatonic scale we're gonna use the numbering system for the related C major scale. So in other words as we finger through this I'm gonna say one, two, three but instead of going to four I'm gonna go to five and then six and then skipping seven, two, eight. So we're gonna end off at eight notes even though we didn't play two of them because we're removing those but using the numbering system for the major scale. Then we wanna go back down eight or one skipping the seven to six, five skipping the four to three, two, one. So let's see what that looks like. This could be a little disorientating at first but if we can do that then we can see how the pentatonic scale fits into the major scale which can of course be useful given the fact that the major scale is the major scale the one we tie to all the time. So let's start here, one, two, three there's no four so that's a five and then six there's no seven so this is the eight. That's gonna bring us to this C let's count it up to this G and then back down again so this is back to one, one, two, three there's no four so this is a five on that G and then I'm gonna go five, there's no four so this is gonna be the three and then two, one that brings me back down to this C let's bring it back down again I'm gonna start at eight as opposed to six because we're not talking about a five note scale we're talking about a seven note scale and I'm gonna start at the one after which is an eight or one and then go back down so this is gonna be eight, there is no seven so it's gonna be six, five there is no four, three, two, one and that's gonna bring me back up to this C here let's do the same thing to finish it off so I'm gonna say this is gonna be back to eight and then there's no seven so six and then five, there's no four so this is the three let's go back up from here this is gonna be the three, there's no four so this is five, six, there's no seven so that brings me to the eight okay so then there is that we can also do that same thing let's bring that now to the open position so the open position we probably kind of have a feel for because we play this open scale and we learn that we can play anything open and it should be good in this position but we have it really just rigorously going through the scale related to it which can be a little bit tricky because again the nut messes up our fingering or it makes the fingering easier but also messes it up to see that this is the same shape so if I go back on over here if I was to envision this shape a lot of people like to put their finger on the nut it's actually difficult to imagine fingering at this nut right but you can imagine doing that right so if I went from here if I started on the C and then I would be fingering the nut here and then going to this E and then I would be fingering the nut here and then going to this G and then I could put this finger down here the open B is not in our pentatonic although in the major and then here and then we can imagine fingering the nut for the E and then going here so that's useful exercise for a lot of people to kind of see the shape and how the shape is the same up top and it's worth doing to kind of think through however obviously we're not actually going to finger it that way because we don't need to finger the nut so that means that we're probably going to be using these three fingers here fingering it kind of like this and having the open string ring out so the fingering system we're probably going to be having is going to be this ring finger on the C and then obviously an open D and then we'll probably be using our middle finger on the E and then an open G and then our middle finger on the A and then we're going to be putting most likely our what will be our pointer finger on the C to the D and then open E to the G so we can play through the same thing and it's trying to visualize we want to visualize in our mind that this shape fits this same shape here going from C to C even though our fingering is different so I can see my C's if I play it this way I can see my C here and there's my C so I can actually see the top and the bottom of the chord which is pretty cool with the fingering on that one because my top my fingers up here my fingers down there that's what we're going to play through let's play it through again with like a five note pentatonic so I would just say one to six because I'm going to end on the one or the six right so it'd be one, two, three, four, five, six and that brings me down to this right there that would be the six and then we're going to say let's go well we could go back up to here and then back down again so we're going to say one, two, two, one back to the C and then I can say okay if I'm on that C we're going to go this is going to be six five, four, three, two the actual chord as you hit the notes and then we can play it back down this way so we can say alright this is going to be six, five, four, three, four, five, six so now let's do that same exercise but this time use count it through but use the seven note scale so now we're going to say one, two, three, five, six, eight or back to one skipping the four and the seven so if I start here one, two, three, there's no four, five, six there's no seven, eight so now we're at this C up top now we're going to go from this C to this G and then back down so starting at the one again so one, two, three, there's no four so five, now back down so five, there's no four so three, two, one this C again going from this C down to this C we're starting at eight or one because it's the set as opposed to six because we're looking at the eight notes and removing two of them so we're going to say this is eight there's no seven, six, five there's no four, three, two we're at this C now here so I'm going to go down to this E and then back up again so once again I'm going to start at the eight so I'm going to say eight there's no seven so six, five there's no four so three then back up three there's no four so five and then six, there's no seven so eight that can be a little bit disorientating to do but if we can get good at that then again we're using the same kind of numbering system as we would on the seven note we can just add those other two notes and we have the same general numbering system so that's the general idea now you might want to practice the same the next major thing to practice here would be to look at the A because the minor fits perfectly in the pentatonic as well so it gets a little bit confusing then because you could say well if I'm going to be practicing the minor I can convert the numbering system making the six the one but we'll talk about that more later that's another mode that's like an Aeolian mode even though it's quite common let's just still kind of think about it as the six here and try to count through it as the six now again you could think of it as just a five note pentatonic scale just to count out the five notes and just count one through five and then we can also think of it as it being the six how we can count it out as though it's the sixth and skip the four and the seven and we could also use the seven note minor scale and then count out the pentatonic within it but for right now let's just kind of finger through it so we're going to go from this A we're going to do the same shape here going from an A to an A let's start up top because up top we get to see the full fingering system without the nut kind of messing us up so now we're going to be starting at this A it's the same shape but I'm going to go from A to A I'm going to start counting it out with just one through six right so we got one, two, three, four, five, six so there's our octave so now I'm on this A and then I'm going to go up to that G and back down again so now we're going to say one, two, three, four, five so there's the five and then I'm going to go five, four, three so now we're back down to this A again let's go from that A down to this A so we're going to go from the, let's call it a six so we'll say six, five, four, three, two, one and that brings me to this A and then I can go down to the E and back up again so we're going to go, let's start at six, five, four, five, six and so now we're back up again to here so let's do it again and this time let's fit it into as if we're playing the six right and just think about it that way so instead of converting it to the minor or a pentatonic, we're going to use the related C major numbering system and try to see if we can tie that out in our mind we're basically making that the tonic playing a minor, playing the pentatonic minor but let's look at it as it relates to the C major playing from six to six and skipping the seven and the four and see if we can kind of go through that so same five notes here we're going to start here calling it the six then I'm going to say this is the six, there's no seven so that's going to be the eight or one, two, three there's no four, so this is the five and then the six, there's our octave and so now we're on this A here let's bring it down to the G and then back up so once again I'm going to call this the six there is no seven so I'm going to say this is the eight or one, two, three, there is no four so this is the five so now I'm on the G which is the five G's the five, there's no four so this is the three and then two, one or eight there is no seven so here's the six that brings us back to this A again let's bring it back down so now I'm going to say this will be the six and then five, there is no four so three, two, one or eight there is no seven so there's the six again so now we're on this A so let's bring it back down so we can say then this is going to be the six and then the five, there is no four so three and then three, there is no four so five, six and we can do of course that same thing over here in the open position so in the open position you have the A minor kind of shape which looks like this and we start off on this open note right here so if we were to finger this I'll just use this one with the five counting out the five notes I won't go into the seven note thing here just so we can count it out obviously we'd have an open one here how would we finger this? Typically we would have the open and then we're going to put our ring finger on the C and then open and we're going to be putting our middle finger on the E and then open and then to the A when we go back, keep on going down we're going to go to the C, the D and then open to the G so if I was to just play that out we might play the A minor looking like this and then we're going to say this is going to be the one, two, three, four, five, six A right here which again, we can play that one if we wanted to and then I'm going to say from here we're going to say one, two, three that brings me up to this G and let's go back down we're going to say five, four, three, two, one that brings me to this A and then we can bring that back down to this A so we're going to call that the six of now just our five note pentatonic scale so this would be the six or the one so we'll say six, five, four, three, two, one, A and then let's bring it down to the E and then back up again so we're going to say calling that a six again six, five, four, five, six so there's that now I get it with these modes you could try to count that number and system from the sixth or you can count it in when we get to the other mode the minor mode you'll see also has of course seven notes in it but we're going to convert the six to the one so then again you can kind of see how this five note pentatonic scale would fit into the numbering system of the related mode when you're only talking about five of the seven notes in the related mode we'll talk about that more in future presentations but next time we'll talk about the intervals and then we'll add the two extra notes to get to the major scale when we get to the major scale we can easily then think about the modes at least in terms of playing around each note in the scale and so we'll talk about that in future presentations as well