 Guitar and Excel, C major, A minor scale fret number 7, focusing on the D note. Get ready and some coffee, and remember, if you feel like your guitar playing is not getting better, trust me, just keep practicing. I mean, honestly, my guitar playing used to be so bad, my own guitar filed a restraining order against me. Yeah, attempting to get the court to compel me to stop picking on it. I don't even know where it came up with that sexual harassment charge. Lies, dang lies I tell you. In any ways, let's get to the guitar. 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, no team 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 is useful. So let's go back to that first tab for the overview. We're looking at the C major scale and related modes. Started out looking at it in open position for us, open position defined as frets 1 through 3. Noting that this E represents the heavy or low E string, the one closest to the ceiling. The funnest way to map out the notes in the scale in open position is to create the chords from that scale and map them out. So we started out with the one chord, the C major chord, mapped it out, discussed it in detail. Went to the four chord because it also has a major chord construction. Mapped it out, discussed it in detail. And then the five and then back to the minors, which is the second, then the third, the sixth, and finally to the diminished, which is the seventh. After having done that, we have basically mapped out all the notes in open position, but done so by building the related chords. And if we put all those notes in position, it would look something like this. We then wanted to move to the middle of the guitar and learn that position this time, not by constructing chords first, but first by looking at the scales. So we mapped out the scales in fret 5 basically, or frets 4 through 8, that position. And you could call that position a G shaped position, or I would call it position number one. We discussed all of the basic notes that we can hover around within that position. And then now we're going to the second position on fret 7. We've discussed it a little bit in detail, and now we're going to basically be focusing in on the D note in this position starting on fret number 7 and basically seeing how we can tie it into the prior position and to the open notes. So let's go over a quick recap of all the colors here. I know this is overwhelming. This is basically the fretboard. Low string on top is what we're doing here, because I think that's easier to see. We started out by laying down the foundation of all the notes in the C major scale in blue. And then we put on top of that the five notes of the pentatonic scale for the C major or related minor pentatonic scale in green. And then on top of that we put the, and these all fit on top of each other. And then we're going to be putting on top of that the D, which is our point of focus this time, and the chord that would be constructed, which would be a minor chord. This would be the one, the three, and the five of that D minor chord. So that means that basically our major points of focus over here are the light green, which is going to be the one. The second most important note is going to be the three, and that's going to be the F, and then the third is going to be the A in yellow. And then all other notes that are colored are fair game, and all the white notes are like lava. We don't want to hit the white notes. They have been excluded. And then we can see that we have this red box represents the last position, which you could call a G shaped position. And the reason for that is if you were to, because if I think of myself in the C major scale, then this position, you can see that that G shape basically fits within here. That's going to be this boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So you could call it that if you want. I would also call it position one personally. And then this is going to be position two, which has some overlap. You could call this an E shaped position because if you look at a C chord construction within it, you're going to get basically a bar chord, which is basically an E shape if it were an open position. So you could name the whole shape based on that. If you want, I'm going to call it position two as well. We'll get into that caged system later. So we're focused on this yellow area. There's overlap between the two. I would call like the pivot points between these two shapes on the top string. Here's the first shape. Here's the second straight. You've got these two notes, fret seven and eight in between. Now I'm going to make the red one a little bit shorter so that we can focus just on the yellow. And then within this yellow area, we're going to focus on the D and the D construction is a D minor. So this has given us an idea. These yellow notes are giving us an idea of the chord shapes within here, which is a little bit more difficult probably for most people on this shape for the minor chords because this is like a G minor shape. So we'll talk about that shortly, but that's what the yellow notes are trying to do. They're basically, in this case, highlighting all the one threes and fives in this case. But they're trying to focus on just those main shapes that we can be building on the D that we're focused on. And then the red notes over here are also trying to focus on the main shapes that we can see once we start going back up and down the guitar so they happen. So notice not all of, I didn't highlight this one even though it's a fifth right with the red. And then over here, this is the main shapes that we kind of focus on in open position, which of course in this case is the D minor. So you've got this open string and then these strings here. So that's what basically the color scheme is doing. Our focus here is in the yellow area. Now we're in the C major scale, but we're basically focusing in on a D. A couple ways that we could do that to show it in open position here. You could play around in a C starting and stopping on the C, making up the tonic, like a C and then going to like an A minor and an E minor and then maybe working that D and then back to a C or something like that. But if you want to practice the D in particular, you might try to make it the tonic. So instead of us going to a D minor scale, we're going to stay here and say, I'm just going to make the two the central point, which means we're basically playing in Dorian. But I'm not going to think about it in Dorian now. We'll talk about the modes more formally later. But Dorian would just mean that I'm going to formally make it number one and then everything else is going to be the same. I'm just going to shift it, the numbering system, making it number one. But I'm going to think about it as though I'm just going to play around the two chord, making it the tonic. Easiest way to do that to stop and start on the two chord on that D. So I could start playing on the D and then play anything else when then here like a C, like an A minor, like an E, and then end back on the D. Now it's a little bit more difficult to make the D the tonic than the C or the A, in this case or the major or minor, but the Dorian is pretty common. So it's not too difficult to try to make it feel like that D is now your home bass. However, we can do that same idea that's saying, well, what's the fifth? Even though it's a minor this time, it's a minor chord, the fifth is an A. So I could say the A should resolve back to the D relatively well. Now the A is, if I construct it in the C major, it's an A minor, not an A major. But that doesn't resolve quite as nicely as an A major because the A major will have this white note right here that's going to then conform or have that half step going up to the D. So we can kind of cheat if you want to think about it that way, right? We can play like something in a D to a C to an E. Then I'm going to go to that A minor. I'm going to convert it to a major to resolve back to a D minor. And that might help us to get that resolution back home again. You could take it a step further and make it a dominant seven, which means you play these two and you lift your middle finger up, revealing the G. And that might even give you a different resolution field back home. So just a couple of things if you're having trouble keeping the D as the home bass, but it's like the Dorian is fairly common, so you should be able to make that feel like the tonic fairly easily in any case. Okay, so then we're going to go back up to our fret on the seven through ten position number two and we're going to be playing around the D, which means we're basically playing in Dorian but thinking of it as the two note. And we can do this a few different ways. We can play everything in this position and practice just this position. We can try to blend from the prior position to this position or we can try to go from the home bass position and find lines or we can go from the home bass position jumping up to this position or go from the home bass position and find lines to kind of maneuver up into this position. So those are the tactics you might use to practice this, the D in the position number two fret seven through ten. So let's first just think about basically playing through the scale and this position making D kind of like the center point basically the tonic. So when I'm in this position we might start like here because well here it is a B, I start with the B but that's not where we want to start here because we want to be thinking of it starting on the D. So I can start on the D. Now I could make that the one which means I would be converting to a Dorian but I don't want to convert to a Dorian here. I want to just keep on thinking of it as the two. I'm just going to go around my scale thinking of it as basically the two. So I can count up, I'll do it this way first. Just in the guitar we're going to say this is the two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight or one back to the two. So there's our two, two, two, two, two. And so all I did there was just count it up. So I'm just going from this is going to be the two and then I'm just staying in the shape three, four, five, six, seven, eight or one back to the two. And then we can count up again and do the same thing and walk it up and back getting that Dorian kind of feel in our mind and kind of working on our finger in position. Now as we do that we might also want to play the chords every time we get to like the D, every time we get to the two. So let's think about the shapes that are in here. Now the shapes are a little bit more difficult to see in the minors sometimes. We'll talk about the cage system a little bit later. But you can see you have this one, the one, the three and the five. So you're kind of leaning back, you're kind of leaning back this way. And that's going to be, you can think of that as like a G shape because if you had a, if this was a major then the third would be right there. So you have this like G shape that we have to play like this if it was a major and then we drop the third. So the third would be here if it was a major and it drops back to the minor. So you basically have that top half of the G shape is one way that you can kind of think of that. And then we have this shape underneath which is still kind of part, you can think of it kind of as part of the G shape because if you were to borrow that you'd have these two here which is a little difficult to do because you don't want to pick up that one. But you can play it this way. And that's going to be still a D but it's inverted where the D is on the bottom. And then you've got these three notes over here which is on the high end of pitch wise. And once again it's inverted where the D is basically on the bottom. Now on the edge right here between these two you've got this which is probably the easy thing to play down here. It's kind of like your A shape and then you could also add this A down here and play it like this. So that is often a common way to play that D. It's a nice one to reach as well and it's basically part of this full bar shape on position number one but it kind of crosses over in that limbo land and you can pull up that piece of it right there. So those are your major home base shapes. So if I was going to walk through this I'd say this is going to be the two right there and if I was to make a chord out of it we'd go two three four what wait two three four five six seven eight or one two and then this note when I get to this note which is the other two then I could basically play the ones right above it or you can go back to this right there and then two three four five and then these three so now I got down to this one down here and I play these three and then I'm going to go this is two one or eight seven six five four and then I can go this the chord or now I'm back on this D and then I can go back down and say one or eight seven six five four three two and just try to go like walk up and back and get it in your mind what the chord shapes are a little bit that way and you can also you don't have to walk up and sit and name two three four you can just walk up the shape and start and stop on the D's and then play the chord on the D to kind of get that in your mind as that's the place that you're in but I think actually counting it up from two is useful so that's going to be that and then once we have that in our mind we could try to play everything within the shape so what we've learned now is the D in here the C and what else we did the F and the G so we have this shape that we can play this way so we've got that we can play it this way we've got the C shape we've got the F shape and then I'm going to go back to the D shape which I'll play like that so we have those major shapes we also know that the A shape would be here so if I look at that A because that's my resolution one this would be an A minor moving forward the major would pull that pinky which sounds a little out of place but might be able to resolve more easily to the D minor so that's one thing that we can do we can start playing these within here and say here's a D here's like a C we're going to C here's like an A shaped F and then possibly back to the D and we can go D we're going to go this is an E shaped C this is an A shaped F major and then we also did a G C shaped G and then back to the D something like that so let's do it one more time we've got like a D you might go to like a C an F and then you might try to close it out with an A minor to an A major which might then help us to resolve back to a D which will play outside here something like that so you can start to kind of put those together in one position within here you can also kind of try to noodle once you get good at those switches whatever combo you like you could put in noodling in between the notes you can also if you don't know all of those positions here we could say well I know all of my positions in the open position and use the old jumping strategy just to see if I can work around the D up here with some more like picking around stuff so to do that we might first say okay well what kind of things if I'm saying this is my home D what kind of things are around it that I can kind of pick around so what can I reach now I'm not going to reach forward because I'm thinking of leaning back into my position so one thing I can do is start with my arpeggio like that from there we can pivot which is a little tricky because we want to be pivoting basically on the pinky but I can see what is available to me up there I can say alright well if I'm on that pinky I have these notes available so I could do something like double stop, double stop it might be a little bit easier for me to basically change my fingering on this one to be basically this finger so I'm not using my pinky there which means that this box is going to be easier to get to and I could slide back and forth between that note behind I also note that this whole column is basically good for me to play as well as this whole column over here so I could then say alright if I'm starting here and then instead of picking up the full chord with that A I can end with just the one and the three which gives me the flavor pick up this whole bar I know this whole thing is good to go except for that G I'm going to bar so I could do something like that and then if I go down here I could say here's my other D so I could see what is kind of below that D and then what's above the D so I could say if that's the D anything I'm starting on I could say well the third of a minor is always like that distance up there's that F that's useful I have that E now the fifth instead of being here like it normally is because of the kink of the tuning up here that's a little bit tricky to remember sometimes and then you've got this G which is right here and then I can always end this off by hitting these three which are above it because that's the full chord so I can go above it and hit those three to end it off go to the string above it back to that G like that so there's that one now another one that's kind of interesting here is you also have the open D which is that's what's great about the minors so this open string right here is interesting to play with because if I hold down this D right there and then I have this string open you get two D's which is like a double powerful D and then it's kind of interesting you have a third right there so I could go back and forth from the third up there and then I have a fifth right here and I have a fifth right here so I could go I like to do something like the shuffle so I'm kind of muting the E and I'm trying to mute the A with my thumb and then I'm just reaching up to that F to hit the third and then I mute it to get that double stop D you know it's kind of a fun little to have that open D open it's kind of a fun little thing to have there and then you have your D down here so that's going to be this D and then you have available to you if you use that as your home bass so now we're here I could say ok well down here I've got this little box that we can play and I can always go back to this shape as my D down here even though it's inverted so I've got so those are the basic general options that we can kind of tinker with here so then once we have the tinkering options we can then say ok what we could so now let's try to do our jumping thing so if I'm over here in open position and I play like a D here and then I'm going to target something up top so I'm going to go back from there and say ok the easiest one to target might be this D so I'm going to say alright I'm going to kind of jump up to this D and then see what I can do with that and that might be easiest to hit that with my ring finger if I'm jumping up there something like that maybe so I'll go from here switch between like a D and an open position and something else like a D and then a C or something like that and then you could noodle around up here in the C but if you're focusing on the D maybe I just noodle around on the C over here so if I do the same thing D and then I jump up and then to the C my normal thing on the C something like that we could target then this D same kind of thing so we can say ok if I'm just going to jump up to that D what can I then play around that will I have then and I've got that cool jumping up to that F and back down having that open D so I could do something like so then that's that one and then we could do a similar thing basically up here what the next thing we could do is say well what if I'm in this middle position here and I want to switch from this middle position up into this position up top so we could say ok well where's my D in here is right here and that's basically a bar chord so this is kind of an overlapping position so now you've got this bar chord which is a quite common D right here so this is an A minor kind of D position that's in between these two shapes so that's going to be boom boom boom boom boom I'm kind of focusing in on that D so if we're in this shape whoops is that that's not right sorry about that it's right there ok so then you have that in this shape here's your D here and then here's your D here and then this shape you can also play the bottom part of it like this which is just these three notes and then you could pick up that A down here and play it this way so clearly this one this bar shape kind of moves in, pivots into this shape if you move into this shape here like this or that shape so once I get into this shape I can pivot around this D right here and then pivot into that shape so then it's just like ok what do I want to do basically in between I can kind of walk between those two possibly so I can be in this shape and say ok and then I want to move up kind of to this D up top and then how could I do that well I can start with this and then I can just walk into this shape the easiest pivot point is this finger so I can just be like I'm going to go from here and go and then I'm on that shape which I can go that's a major and if I can walk that back now I'm on this pinky and basically just walked it up and I'm just saying and so then I could make it a little bit more interesting possibly doing some double stops or something as I'm walking that so I could be doing something like so now I'm hitting these three notes and then I can go I noticed that's something that we were able to do before and then I know that I can go up to here and then I'll convert that into a D or something like that and then I can walk that back and say double stop double stop something like that back to my D here we could play the bottom half of this shape so I'll try to move from this bar chord to this D and then into that kind of shuffle pattern so if I start off at this bar chord I might play with that a bit like saying this release the pinky that gives me basically the 7 because I know all of these notes and this whole bar are good so I can then say okay I'm going to go and now I'm just playing this bar I'm not even worried about what it is I'm just going to play basically that whole bar and then maybe and now I'm basically playing an A then I moved up to this D there's the the third of the D and then there's my little shuffle pattern and then I can end it off with that or that so we might play something like you know here's my D so I'm just trying to find some patterns between those two and then if we go back to the first position then I can try to say okay let me find a line between my open D over here and then maybe my D basically up here so what can I do to get between those two I have my finger down here is probably the first one that I can think about because it's going to be easy to just move up so I'm looking at the finger that's on where is it it's on F right so I'm looking at that finger and then I can basically move that up maybe and that gets us to our familiar little box within here and then once I'm in the box within here I have access to this D and then that can bring me up to this D so I might think of something like this I can be like okay and I'm going to pivot on this finger I'm just playing within that box and then when I when I get up to here whoops I'm looking for that shape right there which is going to be this is part of my bar chord on the bottom so that brings me to this shape which I can then convert to that shape if I so choose and then reach up to here so something like that was kind of sloppy but we can get better at it right I can go here so there's basically have a D right there back to my D there and then up back to my shape my kind of G minor shape D chord like that so if I walk it back I can also play this D here I kind of like this little shuffle pattern on the D I'm just playing with that open D in open position so instead of playing the whole D if I shuffle back and forth between I hold down this A and I let the D ring out then I've got the 1 and the 5th and then if I hold down this F then you've got the 1 and the 3rd so you're shuffling between the whole chord and then I throw an occasional C in there in my shuffle and then I can also let go you also have the let's just play with that so we can say okay then we can go okay so now I'm just reaching up to that A and then once I have that I can follow this finger in back to that A minor there's that and then I'll I can kind of mirror that shuffle pattern so I'm just basically letting this open string kind of ring out and then I'm playing everything that's open I also touched on this string, that's your blues note that gives you a little bit of attention if you want to pick that one up cheating a bit, breaking the rules but if we follow this one up and I just kind of let that D ring out then I can follow it up through that's kind of fun to do something like that and try to maneuver up and back between the chord so again that note that's why the minors and at least the key of the C are actually quite fun to play because you can kind of work in those open strings in my opinion I just learned the minors more than the majors because I started with A minor so that's just how it worked out for me but that's the general idea now if you were to switch to a D a D minor for comparison purposes instead of a D Dorian then all the chords all the notes within the chord of the D minor would fit but it's going to be different so this is the major scale which has the sorry this is the major scale which is an F major which is the 6th is going to be the minor so this would be basically F major or in this case we're thinking of it as the notes the pattern that would be there for a D minor and so if you compare this then to what we have up top and if I was to hide to here right click and hide so then you can see you have all the notes in there for the D still are in there but it's not the same pattern the colored notes are not all the same so just to point this out like if you practice the D as it relates to the C major scale and you focus on it as the pivot point you're basically playing Dorian and you might say well yeah but I also wanted to learn the D minor and you're kind of still learning the D minor because the notes in the chord still fit and they will be the same as the D minor but the relative notes around it are going to be different so and that's what we'll dive into that more when we get into other modes and what the modes mean as well as then we can convert the whole thing to other scales but like I say I think people get often really confused in terms of what they can play we can't figure out which things go together and which do not so if you really understand anyways that's the general idea