It's really fun to hear other guitarists talk about their journey because most of us have taken the same path while, at the time, thinking that our journey is unique. When I made the chord-scale connection some years back, I likened it to Neo seeing the blueprint of the matrix for the first time. This step (the one this lesson teaches) is both a huge step toward melodic soloing and a giant eye opener as to how much there is to learn. The consolation prize is that you will know what it is you need to get better at in almost an instant.
Well put Sean. A few people have commented that this is just CAGED. No. This is, as you say, a gateway for much, much more learning - melodic construction, voice leading, chord extensions and substitutions. For me, it was the real point at which I feel I started to truly understand things - including how I needed to listen more intently and develop my ears. Time and again, when I went to melodies I loved from singers or to guitar solos I loved, this was what did it. Before then it was, "Okay, time for a solo. What scale should I use?" Thanks for your well thought out comment!
@@MarkZabel Hi Mark, I don't mean to impose on you but I was wondering if you could expound on your Jessie's Girl solo video. And explain the theory going on there. I always wondered. I know it's in D so I assume the solo is arpeggios, etc. Just wondering your thoughts on it. Thanks again!
I have been in a rut for a while now and I'm searching for an escape when I saw this video. I'm not completely on board yet but this definitely got my attention so I'm going to give it a try. By the way not only does this chord progression style remind me of the Eagles, I thought you sir sound a little like Don Felder. Which I am a huge fan so please, this is meant to be a compliment. Hopefully this will stop my doodling so thank You!
Most, if not all players go thru the same thing. Practicing scales and patterns over and over, until they finally realize that this will make them really good at playing those patterns, but not leads or songs. Then you start to diversify and work on making licks from the patterns, and real world playing
The best book on improv I read didn't downplay the scales. Scales are tools. The book spent considerable time on learning to hear intervals in your head. When you learn to do that, you start to "hear" the improv in your head just ahead of actually playing it. My guitar playing solos improved dramatically when I caught on to this. And then even more when I concentrated on saxophone. When I managed to be arranger for a small orchestra, the hearing in your head became even more vital.
Nothing wrong with scales, arpeggios, hearing intervals, or what-have-you. But to apply them, that's the issue usually. Scales and arpeggios are usually learned by guitarists as an end unto themselves and often practiced from root to root and back or with intervallic pattern play. Often the *only* tool used is a particular scale and guitarists think "Scale = Lead, Chord = Rhythm" instead of something more akin to "Lead is an interlude where I take over for the singer for a while and then hand it back". So yes, "hearing the improv in your head" is a goal. But if you haven't learned melody from actual melody (E.g., Children's songs, themes in classical music, show tunes, and so forth) chances are that you'll resist doing so as an adult, and it's a big barrier to becoming a melodic player. I have found that asking players to think and listen for chord tones is an effective way to break the pattern of somewhat randomly playing through scale patterns, and a good gateway into better listening and eventually more melodic play.
@@JoshMackers Oh, here's the bad news. The book was independently published and this was decades ago. It might be in some box of mine somewhere, but I'm not sure when I could dig it up. I did a check of my bookshelf in a likely place, but got nothing. I'll tell you one bit of advice the book offered that I found useful that I can explain here: find songs you know well that start with all the intervals. The author had a lot of suggestions, but too many were too old for me (and I'm 61 now, so it'll give you an idea how old). But some timeless songs have intervals you can hear in your head. Rising octave: "Over the Rainbow", "Take me out to the ball game". Descending octave: "Watermelon man". Ascending aug4 and maj7: "Maria". Rising 5th: "Twinkle, Twinkle". I went with more modern songs for some of the odd intervals. Rising m2: "Jaws" theme. Rising aug5: "She Came in Through the bathroom window". Figure out your own set of songs with the 22 intervals. Learn to play them in any key and you'll have it in your head.
@@MarkZabel The chord system is definitely a good gateway to the same thing. You and I have clearly hit a point where it's clear where we want to take a solo in our heads. We're not just trying to find notes that fit. It's possible to find yourself thinking far in advance of where you are at the moment. I was once playing sax in a band and they pulled in a lot of Spyro Gyra just because they had me as a sax player. It was all pre-written and I stayed with it, but one piece closed with a key change to F# and nothing written down to close it. The F# key is where all those hopelessly boring exercises with scales are essential to improvising. (OK, not so bad with Guitar, but the point remains.) One day, during rehearsals, I hit that ending suddenly the whole melody to the Flintstones theme burst into my head. That's a full 30 seconds of melody that just spread itself over the chords of the song finale. It wasn't a complicated chord progression, but the point is that you can hear it. And the more you practice and the more comfortable you are with the chords (your point) and intervals (my point) the more you can "write" the music in front of you and then sight read it. There is nothing more spiritually satisfying than closing my eyes and getting lost in an improvisation.
I was noodling for 9 years and got better at it every time i grabbed my guitar. I never actively practiced playing to chord changes and in the last 2 to 3 years my ears just developed in a way, that i could anticipate a chord change (like you said in the video) in a song, that i have never heard before and instinctively play a good sounding note (most of the time). Of course it doesn't always work but it is such a great feeling to finally be at that point in my journey, that i can just close my eyes and jam out for 10 minutes straight and open my eyes again and feel like i just played the best sounding solo i could ever hope to. It would have been great to learn the lesson, you taught, earlier but then again i probably would have been to lazy to map out the chords on the scale... but in general, this is great advice.
Pretty interesting. I’m surprised that many players don’t know this. Seems like newer players are obsessed with covering lots of real estate up and down the neck, and playing fast. This video shows how the notes can all be used in the same position, more or less, without zooming all over the place.
If I'm not mistaken you land on chord root notes, then land on chord fifths and then end up landing on chord root notes again? If that is the case, how do you decide when to use root and when to use fifths?
"Land on chord tones" - that's the primary point here. Learn how to recognize (academically at first and then eventually by training your ears) when you're on or off a chord tone. Any chord tone which suits the melody line you've got going will do.
@@MarkZabelAh I get it now. I can recognoze some by ear. However I find it very difficult to concentrate on remembering the name of the next chord in progression and trying to remember where its chord tones are when it hits. Not sure how to navigate that simulatinously.
Hi Richard. I'm not sure about that, though maybe we're not using "noodling" in the same way. I'm convinced that in his element (blue-rock, Dorian progressions, Latin rhythms, and harmonic minor) he knows exactly what he's doing. I almost always have the impression when he's improvising, he knows exactly what his next note is going to sound like before he plays it. Having said that, I saw a video of him playing some "jam band" stuff - Phish and Grateful Dead style. He definitely seemed to be noodling a bit. He wasn't nailing it like he does in Europa or Soul Sacrifice!
FINALLY! Someone explained it to me! Everyone is like "learn the chords, they are important" and that's literally all they say and I'm thinking "but why? I don't wanna strum and play the chords, I wanna learn how to make riffs and play solos" Thank you! I get it now.
This. This is exactly why David Gilmour's solos sound so melodic. He plays to the changes not to the key. I learned the solo to Time on keyboard, playing the chords with my left hand and the melody with my right. I noticed right away that the vast majority of the melody notes were contained in the chord being played at the time. Lightbulb moment.
Hmm i always thought it was obvious... This knowledge has been out forever 😅 there are videos from 80s with guitarists saying that the basic of improvising are not just scales but playing correct notes to chord changes. Basically whole jazz music is about that isn't it ? 😅😅😅😅
@@siemniak It's absolutely not obvious for rock/pop lead guitar playing, though yes the knowledge has been out forever. Most guitarists start out learning a scale shape and then noodling that over a typical blues progression. Most guitarists just end up learning a repertoire of licks and then just repeating those and mixing and matching. Jazz music is the exception, since that is taken mostly from horn soloing. In jazz you start out by outlining the chord changes with arpeggios. From there, it is a matter of dicing those arpeggios up rhythmically and inter-splicing them with themes from the melody. But unless a guitarist is directly working in jazz, they might not ever discover this type of thinking. A whole different approach to soloing is using repeated motifs (repeated melodic/rhythmic patterns) rather than either noodling or straight arpeggios. Jim Hall and Barney Kessel are examples of guitarists who use motifs well in their solos.
@@siemniak An example of a guitarist who works with the chord changes well is Jimi Hendrix. Why? It's because he has stated that his favorite guitarist was Kenny Burrell, another jazz guitarist. So while Hendrix was a rocker, much of his influence was in jazz structurally, and you can really hear that in his playing.
I've been playing guitar for years, and I'm a chronic-noodler when I improvise. I refuse to memorise scales because I know it would just feed my bad habit of random note selection. The hope was that I would instinctively learn to feel the music and the soulful solos would somehow emerge one day after lots of mindless noodling. But it hasn't. And I think you've finally unlocked the door for me to break the plateau I've been in for years with these simple, logical and practical first steps. I am very grateful for this, and I look forward to putting it to work soon.
Glad it was helpful. Give it a whirl. "Feeling it" certainly is the goal, and this can help you get there by providing a framework. Best of luck with it!
I've found getting stuck musically useful in a way because I didn't let it stop me from practising, even if I was playing virtually the same thing over and over. . . I got sort of unstuck because I started to develop speed and technique that I never had before. It's interesting that I can write music in all different scales using electronic programs fairly seamlessly, but something about the repetition of guitar in a physical sense got me more locked in. I should apply this idea of matching progressions to writing some new music for guitar when I have the time to do so. It would be fun to have that versatility.
Mark Zabel: He's easily presented us with the best guitar instruction on the Internet in (under) seven minutes! Everyone should save this very nicely portrayed and demonstrated pertinent short lesson into their favorite file and refer back to it until we have it down.........even 10 or more times!! Jim C.
I'm an engineer learning guitar, and for the last couple years I've known there was some connection to good sounding solos and scales but could not figure it out. I just knew I wasn't doing it. Hearing you verbally made that connection made sense, and then hearing your improv got my heart racing because I understood it! Thank you :D
I agree. Maybe I'm dense but after playing for years I haven't found much solo instruction other than 'learn your CAGED patterns'. Mark is a Godsend. Thanks Mark!!
This is basically how I was taught. However, I was taught this method at the same time I was taught modes and how intervals from the appropriate mode create the chord. This both allows working with arpeggios and ending on a chord tone, too; works very well with sweeping, as well.
Interesting. I never got into sweep picking, but the related technique of rake picking certainly lines up with the modal view you're talking about here. I'm fairly sure I learned them separately, but you're right - they certainly go hand-in-hand.
Thanks Mark, we are so fortunate to have you on TH-cam. The way you explain things makes it easy to understand for both the beginner and the intermediate. First class mate, cheers
This is such a great tool for learning where all your chords are in any particular area of the guitar. It seems a little overwhelming at first (I always struggle with major and minor chord shapes for chords outside the regular I, IV, V) but it really does work like a charm to improve the melodic quality in your playing. This is one lesson I'll be working on for quite a while. Thanks Mark, your videos always seem to come through with the most useful stuff that helps someone play right now!
Use chord tones? Duh, if only it were that simple. But now it is! This made sense in a way I’ve always hoped for. Being highly visual (and incredibly dense) the different colors for chords tones over the scale was an “a ha” moment. This is fantastic and is probably going to piss my wife off because I’m going to try this out right now instead of the chores I promised to do today. Thank you!
Awesome video Mark, quick tip I think would be helpful for beginners like me prior to watching this, get a little grasp on the CAGED system, once you understand that all these chord inversions make total sense IMO
Thanks! Great tip! I believe it depends upon how intrepid the learner is. The more willing to just plunge in, the less CAGED is needed prior to it. So I think either works. My experience tells me you're right about 75% of the time on this. A majority of players need to be seriously coaxed to try something they don't know and are willing to sweat a bit to figure it out. One last wrinkle. Once you're willing to go down the "how does a chord fit into this?" path, you're not limited to major/minor triads. 7ths, 9ths, #9, b7b5, you name it - all fair game. I really love doing that myself, as it often leads me to deeper areas like "voice leading" for example. I find I'm surprised at the cleverness of the player or composer quite often. Makes me appreciate the music even more sometimes! Thanks again for your insightful comment!
I hope this is not misunderstood, but what you're really saying is this - stop improvising endlessly and start writing parts. I have a buddy that spends a lot of time figuring out the mode to use for each song and I keep telling him, you don't need to know the mode if you stop improvising and start writing parts.
Thanks for your comment! No, I'm not saying that exactly. I improvise constantly, but I (usually) play with intent. I'm improvising the lines that I hear in my head a split second before I play them on the fretboard. I'm still working on that, but I've gotten much better over the years. And to me, that's what non-random playing means - what comes out of the guitar is what I'm thinking should come out. This exercise can move you along that path. (There are other ways to do it too, like constantly learning melodies.) Why? A simple answer is that most melodies consist of chord tones or at least end on chord tones. If you listen to singer's melodies, they strongly tend to follow the chords. (Listening is also a great, separate skill, as it gives you more ideas.) Now, is composing a solo good too? YES! And again, thinking about chord tones is a big part of understanding what will work and what worked for others.
Great advice! I've been trying to do this sort of this (playing notes appropriate to the current chord in the progression) but it is so hard and requires so much brainpower!! I even made a diagram of all the triads (basically an extended version of the fretboard diagrams you have in this video) and it helps. It takes discipline to practice things that are really difficult, but I just gotta hunker down and get thru it I guess. As you say, you just gotta do it 4, 5 times, maybe 10 in your case (and 100 in mine)
I thought about George Harrison playing unrelated notes to the chords to make it sound like a really delayed resolution (mimicking being really stoned) and capturing that San Francisco acid rock sound.
This instruction motivated me to keep learning. I was stuck at this exact point knowing the CAGED shapes etc, but aimlessly moving around. Thank you for such a great breakdown.
Ah, the late seventies. Thats when I started. 1977. What a phenomonally harder world to learn to play in. The only way to figure out a solo (for me anyway) was to buy the vinyl record, and put the record on the record player or stereo, and put it on 33 if it was a 45, or nuetral if it was a LP, and hand-spin the record slowly back and forth - to try and figure out the note space differences in the lower octave or tone - because if you could hear the changes - then you could try and duplicate at correct tone and octave in real speed. No TH-cam, No rock n roll guitar teachers, nothing but mel bay books and Hal Leonard guitar method books - and your home stereo with vinyl.
That nugget of guitar tutaledge, built on years of your guitar experience.......is definitely worth my subscription! Wow, wish I knew an instructor like you years ago. You didn't just teach a little lick, or some melody line........you're teaching a mindset with this tutorial. Pure light bulb, eureka moment kinda stuff! Thanks! 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
I've been playing for decades (ugh, I'm old). I've based most of my solos around the minor pentatonic scale and it's various positions around the neck. Along the way I've learned passing tones, blue notes, and other things that have me playing what I've seen described as the mixolydian, major pentatonic, and blues scales. I'm trying to eliminate a lot of those extra notes to focus more on box one of the minor pentatonic because there is a riches of potential there. The licks you present and how you connect them to chords was eye, and ear opening, to me. While you didn't play anything that I don't already have in my seemingly limited bag of tricks, the intention with which notes are chosen is something which will recast my solos into something grounded in logic for me and rooted in those classic rock licks for those listening. I'm so glad that I discovered your channel! I also see that your other vids will provide additional treasure to explore. Thank you!!
One of the finest guitar lessons I've seen on TH-cam. Found this video by accident while looking for someone else's lesson page but this is honestly better. I've been playing scales for two years now and not understanding how to make them into leadlines or solos. It's starting to make sense now. You've more than earned my subscribe!
Dude, This is so me it's ridiculous!! I even gave up and started playing drums again. I love the way you broke this down, I am thinking I may pick it back up and try again using this method. Thanks.
nice lesson! that's why i believe playing and practicing jazz (bebop to be specific) is very important for every modern musician, even if you don't like jazz, because it's a great way of learning the basics of melodic playing and grasping the correspondence between chords and different scales/modes
I won't disagree! Country, Bluegrass, and Western Swing are also good gateways - emphasizing the chord/scale connection is a generally simpler context. Also, they're great in that, like jazz, they emphasize improvising and playing off of and with other musicians.
Best way to stop random noodling = compose your solos! Literally every legendary rock solo is PAINSTAKINGLY COMPOSED not improvised. It's a song within a song, just like Nuno Bettencourt said. Nobody can improvise hit songs on the spot, not even The Beatles could. So why people think they can improvise great solos? Both are built around great melodies. People hide behind improvisation, because they don't want their composition skills to be judged. Because they don't trust their composition skills. "I was just improvising". Yeah you were, but why. People came to listen to you play, why you didn't bring your A game? Prepare a great solo for them. Compose and properly rehearse your solos or stop playing solos. What I said doesn't make this video invalid, you still need to hit the chord notes. That's good advice. But it's not enough, it's the baseline. It's where the composition starts. Jazz musicians are perhaps different (for even them, composition would lead into better results) but in rock/metal realm, improvisation has almost no place. Yeah you CAN improvise, but the results are almost always inferior. Unless you get really really lucky.... and then you hope you would have recorded it so you could repeat it = composition.
Thank you so much! I’ve been lost wondering how to do solos that sound good for about 40 years. Now I know the secret of how to approach them. Great video!
This is something I need to get back into practicing. For years I haven't played along to music and it's definitely taken its toll on my improvising abilities. When I was a teen I practically learned how to play by learning songs, playing along with them and then using the chords and scales from the song to solo over it and that is what truly made me fall in love with playing guitar. However, I haven't owned a stereo in over a decade! But! Now I have a smart phone with a speaker that's good enough to use as a small stereo and it actually sounds good!
He's basically saying if you practice repetitively and constantly enough, you'll develop your own phrasing. It's the phrasing that makes a guitar solo from Carlos Santana so different from one by Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix.
Yep! Ur 110% CORRECT!! UR one of the few who've not only pointed this out, but created a DEMONSTRATION. I believe this is one of those cases where LESS is MORE. Great example of WHAT U JUST EXPLAINED & DEMONSTRATED, is the solo in "HOTEL CALIFORNIA." FELDER and WALSH are landing on CHORD tones throughout the ENTIRE SOLO... and that's what makes it sound INCREDIBLE!! WHAT U just demonstrated, MARK... is the KEY 🗝 to guitar soloing. The melody of the song is based on the chords... so why shouldn't the solo??! If one plays the melody in "HOTEL CALIFORNIA" ON GUITAR 🎸... one will notice many similarities in the solo. KUDOS!!
You're welcome. And thanks for that insightful comment. Hotel California - especially Don Felder's part of the solo, emphasizes chord tones and is extremely melodic.
@@MarkZabel In the solo you taught from ARS' "SPOOKY"... BARRY BAILEY (RIP), not only plays chord tones, he's following the melody... and so does "STEVE STONE" (I think it's STEVE STONE), in the more jazzier 3rd section ( USING OCTAVES), of the solo. U MARK, may be the only teacher on TH-cam, who taught/ teaches this iconic solo. It's probably one of the most tasty, cool 😎, bluesey- jazzy, thick-toned solos ever recorded and played!! WHY? CUZ it has incredible FEELING! KUDOS again to you, MARK!! AND if I recall correctly, you even mentioned how BARRY was incorporating the melody 🎶 into his solo. I don't understand why more people/ musicians don't recognize the incredible talent of "BARRY BAILEY!!
The simplicity of the explanation was nice. As it just got right to the heart of the matter for someone looking to make music. Also, I appreciated "the little secret" at the end, which basically says, "Just do it, and your ears will soon catch on".
Playin through the changes..👍🏼 It puts you INTO the music… -not NEAR the music… Thanks Mark..! ..👍🏼❤️ PS…a little bit of guitar theory doesn’t shut the door on creativity….it throws open all the windows…! 💪🏼👀
This is the Holy Grail of guitar lessons, couldn't figure out how to get out of the noodling stage, feel like I've been in it for too long now. Can't imagine how much time I've wasted practicing the wrong way. Thank you so much for this!
Thank you! Some people get very annoyed at directionless noodling.. it can be an annoying ostentatious and overbearing display of too much, especially at loud volumes!🙄 Yeah the 70s kind of made us all believe that we could just all be the Grateful Dead at times. That said, I really enjoyed Jerry's playing and it had its element of noodling, Especially in concert! The band Phish also comes to mind.. And I would say Buckethead does his share when he plays a half hour to 45 minute song. he does have an incredibly solid technique which makes it work. I believe noodling has its Place, as long as there's some semblance of Melody. thank you very much for the tip, especially because I thought at the very end you were going to say.. click the link below and send me x amount of dollars and I'll give you that tip.. 😉🤣 Thx again
Thanks for the thought-provoking comment! I must admit I don't like the long, random sort of noodling. Maybe if I were high, LOL! Kind of like listening to water in a brook I guess, which is not unpleasant. Don't get me wrong, I like extended solos from time to time - but not the ones that have no direction. Duane and Dickey come to mind for me. Their solos, no matter how long, always take you somewhere ... and in the case of Dickey they usually take you back home to where you started. He was an excellent storyteller on guitar. I haven't listened to Phish or Buckethead, but I always thought Jerry had a great knack for creating improvised melodies. Sometimes they went nowhere, but mostly they didn't.
@@MarkZabel you mentioned Dickie Betts! One of the Masters of taking us on a Beautiful and logical musical ride that always started off with excitement and logically came to a concise and cool conclusion. I'm always amazed at jazz improvisation.. it seems like noodling, but I know it also employs the same technique as you suggest. Thank you for doing what you do, it's not easy - I've tried. It takes dedication, repetition and attention to detail. Thx for freely sharing knowledge. Excellent work man!
Phenomenal video! Excellent information explained very clearly and easy to follow along with, and it wasn't spread out over an unnecessarily long time like some thirty minute basic solo videos on youtube! Thanks Mark!
Thanks! I'm *very* happy with my tribute. I did have the nut replaced about 3 years into owning it. (Just FYI. I probably didn't need to, but I had it done anyway.)
You said it took you time to finally understand what you were doing wrong... and you don't even hesitate to share it with us! You truly are a good man.
Great lesson as usual! I’m not quite an intermediate player so it is a lot to grasp but I’ve saved this in my favorites and will certainly come back to it in the future.
When guitarists solo "from the heart" it drives me crazy. It isn't from the heart - It's just muscle memory! Tip 1: stop making the guitar apart of your personality and how you brand yourself. If you're having trouble writing... Take a year off. Kill the muscle memory. When you come back, don't play any covers. See what your "heart" can come up with when it when it isn't held back by muscle memory.
You noodle because you have no musical ideas in your head. Transcribe solos that you like (so that you can play them note for note) and play melodies of the songs that you are learning to solo over and out of that will emerge better ideas.
Yes, that's good advice. BUT in the 35-40 years I've been teaching, I find players (adult students usually) are extremely reluctant to learn melodies, especially from other instruments like voice or trumpet. And I often find the transcription route usually degenerates into tab lookup - or nothing at all. So I try other methods. I've found this one gets students to stop and think a bit. Then the route to melodies is easier, because one can see how singers usually land on chord tones. I personally learned from 1) singing and 2) playing many simple melodies like "Oh Susanna!" on guitar. But I did that when I was 8 or 10 years old and told to sit in my room and practice what was in the Mel Bay book. I probably wouldn't do that today. Anyway, that's the reasoning here.
I love to noodle … nothing more satisfying than a backing track playing and improvising over it . I’ve never been impressed with covering someone’s solos . I like to find my own from my style … take a song as simple as cocaine by Clapton when it’s time for that solo it’s so easy to not just make the original sound so out dated and slow lol 🎃
Hi Ron. I understand what you're saying, but improvising isn't noodling ... or it shouldn't be. Just playing a scale is going to sound random. Being mindful of the music and the changes you're playing over is a big part of improvising and it's WAY more fun. Players like Guthrie Govan or Larry Carlton or Andy Timmons don't noodle when they play. Stopping noodling is not the same as learning a solo note for note.
Think that’s what separates beginners from more experienced players how to actually use the scales and modes I’ve been playing music for 30 yrs I guess a lot of what I do is feel by now lol to me a lot of it noodling I know what works but finding different ways to use it . Economy playing for sure .
@Ron Swary Makes total sense brother. Thanks for clarification. I bet your ears have gotten better over time, and by "feel" you mean playing based on what you hear changing in the music around you (beat, chord changes and so forth). Nothing wrong with that. What I'm talking about is really students (and some players on stage) who just run through scales with no ideas whatsoever. Random scales or arpeggios. The method here is really just a gateway for one's ears to grow into understanding when one is playing a note that fits the music around it. For me, I don't usually map out chords or anything. I usually just have to soak in the beat and get an idea or two in my head and then play - all feel. (But if I play something I don't usually play, like bebop ... yeah, I totally need to think about it the first few times I play through the changes ... and it usually sounds bad anyway, as bebop's not my thing! LOL!
@@MarkZabel ya from that aspect just mindlessly doing a scale run or arpeggios isn’t fun . That’s most of mordern heavy music super fast no feeling behind the notes just how fast can I get from root note to root note and use as much of the fretboard they can to make it look flashy . I can’t explain it really I’m not educated enough I guess but it’s definitely a strong sense of timing and direction tho . Being able to feel the progression happen around me . And if it’s something new i always get that oh you got on that one feeling but nail it on next turn around . I tend to play a lot of a lot of blues solo stuff. I’ve only been playing with a pick for the last 3 years of almost 30 fingerstyle it’s tough but I’m sticking with it .
@@MarkZabel I should clarify that It’s not a I don’t “want to know “ a recorded solo I just find for me it’s more a challenge to make a new one than look at some tabs or have some-guy say put this finger here it’s good for some but I like to learn a different way I guess. There is times I’ll watch scrolling tabs and play along but I don’t play much “cover” music I like to just write in the spot or practice around lol I’ve caught myself jamming along to backing tracks based on famous songs that I know by ear and I’ve found say a page solo or Clapton by “noodling “ around . I know the key I know the chord progression so it has to be from these notes but how I say and the fingers find it . My wife says I was born in the wrong time I’m 40. And where I’m from not very many people played music didn’t have a group of buds to jam with I’m self taught . Started on piano at 3 or 4 Trumpet by age 9 and all through school solo ensemble stuff and guitar @10 . Had to reteach myself music at 19 after a car crash. Without playing music as a way to escape and express and explore I’m sure many can agree where would be 😎
In my humble opinion, theory makes people stiff and too reliant on knowledge. When I write, feeling and heart guides me and then something rich emerges from the cluster of ideas. Dynamics, and spacing/phrasing are very important to me
Thanks for you comment Kevin. I'm not sure you watched until the end, but I would encourage you to do so if you haven't yet.. This is 100% about getting your hands, ears, and brain in sync. Hearing chord changes as well as dynamics will make you play more in synch with the music around you. This is very, very gentle theory. Dynamics and spacing are good descriptions - I like that!
ok so: "Am, C, G, D, F, G Am", minor penatatonic (as you demonstrated) will fit, however I'd go Dorian mode to emphasize the F#.. for those that dont know, the only chord out of that progression that has "an F#" is the D major.. stevie ray feel on..
Yes, absolutely you could play A-Dorian. Make sure, however, to listen to the changes and keep targeting chord tones. In that paradigm, the F becomes the "special note" to watch for.
Bro! I've got a great ear, and can often land on a chord note, and know my scales, and know the CAGED system, but this simple and clear instruction helped me tie it ALL together. I literally picked up my guitar and had changed my way of thinking about soloing AND also playing solo music. Wow. Thanks. :)
I am interested in what is going on in your head while playing this. Specifically, are you thinking "next is F chord - find a note in F to stop on" and then you have to think about where a C might be, or an A. OR do you plot it out SLOWLY during practice, and plan the pauses and play what you planned. OR is it instinctive, like " finish on a descending note and it should be about HERE"
Today, I think ... "Dah ... dah dah Dah ... dah Dah ... dah dah dah dah dah". It's all melody and rhythm. I had to build that over time though. I don't plan beforehand, I improvise. But I do like to have a few takes before hitting the record button, because then I can get an idea or two that I like. I've known scale patterns for a long time. What this mental mapping of the chords does is let you know where the strongest landing spots are. It takes time to do at first, but do it a few times and it will be natural. You'll start to "see" the chords. If you listen to a song's melody, there are notes that pass-through and notes that "sit". Those are notes that the singer holds or ends a line with. When you're soloing, think of yourself as a singer. The pause points are strongest on chord tones - notes from the chord that's playing at that moment. If you study melodies, you'll find they often follow chords. Another thing that helps greatly is to sing what you play and vice versa.
Learn how to noodle the right way. It works with chords too. You start adding minors in between and find yourself playing songs that recognize, and it satsifying to know you followed the pathways of your heroes.
First: great video! Second: please improve the audio quality! It sounds like it’s been downsampled quite a lot, it’s the same in all your other videos. It’s especially weird because the visual quality is great!
This is great stuff … once you learn the CAGED system it makes your solos have a purpose and more melodic … Landing on the 3rd of each chord is always a good choice … and once you get this concept of all the chord tones being right under your fingers , it works for any key
Hi Mark, maybe what I'm going to say doesn't make sense but random playing is a great way to become a better guitarist, a great way to learn the fretboard by ear and connect the right notes with your hearing. It did wonders for me. It helped me to always resolve any random and fast riff I played, it helped me to learn the modes without really knowing the full technical and theoretical aspect of them, but everybody's different so what might work for one guy may not work for another. That's why I don't agree with your title.
Thanks for your comment. It doesn't sound like you're talking about random playing. As I say at the end of the video - "The Secret" - this direct technique is merely a bridge to help your fingers synch up with your ears. After a while it's not necessary. Judging by the sheer number of players who meander from note to note within a scale and do not have a good sense of resolving their lines, just "letting it happen" is usually not the way to go. There are other methods, of course, to get there, learning melodies being the chief among them. But yeah, IMHO, we have too many "hand players" out there. They're not connecting their ears and hands to the music. Random isn't working for them I think.
excellent lessons thank you! Been playing 30 years and have taken a lot of lessons and learned a lot of songs. But you are tying it all together. Gold.
Some of the greatest music is created from noodling. I guess if we don’t want to noodle then let’s remove the musical category of Jazz from the entire world of music. 😂
You're kidding about Jazz, right? This is *exactly* what bebop players do. Jazz isn't noodling at all. The best jazzers really know how to play with intent.
Tell this to my neighbour who cant play and sing even if his life depended on it. He is so bad…. I mean I cant play at all but I have to suffer through his midlife crisis.
You can't explain it any better than that. However, it's extremely difficult to do and I cannot do it. I guess a guy needs to first take every chord and try to make licks out of them. Maybe set your metronome at different tempos, so you can come up with long and short licks for every chord. Do this for every chord you intend to solo over. I can't figure it out on the fly. I can't think that fast. I can't even do it over a simple 1,4,5 I know in advance. I guess I do not understand how to make a solo from chord tones period. I think I need to focus on one chord at a time and see if I can make a chord into a musical sounding lick. I get extremely frustrated and have been trying to do this for years to no avail. However, it looks relatively easy to do and totally makes sense. For example: In a basic 1,4,5, If you just focused on chord shapes alone and happened to land on the 5th of the 1 chord over the 1 and the root of the 5 chord over the 5 you just played the same note and went nowhere. So, shapes alone do not guarantee success. You have to know what note in the shape to play. You have to know every note on the fretboard. Not only that but how they sound in relation to the chord.
You're over-thinking this brother. One certainly *can* make a solo out of chord tones. (See this video for ideas: th-cam.com/video/LMlPYY7sZ4c/w-d-xo.html) But assuming you know at least one scale pattern, say, the blues box Am Pentatonic here, it's fairly simple. 1. Listen to the song and make sure you can hear the chord changes. (Don't skip this) 2. Take 5 minutes to visualize each chord near a particular position - say the position where you'll solo. (This becomes nearly instantaneous after doing it a few times.) 3. Play a solo, trying to END your lines on chord tones. That's it. The key word is END. It's a skill, no doubt, but a fairly simple one compared to soloing with a scale. Just try to stop on a note of a chord. In fact, I'd make a very large wager that if you take 2 or 3 of your favorite licks and look at the note where they end and the chord that's being played, it will be a chord tone. Our ears and brains love resolution. That's why it works and feels satisfying.
@@MarkZabel I start on the root at the beginning of every chord and usually end my on the root as well. It sounds better than random noodling but too boring and predictable. I will try ending on a chord tone and not worry about playing the root note or worry about the beginning of the next chord. Just end with a chord tone and see how that works. I really appreciate your answer. I think I need to get a little frustrated at times to progress. It's easy for me to forget how slow progress can be and how much time a person needs to put in. You explain this very well. I will try ending on chord tones. I love jam tracks that show the chords. Can't get lost then. Need to develop my ear. You yourself could jam without a backing track at all and sound just as good by simply imagining a backing track was there. I took a break for a year and just played my acoustic guitar a little to keep up my guitar skills but now I'm ready to go to the next level on electric guitar. You have been producing some awesome looking content. Thanks again for the response.
Thanks! Soloing using "chord tones" is probably the closest. But I once bought a book on chord tone soloing. Oh my, it was over-the-top technical. Not at all helpful. So it varies ... unfortunately.
Oh yes. Not necessarily drift outside, but ignore? Yes. Pick a scale and go on autopilot. A good number of hand players out there. Have a look at some of the other comments. Many actually advocating for randomness. To me that's like arguing for poor grammar. It's okay to break the rules on purpose if you're an experienced writer or speaker. But not being able to speak in the first place shouldn't be desirable.
Hi Mark, this is the best advice I've ever reiceived in my decades of playing guitar. And by the way one learns all chord positions along the neck within the pentatonic boxes. I have yet a long way to go, but now the road is clear. A million thanks for this....really. Greetings from Spain.
I learned the CAGED system pretty well. I learned my root notes. All my playing sounds so mechanical. This is the piece I was missing. Now I have a much better idea where to land. Thank you!
It's really fun to hear other guitarists talk about their journey because most of us have taken the same path while, at the time, thinking that our journey is unique. When I made the chord-scale connection some years back, I likened it to Neo seeing the blueprint of the matrix for the first time. This step (the one this lesson teaches) is both a huge step toward melodic soloing and a giant eye opener as to how much there is to learn. The consolation prize is that you will know what it is you need to get better at in almost an instant.
Well put Sean. A few people have commented that this is just CAGED. No. This is, as you say, a gateway for much, much more learning - melodic construction, voice leading, chord extensions and substitutions. For me, it was the real point at which I feel I started to truly understand things - including how I needed to listen more intently and develop my ears. Time and again, when I went to melodies I loved from singers or to guitar solos I loved, this was what did it. Before then it was, "Okay, time for a solo. What scale should I use?"
Thanks for your well thought out comment!
Ok, ok...
This is the video I've been looking for for 2 years. THANK YOU
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you. Fantastic video. Learned a lot, sir.
Glad it was helpful!
@@MarkZabel Hi Mark, I don't mean to impose on you but I was wondering if you could expound on your Jessie's Girl solo video. And explain the theory going on there. I always wondered. I know it's in D so I assume the solo is arpeggios, etc. Just wondering your thoughts on it. Thanks again!
@@MrArtist1971 Great suggestion!
thank god for your lessons
Thanks!! You made my day!
I have been in a rut for a while now and I'm searching for an escape when I saw this video. I'm not completely on board yet but this definitely got my attention so I'm going to give it a try. By the way not only does this chord progression style remind me of the Eagles, I thought you sir sound a little like Don Felder. Which I am a huge fan so please, this is meant to be a compliment. Hopefully this will stop my doodling so thank You!
Thanks so much Todd! I would take that as a compliment any day of the week!! DF is a great player!
Great teacher, great lesson!!!
Thanks brother!!
Love your playing so concise.
Thanks!
Most, if not all players go thru the same thing. Practicing scales and patterns over and over, until they finally realize that this will make them really good at playing those patterns, but not leads or songs. Then you start to diversify and work on making licks from the patterns, and real world playing
earned a sub good stuff mate
The best book on improv I read didn't downplay the scales. Scales are tools. The book spent considerable time on learning to hear intervals in your head. When you learn to do that, you start to "hear" the improv in your head just ahead of actually playing it. My guitar playing solos improved dramatically when I caught on to this. And then even more when I concentrated on saxophone. When I managed to be arranger for a small orchestra, the hearing in your head became even more vital.
Which book was this? I'd love to check it out
Nothing wrong with scales, arpeggios, hearing intervals, or what-have-you. But to apply them, that's the issue usually. Scales and arpeggios are usually learned by guitarists as an end unto themselves and often practiced from root to root and back or with intervallic pattern play. Often the *only* tool used is a particular scale and guitarists think "Scale = Lead, Chord = Rhythm" instead of something more akin to "Lead is an interlude where I take over for the singer for a while and then hand it back".
So yes, "hearing the improv in your head" is a goal. But if you haven't learned melody from actual melody (E.g., Children's songs, themes in classical music, show tunes, and so forth) chances are that you'll resist doing so as an adult, and it's a big barrier to becoming a melodic player. I have found that asking players to think and listen for chord tones is an effective way to break the pattern of somewhat randomly playing through scale patterns, and a good gateway into better listening and eventually more melodic play.
@@JoshMackers Oh, here's the bad news. The book was independently published and this was decades ago. It might be in some box of mine somewhere, but I'm not sure when I could dig it up. I did a check of my bookshelf in a likely place, but got nothing. I'll tell you one bit of advice the book offered that I found useful that I can explain here: find songs you know well that start with all the intervals. The author had a lot of suggestions, but too many were too old for me (and I'm 61 now, so it'll give you an idea how old). But some timeless songs have intervals you can hear in your head. Rising octave: "Over the Rainbow", "Take me out to the ball game". Descending octave: "Watermelon man". Ascending aug4 and maj7: "Maria". Rising 5th: "Twinkle, Twinkle". I went with more modern songs for some of the odd intervals. Rising m2: "Jaws" theme. Rising aug5: "She Came in Through the bathroom window". Figure out your own set of songs with the 22 intervals. Learn to play them in any key and you'll have it in your head.
@@MarkZabel The chord system is definitely a good gateway to the same thing. You and I have clearly hit a point where it's clear where we want to take a solo in our heads. We're not just trying to find notes that fit. It's possible to find yourself thinking far in advance of where you are at the moment. I was once playing sax in a band and they pulled in a lot of Spyro Gyra just because they had me as a sax player. It was all pre-written and I stayed with it, but one piece closed with a key change to F# and nothing written down to close it. The F# key is where all those hopelessly boring exercises with scales are essential to improvising. (OK, not so bad with Guitar, but the point remains.) One day, during rehearsals, I hit that ending suddenly the whole melody to the Flintstones theme burst into my head. That's a full 30 seconds of melody that just spread itself over the chords of the song finale. It wasn't a complicated chord progression, but the point is that you can hear it. And the more you practice and the more comfortable you are with the chords (your point) and intervals (my point) the more you can "write" the music in front of you and then sight read it. There is nothing more spiritually satisfying than closing my eyes and getting lost in an improvisation.
Amazing! Just fenomenal! Unbeilable that this isnt common when learning guitar.
I was noodling for 9 years and got better at it every time i grabbed my guitar. I never actively practiced playing to chord changes and in the last 2 to 3 years my ears just developed in a way, that i could anticipate a chord change (like you said in the video) in a song, that i have never heard before and instinctively play a good sounding note (most of the time). Of course it doesn't always work but it is such a great feeling to finally be at that point in my journey, that i can just close my eyes and jam out for 10 minutes straight and open my eyes again and feel like i just played the best sounding solo i could ever hope to.
It would have been great to learn the lesson, you taught, earlier but then again i probably would have been to lazy to map out the chords on the scale... but in general, this is great advice.
Cool!
You make it so clear and easy ! 👍
Thanks so much!
I love this
My brain needed this...
thank you, thats useful.
Glad to hear that!
Pretty interesting. I’m surprised that many players don’t know this. Seems like newer players are obsessed with covering lots of real estate up and down the neck, and playing fast. This video shows how the notes can all be used in the same position, more or less, without zooming all over the place.
If I'm not mistaken you land on chord root notes, then land on chord fifths and then end up landing on chord root notes again? If that is the case, how do you decide when to use root and when to use fifths?
"Land on chord tones" - that's the primary point here. Learn how to recognize (academically at first and then eventually by training your ears) when you're on or off a chord tone. Any chord tone which suits the melody line you've got going will do.
@@MarkZabelAh I get it now. I can recognoze some by ear. However I find it very difficult to concentrate on remembering the name of the next chord in progression and trying to remember where its chord tones are when it hits. Not sure how to navigate that simulatinously.
He thinks like me playing bass guitar. Connecting chords in my melody (plus connecting to the drums/guitar/vocs, whatever serves the song).
Exactly!
Carlos Santana is the master of noodling.
Hi Richard. I'm not sure about that, though maybe we're not using "noodling" in the same way. I'm convinced that in his element (blue-rock, Dorian progressions, Latin rhythms, and harmonic minor) he knows exactly what he's doing. I almost always have the impression when he's improvising, he knows exactly what his next note is going to sound like before he plays it.
Having said that, I saw a video of him playing some "jam band" stuff - Phish and Grateful Dead style. He definitely seemed to be noodling a bit. He wasn't nailing it like he does in Europa or Soul Sacrifice!
great lesson, simple and effective , youre da best
Thank you!
FINALLY! Someone explained it to me! Everyone is like "learn the chords, they are important" and that's literally all they say and I'm thinking "but why? I don't wanna strum and play the chords, I wanna learn how to make riffs and play solos" Thank you! I get it now.
My pleasure. Thanks for watching!
so you don't wanna learn how to play, you wanna learn how to solo
sorry to say that but this is the path to mediocrity on guitar
@@oluisart who cares? As long as you’re having fun it really doesn’t matter
@@oluisart don’t be such a square, have fun
@@bignutsalsobigballs it matters to the ears of anyone walking by
This. This is exactly why David Gilmour's solos sound so melodic. He plays to the changes not to the key. I learned the solo to Time on keyboard, playing the chords with my left hand and the melody with my right. I noticed right away that the vast majority of the melody notes were contained in the chord being played at the time. Lightbulb moment.
Exactly!
Hmm i always thought it was obvious... This knowledge has been out forever 😅 there are videos from 80s with guitarists saying that the basic of improvising are not just scales but playing correct notes to chord changes. Basically whole jazz music is about that isn't it ? 😅😅😅😅
@@siemniak It's absolutely not obvious for rock/pop lead guitar playing, though yes the knowledge has been out forever. Most guitarists start out learning a scale shape and then noodling that over a typical blues progression. Most guitarists just end up learning a repertoire of licks and then just repeating those and mixing and matching.
Jazz music is the exception, since that is taken mostly from horn soloing. In jazz you start out by outlining the chord changes with arpeggios. From there, it is a matter of dicing those arpeggios up rhythmically and inter-splicing them with themes from the melody. But unless a guitarist is directly working in jazz, they might not ever discover this type of thinking.
A whole different approach to soloing is using repeated motifs (repeated melodic/rhythmic patterns) rather than either noodling or straight arpeggios. Jim Hall and Barney Kessel are examples of guitarists who use motifs well in their solos.
@@siemniak An example of a guitarist who works with the chord changes well is Jimi Hendrix. Why? It's because he has stated that his favorite guitarist was Kenny Burrell, another jazz guitarist. So while Hendrix was a rocker, much of his influence was in jazz structurally, and you can really hear that in his playing.
@@TheJofrica thanks, that is interesting! However I can't find anything on the web about Hendrick s liking Kenny Burrell. Got a link?
I can’t believe that at 4:22 am, I finally found the video I needed to really solidify my lead playing, you’re a godsend
Glad I could help! Now get some sleep! :)
I've been playing guitar for years, and I'm a chronic-noodler when I improvise. I refuse to memorise scales because I know it would just feed my bad habit of random note selection. The hope was that I would instinctively learn to feel the music and the soulful solos would somehow emerge one day after lots of mindless noodling. But it hasn't. And I think you've finally unlocked the door for me to break the plateau I've been in for years with these simple, logical and practical first steps. I am very grateful for this, and I look forward to putting it to work soon.
Glad it was helpful. Give it a whirl. "Feeling it" certainly is the goal, and this can help you get there by providing a framework. Best of luck with it!
So noodling did help you in learning that you have to learn more to do more when you WANT to do more than you do.
I've found getting stuck musically useful in a way because I didn't let it stop me from practising, even if I was playing virtually the same thing over and over. . . I got sort of unstuck because I started to develop speed and technique that I never had before. It's interesting that I can write music in all different scales using electronic programs fairly seamlessly, but something about the repetition of guitar in a physical sense got me more locked in. I should apply this idea of matching progressions to writing some new music for guitar when I have the time to do so. It would be fun to have that versatility.
Mark Zabel: He's easily presented us with the best guitar instruction on the Internet in (under) seven minutes! Everyone should save this very nicely portrayed and demonstrated pertinent short lesson into their favorite file and refer back to it until we have it down.........even 10 or more times!! Jim C.
Thanks Jim C!!
Also, unrelated time-saving FYI: There's zero need to sign your name after a comment on the internet when you use that exact name on your profile.
@@MarkZabel he put words perfectly to match my thoughts. Thanks.
I cant even figure out how to play that c chord
@@schaddalton it kinda goes hard tho
I'm an engineer learning guitar, and for the last couple years I've known there was some connection to good sounding solos and scales but could not figure it out. I just knew I wasn't doing it.
Hearing you verbally made that connection made sense, and then hearing your improv got my heart racing because I understood it! Thank you :D
That's great! (From one engineer to another!)
This guy is directly helping hundreds of thousands of aspiring players. This is what makes a legend! Thank you!
Thanks and thanks for watching!
I agree. Maybe I'm dense but after playing for years I haven't found much solo instruction other than 'learn your CAGED patterns'. Mark is a Godsend. Thanks Mark!!
This is basically how I was taught. However, I was taught this method at the same time I was taught modes and how intervals from the appropriate mode create the chord. This both allows working with arpeggios and ending on a chord tone, too; works very well with sweeping, as well.
Interesting. I never got into sweep picking, but the related technique of rake picking certainly lines up with the modal view you're talking about here. I'm fairly sure I learned them separately, but you're right - they certainly go hand-in-hand.
Thanks Mark, we are so fortunate to have you on TH-cam. The way you explain things makes it easy to understand for both the beginner and the intermediate. First class mate, cheers
Great to hear! Thanks!
This is exactly what I've been struggling with recently. You broke it down so well and helped me understand how and where I can improve. Thank you!
This is such a great tool for learning where all your chords are in any particular area of the guitar. It seems a little overwhelming at first (I always struggle with major and minor chord shapes for chords outside the regular I, IV, V) but it really does work like a charm to improve the melodic quality in your playing. This is one lesson I'll be working on for quite a while. Thanks Mark, your videos always seem to come through with the most useful stuff that helps someone play right now!
Thanks John!
Use chord tones? Duh, if only it were that simple. But now it is! This made sense in a way I’ve always hoped for. Being highly visual (and incredibly dense) the different colors for chords tones over the scale was an “a ha” moment. This is fantastic and is probably going to piss my wife off because I’m going to try this out right now instead of the chores I promised to do today. Thank you!
You're welcome. Thanks for watching and especially for the kind comment!
The chord uses the root, 3rd and fifth so you can riff just on the chord notes.
Awesome video Mark, quick tip I think would be helpful for beginners like me prior to watching this, get a little grasp on the CAGED system, once you understand that all these chord inversions make total sense IMO
Thanks! Great tip! I believe it depends upon how intrepid the learner is. The more willing to just plunge in, the less CAGED is needed prior to it. So I think either works. My experience tells me you're right about 75% of the time on this. A majority of players need to be seriously coaxed to try something they don't know and are willing to sweat a bit to figure it out.
One last wrinkle. Once you're willing to go down the "how does a chord fit into this?" path, you're not limited to major/minor triads. 7ths, 9ths, #9, b7b5, you name it - all fair game. I really love doing that myself, as it often leads me to deeper areas like "voice leading" for example. I find I'm surprised at the cleverness of the player or composer quite often. Makes me appreciate the music even more sometimes!
Thanks again for your insightful comment!
I hope this is not misunderstood, but what you're really saying is this - stop improvising endlessly and start writing parts. I have a buddy that spends a lot of time figuring out the mode to use for each song and I keep telling him, you don't need to know the mode if you stop improvising and start writing parts.
Thanks for your comment!
No, I'm not saying that exactly. I improvise constantly, but I (usually) play with intent. I'm improvising the lines that I hear in my head a split second before I play them on the fretboard. I'm still working on that, but I've gotten much better over the years. And to me, that's what non-random playing means - what comes out of the guitar is what I'm thinking should come out.
This exercise can move you along that path. (There are other ways to do it too, like constantly learning melodies.) Why? A simple answer is that most melodies consist of chord tones or at least end on chord tones. If you listen to singer's melodies, they strongly tend to follow the chords. (Listening is also a great, separate skill, as it gives you more ideas.)
Now, is composing a solo good too? YES! And again, thinking about chord tones is a big part of understanding what will work and what worked for others.
Great advice! I've been trying to do this sort of this (playing notes appropriate to the current chord in the progression) but it is so hard and requires so much brainpower!!
I even made a diagram of all the triads (basically an extended version of the fretboard diagrams you have in this video) and it helps.
It takes discipline to practice things that are really difficult, but I just gotta hunker down and get thru it I guess. As you say, you just gotta do it 4, 5 times, maybe 10 in your case (and 100 in mine)
Glad to help!
I thought about George Harrison playing unrelated notes to the chords to make it sound like a really delayed resolution (mimicking being really stoned) and capturing that San Francisco acid rock sound.
Interesting.
This instruction motivated me to keep learning. I was stuck at this exact point knowing the CAGED shapes etc, but aimlessly moving around. Thank you for such a great breakdown.
Glad it helped!
Ah, the late seventies. Thats when I started. 1977. What a phenomonally harder world to learn to play in. The only way to figure out a solo (for me anyway) was to buy the vinyl record, and put the record on the record player or stereo, and put it on 33 if it was a 45, or nuetral if it was a LP, and hand-spin the record slowly back and forth - to try and figure out the note space differences in the lower octave or tone - because if you could hear the changes - then you could try and duplicate at correct tone and octave in real speed. No TH-cam, No rock n roll guitar teachers, nothing but mel bay books and Hal Leonard guitar method books - and your home stereo with vinyl.
I truly appreciate musicians before youtube.
That nugget of guitar tutaledge, built on years of your guitar experience.......is definitely worth my subscription!
Wow, wish I knew an instructor like you years ago.
You didn't just teach a little lick, or some melody line........you're teaching a mindset with this tutorial.
Pure light bulb, eureka moment kinda stuff!
Thanks! 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Thanks so much David!!
I've been playing for decades (ugh, I'm old). I've based most of my solos around the minor pentatonic scale and it's various positions around the neck. Along the way I've learned passing tones, blue notes, and other things that have me playing what I've seen described as the mixolydian, major pentatonic, and blues scales. I'm trying to eliminate a lot of those extra notes to focus more on box one of the minor pentatonic because there is a riches of potential there. The licks you present and how you connect them to chords was eye, and ear opening, to me. While you didn't play anything that I don't already have in my seemingly limited bag of tricks, the intention with which notes are chosen is something which will recast my solos into something grounded in logic for me and rooted in those classic rock licks for those listening. I'm so glad that I discovered your channel! I also see that your other vids will provide additional treasure to explore. Thank you!!
Thank you! Yes, intention is the key word here. It can make all the difference.
the Grateful Dead, String Cheese, and Phish need to watch this video...lol
LOL!
One of the finest guitar lessons I've seen on TH-cam. Found this video by accident while looking for someone else's lesson page but this is honestly better. I've been playing scales for two years now and not understanding how to make them into leadlines or solos. It's starting to make sense now. You've more than earned my subscribe!
Thanks so much! You really made my day!
If the song has a melody From lyrics play the melody then embellish the melody.
That's certainly a good way to go.
Dude, This is so me it's ridiculous!! I even gave up and started playing drums again. I love the way you broke this down, I am thinking I may pick it back up and try again using this method. Thanks.
Awesome. You can do it! (But keep up with the drums too!!)
Thanks a million for sharing this insight. I feel like I'm playing real music now. :)KD
Happy to help!
nice lesson! that's why i believe playing and practicing jazz (bebop to be specific) is very important for every modern musician, even if you don't like jazz, because it's a great way of learning the basics of melodic playing and grasping the correspondence between chords and different scales/modes
I won't disagree! Country, Bluegrass, and Western Swing are also good gateways - emphasizing the chord/scale connection is a generally simpler context. Also, they're great in that, like jazz, they emphasize improvising and playing off of and with other musicians.
Best way to stop random noodling = compose your solos! Literally every legendary rock solo is PAINSTAKINGLY COMPOSED not improvised. It's a song within a song, just like Nuno Bettencourt said. Nobody can improvise hit songs on the spot, not even The Beatles could. So why people think they can improvise great solos? Both are built around great melodies.
People hide behind improvisation, because they don't want their composition skills to be judged. Because they don't trust their composition skills. "I was just improvising". Yeah you were, but why. People came to listen to you play, why you didn't bring your A game? Prepare a great solo for them. Compose and properly rehearse your solos or stop playing solos.
What I said doesn't make this video invalid, you still need to hit the chord notes. That's good advice. But it's not enough, it's the baseline. It's where the composition starts.
Jazz musicians are perhaps different (for even them, composition would lead into better results) but in rock/metal realm, improvisation has almost no place. Yeah you CAN improvise, but the results are almost always inferior. Unless you get really really lucky.... and then you hope you would have recorded it so you could repeat it = composition.
Thank you so much! I’ve been lost wondering how to do solos that sound good for about 40 years. Now I know the secret of how to approach them. Great video!
You're very welcome. Thanks for the kind comment!
This video is the way. Simple. Concise. Nutritious.
Thanks!
so ending on chord tones means ending on a note in the chord not just ending on the root ?
Correct!
This is something I need to get back into practicing. For years I haven't played along to music and it's definitely taken its toll on my improvising abilities. When I was a teen I practically learned how to play by learning songs, playing along with them and then using the chords and scales from the song to solo over it and that is what truly made me fall in love with playing guitar. However, I haven't owned a stereo in over a decade! But! Now I have a smart phone with a speaker that's good enough to use as a small stereo and it actually sounds good!
Hi Jesse! I did the exact same thing - playing along to the radio and MTV (when it really was MUSIC Television). Thanks for sharing your story.
This is one of The Best Video's for soloing I've EVER SEEN! Thanks Mark!
Wow, thanks!
He's basically saying if you practice repetitively and constantly enough, you'll develop your own phrasing. It's the phrasing that makes a guitar solo from Carlos Santana so different from one by Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix.
Yep! Ur 110% CORRECT!! UR one of the few who've not only pointed this out, but created a DEMONSTRATION. I believe this is one of those cases where LESS is MORE. Great example of WHAT U JUST EXPLAINED & DEMONSTRATED, is the solo in "HOTEL CALIFORNIA." FELDER and WALSH are landing on CHORD tones throughout the ENTIRE SOLO... and that's what makes it sound INCREDIBLE!! WHAT U just demonstrated, MARK... is the KEY 🗝 to guitar soloing. The melody of the song is based on the chords... so why shouldn't the solo??! If one plays the melody in "HOTEL CALIFORNIA" ON GUITAR 🎸... one will notice many similarities in the solo. KUDOS!!
You're welcome. And thanks for that insightful comment. Hotel California - especially Don Felder's part of the solo, emphasizes chord tones and is extremely melodic.
@@MarkZabel In the solo you taught from ARS' "SPOOKY"... BARRY BAILEY (RIP), not only plays chord tones, he's following the melody... and so does "STEVE STONE" (I think it's STEVE STONE), in the more jazzier 3rd section ( USING OCTAVES), of the solo. U MARK, may be the only teacher on TH-cam, who taught/ teaches this iconic solo. It's probably one of the most tasty, cool 😎, bluesey- jazzy, thick-toned solos ever recorded and played!! WHY? CUZ it has incredible FEELING! KUDOS again to you, MARK!! AND if I recall correctly, you even mentioned how BARRY was incorporating the melody 🎶 into his solo. I don't understand why more people/ musicians don't recognize the incredible talent of "BARRY BAILEY!!
I absolutey loved the Ramen Noodle guitar,,,so funny….so cool to say you have a noodling guitar and people see that..
Love your lessons. They are so well constructed , logical and to the point. Thanks again.
You're welcome. Thanks so much for the kind note!
Great lessons and a nice guy to boot. Wish I found your channel earlier you explain things so clearly. Love your guitars too!! Cheers buddy.
Thanks Jason! Glad you found the channel. Welcome!
Me too. I wish I knew this in my teens!
This video is well organized. You're clear, concise, and your enthusiasm really shows. Thanks!
Thanks John!
Welp... Time to power up my Marshall
Thx buddy
The simplicity of the explanation was nice. As it just got right to the heart of the matter for someone looking to make music. Also, I appreciated "the little secret" at the end, which basically says, "Just do it, and your ears will soon catch on".
Thanks Michael!
@4:26 Is that “Love Potion #9”?
Ha! Wasn't thinking about that, but sure. The cadence is the same .. yep.
Playin through the changes..👍🏼
It puts you INTO the music…
-not NEAR the music…
Thanks Mark..! ..👍🏼❤️
PS…a little bit of guitar theory doesn’t shut the door on creativity….it throws open all the windows…! 💪🏼👀
Thanks Joe! You said it. Studies consistently show that creativity is positively linked to knowledge.
i dont know big guitar words so i dont understand anything
This is the Holy Grail of guitar lessons, couldn't figure out how to get out of the noodling stage, feel like I've been in it for too long now. Can't imagine how much time I've wasted practicing the wrong way. Thank you so much for this!
Glad to help!
Noodling is the gateway to your style.
Never stop noodling.
Thank you! Some people get very annoyed at directionless noodling.. it can be an annoying ostentatious and overbearing display of too much, especially at loud volumes!🙄 Yeah the 70s kind of made us all believe that we could just all be the Grateful Dead at times.
That said, I really enjoyed Jerry's playing and it had its element of noodling, Especially in concert! The band Phish also comes to mind..
And I would say Buckethead does his share when he plays a half hour to 45 minute song. he does have an incredibly solid technique which makes it work.
I believe noodling has its Place, as long as there's some semblance of Melody.
thank you very much for the tip, especially because I thought at the very end you were going to say.. click the link below and send me x amount of dollars and I'll give you that tip..
😉🤣
Thx again
Thanks for the thought-provoking comment!
I must admit I don't like the long, random sort of noodling. Maybe if I were high, LOL! Kind of like listening to water in a brook I guess, which is not unpleasant.
Don't get me wrong, I like extended solos from time to time - but not the ones that have no direction. Duane and Dickey come to mind for me. Their solos, no matter how long, always take you somewhere ... and in the case of Dickey they usually take you back home to where you started. He was an excellent storyteller on guitar.
I haven't listened to Phish or Buckethead, but I always thought Jerry had a great knack for creating improvised melodies. Sometimes they went nowhere, but mostly they didn't.
@@MarkZabel you mentioned Dickie Betts! One of the Masters of taking us on a Beautiful and logical musical ride that always started off with excitement and logically came to a concise and cool conclusion.
I'm always amazed at jazz improvisation.. it seems like noodling, but I know it also employs the same technique as you suggest.
Thank you for doing what you do, it's not easy -
I've tried.
It takes dedication, repetition and attention to detail.
Thx for freely sharing knowledge.
Excellent work man!
All the greats noodled but it was exploratory rather than unconscious perhaps. Excellent video cheers.
Thank you!
Phenomenal video! Excellent information explained very clearly and easy to follow along with, and it wasn't spread out over an unnecessarily long time like some thirty minute basic solo videos on youtube! Thanks Mark!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great video for random noodlers like me. By the way, I'm close to purchasing a Les Paul Tribute Deluxe like yours. Are you still happy with it?
Thanks! I'm *very* happy with my tribute. I did have the nut replaced about 3 years into owning it. (Just FYI. I probably didn't need to, but I had it done anyway.)
You said it took you time to finally understand what you were doing wrong... and you don't even hesitate to share it with us! You truly are a good man.
Glad you enjoyed the video!
back in my day, we referred to noodling as warming up
Thank you, Mark. This is certainly food for thought and so well explained. The way you described your learning experience is me to a tee
You're very welcome. Glad you could relate to it!
Excellent exposition Mark. I enjoy your videos and teaching style.
Thank you!
Great lesson as usual! I’m not quite an intermediate player so it is a lot to grasp but I’ve saved this in my favorites and will certainly come back to it in the future.
Awesome! Glad to help.
watch it everyday, you'll get it bro
When guitarists solo "from the heart" it drives me crazy. It isn't from the heart - It's just muscle memory! Tip 1: stop making the guitar apart of your personality and how you brand yourself. If you're having trouble writing... Take a year off. Kill the muscle memory. When you come back, don't play any covers. See what your "heart" can come up with when it when it isn't held back by muscle memory.
Thanks for the advice, what solos of yours can we check out for examples of your performances?
Ive been noodling musically since 1996. No plans to stop
You noodle because you have no musical ideas in your head. Transcribe solos that you like (so that you can play them note for note) and play melodies of the songs that you are learning to solo over and out of that will emerge better ideas.
Yes, that's good advice. BUT in the 35-40 years I've been teaching, I find players (adult students usually) are extremely reluctant to learn melodies, especially from other instruments like voice or trumpet. And I often find the transcription route usually degenerates into tab lookup - or nothing at all.
So I try other methods. I've found this one gets students to stop and think a bit. Then the route to melodies is easier, because one can see how singers usually land on chord tones.
I personally learned from 1) singing and 2) playing many simple melodies like "Oh Susanna!" on guitar. But I did that when I was 8 or 10 years old and told to sit in my room and practice what was in the Mel Bay book. I probably wouldn't do that today.
Anyway, that's the reasoning here.
I love to noodle … nothing more satisfying than a backing track playing and improvising over it . I’ve never been impressed with covering someone’s solos . I like to find my own from my style … take a song as simple as cocaine by Clapton when it’s time for that solo it’s so easy to not just make the original sound so out dated and slow lol 🎃
Hi Ron. I understand what you're saying, but improvising isn't noodling ... or it shouldn't be.
Just playing a scale is going to sound random. Being mindful of the music and the changes you're playing over is a big part of improvising and it's WAY more fun. Players like Guthrie Govan or Larry Carlton or Andy Timmons don't noodle when they play.
Stopping noodling is not the same as learning a solo note for note.
Think that’s what separates beginners from more experienced players how to actually use the scales and modes I’ve been playing music for 30 yrs I guess a lot of what I do is feel by now lol to me a lot of it noodling I know what works but finding different ways to use it . Economy playing for sure .
@Ron Swary Makes total sense brother. Thanks for clarification. I bet your ears have gotten better over time, and by "feel" you mean playing based on what you hear changing in the music around you (beat, chord changes and so forth). Nothing wrong with that.
What I'm talking about is really students (and some players on stage) who just run through scales with no ideas whatsoever. Random scales or arpeggios.
The method here is really just a gateway for one's ears to grow into understanding when one is playing a note that fits the music around it. For me, I don't usually map out chords or anything. I usually just have to soak in the beat and get an idea or two in my head and then play - all feel. (But if I play something I don't usually play, like bebop ... yeah, I totally need to think about it the first few times I play through the changes ... and it usually sounds bad anyway, as bebop's not my thing! LOL!
@@MarkZabel ya from that aspect just mindlessly doing a scale run or arpeggios isn’t fun . That’s most of mordern heavy music super fast no feeling behind the notes just how fast can I get from root note to root note and use as much of the fretboard they can to make it look flashy .
I can’t explain it really I’m not educated enough I guess but it’s definitely a strong sense of timing and direction tho . Being able to feel the progression happen around me . And if it’s something new i always get that oh you got on that one feeling but nail it on next turn around . I tend to play a lot of a lot of blues solo stuff. I’ve only been playing with a pick for the last 3 years of almost 30 fingerstyle it’s tough but I’m sticking with it .
@@MarkZabel I should clarify that It’s not a I don’t “want to know “ a recorded solo I just find for me it’s more a challenge to make a new one than look at some tabs or have some-guy say put this finger here it’s good for some but I like to learn a different way I guess. There is times I’ll watch scrolling tabs and play along but I don’t play much “cover” music I like to just write in the spot or practice around lol I’ve caught myself jamming along to backing tracks based on famous songs that I know by ear and I’ve found say a page solo or Clapton by “noodling “ around . I know the key I know the chord progression so it has to be from these notes but how I say and the fingers find it .
My wife says I was born in the wrong time I’m 40. And where I’m from not very many people played music didn’t have a group of buds to jam with I’m self taught . Started on piano at 3 or 4 Trumpet by age 9 and all through school solo ensemble stuff and guitar @10 . Had to reteach myself music at 19 after a car crash. Without playing music as a way to escape and express and explore I’m sure many can agree where would be 😎
And throw in barre cords in the progression for some added zing
In my humble opinion, theory makes people stiff and too reliant on knowledge. When I write, feeling and heart guides me and then something rich emerges from the cluster of ideas. Dynamics, and spacing/phrasing are very important to me
Thanks for you comment Kevin.
I'm not sure you watched until the end, but I would encourage you to do so if you haven't yet.. This is 100% about getting your hands, ears, and brain in sync. Hearing chord changes as well as dynamics will make you play more in synch with the music around you.
This is very, very gentle theory. Dynamics and spacing are good descriptions - I like that!
ok so: "Am, C, G, D, F, G Am", minor penatatonic (as you demonstrated) will fit, however I'd go Dorian mode to emphasize the F#.. for those that dont know, the only chord out of that progression that has "an F#" is the D major.. stevie ray feel on..
Yes, absolutely you could play A-Dorian. Make sure, however, to listen to the changes and keep targeting chord tones. In that paradigm, the F becomes the "special note" to watch for.
Bro! I've got a great ear, and can often land on a chord note, and know my scales, and know the CAGED system, but this simple and clear instruction helped me tie it ALL together. I literally picked up my guitar and had changed my way of thinking about soloing AND also playing solo music. Wow. Thanks. :)
That's great! Thanks so much for the feedback. Totally made my day!
Whoa. Who knew that I’ll find one of the most useful video ever just searching what to listen while brushing my teeth
I am interested in what is going on in your head while playing this. Specifically, are you thinking "next is F chord - find a note in F to stop on" and then you have to think about where a C might be, or an A. OR do you plot it out SLOWLY during practice, and plan the pauses and play what you planned. OR is it instinctive, like " finish on a descending note and it should be about HERE"
Today, I think ... "Dah ... dah dah Dah ... dah Dah ... dah dah dah dah dah". It's all melody and rhythm. I had to build that over time though. I don't plan beforehand, I improvise. But I do like to have a few takes before hitting the record button, because then I can get an idea or two that I like.
I've known scale patterns for a long time. What this mental mapping of the chords does is let you know where the strongest landing spots are. It takes time to do at first, but do it a few times and it will be natural. You'll start to "see" the chords.
If you listen to a song's melody, there are notes that pass-through and notes that "sit". Those are notes that the singer holds or ends a line with. When you're soloing, think of yourself as a singer. The pause points are strongest on chord tones - notes from the chord that's playing at that moment.
If you study melodies, you'll find they often follow chords.
Another thing that helps greatly is to sing what you play and vice versa.
Learn how to noodle the right way. It works with chords too. You start adding minors in between and find yourself playing songs that recognize, and it satsifying to know you followed the pathways of your heroes.
First: great video!
Second: please improve the audio quality! It sounds like it’s been downsampled quite a lot, it’s the same in all your other videos. It’s especially weird because the visual quality is great!
Ok thanks!
So to be concise: learn music theory.
This is great stuff … once you learn the CAGED system it makes your solos have a purpose and more melodic … Landing on the 3rd of each chord is always a good choice … and once you get this concept of all the chord tones being right under your fingers , it works for any key
Right on!
Hi Mark, maybe what I'm going to say doesn't make sense but random playing is a great way to become a better guitarist, a great way to learn the fretboard by ear and connect the right notes with your hearing. It did wonders for me. It helped me to always resolve any random and fast riff I played, it helped me to learn the modes without really knowing the full technical and theoretical aspect of them, but everybody's different so what might work for one guy may not work for another. That's why I don't agree with your title.
Thanks for your comment. It doesn't sound like you're talking about random playing. As I say at the end of the video - "The Secret" - this direct technique is merely a bridge to help your fingers synch up with your ears. After a while it's not necessary. Judging by the sheer number of players who meander from note to note within a scale and do not have a good sense of resolving their lines, just "letting it happen" is usually not the way to go.
There are other methods, of course, to get there, learning melodies being the chief among them. But yeah, IMHO, we have too many "hand players" out there. They're not connecting their ears and hands to the music. Random isn't working for them I think.
excellent lessons thank you! Been playing 30 years and have taken a lot of lessons and learned a lot of songs. But you are tying it all together. Gold.
Great to hear!
Some of the greatest music is created from noodling. I guess if we don’t want to noodle then let’s remove the musical category of Jazz from the entire world of music. 😂
You're kidding about Jazz, right? This is *exactly* what bebop players do. Jazz isn't noodling at all. The best jazzers really know how to play with intent.
Tell this to my neighbour who cant play and sing even if his life depended on it. He is so bad…. I mean I cant play at all but I have to suffer through his midlife crisis.
LOL!
I would also call those cage system chords superimposed over one another.
Yes, in this case, it's CAGED (except for Am). But this applies to other chords too - 7ths, 9ths, minors, minor 7ths, etc.
@@MarkZabel That's the part that stood out to me. Definitely a very cool lesson. I think it'll help a lot of people.
It’s great how this is a classic demonstration of the utility - and artistry of knowing and incorporating music theory into guitar playing
You can't explain it any better than that. However, it's extremely difficult to do and I cannot do it. I guess a guy needs to first take every chord and try to make licks out of them. Maybe set your metronome at different tempos, so you can come up with long and short licks for every chord. Do this for every chord you intend to solo over. I can't figure it out on the fly. I can't think that fast. I can't even do it over a simple 1,4,5 I know in advance. I guess I do not understand how to make a solo from chord tones period. I think I need to focus on one chord at a time and see if I can make a chord into a musical sounding lick. I get extremely frustrated and have been trying to do this for years to no avail. However, it looks relatively easy to do and totally makes sense.
For example:
In a basic 1,4,5, If you just focused on chord shapes alone and happened to land on the 5th of the 1 chord over the 1 and the root of the 5 chord over the 5 you just played the same note and went nowhere. So, shapes alone do not guarantee success. You have to know what note in the shape to play. You have to know every note on the fretboard. Not only that but how they sound in relation to the chord.
You're over-thinking this brother. One certainly *can* make a solo out of chord tones. (See this video for ideas: th-cam.com/video/LMlPYY7sZ4c/w-d-xo.html)
But assuming you know at least one scale pattern, say, the blues box Am Pentatonic here, it's fairly simple.
1. Listen to the song and make sure you can hear the chord changes. (Don't skip this)
2. Take 5 minutes to visualize each chord near a particular position - say the position where you'll solo. (This becomes nearly instantaneous after doing it a few times.)
3. Play a solo, trying to END your lines on chord tones.
That's it. The key word is END.
It's a skill, no doubt, but a fairly simple one compared to soloing with a scale. Just try to stop on a note of a chord.
In fact, I'd make a very large wager that if you take 2 or 3 of your favorite licks and look at the note where they end and the chord that's being played, it will be a chord tone. Our ears and brains love resolution. That's why it works and feels satisfying.
@@MarkZabel I start on the root at the beginning of every chord and usually end my on the root as well. It sounds better than random noodling but too boring and predictable. I will try ending on a chord tone and not worry about playing the root note or worry about the beginning of the next chord. Just end with a chord tone and see how that works.
I really appreciate your answer. I think I need to get a little frustrated at times to progress.
It's easy for me to forget how slow progress can be and how much time a person needs to put in.
You explain this very well. I will try ending on chord tones. I love jam tracks that show the chords.
Can't get lost then. Need to develop my ear.
You yourself could jam without a backing track at all and sound just as good by simply imagining a backing track was there.
I took a break for a year and just played my acoustic guitar a little to keep up my guitar skills but now I'm ready to go to the next level on electric guitar. You have been producing some awesome looking content. Thanks again for the response.
This is really good sir. (Subscribed etc.)
Is there a term for this concept?
Thanks! Soloing using "chord tones" is probably the closest. But I once bought a book on chord tone soloing. Oh my, it was over-the-top technical. Not at all helpful. So it varies ... unfortunately.
I'm watching this as a bassist and it would never even occur to me to drift outside of the chords. Is that something lead guitarists actually do?
Oh yes. Not necessarily drift outside, but ignore? Yes. Pick a scale and go on autopilot. A good number of hand players out there. Have a look at some of the other comments. Many actually advocating for randomness. To me that's like arguing for poor grammar. It's okay to break the rules on purpose if you're an experienced writer or speaker. But not being able to speak in the first place shouldn't be desirable.
thanks man what a nice human being you are! loved the way you explained the concept
My pleasure. Thanks for the kind comment!
Hi Mark, this is the best advice I've ever reiceived in my decades of playing guitar. And by the way one learns all chord positions along the neck within the pentatonic boxes. I have yet a long way to go, but now the road is clear. A million thanks for this....really. Greetings from Spain.
Glad it was helpful! Hello from NY, USA.
I learned the CAGED system pretty well. I learned my root notes. All my playing sounds so mechanical. This is the piece I was missing. Now I have a much better idea where to land. Thank you!
Awesome! So glad I could help.