Played most of my 64 year old life. Been practicing triads up and down the neck. Really helps you learn more about guitar. What I've always noticed is the players who pull this technique off well have very long fingers like Hendrix, Page, Eric Johnson and this instructor. It makes a huge difference.
Yep, you called it. I was (small handed) a heavy equipment mechanic back in the early 70's and broke my left thumb at least twice. That sucker never has and never will wrap around the neck like that. Thank goodness for the inspiration of Django Reinhardt and Keith Richards - for very different reasons.
I have small hands and play bass..and people always comment how effortlessly I play...and.i play triads all over the neck. It's all about practice...and again I play bass...and chords on bass.
I've definitely seen guys with big hands make things look really easy. But i've also seen plenty of virtuosos with regular mits. I'd say there is an advantage but i think "It's not the size that matters, it's how you use them". Tone and touch can be developed no matter what you are equipped with and that is the most important thing.
Been playing for decades. I like to check out these how-to's, since I never took lessons, but they're usually kind of off. This guy is describing a technique I thought I had invented. Self-taught you often don't know what came before. But this isn't stuff I've seen in any music book, and is excellent advice. Cheers!
@@StratsRUsi was taught by listening to records. Picking up the needle over and over learning the parts. Never took a lesson and never bought a book other than a jazz chord book by Joe Pass.
Books are great but I would have to agree that i’ve gotten more useful ideas and better stylistic vocabulary from listening to and watching other players.
I’ve been learning partial bare chords and the C, G, and D type chords as full and partial forms. It’s great for me to understand the CAGED system because I can now look at much more sophisticated standard notation an still know, or at least figure out what it is.
The hardest thing about moving from barre chords to less conventional chord shapes is that you suddenly need to know what all the notes on all the strings are. With barre chords, as long as you know the notes on the E and A string, you can play any chord.
Really great lesson, thank you Kieran! I just liked the lesson and subscribed, and I sent it to a few Guitar friends! Large hands or small, either one could be used as excuses… It essentially comes down to practice. Taking the time, and getting to know some theory and know how the Fretboard pieces together, (The Caged System), opens the entire Fretboard… It certainly did for me! Doug, Denver Co
Another interesting twist on this is to add open strings with chords like E, G, and D. This can produce a harmony like effect. For example, playing the root chord off A, Aminor, or A6 on strings 2, 3, 4 and adding open strings, A or A minor or A6. Similarly with the root chord for E or E minor, on strings 3, 4, 5, hammering on 2 for the E7 or E6 root chord. Occasionally the root chord for C on strings 2, 4, and 5, muting 3, but hammering on 3 for a C7 or C6. Occasionally I play around with B7 as a root chord as well. An adding open strings can also produce other variations as well with other chords if you experiment with it.
This makes so much sense! Thank you, that was also a very clear demonstration of this in action! I wish someone had explained this concept to me this way 25 years ago, lol.
That hammering from 2nd to 3rd is a staple of country rock, that i figure was originally borrowed from like honky tonk piano. Of course, the the 2--3--sus4--3 is a common variation of that. The two guitarists i think of when you describe this technique are Hendrix & Bob Weir.
Yeah country players are guns at dealing with major chords. I also like the reference to piano players, we can learn a lot from them. Especially Oscar Peterson. Never heard of Bob Weir, I’ll have to check him out.
Great stuff. I started focusing on triads a few months ago. Seemed like such a simple, mundane thing to be working on then you start to realize why all these great players like Tim Pierce and others constantly talk about seeing triads all over the neck.
I've had to rehearse playing stuff like this for the last three or four years because of rheumatoid arthritis and a couple of finger fingers on the left hand won't cooperate so you improvise thanks for posting great vid
Having played guitar for a very long time, I avoid barre cords whenever I can. This came about at the start of guitar playing life. The reason? I started out playing folk blues finger and flat picking on an aucoustic..Obviously these styles of playing are difficult using barre chords. Then I began playing electric guitar and basically adapted my styles over to instrument. I loved blues from the off and saw many fledgling stars doing the same. The one big influence I saw in the first weeks of arriving in the UK was Jimi Hendrix and the way he handled rhythm parts..He used very few full barre chords..That was it. Onwards.
Jimi was blessed with long fingers which allowed him to easily wrap his thumb over to grab that sixth string. Unfortunately when I started playing at 15 in 1980 my main guitar influences used a lot of bar chords and power chords so I didn’t master the thumb over technique. I seem to remember being discouraged by my guitar teachers at the time. It’s a shame because I’ve watched a lot of jazz players use the thumb over technique too. Go figure.
@ I’m aware of that too, it just wasn’t something I did when I first started playing. I didn’t have TH-cam back then either. My 59 year old hands don’t move like they used to unfortunately.
I learned exactly that with 'time after time' and 'careless whisper' in a chord context years ago not like Hendrix lead tho...you are 100% correct...tho the same ( bars and triads+ ) , they really sound different
A great lesson for this is to watch a brass band play. The arrangement needs to leave space for the individual players to breathe, so the chords tend to cross over each other to allow the space for that while also making the piece flow.
I’m getting into triads lately as a way to find other voices than barre and open chords. This lesson is a nice augmentation to triads. Makes me wonder why the ear likes that 2nd to 3rd movement so much. I guess it’s the slide into the minor/major character of the chord.
A slide from sus2, which is ethereal and vague quartal/quintal harmony (Csus2 is C D G... C G D are fourths/fifths apart and have no root). That's my guess anyway
"Why" is a tricky question to answer with music. I believe a lot of what sounds good is just vocab that is ingrained in the culture or that genre. I.e People in the 1800's would probably think Stevie Ray Vaughn sounds terrible as they wouldn't have any reference for the melodic vocab he uses or even a 12 bar blues. If i could take a guess as to why the 2nd to 3rd movement sounds good, i would say that it imitates the way vocalist (especially in soul, blues, country) tend to approach melodies with those scale degrees. Also slurring into the 3rd from below tends to mask the slight tuning issues caused by equal temperament.
Thanks mate. I’m just going through plugins in logic, then through my monitors and recorded with a phone. I reckon I’ll get a bit more serious about sound next year
How is it possible that I suck at everything else but am really good at playing all shapes of both E&A string barre chords? My guitar teacher can’t figure it out either
@ lol I’d be happy to be better than the 10 yr old girl that takes lessons with the same teacher I do at the half hour spot before me. I block my ears in the waiting room so I don’t have to hear how better she is than me
well yeah, he throws some in in the example! This is more about not being limited to them - or really, about learning to take them apart and use the building blocks. Like I know people who feel like they ~have~ to play the full F barre all the time
I'm interested in the technique... Learning this is right at my level... But the sideways fingering charts are non standard, and very non intuitive for me. Can you consider vertical orientation in future videos?
Thanks for the comment. In my opinion the vertical diagrams would be more appropriate if we had a view of the neck similar to a violinist (looking down the neck). However due to the horizontal nature in which we look down and see the neck I believe these sideways diagrams are a better way to go. They also match the horizontal strings in TAB.
@kierancolton5882 Right. But tablature doesn't have frets; time is the x-axis. (Also, for that matter, when I look down at the neck, the high E is at the "bottom", that is, closer to the floor.) I get that you are trying to help folks... but you are bucking a convention. Every other fingering chart I've ever seen is vertical (nut at the top).
You are right about 1, 2 and 5 being the components of a sus2 chord. What's happening here would be consider more of an embellishment to a major chord as the 2nd is only played very briefly so it doesn't really perform the function of a suspension. I.e What i'm playing would never be written as Sus2 on a chord chart
Barre chords were John Lennon's bread and butter in his early days but I was fascinated to see how much his playing had moved on to more advanced shapes watching the Get Back sessions.
I sure would like instruction on what you're actually doing in the intro sequence. All the stuff that makes it the most interesting is not explained in the tutorial. It actually made this video frustrating as hell to try to learn from.
Yeah i get it. I wanted to give an example of where you can take things once you develop this concept of chord voice movement. Covering the intro would require a much more in depth video and probably wouldn’t be suitable for the TH-cam algorithm. If you would like to learn more about what i’m doing in the intro you can visit my website www.kierancolton.com and get in contact for a private lesson.
I've heard other people say this, but what kind of 'professional' guitarist can't play Purple Haze or Foxy Lady correctly? Which is done using the thumb on the low string.
If it works - it works. Who cares if it's "professional" or not. I used to play Sunny Afternoon at my local open mic and used my thumb to play the bass rundown at the start of the song.
My hands are small and my thumb is so short I cannot even use it to mute the low E string properly. It is very disheartening watching guitar players who can use their thumb to barré right over to the D string.
Played most of my 64 year old life. Been practicing triads up and down the neck. Really helps you learn more about guitar. What I've always noticed is the players who pull this technique off well have very long fingers like Hendrix, Page, Eric Johnson and this instructor. It makes a huge difference.
Exactly. And finger joints that bends backwards. Freaks!
Yep, you called it. I was (small handed) a heavy equipment mechanic back in the early 70's and broke my left thumb at least twice. That sucker never has and never will wrap around the neck like that.
Thank goodness for the inspiration of Django Reinhardt and Keith Richards - for very different reasons.
I have small hands and play bass..and people always comment how effortlessly I play...and.i play triads all over the neck. It's all about practice...and again I play bass...and chords on bass.
I've definitely seen guys with big hands make things look really easy. But i've also seen plenty of virtuosos with regular mits. I'd say there is an advantage but i think "It's not the size that matters, it's how you use them". Tone and touch can be developed no matter what you are equipped with and that is the most important thing.
@@BrandonMalone-x1b what the world needs is less arrogant smartasses
Been playing for decades. I like to check out these how-to's, since I never took lessons, but they're usually kind of off. This guy is describing a technique I thought I had invented. Self-taught you often don't know what came before. But this isn't stuff I've seen in any music book, and is excellent advice. Cheers!
The books have authors from whom you learnt.'Self Taught' is a myth.
@@StratsRUsi was taught by listening to records. Picking up the needle over and over learning the parts. Never took a lesson and never bought a book other than a jazz chord book by Joe Pass.
Books are great but I would have to agree that i’ve gotten more useful ideas and better stylistic vocabulary from listening to and watching other players.
I’ve been learning partial bare chords and the C, G, and D type chords as full and partial forms. It’s great for me to understand the CAGED system because I can now look at much more sophisticated standard notation an still know, or at least figure out what it is.
Nice work
Man, if I could play as good as the first 30 seconds of this video I’d be happy
Thanks Paul
The hardest thing about moving from barre chords to less conventional chord shapes is that you suddenly need to know what all the notes on all the strings are. With barre chords, as long as you know the notes on the E and A string, you can play any chord.
It's easier to find the chords but more limited with what you can do with them.
Absolutely spot on direction to nail a sound that one has heard... for ever... but not known how to achieve it.
Cheers for the Jimi tip.
Glad it helped you get there
Really great lesson, thank you Kieran!
I just liked the lesson and subscribed, and I sent it to a few Guitar friends!
Large hands or small, either one could be used as excuses… It essentially comes down to practice.
Taking the time, and getting to know some theory and know how the Fretboard pieces together, (The Caged System), opens the entire Fretboard… It certainly did for me!
Doug, Denver Co
Another interesting twist on this is to add open strings with chords like E, G, and D. This can produce a harmony like effect. For example, playing the root chord off A, Aminor, or A6 on strings 2, 3, 4 and adding open strings, A or A minor or A6. Similarly with the root chord for E or E minor, on strings 3, 4, 5, hammering on 2 for the E7 or E6 root chord. Occasionally the root chord for C on strings 2, 4, and 5, muting 3, but hammering on 3 for a C7 or C6. Occasionally I play around with B7 as a root chord as well. An adding open strings can also produce other variations as well with other chords if you experiment with it.
I think i need a diagram 🤔
Whenever you hammer on from the 2nd to the 3rd I hear the intro to Tumbling Dice in my head!
I’m hearing that now
Please add more at this level, I notice that real players in bands play very differently using much more economical chords and triadss
This one has gotten a big reaction so i'll definitely do more lessons that expand upon this
Really useful ideas. Thanks for posting.
Glad you found it useful.
You nailed it! Great video.
Thanks!
Great lesson, well delivered
Thanks mate
Really useful tip to improve your playing and make it more interesting, have a great Christmas
You too Graham
Great job Kieran I actually learned this technique and it opens all kinds of possibilities Thanks for posting. Nice tone!
Sure does. Nice work
great video. i've been coming to these realizations slowly on my own. this made it all come together. thanks!
Glad it starting to click
Fantastic. Reminds me of bob weir
This makes so much sense! Thank you, that was also a very clear demonstration of this in action! I wish someone had explained this concept to me this way 25 years ago, lol.
I remember thinking the same thing. This is exactly the reason why I started this channel. Glad it helped
That hammering from 2nd to 3rd is a staple of country rock, that i figure was originally borrowed from like honky tonk piano. Of course, the the 2--3--sus4--3 is a common variation of that. The two guitarists i think of when you describe this technique are Hendrix & Bob Weir.
Yeah country players are guns at dealing with major chords. I also like the reference to piano players, we can learn a lot from them. Especially Oscar Peterson. Never heard of Bob Weir, I’ll have to check him out.
I always pick up something new listening to you. Thanks.
Glad to hear it!
Great stuff. I started focusing on triads a few months ago. Seemed like such a simple, mundane thing to be working on then you start to realize why all these great players like Tim Pierce and others constantly talk about seeing triads all over the neck.
Keep at it. They can really open up the neck and give you new ways to approach things.
I've had to rehearse playing stuff like this for the last three or four years because of rheumatoid arthritis and a couple of finger fingers on the left hand won't cooperate so you improvise thanks for posting great vid
The move on the G and A chord in particular are great for dexterity and independance
Nice video, hope you talk about voice leading and how it flows from this concept
I'll be sure to address that in future videos
Having played guitar for a very long time, I avoid barre cords whenever I can. This came about at the start of guitar playing life. The reason? I started out playing folk blues finger and flat picking on an aucoustic..Obviously these styles of playing are difficult using barre chords. Then I began playing electric guitar and basically adapted my styles over to instrument. I loved blues from the off and saw many fledgling stars doing the same. The one big influence I saw in the first weeks of arriving in the UK was Jimi Hendrix and the way he handled rhythm parts..He used very few full barre chords..That was it. Onwards.
That’s amazing you saw Jimi live.
Jimi was blessed with long fingers which allowed him to easily wrap his thumb over to grab that sixth string. Unfortunately when I started playing at 15 in 1980 my main guitar influences used a lot of bar chords and power chords so I didn’t master the thumb over technique. I seem to remember being discouraged by my guitar teachers at the time. It’s a shame because I’ve watched a lot of jazz players use the thumb over technique too. Go figure.
@@JefferyHagen You know, more often than not, that 'thumb-over' technique is NOT about playing the E string, but just muting it. Just sayin'...
@ I’m aware of that too, it just wasn’t something I did when I first started playing. I didn’t have TH-cam back then either. My 59 year old hands don’t move like they used to unfortunately.
I learned exactly that with 'time after time' and 'careless whisper' in a chord context years ago not like Hendrix lead tho...you are 100% correct...tho the same ( bars and triads+ ) , they really sound different
Spot on
These are some fine cords from the big bad bronk!
Only the byson would know
Very true. I wish I would have had a guitar teacher like Steve Lukather when I first started.
I wish I had Steve as a teacher at any point he was available. 😄 As it is, I’m glad I have his music as something to aspire to.
Nothing like the tutelage of a master
Great lesson, thanks
Cheers
Very cool and useful, thanks
Happy it helped
A great lesson for this is to watch a brass band play. The arrangement needs to leave space for the individual players to breathe, so the chords tend to cross over each other to allow the space for that while also making the piece flow.
Exactly. Check out the new video I just put up about horn parts for guitar.
I’m getting into triads lately as a way to find other voices than barre and open chords. This lesson is a nice augmentation to triads. Makes me wonder why the ear likes that 2nd to 3rd movement so much. I guess it’s the slide into the minor/major character of the chord.
A slide from sus2, which is ethereal and vague quartal/quintal harmony (Csus2 is C D G... C G D are fourths/fifths apart and have no root). That's my guess anyway
"Why" is a tricky question to answer with music. I believe a lot of what sounds good is just vocab that is ingrained in the culture or that genre. I.e People in the 1800's would probably think Stevie Ray Vaughn sounds terrible as they wouldn't have any reference for the melodic vocab he uses or even a 12 bar blues.
If i could take a guess as to why the 2nd to 3rd movement sounds good, i would say that it imitates the way vocalist (especially in soul, blues, country) tend to approach melodies with those scale degrees. Also slurring into the 3rd from below tends to mask the slight tuning issues caused by equal temperament.
Thank you.
No worries!
Love your guitar sound too as well as the tips. Maybe do another video on how you do it?
Merry Xmas 👋🙏
Will do! Merry Christmas to you
Great lesson. Love ya man.
Thanks brother
Sounding great, KC. What are you playing through here?
Thanks mate. I’m just going through plugins in logic, then through my monitors and recorded with a phone. I reckon I’ll get a bit more serious about sound next year
Great lesson.
Cheers
How is it possible that I suck at everything else but am really good at playing all shapes of both E&A string barre chords? My guitar teacher can’t figure it out either
It’s handy to have a niche. You could be the next Jack Johnson
@ lol I’d be happy to be better than the 10 yr old girl that takes lessons with the same teacher I do at the half hour spot before me. I block my ears in the waiting room so I don’t have to hear how better she is than me
Barre chords have their place.
well yeah, he throws some in in the example! This is more about not being limited to them - or really, about learning to take them apart and use the building blocks. Like I know people who feel like they ~have~ to play the full F barre all the time
Fair point
Stephen Stills did this kind of thing all the time. So do a whole lot of other greats, but Stills was particularly good at it.
Absolutely
I'm interested in the technique... Learning this is right at my level... But the sideways fingering charts are non standard, and very non intuitive for me.
Can you consider vertical orientation in future videos?
Thanks for the comment. In my opinion the vertical diagrams would be more appropriate if we had a view of the neck similar to a violinist (looking down the neck). However due to the horizontal nature in which we look down and see the neck I believe these sideways diagrams are a better way to go. They also match the horizontal strings in TAB.
@kierancolton5882 Right. But tablature doesn't have frets; time is the x-axis. (Also, for that matter, when I look down at the neck, the high E is at the "bottom", that is, closer to the floor.)
I get that you are trying to help folks... but you are bucking a convention. Every other fingering chart I've ever seen is vertical (nut at the top).
I think the convention of strings being represented vertically in chord diagrams but horizontally in TAB needs to be bucked. 🐂
@@kierancolton5882Even if I disagree with you on this particular case, I respect your right as a content creator to buck some conventions!
Is this what suspended chords are; sus2? Playing 1, 2, 5 rather than 1, 3, 5? is that what is going on here?
Yep 😊
Sus 2 and Sus 4 chords mean "suspend (don't play) the 3rd, add the 2nd or 4th."
You are right about 1, 2 and 5 being the components of a sus2 chord. What's happening here would be consider more of an embellishment to a major chord as the 2nd is only played very briefly so it doesn't really perform the function of a suspension. I.e What i'm playing would never be written as Sus2 on a chord chart
Nice
Thanks mate!
Great explanation! Can you develop this further, please...
I'll definitely do more videos that expand upon this idea
Barre chords were John Lennon's bread and butter in his early days but I was fascinated to see how much his playing had moved on to more advanced shapes watching the Get Back sessions.
Think his bread and butter was actually banjo chord shapes as this was what he was taught by his mother.
❤
Their harmony definitely got more sophisticated in later years. The crazy thing is they were still so young.
@@threepiecerake In the very early days, yes. IIRC he used to tune it that way too but was very quickly weaned off them by Paul McCartney.
good content ... production quality would be enhanced with a lav mic
Thanks for the tip
Boy, I sure wish I could bend my fingers and thumb like that. Good lesson though - look for ways to make the neck work for you rather than against.
The move on G and D chord are great for developing dexterity
I like the 5-minute lessons, that's all my attention time. This isn't as easy as it looks.
Little 5 minute nuggets is the way to go
The camera angle on your left hand needs to be adjusted for the future. Very difficult to see detailed finger placement.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll look into it
❤
😎
Mas o acorde regular é muito usado noutros tipos de música, de ritmo mais marcado, como a latina, a africana…
I sure would like instruction on what you're actually doing in the intro sequence. All the stuff that makes it the most interesting is not explained in the tutorial. It actually made this video frustrating as hell to try to learn from.
Yeah i get it. I wanted to give an example of where you can take things once you develop this concept of chord voice movement. Covering the intro would require a much more in depth video and probably wouldn’t be suitable for the TH-cam algorithm. If you would like to learn more about what i’m doing in the intro you can visit my website www.kierancolton.com and get in contact for a private lesson.
Cool lesson but not a fan of the BW filter on the wide shot - makes it kinda boring to watch !
Especially when the colour of the guitar is amazing
I saw it the opposite way: the BW tells the theory while the color highlights the practice.
So glad I came across this video! This lesson has helped me hugely thank you 🙏
For some reason the exposure and colouring of this shot got messed up when I exported it so had to go with BW.
Barely recognized as hey joe
I see your point
Gonna disagree on rarely.
My guitar teacher told me playing with your thumb is unprofessional .
I've heard other people say this, but what kind of 'professional' guitarist can't play Purple Haze or Foxy Lady correctly? Which is done using the thumb on the low string.
If it works - it works. Who cares if it's "professional" or not. I used to play Sunny Afternoon at my local open mic and used my thumb to play the bass rundown at the start of the song.
My hands are small and my thumb is so short I cannot even use it to mute the low E string properly. It is very disheartening watching guitar players who can use their thumb to barré right over to the D string.
The Thumb is extremely useful in playing guitar in a variety of ways. Especially in blues playing.
Get a different guitar teacher
This is entirely wrong. Thousands of professionals use barre-chords.
I see your point
Dude's annoying.
Not a natural public speaker