What do I learn now.

olafgarten

Hi, I've been playing for a while now and while I'm not very good at it, I've been making slow and steady progress. I want to learn more but I'm not sure where to go from here. 

I basically know all of the chords, barre chords and stuff like that but would like to improve my lead playing. 

Currently I can play intermediate riffs and some simple solos. Examples of what I can play are:

The Raconteurs - The Switch and The Spur. 
The White Stripes - Offend In Every Way
The Intro Solo of CSN - Long Time Gone
The Solo in The White Stripes - I'm Slowly Turning Into You. 

So what do I learn next, any tips on how to improve? 

octatonic

Can you harmonise the major scale?

olafgarten

octatonic said:

Can you harmonise the major scale?

To give you an idea of how far I've got, I'm not really sure what that means. I know the pentatonic minor scale and can play it up and down,  but apart from that I don't know anything else about scales. 

octatonic

That is a pretty common place to be.
Learning to harmonise the major scale is your next task.
I can start you off when I'm not on iPad, I'll check in tomorrow and write that post.
If I forget PM me, I've got a slightly hectic day tomorrow.

olafgarten

octatonic said:

That is a pretty common place to be.
Learning to harmonise the major scale is your next task.
I can start you off when I'm not on iPad, I'll check in tomorrow and write that post.
If I forget PM me, I've got a slightly hectic day tomorrow.

OK thanks, I'll be pretty busy tomorrow so won't get much chance to play, there's no need to rush. 

octatonic

This is mostly a thought exercise.
You do place it on the guitar but only after you have thought your way through it.

viz

octatonic said:

Can you harmonise the major scale?

Wiz question

Grunfeld

olafgarten said:

I basically know all of the chords...

You are Guitar George, and ICM£5!

viz

octatonic said:

That is a pretty common place to be.
Learning to harmonise the major scale is your next task.
I can start you off when I'm not on iPad, I'll check in tomorrow and write that post.
If I forget PM me, I've got a slightly hectic day tomorrow.

Cmon @octatonic let's 'ave it

octatonic

Sorry I've been busy @viz

Ok, @olafgarten this is what you want to do- harmonise the C major scale, which is C D E F G A B C

Chords, as we know, are made up of stacked 3rds (please no-one start talking quartal harmony).

So a C Major triad is C E G.
So you are starting at C and skipping ever other note.
Now extend that one more interval.

C E G B
This is a C Major 7th chord, because it is a C Maj triad with a major 7th interval.
There are 3 other types of 7th chord.
The minor 7th, the dominant 7th and the minor 7th flat 5 (also called the half diminished).

If you harmonise each note of the C major scale in this fashion you get the following:

C E G B = C major 7
D F A C = D min 7
E G B D = E min 7
F A C E = F major 7
G B D F = G dominant 7 = G7
A C E G = A minor 7th
B D F A = B half diminished

There is another way of writing these chords in relation to the tonic C which is:

C maj 7 = I
D min 7 = ii
E min 7 = iii
F maj 7 = IV
G7 = V
A min 7 = vi
B 1/2 dim = vii

Now take this through the cycle of 5ths.
There is a good few months work here.
If you don't know what the cycle of 5ths is then say- and we can have a conversation about that.

So any time you see a maj7 chord you will know that in most situations that it will only be a I or a IV or a particular key.
When you see a minor 7th chord you know that it will probably only be the ii, iii or vi of a particular key. 
When you see a Dominant 7th- well, the Dominant 7th gets tricky because of something called secondary dominants- but I'm not going to go into that now.
Let's ignore the 1/2 diminished right now.

I'm going to stop now and let you pause for breath.
If there is anything above that is unclear then just say.

viz

Nice