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Hi Everyone,
I've been playing minor scales based on the Major CAGED shapes I already know. It works well enough overall but I've got one concern:
Since these shapes are derived from the relative major, they orient themselves around the major shapes I already know. The downside to this seems to be that I can't use those shapes as basis for quickly finding my minor chord tones. Is there a way -using these shapes- to efficiently do so? My temporary solution is to think "6th" when I'm playing out of relative major shapes and want to target the root, for instance. I worry this might be inefficient, so here I am!
Thanks for any thoughts on this! I'm not a naturally theory inclined person, so pleeese go easy on me! I've seen how relatively simple inquiries here eventually result in thesis statements about the pros and cons of the 6th mode of the Hungarian Gypsy scale.
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10-26-2018 01:14 AM
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yes... if you use a fingering system that is based on the neck, 12 frets and 6 strings.... by that I mean, If you choose to play G7 mixolydian.... the starting shape.... is a 12 fret repeating pattern or shape from 2nd position up to 14th position.
Any where you choose on the neck is G7 mixolydian. All the shapes are G7.
It's a different approach from learning small incomplete shapes all over the neck and then trying to connect them etc...
But if you choose to go blindly on your way... You simply memorize the existing shape with another organization.
So all your Maj shapes.... also need to be memorized being a Minor shape. Your changing the target notes of the shape.
Do you use the major pentatonic shape,
Key of Cmaj at 7th fret.... and you play Amin Pentatonic shape starting on 6th string 5th fret A C D E G A etc. rock and roll.
So just play the Amin Pentatonic pattern starting on "C" with your 4th finger... So the trick is... your using pentatonic shapes as the organization to get either minor out of Major or Maj out of Min.
You can also use the other pentatonic shapes etc...
I'm not a fan of this being your reference for playing.... but most guitarist use it.... some not even aware etc...
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Not getting this at all. I can't see the exact fingerings you're referring to but have a pretty good idea.
So,
The shapes are based on the fretboard and the hand as far as I'm concerned. If the fingering patterns are useful for negotiating scales then they're useful for negotiating scales. Chord tones are every other note of a scale.
You should be able to play all your diatonic arpeggios in your "major" fingerings, correct? Well, in a major key three of those are minor chords.
So when you say you can't find your minor chord tones you've lost me. It sounds like you don't know your arpeggio fingerings. That's an arpeggio skill set problem, not a scale skill set problem.
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I work on practicing all the harmonized diatonic arps within the major scale positions to locate chord tones.
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If you like the idea of using shapes to find scales, which is okay and quite useful, it would be far easier to play major scales across major chord shapes and minor scales across minor chord shapes.
Originally Posted by Fretty Krueger
It takes a lot less time to find an A minor scale from an Am chord than it does to 'convert' the C major scale into something else
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I'm somewhere in between. I practice melodic minor, major, and dominant scales.
I major, ii dominant, iii major, IV major ( well really i guess i kinda think lydian), V dominant, vi major, vii dominant
melodic minor for minor 6 or altered whatever
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Guys,
Thanks for the replies thus far. Another question -
What do you believe to be more ideal point of reference for playing? I'm pretty married to the CAGED system in reference to the way I think about major scales, and I can't imagine uprooting all of that very practical information in favor of something else. That said, if it's not best to organize my thinking around minor scales in this way, I don't want to "square peg vs. round hole" the situation, you know?
What I DO know is that I'm very much a visual learner and the reason I'm so comfortable in the CAGED system is entirely BECAUSE of how the shapes of intervals across strings are so clearly laid out for me. I'm just hoping for a similarly useful way for thinking about minor scales.
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Not everyone's preference, but you can just use the relative major scale....ie Bb major for tunes in G minor.
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The cages system has many problems... but as far as playing jazz, the main problem is that it's based on 5 open position chords.
It makes playing much of what's required technically to perform jazz almost physically inaccessible.
And if your a visual person... your not going to be able to see and realize... again many musical organizational aspects.
But don't feel alone....
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OK, thanks Reg... Originally Posted by Reg
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I knew that when I was writing my answer before. Originally Posted by Fretty Krueger
Freddie, you're looking for a short cut, a clever way round it, and you are not, by the sound of it, going to put yourself out much.
Fact is, the guitar - and music, especially jazz - is not that easy. There aren't really any short cuts to fluency. It's not a question of uprooting the major scale stuff, quite the contrary. What you're trying to do is squeeze stuff into it, or bend it to your use in a way it's not intended for, and that's not going to work.
There's a bit more to guitar than the CAGED system! Players, famous and otherwise, have spent countless hours every single day from a young age trying to master this stuff.
I've already shown you. If you prefer playing out of chord positions then play off the minor shapes. Don't say 'I only do CAGED so show me how to twist CAGED into minor scales'.I'm just hoping for a similarly useful way for thinking about minor scales.
There are three minor chords contained in every major scale, right? And there are twelve major scales. That makes 36 different minor scales all told. You can either waste time trying to find short cuts based on limited knowledge or you can start learning from the beginning and do it properly.
Take an Am at the 5th fret. That Am could be in C, G or F. I suppose you could apply your CAGED idea and play a C major G-shape, or a G major D-shape (tricky), or an F major C-shape... but, my god, what a sweat. And that only covers the natural minors, not used that much. It doesn't even begin to cover the harmonic and melodic minor scales!
Drop this idea and understand it needs looking at anew. You said:
Exactly, that's why I'm saying look at the minor shape and use that. That's a very good start.What I DO know is that I'm very much a visual learner
In any case, after you've been at it long enough, all this, the whole fretboard, becomes kind of moulded together and you can virtually hit anything you want to hit.
But are you listening? Up to you, my man
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Yes, there's always that! Originally Posted by boatheelmusic
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Rag,
Thanks for the fleshed out reply - it was very helpful. Seriously! The condescension however is not. I'm not really here for that nor assumptions (whatever the basis) about my willingness to expand my thinking outside of what I know. It's all good - I'm pragmatic by nature, but more than willing to do the work. I was just craving some direction, which you've aided in providing. Again, thanks!
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No condescension intended, I assure you, not my style at all. Sorry if it came over that way. I just thought you were trying to leap hurdles and nail something which is really quite complex far too quickly. Not that I blame you, but it rarely works successfully.
Take that Am on the 5th. Go from the 7th fret (A) and go up it with the C scale. That's A natural minor. Then change the G (2nd string, 8th fret) to G# (1st string, 4th fret). That's A harmonic minor. Then keep the G# and change the F (2nd string,6th fret) to F# (2nd string, 7th fret). That's A melodic minor.
That's just in C. Then you've got the same chord in F, which means the B's are flat. Then in G, which means the F's are sharp. Then you've got that A melodic minor used as the Lydian Dominant scale over D7. And the same over Ab7 as the altered scale...
And that's just one chord in one position. In real life you probably wouldn't use just one position, you'd play between others too.
I mean you must see the problem. It can't really be tackled with CAGED major chord positions. That's all really. Sorry to give you a hard time.
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All good, Ragman! I absolutely see what you mean and I'm mostly just excited to now have a pretty solid plan of intellectualizing this stuff. I've read a few places things to the effect of:
"Put your first finger on the root note that you want to find the Pure Minor Scale of. Then place your fingers one at a time in the following frets and the note that your little finger falls in (3 frets higher) will be the REALTIVE MAJOR SCALE."
I'm learning now that this is a pretty irresponsible way of looking at minor scales.
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Thanks again everyone - I'll try to take it from here!
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Without seeing the end and being able to analyze the whole thing , it's easy to assume a kind of "replacement fallacy. That is the idea that something new you may learn will completely replace the old , or that the old way will be completely useless in the new context. Originally Posted by Fretty Krueger
this simply isn't the case. CAGED isn't so much a "method" as it is just a basic understanding of how things lay out on the guitar in certain positions. they are still going to lay out in those same ways , even if you fill in some gaps in between or visualize things in additional new ways.
I personally think that reg's approach is the best, ...probably the most important thing I ever learned on the instrument.
He lays out a lot of the basics in post #32 of this other thread :Do you use arpeggio shapes, major scale shapes, or something else?
Anyway, if you take the time to analyze the actual finger patterns, two of the positions are identical to CAGED, two have one stretch which replaces a shift, and the fifth one is pretty different. Then, it additionally has two extra positions. The extras fill in some gaps and make relationships to chord shapes across the fretboard more consistent.
Anyway, unless you're 90 years old or something, life is long , and if you're serious, it's not gonna take too much of your life to look at something new and see what you think about it. All depends on how seriously you want to pursue something really. No big deal either way.
Anyway, one of the problems with CAGED from the way I look at it , relating to minor chords, is that there are only really 3 open minor chords. You can't really relate minor chords visually, in the practical way that you do with major. I personally found the whole "convert from major" thing irritating as well. I mean are you playing the "Relative minor of a C-form shape" , or are you playing an "A-minor-form shape"? Then , do you really think of things as being about playing "an A- minor- form, on your E-flat minor chord"?
I personally found that pretty frustrating and convoluted. If that's what you're talking about, I agree with you.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 10-28-2018 at 09:46 AM.
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Yes... :-) Originally Posted by Fretty Krueger
Was that you playing on the video? Nice, sounds great.
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Originally Posted by Fretty Krueger
Why can't you just plug minor chords into your CAGED network and hang your minor scales off of that?
Code:Cm shape ||---|---|---|---|-5-|---|---|- ||---|---|-R-|---|---|b3-|---|- ||---|-5-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|---|b3-|---|---|---|---|- ||---|---|---|---|-R-|---|---|- ||---|---|---|---|-5-|---|---|- ||---|---|-0-|---|-0-|-0-|---|- ||---|---|-R-|---|-0-|-0-|---|- ||---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|- ||---|---|-0-|---|-R-|---|---|- ||---|---|-0-|---|-0-|-0-|---|- Am shape ||---|-5-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|---|b3-|---|---|---|---|- ||---|---|---|-R-|---|---|---|- ||---|---|---|-5-|---|---|---|- ||---|-R-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|-5-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-0-|---|-R-|---|---|---|- ||---|-0-|---|-0-|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-R-|---|-0-|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|- Gm shape ||---|---|---|---|---|-R-|---|- ||---|---|---|---|---|-5-|---|- ||---|---|-R-|---|---|b3-|---|- ||---|---|-5-|---|---|---|---|- ||---|---|---|b3-|---|---|---|- ||---|---|---|---|---|-R-|---|- ||---|---|---|-0-|---|-0-|---|- ||---|---|---|-0-|---|-0-|-0-|- ||---|---|-R-|---|-0-|-0-|---|- ||---|---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|- ||---|---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|- ||---|---|---|-0-|---|-R-|---|- Em shape ||---|-R-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|-5-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|b3-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|---|---|-R-|---|---|---|- ||---|---|---|-5-|---|---|---|- ||---|-R-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|-R-|---|-0-|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|- ||-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|---|- ||---|-0-|---|-R-|---|---|---|- ||---|-0-|---|-0-|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-R-|---|-0-|-0-|---|---|- Dm shape ||---|---|b3-|---|---|---|---|- ||---|---|---|---|-R-|---|---|- ||---|---|---|-5-|---|---|---|- ||---|-R-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|-5-|---|---|---|---|---|- ||---|---|b3-|---|---|---|---|- ||---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|- ||---|---|-0-|---|-R-|---|---|- ||---|-0-|---|-0-|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-R-|---|-0-|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|- ||---|-0-|-0-|---|-0-|---|---|- .
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Thanks a bunch, Rag - For better or worse (mostly worse) that's me in the vid Originally Posted by ragman1
To all additional responders - I dont wanna waste your time. I've outlined the work ahead of me and I'll be shedding. No more assistance need on this subject for now.
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Relate scales to chord shapes maybe
Also practice the melodic and harmonic minors as well
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So what this guy said lol Originally Posted by FwLineberry
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