Hello, how are you doing? Justin here. Welcome to Major Chord Scale Relations!
What we're going to be checking out in this lesson is the way that the C major scale
in open position, relates and can be played along with the three major chords
in the key of C, which are the chords C, F, and G.
So first of all, we're going to have a look at a close up of our C major scale
in open position, and then we're going to try to play it at the same time
as the different chords.
And I'm going to show you kind of what fingering adaptations you have to make
in order to do that and why it might be useful.
What we're eventually are going to be doing is playing songs where we've got
the chords and the melody at the same time.
So it's important that you see the relationship now between the chords
of the scales, even though we're not gonna really develop it fully for another couple of lessons.
So, let's get to a close up and have a look at that C major scale in the open position.
I'm hoping you should be familiar with the notes in the C major scale.
'cause they are simply C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
We're going to start with the thinnest string, where we've got the notes
G, F, E, D, C, B, A, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, G, F, and E.
Normally I would recommend coming back to a C so that you can see that.
So the first thing: make (♪) sure that you are familiar with your C major scale in open position.
Very, very important.
OK, let's move straight into now looking at the C chord and how we could play the C major scale
while we're holding down most of our chord.
The first note is pretty easy because we can drop our little finger down there on the 3rd fret.
We could play the C chord on that note, no worries.
Now if we want to play the next note, F, we'd have to use our first finger to kind of
lay it down a little bit. I'm just playing the bass note there so you can
hear the relationship between the two.
And I'm trying to hold as much of the chord down as I can, but you're gonna see
as we progress down the scale that you can't hold the chord down all the time.
But you try. So, we've got there the G, the note F, if we lift up our 1st finger
back to that, we get the top note as being the E.
Now, when we want the next note, D, little finger just drops down there over onto
the 2nd string, and what's really important to realize now, is that when
we've got a melody, say the D, we want that D to be the highest note.
Because if we play the thinnest E string again, it's a nice sounding chord, but the
E sounds like the melody because just naturally, the note that we hear as the
highest note is the one that our ears perceive as being the melody note.
So the top note you want to play there if we want our D melody, is the 2nd string.
Then we've got... lift off little finger and we've got there the note C with our 1st finger already.
We lift off our 1st finger and we've got the note B.
I'm just going to stop there,
so that you can see this first little bit
nice and clearly. That we can play our melody,
♪
We could go back up as well,
♪
That time I shifted over with my 1st finger.
So you could...
♪
you can either drop that 1st finger down.
♪
So, continuing on, we enter our first problem, which is getting onto this note here, the note A.
I suppose it would be possible to drop your 2nd finger over (♪)
to get the note A; but it kinda makes the rest of the chord hard to play
and it's kinda awkward to do that. So, generally, when I want to play that note A
I move my 1st finger off the root note, onto the A and then lift it off and generally,
once it's off, I would put it back on the note C,- just kinda for good measure.
♪
You see, we've got a whole lot of melody going on now.
♪
And this is part of the folk-think, you know,
♪
I just wanted to do that quick little demo, so you can see the idea of it being used.
♪
Now, if we continue: little finger is going down on the 3rd fret of the 4th string
...lifting off, you do that, and then, kind of that's really the end. One we've got to...
the end of that, there's some other scale notes, but they're not really gonna fit
with our C chord. So as long as you can get:
♪
That would be the exercise. So strum, just play the scale and strum at the end.
♪
Just experiment a little bit. See how you can find...the notes with our C chord.
And C chord is fairly easy. We've got quite a few little bits, where we have to kind of
position, re-position our fingers. Luckily for us, our G chord is kinda easier.
Now, hopefully you remember folk G. Good old folk G here, now we've got
two fingers free already, I'm just using my 3rd finger, I'm muting the 5th string,
for now, 3 open strings and then our little finger there on the thinnest sting.
Now, because of that, we can get down our scale pretty easily and remember
we're staying with the C major scale, right? This is the 5th chord in the key of C.
We're not moving to G major scale. We're still playing C major scale. - ♪
That's a great little exercise.
♪
Again:
♪
I was just mucking around again, with the C major scale and I was using the
the folk fingerstyle sort of ideas.
♪
Now the fun part for our major chords comes with the F chord: - ♪
Now, I'm using here the thumb-over-F technique, so the thumb is playing
the bass note (♪); we're just using the mini-F. We can kinda use the barre chord
but the problem with the barre chord: we've run out of fingers already.
It's difficult to get notes off to play the melody parts, if all of our fingers are tied up.
So, normally, if I'm doing this style, I'll play F chord like this.
Now, again, looking at the scale, little finger can go on the top, to get the G,
lift it off, we can get the note F, (♪) lift off our 1st finger, so it's not a barre anymore,
and it's just playing the note C, the 1st finger, 1st fret, 2nd string,- ♪
It's an F major7th chord of course, but we've got the melody,- ♪
then little finger on the note D, 1st finger on the note C,
1st finger can come off,- bit of a funny chord,- but we've got the melody now.
♪
This is a lovely chord by the way, having F and lifting off 2nd finger,- ♪
Then, the last part (♪); you can kinda do it. But to be honest, you don't tend to use it
that much, 'cause it's quite tricky on the F. So, generally if you can get:
♪
That would be enough for F. If you can deal with that. - ♪
Just experiment! See, if you can play it. Just play the chord: ♪
You'll come out with all sorts of super-duper cool stuff.
Now, this might seem really difficult and I'm sure you've got quite a few questions.
Unfortunately, most of the questions, I can't answer for you.
You have to figure them out.
Now, questions like: "What fingers should I use to play that note?" - Well, it depends on
the circumstance, you know. In one chord, you might find that that finger's really easy,
but if you're changing to a different chord, becomes difficult. So you have to kind of
nut these things out yourself and think, well, if I'm gonna use that finger, maybe
it's easier to do it this way. And it's what works for you. Because a lot of the
different finger style players do things differently. James Taylor does all sorts of
funny chord fingerings. But it works for him. It's great, you know! So don't feel that you
have to be totally restricted to a right way, or a wrong way. Because I'm afraid,
that there...probably there isn't one.
I'm trying to give you as many guidelines as I can and that's kind of the point of
us looking at those fingerstyle patterns that we've looked at before, was to kind of
give you a default setting, where your fingers would naturally go to.
But if you're trying to play a melody on the 4th string, one of your fingers is gonna
have to come over and play the 4th string.
And you probably don't wanna do that with your thumb. So straight away,
you're kind of braking them all a little bit. Maybe the...you might wanna play a melody
where the melody is on the same string and using the same finger is difficult.
So, one of the other fingers might come over and play it. And that's fine.
There's not really set ideas on this.
What I'm trying to get you to do at this stage, is just have a basic understanding
on the concept of the idea that there's this key of C, that we're in,
and there are 3 major chords in the key of C which is C, F and G,
and that the major scale of C fits over all of those chords, kind of matches up
perfectly with them and that you should start to explore the idea that you can...
might play some of the scale along with the chords at the same time.
Tha's it! At this stage, that's all I really want you to get. And I want you to
have a go at doing those exercises I just showed you, where you kinda play the chord
and muck around with some of the scale tones.
That's not...you know, we haven't finished yet, right? That's just
what I want you to be able to do at this stage, is explore it. We're gonna go into
more detail now about how we actually use it, when we learn how to play:
"Happy Birthday".
So, I'll see you for that lesson very soon, take care of yourselves, bye-bye!