[00:00] Sometimes we lose ourselves in the details and fail to see the bigger picture, the bigger goal and trajectory of our learning process.
[00:13] It's easy to get lost in one scene or exercise, one song or a fame to see where it is all leads or where we dream of being in the future. To give structure to it all, I've put together an overview of what my process of learning
[00:25] guitar ideally would look like. How I would do it if I were to do it all over again. Everything is connected.
[00:37] That's what I will show you in this video. I'm demonstrating how things are related, what I think about when I'm improvising and playing guitar, and I'm making this video to celebrate the release of my new intermediate guitar course called Next Level Playing, which is built on that same philosophy.
[00:53] Everything is connected. In this video, I want to show you my path of learning guitar. I think it's one that can be generally applied to anyone that wants to become a better guitar player. It's four levels, so we all need to go through to reach guitar mastery.
[01:06] And I ask my followers on Instagram the question, what has been the best advice they were ever given? And in this video, I'll share some of my favourite answers. Level one, learn songs. Learning always starts with copying.
[01:19] The results are instant. Because you couldn't play something. And after a while, you can. It's easy progress. Clearly visible. You immediately sound like you know what you're doing on a six-string monitor. You're off to a great start.
[01:32] Start with some basic stuff, like neon. And if you got that down, try some more challenging stuff, like, okay, yes, that's awesome.
[01:51] But soon you may start to think, why does this sound good? And how can that guy just play something and make it sound amazing? This is where we need to expand our brains to level two, learn scales and chords.
[02:04] Now we realise that learning chords and scales are of the essence when learning guitar. This gives us structure and outline the concepts of a key. One of the first scales you might try is the pentatonic scale.
[02:21] Yeah, but we go on. We learn that when we play a happy optimistic song, we can use the major scale.
[02:34] And we learn that when it's a setter and darker song, we use the minor scale. Great. It's so much fun. We feel like we can do it all.
[02:46] We start to create our own little stuff. Shitty at first, but hey, that's how we all start out. At least, thanks to the scales, we pick the right notes. What we're doing is training our ears as well, actively or passively. We get used to scales, intervals, different flavours of chords.
[03:01] We start to recognise things every once in a while. At this time, you've probably heard of the term music theory, and maybe you've even checked it out. Maybe you haven't. It's all good. We all learn differently and there's not one way to reach guitar mastery.
[03:15] Keep that in mind. But it's really time to join me in the next level. Level three. See that everything is connected. This is where the magic happens. Where you're having these aha moments, when things all click, everything is connected.
[03:30] And I'm absolutely sure we all learn stuff of which we thought, why am I even learning this? The thing is that often when learning, you're failing to see the bigger picture, which is extremely difficult to do so when you're right in the middle of something.
[03:44] So what does this all mean? Okay, let's just make it real. Let's give you some concrete examples. So let's say you learn a chord, the E major. In the beginning you learn this E major chord, anything, this is the E major chord.
[04:00] But it is just an E major chord. It's probably the easiest to play, and that's why you learn it when you start out to play. But then you learn that there's more E chords over here, for example. Wow.
[04:12] And maybe even this one. It's so enlightening. And you didn't know yet that a chord is just a combination of three notes, which makes it into that particular chord. So learning that we can play that E major chord anywhere on the neck we want.
[04:31] But still it's just playing an E major chord. Any combination of the notes, E, G sharp, and B, will give us an E major chord. And basically the same sound.
[04:43] So this is where level three comes in, where I was talking about everything is connected. Because when I see an E chord, I basically see a suggestion. This is the sound we want, or we need like a blank canvas, and you can fill that in with
[04:58] as many colors as you find appropriate. Sure you can just play an E chord, not a problem, but we can also make our own little
[05:10] loop.
[05:25] So I played a bunch of things that come together that in my mind would make a great sound for an E major chord. Sometimes I change that E to an E4, for example like this.
[05:39] Just E to E4 to E, and that's a great way to add some movement in the chords. But how do we know what sounds good? I know the E major scale, and that 4th note from that scale is the 4th from the E4.
[05:54] So I know the E4 chord will sound good in the key of E. Of course it's also just experience, sometimes you just remember something sounds good, and you want to make sure you don't forget about it.
[06:07] So now we can use that same E4 trick on any E triad all over the neck. For example over here, or over here, or here.
[06:21] It sounds great, and now if you want some melodic lines or licks in between those chords, we turn that chord into an arpeggio, for example like this.
[06:37] And because we learned the octave shapes, you did right on the neck, the octaves, we can extend this lick one octave lower as well for this.
[06:52] Wait a minute. This is almost the E played as a C shape. So if I want to move that E chord to B, the 5th chord in the key of E, yes I paid attention
[07:05] during my theory lessons, I can play exactly the same lick on that chord. Wow, this is beautiful.
[07:19] So I learned one lick, and I transpose it to different chords, and even different keys. Sweet. Sweet. Sweet. Sweet. Sus4. Wait a minute. This is when a soundly can click.
[07:51] When you realize that the thing you've been playing the entire time just fall into place and make sense to you, let's move on. By outlining that E major chord, we're almost playing the pentatonic scale as well.
[08:04] So if we take that pentatonic scale, in this case of E major, we can use that to add little licks to the chord as well. And of course we learned about the relative keys, right?
[08:22] So we can jump right to that C sharp minor pentatonic as well, so we can easily see all the patterns lying on the neck.
[08:41] And depending on the context of the chord, we can even add some chromatic notes in there to make it sound a little more bluesy, high-cat.
[09:00] What else can we do? You may have heard of the modes, and it may have scared you a little bit. But what we've been playing so far has basically all been mostly Ionian. So you have been playing the modes all this time.
[09:13] Let's try something different. On the 5th chord, we find the mixolydian mode. So in this case on B, because it's the 5th note from the E major scale, right? The 5th degree. So on B we play that mixolydian scale, closely related to the dominant 7th sound, by the way.
[09:30] So we get B7.
[09:46] But if that's not your jam, let's try something different and let's do that on the 6th chord in the key of E. This is a minor chord, so it becomes C sharp minor. And now let's do the same in Aeolian.
[10:22] So what we've learned now is that the E major or Ionian and B mixolydian and C sharp Aeolian or natural minor are just the same notes, but sound vastly different over different
[10:37] chords. Whoa! Everything is connected! Whoa! Everything is connected! Everything is connected! Wow, I can't believe it.
[10:49] This was just a demonstration of the fact that all things I know from chords to scales to theory to different shapes are used when I'm just playing and fooling around, having fun on the guitar, exploring ideas.
[11:01] Some say it's boring, but let me say otherwise, when applied correctly, it's the best. And so much fun. It gives so much satisfaction to get to a deeper understanding of what it is that you're playing.
[11:13] It's truly great and amazing. So now to circle back to my new guitar course. This is basically the entire idea and philosophy behind it. I try to teach where it is all comes from, how it's used, how I apply it to music.
[11:25] I try to get the idea across that everything is connected, that you sometimes learn things that maybe don't make a lot of sense at first, but when you try it a few times and see it coming back again and again, you can have that aha moment where everything falls into its place.
[11:41] If you were that paid attention, those were still one level short, so here's level four. Let it all go. And except you can never really get there, because you can always see new things to learn.
[11:55] So guitar mastery, isn't even a thing, I don't know, but this has to be the hardest one. And I find myself just looking into this level at the moment. Let it all go when you play and trust your ears, your instinct, and your feelings.
[12:09] This is really challenging, because you have to be open and vulnerable. But to not be mistaken, we always need to go back to previous levels all the time. To be and to stay great as a guitar player, you have to be willing to keep on moving forward.
[12:23] And the only way to do this is by getting back to learning and practicing. New flavors, new songs, new skills, etc. Nothing beats practice, putting in the hard work. Anyway, now about the course again, the incentive to make this video in the first place is called
[12:38] next level playing and now available at nextlevelplaying.com. It's of course designed for, I guess, intermediate guitarist, but I think even if you don't consider yourself an intermediate player yet, but just very eager to learn and to get
[12:51] better, this might be a course for you. Make sure to find out if it's for you and to learn all about what the course entails. By checking out nextlevelplaying.com, it's all there as clear as possible. So let me know what you think.
[13:03] And right now it's open for a limited time. It closes this Sunday so we can support everyone that goes through the course the best as possible. Thanks all for watching, have a great day, check out the course or not, I really appreciate
[13:16] everyone here. So it means a great deal. Thanks, have a wonderful day and I hope to see you around, cheers.