My Move To Nashville And What Not To Play (Over A Major Chord)

[00:00:00][music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> All right, I'm going to talk about that in a little bit. Um, kind of how to approach moving from a one chord, a major chord, to a five dominant.

[00:01:06]Cuz this this needs to be talked about because what I see in a lot of younger players is over this one chord that really should be major ideas.

[00:01:16]>> [music] >> And the five chord needs to outline a dominant sound, right?

[00:01:22]But a lot of guys over this one chord, >> [music] >> they're playing blues.

[00:01:31]>> [music] >> That doesn't really work, so I'll address that in a second, but uh the first thing I want to talk about is uh a hot topic.

[00:01:40]Seems as though a lot of guys, I get it, you know, there's there's trendy topics and trendy videos and things to talk about, but um I was watching Uncle Larry's channel and he mentioned uh videos about people saying, you know, what I learned moving to Nashville, you know, now, or should I move to Nashville nowadays and how hard it is, but I wanted to make a video talking about uh my goals being in Nashville. I've been here almost 3 years and um man, I just wanted to talk about it a little bit. So, my goal moving here was to immerse myself in a place that basically eats and breathes music, right? Not all cities are like that. You know, I'm from a small town and there's really not a lot of music happening. Not at this level. In a short amount of time, I've learned so much here and honestly, I've gained experience that I would never get if I were to just take private lessons or uh watch videos and video content. I think the biggest thing that I've learned moving here is how important it is to to get outside of your comfort zone. Purposely putting myself in situations that aren't comfortable or with players that I don't play with often or you know, maybe we're playing some material or I'm sitting in with a band that's playing stuff that I'm not used to, but honestly, this is the best way that I think uh a musician will grow is to get outside of your comfort zone and go jam with people and do things, you know?

[00:03:07]If you're sitting at home playing all the time and just watching content or making content, that's great, but that's comfortable. You're sitting at home, you know, with no pressure or nobody watching or you know, you can do 100 takes and make something perfect and you can't really do that on stage or some people refer to it as in the heat of battle. So, um you kind of have to deliver when you're on stage, right?

[00:03:33]You don't want to totally blow it. You don't want to go reach for things and try to play things that you're not comfortable with, right?

[00:03:40]The best way to kill it in a live situation is just stick to what you know and and um keep building your vocabulary at home and keep at these jams or gigs, try and and put some of that stuff you're working on at home into your gigs. And you know, if some people go, "Well, I don't know a lot. So, if I only play what I know, then not much is going to happen." But I feel like nine out of 10 humans, musicians, or just listeners, anybody, they would take touch, tone, and feel over a bunch of notes any day. I would, right? If someone just plays a couple notes, but it has great feel and good tone, uh and they're executing exactly what they, you know, want, that's better than watching somebody flop around and and hit a bunch of clams all night. So, um just play what you're good at, you know?

[00:04:33]So, an amazing thing about Nashville is the players who live here, right? Um if you're lucky, you get to play with some of these guys and learn from them. And I'm not a name-dropper. I don't really know many people here, but I I've been lucky and fortunate enough to play with some of these guys who I really look up to. You know, some of these players have been around for a long time or have at least been in the scene for a long time. And and they've been through it. They've, you know, had their asses kicked, and it it's paid off, clearly, because they're amazing. I'm learning so much from these guys. Guys like Gene Dunlap, who was Loretta Lynn's band leader for years. And he's 87 years old, and I get to jam with him and play with him all the time on Friday nights and sometimes on Saturdays. And man, I'm learning so much from him, and we enjoy playing with each other. And um that is worth its weight in gold, man. Just like being around somebody like him, learning from him, um the stories, the playing, the experience, it's it's everything. So, guys like Gene Dunlap, you know, I've had friends ask me if it's intimidating playing in front of some of these high-caliber players. And I'm not going to lie, at first it was a little intimidating.

[00:05:52]You know, I was never nervous, but um definitely like, "Oh man, like he's watching or so-and-so's watching." You know, uh guys like Gene and um you know, Guthrie Trapp, Jack Ruch, Uncle Larry, um Mickey uh what's his name? Mickey Hayes, uh David Allan Coe's bass player.

[00:06:10]I got to play with him the other night.

[00:06:11]It's like, "Holy you know?"

[00:06:13]Um Vern Pilder, who's awesome, another older guy who was John Anderson's guitar player for a long time and uh I think a long time. I don't know how how long he played with him.

[00:06:25]But um you know, he'll come up and sing songs and you know, you need to be somewhat on it.

[00:06:31]You have to learn how to you know, kick off tunes and not step on what the singer's doing and not uh step on what any other musicians are doing, right? So, this is the kind of learning experience I'm talking about that I really do feel only Nashville can provide. So yeah, man, I wouldn't trade that for anything.

[00:06:51]Playing with some of these guys is so inspiring and motivating and it actually it makes it really makes me want to continue to learn and and grow on my instrument and not just with guitar, but music in general. I feel like visual learning will only get you about 25% of the way there, right? Like YouTube videos and um courses and things. That's good stuff, but sometimes it doesn't give you all of the real experience that you need. I feel like if I hadn't moved here, I wouldn't have known what I'm capable of on the guitar.

[00:07:25]And honestly, that's enough for me. Talk about a way to get inspired. Not to mention the resources here, man, like guitar stores, luthiers, um amp repair shops, like my guitars and amps are so well taken care of here. Back home, uh it's almost nearly impossible to find somebody to, you know, do a fantastic job making you a new nut or whatever you need, you know.

[00:07:51]I used to have to drive hours to find the right guy. So, man, Nashville's awesome.

[00:07:56]Again, I want to talk about going from a major chord, a one chord to a dominant five chord.

[00:08:03]You can't play minor pentatonic over this stuff.

[00:08:07]>> [music] >> If I'm in C, uh here's an example. I'm I got this backing track pulled up on YouTube here.

[00:08:13]It's called uh Jambalaya on the Bayou, right?

[00:08:18]Classic old tune.

[00:08:21]So, there's a little intro, but listen after the intro and the song song starts. I'm going to play some minor pentatonic blues stuff. Actually, I'm going to play some major sounds, right? What sounds good over this kind of thing?

[00:08:33]Um and then I'll switch to minor pentatonic and blues stuff and you'll you'll hear right away how terrible it sounds.

[00:08:47]>> [music] [music] >> Minor blues.

[00:09:05]That was a bad example, [music] but man, I can't even play minor pentatonic and blues over this cuz it's hard because it just sounds terrible to me. I can't even do it, but um So, yeah, over something like this, right? It's literally [music] just a major one chord moving to a dominant seven five chord, right?

[00:09:29]So, over the one chord, major pentatonic is what you want. Major >> [music] >> You know, occasionally you can throw in the major seventh.

[00:09:47]>> [music] >> You don't want to do it too much cuz then it just starts to sound a little weird, but you know, you can do cool little embellishments and little uh enclosures and things. You know, if I'm outlining, for example, over the one chord.

[00:10:02]>> [music] >> If I outline this E-shaped C chord, right?

[00:10:08]Enclosures, right down the triad.

[00:10:11]>> [music] >> Uh >> [music] >> Right? I'm really just thinking >> [music] >> So, you can do some cool stuff like that, right? Listen to this.

[00:10:32]You can go back here.

[00:10:35]Right? Here's the enclosures.

[00:10:37]>> [music] >> So, that kind of stuff's cool, right? It beats this.

[00:10:47]>> [music] >> You know, it doesn't have to be super complicated. If that kind of stuff is out of your wheelhouse, you know, you can do something pretty simple.

[00:10:56]Uh over the five chord you can't you know, you don't want to get too far out of playing over this dominant seventh chord.

[00:11:04]So, again, major pentatonic >> [music] >> or landing on the flat seven cuz it's a dominant seventh chord, right?

[00:11:16]>> [music] >> Uh these are things that you need to listen for in music and learn by ear, right?

[00:11:23]You need to be able to feel this stuff.

[00:11:24]If you just um kind of spit out some licks, for example, like I'm not really trying to show you licks. You know, you can use these, sure, but if you're just memorizing stuff and trying to and you're trying to you know, insert it in different songs and things you play, it's not going to work. You need to like really get this stuff down, right? So you know, if you like this kind of thing, this enclosure thing >> [music] >> learn it in every key and every position, right? You know, you can do something pretty simple, too, right? If you're learning how to do this stuff just stick to major pentatonic over both chords. Sound like this.

[00:12:19]>> [music] [music] >> There's the flat seven.

[00:12:31]This kind of situation or chord progression is everything. It's amazing to me how many people can't play over like a major chord or a dominant seven.

[00:12:46]All that stuff. I mean, playing to the chord. So I don't know. I'll I'll do a pass over this and uh kind of show you what I'm talking about, but uh this is a great chord progression, great song to learn how to play over. I'm telling you, if you you learn how to do this, many doors will open. So go back to it here.

[00:13:12]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> I think that's enough for today.

[00:14:01]Um Oh, yeah. Shout out to my buddy Lorenzo for this amazing guitar.

[00:14:10]It's got a couple of excuses, as Uncle Larry would say. But, uh man, I had a Gibson 335, a '59 uh reissue.

[00:14:19]And I played Lorenzo's guitar, set it up for him cuz it played like absolute And then I set it up and uh it plays great, it sounds great. I actually fell in love with it.

[00:14:29]And so, I had a '59, this is a '64.

[00:14:32]And uh he's like, "Man, I'm not married to it."

[00:14:36]And um you know, "I like your guitar." So, we traded.

[00:14:40]So, shout out to Lorenzo, my Italian brother from another mother, from another mama.

[00:14:46]And uh I'm stoked on this thing, man. It just fits my hand perfectly.

[00:14:51]It's great. So, thanks again, Lorenzo. All right, I'm going to shut up now.

[00:14:56]And uh I'll see you guys next time.