Doppler masterfully bridges the gap between abstract modal theory and practical fretboard application, turning complex harmonic relationships into intuitive tools for improvisation. It is a surgical breakdown that replaces aimless shredding with genuine musical intent.
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DOPPLER'S GEAR GARAGE // 26/4/20Added:
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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to Doppler's Gear Garage. In case we haven't met, nice to meet you.
My name is Doug and gosh darn it, we're going to be focusing on what I affectionately call guitar talk. And first and foremost, if you've got any questions about kind of anything guitar, gear related, recording related, that's part of what this is. It's kind of uh an open forum where we can kind of talk about all of that stuff. Uh last week we uh endeavored to talk about uh all that stuff that was going on in Oh my word, look at all the people that are here.
Holy cow. Good morning, Griffin. Good morning to you, Braden. Good morning to you, Sonia. Good morning to you, Alec, you mad midi scientist, you. Gosh darn it, Adam. Hello. Hello. Hello, Brentton.
Holy cow. Kyle Harrison, what's going on, my dear friend? Thank you so much for the kind words. You would know. Uh, so, okay, Tony, what's happening? Okay.
Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
So, this is the new version of the Douggee Kyle and I would know from days past. Okay. Well, first and foremost, holy cow, nice to see so many people here. Um, so first and what's going on, Santos, what's happening, my friend. Great to see you. Hello. That would be Rajie, I take it. Right. You handsome guy. You Nandini. Holy cow. Now, who is this?
Decide.
Uh, well, any case, nice to see you.
Good morning. All right. Well, let me let me get to work here. Uh, and drop any questions that you've got. Let's dig in. All right. One of the things that I am massively insanely working on is this crazy pentatonic course uh for Eric.
Good morning, my friend. Uh glorious delay is this crazy pentatonic course. And one of the things that I'm basically doing uh is creating a a road map, if you will, of all the areas when we play pentatonic. Because again, if we think about, you know, we're shredding playing our crazy modal stuff, but we want to go, let's say we're in a frigian.
Uh, by the way, I'm also going to throw in as many little tidbits purposely kind of these little things that are abstract on their own, but collectively they're totally abstract. I remember back in the day There was a guy named Joe Satriani.
Satriani, those of you from the East Coast, and one of the things that that he did in some of the guitar lessons where he would outline modal chords. And this guy right here is a frigian chord.
Basically, the combination of these scale degree numbers and these, if you will, in a valic relationships of each of those scale degree numbers, they relate to the root give you a sound that can only sets up the tonality, the frigian mode.
So, I want to I'm going to drop in a couple little things like that today.
So, basically, if you were to bar your first finger across the fifth fret, across all six strings, you were to add your second finger there at the seventh fret on the fifth string, that's the root of the fifth. If you were to add your pinky at the eighth fret on the fourth string, that would be the flat two and or the flat nine. Basically, anytime you end up in the second octave with something like a two, a four or a six, you add seven, the the unique number of notes in the major scale, the two becomes a nine, the four becomes a six, and the the six becomes a 13. 2 4 6 9 11 13. And in this particular case, we're taking that flat two of the frigian mode and putting that in second off right there.
And as soon as I literally play those those three notes together because the unique formula of the frigian mode, there is no other mode that has a natural five in combination with a a flat two, which is really, or I should say a flat 9, which is really the same thing as flat 2. That is to say, the only two modes with a flat two are frigian and lorian.
And lorian having a flat five, that being a diminished fifth, and frigian to have a natural five, that being a perfect fifth. So if we go 1 5 flat 9 4 5 1, that lovely little bit of cordal madness there is only able to support the friian mode.
But if I kind of want to even though frigian is not necessarily it's not kind of one of the more traditional pentatonic supporting modal flavors that is if I went two chord and five chord that kind of Dorian is the one of the tenalities that we're most used to playing the minor pentatonic. The other is being That would be the minor scale.
And because of where we're starting relative to the root where the relative one of the major scale, the relative major scale, that's a good way of putting it. Holy talk about a long winded way of getting it.
When we get to the the relative major for in this particular case a doran I was at that would have been G major and then for a minor that would have been C major you're in a different relationship as it relates to the relative major. So as an end result the pentatonic has a different sound when played over the root of the dorian or the frigian or the minor. So in this particular case, heading back to this beautiful bit of friginess, even if we just are kind of playing pure friian, we can kind of dance around those pentatonic shapes.
That's all right. I I'm Oh, I'm wanting to play minor.
But those those pentatonic notes really allow us to kind of hang on those more heartfelt locations of the scale.
Most importantly because they really outline that minor triad that is three fifths of the minor pentatonic which is a 1 flat 3 four five flat 7. So we have the 1 flat 35. We are kind of in that particular instance omitting the four and the flat 7. But the great thing about knowing the four it's a great note for creating tension.
Same with the flat 7. You just don't want to hang there forever.
And arguably, you know, if you think about the flat 2 being one of the most defining notes of the frigian mode, you don't want to hang there for too long.
tension resolution.
All right, so let me just jump in. I've got a couple of comments here. Let me just make sure I attempt. Holy cow, look at all the people here today. Hello. Let me get to work here in just a quick second. Um uh okay, good, good, good.
Nandini, welcome back. Let's everybody give Nandini again another welcome back.
She's been off in India with family.
Okay.
All right. Thanks. Uh, excellent.
Excellent. Excellent.
Oh. Oh. Oh, you're going to bait you're going to bait the hook there, are you?
Uh, yes. The answer would be yes for those of you that can't see that because you're on a mobile device. We're talking about blending the major and the minor pentatonic mixed together.
Perfect. Good morning, Steve Greenleaf.
Esteanigo.
Rick Harrison. Great to see you. It was Melissa's birthday two days ago. So, we were celebrating her birthday. So, I will uh What is the latest on my CD? I am actively working away gathering tones. Um and uh the goal is to have three songs that I've gathered all my act together and send them off to a guy named Mike Fraser in Canada. He's uh worked with the likes of Joseph Griani, AC/DC, Jimmy Paige, Metallica, uh brilliant producer engineer. So, he's the guy that's going to be mixing all this good stuff. Terry, good morning to you, my dear friend. Great to see you.
Hello. Hello.
Okay. Can I mention my guitar pedal switcher looper? I've looked into the the Joyos and the Martin uh uh Carl Martin oct to switch. Curious how they compare. Absolutely. So, hang on a second. Let me attempt to be slightly gathered today. You know what? I'm going to go old school and I'm going to write it on my desk. All right. So, minor, major, pent, switchers. Uh, two of my favorite favorite conversation. Ironically, I can show you guys. Hang on a sec. What is it? Number three. I think it's number three. There you go. There is my new top down shot. So, in the midst of putting together my new top down shot for this pentatonic course, um the camera that was on the pedal board over there, I ab I temporarily disconnected that camera and I stole its lens. No, I didn't steal its lens for this shot. Uh but the point being is that I can't show that. Yes, I can. Where are you? No, there you are.
Uh there is. Look at that mess. Uh, so that right there is my main go-to switcher. So, uh, it's written on my desk. I'm not going to forget. Here we go. All right. So, uh, noted, uh, good morning, Albert. You have been missed, my friend Stephen. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Great to see you. Boom, boom, boom. Uh, advice on encouraging ear training. Oh, here we go. Excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent. One of my favorite topics. Last week we talked a little bit about mumbling and humbling for those that are kind of a little don't want to go 1 2 3 4 or as it relates to frigian one flat 2 flat 3 4 1 flat 2 flat 3 4 5 flat 6 flat 7 1 might want to go flat 2 flat 3 4 uh because they're a little self-conscious the the humbling as I like to say that that's dedicated to my my dear friend Cece who was here last week uh so we will cover the art of of humbling uh as we get into there. Rick, good morning to you. Good morning, Eric.
Hello. Hello. Hello. There we go. Come on. All right, David, what's happening?
What's happening? Anyone in guitar lesson? There we go. Coffee guitar and coffee and awesome. Awesome. Frank, good morning, my friend. How are you? John Melo, holy cow. All right, let's get to work here. All right, so the whole point of this this crazy frigian chord was what's neat about is instantly it evokes a number of things. And I'm going to kind of riff on a couple of of the ideas there. Again, we talked about uh Brett mentioned the mixture of the major and the minor pentatonic. We're gonna kind of talk about again how we can milk that for just if I play just the minor pentatonic still takes on the flavor of the frigian mode over that chord because that has kind of been imprinted harmonically on if you will the harmonic space.
This is uh I'm going to gently jump into the ear training side of this.
One flat 2 flat 3 four five one five one one one flat 2 up the octave and so one of the things I would suggest all of you that want to get better at your ear training and more importantly flipping the script on why ear training is important co so one of the things and I'm gonna probably talk a fair amount relative to this pentatonic course because it's all over my brain and I've spent a huge amount of time this week really kind of slicing and dicing the pentatonic experience if you will from the inside or from the outside looking in and from the inside looking out. So the idea of something like ear training, you can look at it two different ways. On one hand, it's really good to be able to go, hey, I can scale sing that. I almost started to say whoopty, but it's actually a big whoopy.
If you can scale sing one flat, two flat, three, four, five flat, six flat, 71 your ear. No, no, no.
You all of a sudden are much, much closer to being able to go, what I'm hearing in my head is what I'm able to bring down to my fingerboard. This is actually one of the pieces I think I put together either late yesterday or in the in the waking hours this morning. But your ability to just kind of be able to sing scale sequences means your brain and your finger is just the pure ability to sing that you're that much closer to being able to flip that in reverse and go if I can sing it and play it at the same time then I can kind of hear it and play it at the same time. So the singing part is where we're kind of directing the traffic from as in singing.
And then in turn when we hear so bringing our ear into this equation because I know all of us suffer from the finger goes to the given fret let's say the key of A. Not that you've ever been stuck in A. Or I don't know for those of you that aren't stuck in A. How about E?
All right. And then for those of you that hang out with with with me enough, we have a tendency to sp spend a lot of time in G is what Joe as in Joe Seprian used to describe as G disease. If you find yourself um for example, you know, so many of the modes with the exception of Lorine in the key of G have got this D natural. And so I have a a really interesting time in keys that do not have a D natural that have a C sharp for example or sorry a D flat as in gloian.
Um uh it it's just one of those things my fingers kind of go to they just kind of require wire to go there. Um so that ear training part is part of and we'll come back and touch on that more. Again the neat thing about a chord like this is that not only does it have the frig internality built into it. there's a brooding character of that sound and that's one of the things that's really magical about chords. Um, okay. So now here one of the other things we're going to talk about a little bit today because again I I kind of am always fishing for things that are jumping out and as I'm kind of working on this pentatonic stuff, one of the things that I'm actually doing is I'm spending a lot of time looking at the other course material that's out there. Hence why I love this top down shot because um there's a guy named Daniel Sif or Sheriff I Sarif or Sheriff. He's got like a bazillion uh YouTube followers.
He's a great teacher. Uh and there's also a guy named the donut doctor. And both of them are incorporating those top down shots and kind of if you will the lower third of the screen in their lesson content. So I'm like, you know what? Let me set up a camera. So, my neighbor, the amazing Hussein, came over yesterday. Uh me and one of these things.
Yeah, there you go. And one of these things.
Uh so, I bring bring in the professionals. We got the appropriate size bit. We now have another camera that hangs from the ceiling there. They can kind of get that top down view and then kind of in post, I can kind of straighten out that that guitar neck so it sits parallel to the bottom of the screen. But that was was a big deal in operable. Getting back to you The idea is that many of us in terms of using our ear from the very beginning of our pentatonic or scale experience, we think of scales as shapes. Now, the great thing about that being is if I think about kind of the middle two strings.
I delved down to the fifth string there for a minute.
Move to B flat.
Move up to D. Move down to G.
I can cut and paste that shape. It's one of the greatest things about the guitar.
Um, and like we've talked about before, one of the things, and this is this is one of the really fun things about what I'm doing is like there's a fine line between the shapes and being able to map the shapes up and down the neck just by recognizing shapes. What I call shapology.
Then there's the ability to inside those shapes to go minor 3 perfect fourth perfect fifth minor 7th octave or one flat 3 four five flat 7 one as we go from the one to the flat three that's a minor third flat 3 to the four that's a major second from one of the five major second five to the flat 7 minor third flat 7 to the one major second minor 3rd major 2 major second minor 3rd major second minor 3rd perfect minor 3rd perfect fourth perfect fifth is minor 7th octave octave if I play the note.
And so those are two different types of intervalic relationships inside the pentatonic. What I basically affectionately coined and I'm going to see if there's a better term out there, but what I call tonic intervals. That is to say, as we're at the root, as we toggle between each one of those different scale degree numbers inside that one and the flat three, the one and the four, the one and the five, the one and the flat 7, the one and the octave minor, minor 3rd, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, minor 7th, octave. So, we get used to hearing how each one of those sits against the root. Now, much of the time when we're soloing, we're not kind of doing the toggly bit of business. However, somewhere somebody's playing that chord. So, being able to hear that five da da perfect fifth and a minor 7th.
So, being able to recognize that and ultimately what we're want to do is not become experts in your training. The goal is to hear a note and have your fingers just know where to go. I mean, it's kind of a no-brainer. But the problem is this whole Shapology approach of like, I don't know, we find the the whatever note like B flat on the low E string and we just, you know, cut and paste our shape there. We're not taught to engage these other parts of the learning process. All right.
Uh D fullblooded Portuguese. Love that. Uh G disease. Uh Joe didn't mince words. No, he did not. Now, the great thing about that is it's akin to kind of pentatonicis. That is a I kind of play pattern number one and a and I kind of pick up the guitar and the first thing I play and the last thing I play is pattern number one and a. Um on one hand, it gives us something that we can go to that's that's kind of, if you will, what I affectionately like to refer to as a handle. It's something we can grab a hold of and make music with.
And honestly, at the end of the day, doesn't care how much or how little you know it. What really matters is your ability to pick up the guitar and say something.
But the longer I've done this, the more that I discovered, the more that I know, the more I can employ that knowledge on the fingerboard and and and incorporating in my ear to make better sense of things. By the way, I talked about little random things. So, over the course of the week, uh, I collect random thoughts that I'm going to be sharing on here. Uh, one of them is, how do you know when it's time to change your strings? Well, I was changing strings on this guitar and one of the things, the easiest way to be able to tell in my opinion is to run your thumb underneath the fourth string. And at the point you feel the bottom side of the string start to pit from too much contact with the fret, the string has lost its uh what's the word I'm looking for?
Integrity physically. At the point that that basically it pits it either means that the wines have flattened out andor they start to separate which means the string is not integuous in terms of it being able to sustain carry notes evenly intonate properly. So that's that's really the thing that fourth string there if you're looking for a sign that would be it. The other thing I would suggest doing for those of us who have a number of different instruments and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
you come back to the guitar, it's like was in tune when I left it and it's either gone sharp or it's gone flat, they have a tendency, not exclusively, but the the longer you let them sit, they have a tendency to drift. So, I would suggest maybe taking a day, once a week at the most, once a month, and just go around and give everything a quick tuneup. This is especially the case for instruments with floating tremolos or, you know, some sort of tremolo system.
uh it will help them be more stable because they're used to sitting at pitch and the more that they sit at pitch whether it's E or E flat or you know these these guys here I tune them to either C# or drop B but the more that they're used to sitting at that that stable point and stabilizing getting used to there the neck and the body because the neck will move a little bit as you change the pitch especially on an instrument that is downtuned and has heavier gauge strings.
All right. Uh gosh darn it. Uh uh okay. Uh stringed harmonies. Uh hey, welcome. Thank you so much. I'm Doug.
Nice to meet you. Uh and harmonies. One of the things we're going to talk about in a little bit today. Uh I was watching um one of the great things about hanging out in the virtual space with other guitar teachers is I'm always looking for things that are are inspirational to me. And one of the things that I'm big on is chords. So, one of the things that we're going to go over probably right now, uh, fresh strings have a snappy tone. Hello, Jim, my dear friend. Fresh strings are awesome. And, um, and good morning. Good morning. They and old strings sound dull and it just there's a whole range of things that begin to happen. All right, I'm going to briefly go to Chordsville. We already started off with this rigid little bit here and talking about kind of pentatonicizing over the frigian mode.
So, I was watching um this one of my favorite topics and one of the things that I'm really there are points where you're taking theory and trying to show people how to turn that into music and show them how understanding the theory actually helps them make better music. and in the process of helping them make better music, showing them how to integrate theory, how to do that or some sort of exercise around some theoretical concept. It's one of the reasons why I'm spending a lot of time just kind of watching what other players are doing.
And yes, we have uh a pair I guess we have for wreck or something. That's a pair of 90s dual wrecks. Yes, Albert to be continued. Um so the thing is is that this this one particular guitar, I'm going to forget his name. Um, but one of my other guitar teacher quote unquote buddies um had referenced something he was doing in this video. One of the things that he did was he kind of outlined all the notes. I think it was for E major. And you know, so if if we took the key of E major, E, F#, G# sharp, A, B, C#, D#, E, which is determined by taking the formula of the major scale, if we took the C major scale, it's C, hold to D, hold to E, half to F, hold G, hold to A, hold to B, half F to C, which you think of as one, hold to two, hold to three, half to four, hold to five, hold to six, hold to seven, half to one. The half steps occurring between three and four and seven and one. So if we take that down to E one, hold to two, hold to three, half to four, hold to five, hold to six, hold to seven, half to one. Take my word for it, that's going to be E, hold to F sharp. Just for a little bit of basics here, from E to F is a half step. But if we go from the one to the two in the major scale, those are adjacent numbers.
So we need to use adjacent note names, which is why instead of it being E and G flat, it's E and Fsharp. Hold the G#arp, half to A, hold the B, hold to C#, hold the D#, half to E. And if we take that E, F#, G#sharp, A, B, C#, D#, E, and we just reduce it down to E, G# sharp, and B, that's where all our E major chords come from. And so these are just different voicings of combinations of E, G, and B, which is a a really kind of the way that this particular teacher taught it was synonymous with something that I'm doing that I would suggest you're doing as well.
Uh, if you were to play an open position A major chord, and I'm going to guess I'm going to have to include the first five frets, a B major, C major, D major, E major, and F major, and G major, the way we were taught those, was taught to see them as shapes. And by the way, this is relevant to anything you're playing anywhere. So, hang with me for a sec.
So, if we think about this A major chord and this B major, and so on and so forth.
Um, actually, I'm going to do it relative to the key of C major. So that's going to be C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor, B diminished, which I'm going to play like that, and C major. So I took E, F, G, A, and A, B, C, D, and D, E, D, E, F, G, and G, A, B, C, and B, C, D, E, and E, F, G, A. So those are all the natural notes within the first fret. So you just kind of created, if you will, a note grid.
And we put together a a bunch of C's, E's, and G's as in 1, three, and five of C major. We're taking this C, ABC, C, this E, that G, that B, C, that's C, C, E, G, C, E. And our voicing is C, E, G, C, E. This D minor, we got the open D.
We went G hold to A, B to C hold to D, D, A, D, E to F, D, A, D, F. And all of a sudden, when we play these chords, instead of being the taught the way we were taught them, we're like, hey, just play from the fourth string up and go the open fourth string, then put this finger there and put that finger there and put that finger there. There you go.
There's that shape. Actually, what we're doing is we're playing D, A, D, F. And it's like, oh, okay. I've got that. If we'd been taught that from the very beginning, the way we see chords, we would immediately go, "Oh, these are some abbreviation of some group of seven notes." Got it? We wouldn't think anything else of it. But instead, we're talking just play this shape here. And all we're taught to think about is D.
Okay. As is literally 17th of the vital information we need to know. Like, holy cow. E minor again. E A hold a B. D hold E, G, B, and E. All right. E B E G B E or F major D E F G A B C E F A C F G major E F G A B D G B C D E F G B D G D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D G G All right, that's all I can take. I can't stand no more. Let me tune this thing.
One of the downsides of string changes is they do have a tendency to be a little unruly for a minute or two, especially with uh enough whammy flogging. All right. And then we got to our A minor. A A uh sorry, A D E G A B C E A E A C E. And then we get to our B diminished. A B D E F G A B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B C C D U We'll play that just that much. That gives us our B F B D. And I can play that.
Can sneak that that F in there if I go like this. All right. So, hey, I tell you what. Uh contortion move of of number one besides this little B frigian chord that we played. So, that's an A frigian chord there. Uh B frigian shows an example of G disease because you're playing in G major. Frigian is the third mode. But I played it down here at A. In any case, this particular thing was I was playing the B here on the fifth string at the second fret and I was playing the F there at the first fret on the high E string with those guys and I was going like this.
Hold on. Is my nail too long to play this?
There we go. Um, and that, by the way, means I need to just do a little something on that pinky nail. Let's see if I can actually play this chord.
Riley, what's going on my man Mike Rand?
We have not connected for that phone call, but that does not mean that I have forgotten about you, my dear friend.
Great to see you. Great to see you, Shredder. What's happening? Band is on the road. I just woke up. The crappy hotel in Santa Cruz on Santa Rosa and Fresno next. Way to go, my man. All right. So, this little bit of business.
See if I can actually There we go. So, I'm basically going one, I should say. B uh F uh B D and and F.
That's a hard chord. There we go.
Hold on. There we go. Um so that's kind of getting that first finger to play two different frets. Uh not that you're going to do that an awful lot, but I can assure you kind of, you know, there there's a thing that I've been thinking about thinking about it this morning.
What are the things that we do as quoteunquote daily drivers that we practice on a daily basis? Maybe when we first sit down with the instrument that we kind of go, what is there that's hard that if I sat and played it every day, wouldn't be hard anymore. Like after a certain period of time, it all of a sudden becomes easy enough. Let's see if I can get that chord with a little fingernail adjustment. There we go. Uh, so the neat thing is is that that's kind of a wacky concept, but there will be times you're like, gosh darn it, I need to play across two different frets with one finger. All right, like I said, randomness. CeCe is back.
Good morning. Hello.
Happy. Now I I get to tell a victory story. Uh, so the great thing is and and I tell Chris, can you do me a favor? Can you let me know down below if I can tell all the nuance of your victory story past um recent past in terms of our interaction and then recent present in terms of the clips you sent me because it's one of the greatest teaching victories of working with a student uh and and reaching a point of victorious awesomeness that's probably ever happened as soon as soon as I got your messages. I was just like, "Oh, this is so awesome."
Uh, so yes. Uh, so these are are, by the way, let let me just kind of make sure I'm getting caught up here. So these are both the '9s dual wreck, uh, reissue, and they're, uh, I'm, this week I'm going to be pushing out or I'm going to be shooting the content for the first video in a series called the rectifier project. And I'm starting with the basically brand new '9s dual rectifier standard. That is to say, this is the standard dress. You took a look at the Rev G back there and you can see the the face plates kind of faded. This is all nice and there you go. Shiny. Look at that. Holy guy like Vanna Doppler.
Awkward. Um, and then this is kind of what they call uh the the I think chrome on black or black chrome or whatever.
So, this one came out before this one, but this one's one's relatively new. So, I'm I'm doing a video that's going to be walking us through all the amazing things that it does. um and in going to include using some two amp rigs where I'm using these guys in stereo uh per one of the conversations that we had here two weeks ago. One of the things that I may also be doing is is creating a wet dry wet rig uh and having all sorts of fun with it. So gosh darn it, I'm looking forward to that. Um Pune Ninja pizza grease seemed like suitable string treatment. I was wrong. You know, it's a funny thing how that works. Uh okay, good, good, good. Oh, he's brewing coffee, so I'm going to get a response back. Uh, and congratulations Shreddward out on the road. That is how it's done.
Mike Rand again. Good morning. Riley, hello. What would I consider the qualities of player with perfect pitch?
And do you believe it's a rare quality or diamond dozen? Perfect pitch is extremely rare. Um, and it can be a curse.
Um, without going into any specifics, I would there's a very famous keyboardist in a very famous band who has perfect pitch. He is uh a I believe a Giuliard graduate. I think he was one of those child prodigies that went to like Jiuliard right around the time he was in diapers. I mean, just some crazy story.
But he has perfect pitch. And the challenge with that is the band that he's in, they they kind of did something where they changed the the the the the pitch of one of the songs and he was so used to hearing that song in the key that it was in it. He had to kind of renegotiate that. So perfect pitch really means you hear a note and you know what that is. And if you hear things that are out of tune, it will drive you absolutely crazy.
Um, and you know, it's it's one of those things. You know, I'm sure somebody is playing these chords.
So, if I'm not careful and I don't finger the chords, well, I can pull strings out of tune. And I can also, which by the way, another little momentary tip. Let's go here. Um, is do we have do we have you? No. Yes. No. Oh, we don't have Nope. That's not what I want. Okay. Uh, I have disconnected the camera that I want. You're disconnected.
You're coming back. Uh, but the deal is with you, uh, one of the reasons you want to be at the upper edge of the fret there is if you're in the center of the fret, you can press down and the string will go sharp. And so one of the main reasons you watch any really really kind of highlevel professional guitar player, they will almost always be playing at the upper edges of their frets when they're fretting chords to the best of their ability. You know, for example, when I'm playing this this major bar chord here, my third and my fourth finger kind of to to not mess with, if you will, sideways intonation, they kind of have to be offset a little bit. So that third finger actually is is placed in such a way where it can get you into a lot of trouble. Um, one of the other things you want to just be aware of, especially for any of the intermediate players watching, is one of the reasons you probably don't want to be well, one of a couple of reasons.
Most of us start off generally kind of placing one finger of the chord at a time. Usually that first finger is where we kind of usually have a tendency to start for logical reason. All right, we're going to go first finger, second finger, third finger. The challenge is, especially on a chord like the C chord, uh, and we've talked about this before, another Doppler tidbit, and some of these are are going to be repeats from time to time. I dare you to go to every guitar in your collection, hit the harmonic at the 12th fret, hit the note at your 12th fret, check the intonation, then play again that harmonic at the 12th fret, get that note in tune, and then play the C with as little pressure.
And by the way, when you're playing, especially this is for the inter any of the intermediate players out there. When you're fretting a note all the and and it relates to this little bit here, you only need enough pressure to make the note fret. And this is something that players of all skill levels have a problem with. And even with something like a C chord, our tendency is even if we, you know, kind of instead of forming one finger at a time, ideally what we want to do is put all the fingers down simultaneously. And as you're learning to do that, one of the things I suggest is imagine you're filming a movie. You start filming boom boom boom boom cut and you play that movie in reverse. And that's how you kind of get used to putting all the fingers down simultaneously. The danger of putting them down one at a time is you have a tendency to push this first finger harder into the neck each time you add another finger. So by the time you're done, you're actually taking this note that again I was daring you to hit harmonic at the 12th fret, the note at the 12th fret to check the intonation, then hitting that C at that first fret.
Once you've discovered that your note is in tune, and I would say 50% and or probably much higher of your guitars, you're going to find, holy cow, that C is always sharp. It's because of the way the nut is cut and is quote unquote uncompensated for the fact that the height of the nut and the relationship of this fret as it should be properly spaced for the other frets that Cplay sharp. So, if in turn you're pressing extra hard because you formed one finger at a time, you're exacerbating a problem that's already problematic. Okay. Um, now getting back to Hang on, let me Oh, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good.
Okay. Uh, there we go. Go ahead. Stoked how proud you are. Oh, dude, this was So, here's the thing.
Uh, guitar. I can safely say that we all love guitar. You wouldn't be here on a Saturday morning if you didn't love guitar. I love teaching. Um, it's a funny thing. I'm not the world's most social person outside of a musical setting. We have neighbors. We celebrated Melissa's birthday. They're a couple. They are awesome. They're two of my favorite people, but generally I'm not like, "Hey, let's get a bunch of people go together and go hang out." I'm I'm not that guy. I love people, but I'm not necessarily a social creature. But one of my favorite social interactions is teaching because you get a chance to help somebody get somewhere that in theory without whatever it is that you did to help them get there, they wouldn't able to be able to get there as soon. And so when students have wins, it's a win for me because one of the things that drives the one of the most important parts of my personality is not the recognition for what the student has done because most of the time you're nowhere around when they have the breakthrough, but the fact that you help someone else have a breakthrough. It's just kind of an altruistic thing that you get to be part of and and on top of that you even get paid for it which is I'm like holy cow. So, but that's not why I do it. So, Chris, I I think it was a bass player. He was in band with this guy and Chris was singing in the band X number of years ago and the bass player mocked him and to the point where Chris stopped singing and you know like and here's the thing. I had a music teacher. The funny thing is they kind of lived up the street from me. I was a huge Beatles fanatic as a kid. This is relevant. And they I was like I desperately wanted to learn Beatles songs. And she said, "Oh, you're not good enough yet to play Beatles songs." I was crushed. I was like, you know, you're when a teacher says you're not good enough, those are words that can just, you know, really it can cause people to quit. I mean, the worst thing a teacher can do is just like, you know, that cause somebody to quit. It's like in any case that experience was my version of the bass play going and so so Chris stopped singing and so in one of our lessons I'm I'm working with Chris on ear training and and I and I couldn't quite kind of figure out why I couldn't kind of get him to start singing and he told me the story and you know these are the sorts of things it's a it's a funny thing is like I think back because I live in the hometown that I grew up in and I was not one of the the in kids. I just was different. Uh and they made it clear that they knew I was different. Um uh in not a nice way. So there's all sorts of kind of like I remember from time to time I'll I'll run into somebody that I knew from the old days or some of them are roughly involved in the music thing and I always kind of I can't help but the the the the reverberation of that emotion kind of washes over you in the memory even though it's decades ago.
They don't remember. They don't care.
But these experiences are like that. So I remember the intensity with which Chris kind of explained and I was like all right well you know so I first got him to start humming those and then I got him to do uh the favorite thing and it's actually in Chris you were in the pentatonic course uh where we talk about humbling where you're three. So instead of going 1 2 3 or 1 two flat three, you know, one two three two. So that way you can kind of because most people will will will hum and most people you can kind of go two and and then Chris sent me a after kind of hopping in last week, he sent me a video of him leading at this guitar camp, leading this great blues jam. He's playing great. He sounds great, but he's leading the band, singing the songs, trading with the other players. I'm like, those are the moments as music teachers that you just live for because you're like, there it is. Uh, and you know, the the funny thing is is that, you know, I I have um I have students that that I you know, kind of for whatever reason, every so often you'll have somebody with some strange name and you'll think about I remember them. I wonder if they even remember the guitar lessons, you know. So, it's a it's a funny thing. Uh, so to have that kind of shared experience, it's just one of my favorite things. So, thank you uh for letting me share that. Uh, Chris aka Cece. It's one of my favorite things.
Nick, what's going on, my man? Speaking of old Bay Area students, hello, hello, hello, hello. Uh, every student hopes to make their teacher feel like they aren't wasting their time. Boy, uh, that's And you know, the funny thing is is that I never feel like that. I only had no I can't tell the story. I can't tell the story. Uh so any case the pleasure I cannot tell you is mine. Just one of my favorite that you know I have a box.
It's actually I I'll get a little emotional with you uh while I before I get back to work on uh spread triads.
They're coming. Uh and in particular what we've got is this really really really cool voicing uh that uh I was like oh man this is just so incredibly groovy.
Uh, oh wait, that's not it. The uh we're going to walk through how to kind of create those dietonically. I had to think of it.
Uh, sorry, I need to play C. Okay, we'll come back to that in a moment. I have a box that belonged to my dad and it was kind of when I was a kid, I was kind of slightly fascinated with pirates and all sorts. So, it's like a pirates treasure box and I keep all the little cards and things that have given people have given me over the decades in this little box.
So, it's a box filled with memories.
It's really cool. So, there are experiences that are like that, Chris.
Uh that will be in the kind of forever box. So, thank you for that. Okay.
And no, nothing beats a fresh set of strings. Gosh darn it. Uh the black on black color scheme threw me. Pretty cool. Oh, awesome. Yes. Isn't that lovely? Uh, and and you know, the neat thing was is I plugged into it because I've been I've spent a fair amount of time away from this amp, so to plug in and just kind of go, well, I where I left it was a place that just makes sense for me.
Was really neat. All right, good, good, good. Uh, Nuno's Portuguese. He's our guitar hero savior. There you go. All right, Riley. Here we go. Doug, I have a question. So, I'm trying to work on speed and I've been practicing with the metronome, but I kind of stuck and I really just haven't been able to improve upon it. Looking for advice. Okay, metronome.
Okay, Riley, I'm going to pause. Hang on. Let me get through all the questions here or the comments. Brax, what's going on? I wonder if this stream did not come up until No. Hello. Great to see you.
Hello. Hello. Uh there we go. Uh there we go. Mark Turvy, good morning. Hello.
I want to hear I want your V. Okay. So, uh we've Brentton uh talked about the combination of the major and the minor pentatonic and he started this thing off. So, I'm actually going to start there, but I'm going to get into uh the switcher. Um what in the world does that say?
Well, then there's metronome. uh one of my favorite favorite subjects. I have been hitting the metronome four hours a day um because I am on a mission. Uh so all right combining major and minor pentatonic. So this is one of it it it's kind of one of the things that like playing combining minor pentatonic You can kind of take a bluesiness.
First of all, if you happen to be playing some sort of So, I'm just going A a G A B flat. So, that's kind of our baseline.
So there I purposely playing it where it had a little bit of a bluesier feel than just kind of where again I kind of outline the frigininess, but I purposely did So, I'm really kind of playing it as if I were playing over something that was much more bluesy in flavor, but it still has the smokiness of the frigian.
All right. Now, if I were to take and Riley, I will get you. I'm not going to forget about you. So this we're playing an A major and you can think of it as an A major in first inversion or you can also think of that as an A over C sharp in the bass. I'm going to a D minor to a G major. Uh and that basically ends up being the if you will that's if I'm going to the key of A minor that's going to be my two and my five chord. So basically I'm starting off with one chord.
If I played a minor 7 there instead my three chord instead of going to that four major I'm going to this two minor seven if you will five major. So I'm basically thinking of the the scale degree number of the root. There's my one chord.
There's my three chord. There's my two chord. There's my five chord.
If I can outline that, I would penny.
That's right. I'm not supposed to hit the seven.
All right. So there I am actually purposely designing a progression which thank you Breton uh is forcing you to change between major pentatonic between that a major and let's call that a a C# sharp minor 7. That's a one chord and a three chord as in 1 2 3 1 2 3.
I'm purposely setting up the key of a minor.
So if this is a six, this is a seven.
One and two. That's the two chord. If this is the six, that's the five chord.
So I'm basically going one chord. Sorry, one chord, three chord, two chord, five chord.
one. And so over the one chord and the three chord there, we would be playing a major pentatonic, which is basically for formulaically a 1 2 3 5 6 1 1 6 5 3 2 1 and then over this guy and this guy we played an A minor pentatonic which formulically is a one flat 3 four five flat 71. So there is some interesting math happening there at Kabis. It's unlike if I were just playing A major, switching to A minor.
It's kind of a one to one mode change.
So, literally, I could be cruising along.
Now, I wasn't playing the full duration, but I was kind of switching. Let's say I go, let's go one, two, three, four, mode change. One, two, three, four, mode change. Two, three, four, mode change. 2 3 4 one mo change. So literally I'm just kind of in English I'm playing four notes of A major.
Then I'm playing four notes of A minor.
Four notes of A major. Four notes of A minor. Four notes of A major. Four notes of A minor.
And that's alarming.
1 2 3 4 5 flat 6 flat 7. 1 2 3 4 5 flat 6 flat 7 1 2 uh again not necessarily the prettiest sound in the world but that's one of the ways you can really get your ear inside what's happening changewise. So ear training. There we go.
That's what that says there. So to that point there, one of the things about ear training is being able to use the major scale as your base point. Major 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 Dorian 2 flat 3 4 5 6 flat 71.
Frigian flat 2 flat 3 4 5 flat 6 flat 71. Lydian 2 three sharp four five six 71 mix 2 3 4 5 6 flat 71. So I could literally that got me to mix minor 2 flat 3 four five flat 6 flat 7 1 look we're in flat 2 flat 3 four flat 5 flat 6 flat 7 1 and that ability to do that means we can go 1 2 3 5 1 2 3 five sorry 1 2 3 5 6 1 I sang the four instead of the five but at least if you know one two three four that's the four instead of the five one two one two three five and just as a as a quick aside side.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the formula of the minor pentatonic. There's a lot of nuance to that one flat 3 4 5 flat 7 1. There's a because so much of us so many of us play minor pentatonic more than major pentatonic. It's the place where most of us would prefer to go deep. However, one of the things that I've noticed that in a number of the courses that I've kind of bought and kick the tires on is there are some places where the teachers kind of, if you will, they bring you up to the edge of the beach and they just dump you there. Uh, and so I'm like, well, if I'm going to show people the formula of the of the minor pentatonic and help them get inside that, I need to at least take them far enough on the journey with the major pentatonic so that everything we do on the minor pentatonic, I'm going to say the same thing we did with the minor pentatonic. Once you understand the formula, you can go to the same depth on the major pentatonic if you want to, which is that is to say again one one two three five six one as opposed to one flat 3 4 5 flat 71. So, the ability to be able to scale, sing that, and get your ear around that means that as you're playing notes or hearing notes, your ability to play what you're hearing uh is is set in in motion by your ability to start singing the notes of the scale, recognizing if you accidentally sing a four instead of a five, you at least go, "Oh, that was the four instead of the five." And you begin to recognize this thing. All right. Um, so yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. Well, practicing a three, four time in major.
Come on. There we go. Um, and that's a great affirmation. Uh, because one of the things that that I'm thinking about in the midst of all of this, uh, it's kind of like it's it's as if there's a a tape loop that's constantly going in part of my brain.
The other part is dual rectifier. The other part is every Saturday I get a chance to hang out with you. It's actually something I think about a lot and I love that. Uh, Elephants of Mars.
Oh. Uh, yeah, that's that's just genius.
Uh, Joe is he's on another level. All right. Okay.
So, that is going to be as far as I'm going to go today with blending the major pentatonic and the minor pentatonic. Actually, that wasn't blending. That was actually outright switching over to my left here on this camera there. And in the midst of all this stuff, this actually, if you look, these are neatly folded and stacked pieces of paper towel versus all this other stuff. This is this is attempting to get this place clean. It just was This is my switcher.
I've got like three three or four of those. Uh uh and it's from a company called RJM. And so for those of you that do not I actually have these guys out.
Hang on a second.
Couple weeks ago. And so let me fess fess up. Uh uh one of the things that that I want to be doing here and will be doing here is when there are kind of random questions about stuff like hey you know AB boxes you know what are you looking for you know and in terms of you know the difference between an AB box and you will if you will a passive splitter that is to say it doesn't need power to operate uh what sort of features you're looking for. are lots of little push buttons on the back of these. Actually demonstrating those so people can actually hear them in motion.
It's it's like it's on my list today.
I'm I'm going to be setting up a stereo rig using these two different amplifiers using the effects loops. It's actually really one of the cool things about about this first video for the rectifier project is I'm going to get a chance to do some things with this amp in tandem with other amplifiers that I'm not going to do on the rest of the series because I can point people back to that. I'm also going to be trying to talking about my suggestions around different cabinets because the the rectifier build the cabinets are hugely important. In any case, one of the things I'm going to be doing is building a couple of different rigs. And one of the styles of rigs uh is a stereo rig where you have a master amp and a slave amp. Basically, what you do, this is kind of an Andy Timman style rig. It's also the old Steve style rig.
The one amp is creating the tone. You come out of the effects loop in stereo.
You I should say you come out of the effects loop of the one amp in mono. You run into some sort of stereo device like this. And then in turn the two outputs go back into the power amps of the two different amplifiers. And so in this fashion this amp is functioning as the master and this one is the slave. And there's some other ways to go about approaching this. The advantage of coming out of the effects loop of amps that have effects loop is you're kind of capturing all the preamp magic of this amp and going, I'm going to run it back through the power amp section of this amp. I'm going to run it back through the power amp section of this amp. If I want to want to adjust the amount of distortion, I adjust it from there. If I want to switch to a a different channel, I do it from there. Now, there is some subtle nuances in the topography between the two different channels of this this amp that if you're running this on the orange channel and this one is running on the red channel or you've got them both on the orange channel, you go to the red channel, um where probably you want to make it such that they switch at the same time. That's where a switcher box like that begins to help you manage a bunch of that process.
For example, if you think about a giant pedal board laden with five million pedals and a buddy of mine whose name I won't mention put together this giant pedal board and had like 10 or 15 pedals all running in series and I'm like, man, I am 99% positive that if he plugged his guitar into pedal number one and the output into pedal number 10x or whatever it is into the amp and then plugged his guitar into the amp. He would be shocked at the amount of tone suck going on. He And the funny thing is I didn't actually see that he actually had a buffer in there. I'm sure he did because he's a smart guy, but to have that many pedals in series with one another is going to is going to mess with your tone to to one extent or another. you're going to lose some of and this is this is one of the things just in for the sake of conversation and there may be some folks watching this don't necessarily know this one of my favorite things in the world to do which is how I'm running here and how I started my day you can see that there is a speaker cable going there my morning starter is like hey let me pull this amp out let me let me pull this one off the top of the rack let me put this one down since it's clear that this is kind of the featured amp but let me get these guys up and running. Let me just run this guy into the cabinet. Let's see what happens. And so it's literally just me, the amp, and a cabinet. And we all know that that can be, if we're really brutally honest, very confronting because it's like there there is no hiding when it's you, the amp and the cabinet. I will I actually will throw some love. Um because here's the thing is I I think we in the quote unquote creator space, we don't spend enough time throwing enough price. I will say one of the people that uh one of the things I'm going to be doing uh is get you know after I'm done with this amp is is reviving the content that I'm doing on Instagram. Um and I have a a a social media coach and if anybody's out there interested in studying with somebody who is one of the best. It's my buddy Cam who uh is the Gibb Sunday guy. Um so there's a kind of a small group that he's got. Um, it is not inexpensive, but for those that are serious about it, cam is the best. So, the point being is Jerry James Nichols is one of those people if you watch his social media, he, you know, and and he's one of because I play with my fingers a bunch.
He's one of the players that I'm watching and and every so often I kind of pull apart when he's playing. I'm like, "Holy cow has this guy got his thing dialed." And it's just like, so I just want to throw just some props out there. uh you know for all the people you know of all the people in case you haven't checked out Jared just check him out his whole ability to go from one idea to the next from one idea to the next one idea to the next it's it's buttery smooth it is awesome and he's very rarely playing with anything more than a drive pedal under the front end of the amp most of the time in his garage next to his cool muscle car and his level of control and nuance of tone flipping a and he's got his own thing Uh, stupidly impressive. Uh, okay.
Sean, good morning to you. The Pink Strat says, "Low." Uh, I have the RJMP PBC 6x and the Gizmo Mini X. They're great. All right, let me get back to this this whole thing here. I digress there for a moment, but I I'll be getting back to I'll be posting tons of material soon with YouTube live streams.
Awesome. Great, great, great, great. How would you set up the system where you could choose which amp is the master and slave dynamically? Oh, I love Jared James Nichols. Yeah, Jared. Jared's a bad boy. Okay, so getting back to the the focus fox here, there are a couple of different types of rig archetypes. And there's a high probability that kind of once I'm done with the pentatonic course and the course after that, uh I will be doing a course with a very famous guitar player's guitar tech whose name I won't mention. Uh, but we've kind of mapped out a bunch of the stuff that's going to be there. And there are different archetypes of rigs.
Most players, this amp, that cabinet, well, it's actually it's that cabinet right there. That's just a mono rig. And let's just say I split this amp into two different cabinets.
The sound's coming out of two different places. And let's say I miked up those cabinets. That would be a great example of dual mono. Even though it's one amp, you've got two different cabinets. If they were the same cabinet, they will sound very much alike. If they're slightly different years, there may be some difference in the the way, and I'm going to go down the rabbit trail here, but all this matters because it matters.
There may be subtle differences in terms of the speaker or paper that was available. There may be subtle differences There may be subtle differences in terms of of the the materials of you know there are those uh who the real tone tweakers are like oh the fabric that's on the grill you know and you got to imagine it does make some some difference but all the things that can happen the wood that's in the cabinet um Justin York is a guy that's really well known in the IR world he's used a guy I would consider better friend. Uh he's one of the touring guitar players that has toured with Paramore. His siblings founded and are in Paramore. He's a great guitar player, really highly regarded in in the IR world. And one of the conversations we had was all the way down the rabbit trail, not only about different old rectifier cabinets, but the wood in the rectifier cabinet. So, he's the only person I've actually gotten down to like the studs like, "Hey, let's not even talk about speakers. Let's talk about the wood."
The wood first of all aging, being moved around the country. It's dry here. It's moist there. The wood's going through it thing. They're played. It's not just they're old and stuck in a warehouse somewhere. They've been played. And so they become resonant to different things. And then the natural resonance the the neck resonant tone of the body and the and the neck there. They're a fourth apart. Ideally, you want to have instruments that are either unity or some sort of um um what is the word complimentary interval where they work well together.
That that that perfect fourth is a good complimentary interval. If you think about you know the way the guitar is tuned and all those things, the guitar is tuned in fors. Um, so the point being is is that if you have one amp and two different cabinets and they're both the same exact age, came out of the factory at the same time, it'll sound virtually identical. And to a general extent, if they've got the same speakers, they're going to sound pretty close. Your average person in the audience will not know the difference between a 90s rectifier cabinet and a modern rectifier cabinet because the things that they we use to hear the nuance of speakers. What's happening with the definition on the bottom end?
How's the mid-range body? How is the attack on the top? Am I hearing fizz?
All those things that we think about and have words for.
They they they're like, "Sounds great, dude. Awesome. Raise them up." you know that that's that's and I don't mean to I have great respect for the audience but they're they're in a different space as it relates to sound in turn if you run out of one identical amp into the power amp section of another amplifier and literally I'm just running this preamp into this power amp and the power amp section of both I'm running them both at the same time I'm really just running dual mono at that point now let's just say I'm going to use um and we're going to get to your your your question there, Mike. Um let's say I'm going to use some sort of stereo effect in the loop here. And the delay that's on amp number one is a dotted eighth note. And the delay that's on amp number two is a quarter note. Now all of a sudden I've done something across the stereo field where the benefit of having dual mono amplifiers because they're really two of the same thing and I potentially got them set in such a way that you know if you were to run into the power amp section of one and just flip it they would sound the same.
Now because I've put dotted eighth delay on one side and coordinate on the other now you're actually hearing stereo differentiation. And so then in turn, um, you have the ability to go, okay, well, maybe I want to have two amps that sound a little bit different. So, one of the things I'm going to do, uh, in the demos for this is these guys, you can load them with 6L6s and EL34s. So, one of the demos, this guy's going to have 6L6s, and this one's going to have EL34s. Not only am I going to use an AB box uh to toggle back and forth between them in real time, uh, and I'll probably use a looper pedal such that I'm not responding to what I'm hearing with the ampage is going to be. I'm going to going to be playing I'm going to be talking back and forth to them. But one of the other things is going put them together. There are some Badlanders over there. And my Badlander 100 heads, one of them's got 6L6s, the other's got EL34s. the ability to mix those tubes together, you get the best of the 6L6s and you get the best of the EL34s. And when you got one on the left and one on the right, you get this kind of It's one of the great things about double tracking for those of you that have double tracked. Um, and and recorded it, you're trying to make the left and the right in most instances close as possible. But yet because they're different performances, gently you might pull the string just a little tiny bit out of tune, which all of a sudden for once the slight different in pitch difference in pitch somehow all of a sudden makes it a little bit better.
It's somehow magic, right? Um uh for example, if you listen to Leonard Skinner, their double track guitar parts, you can hear there's just a little tiny bit of what I'm going to call micro modulation where they're just enough, not perfectly in tune that they sound amazing. you're like, "Holy cow, if only I could do that like those guys do it." And that's where now all of a sudden you're really leaning into the differences of stuff as opposed to like I want to find two cabinets that sound the same. So the idea of being able to run 6L6s on one side and EL34s on the other and then choose them together is and blend them together either in mono and then double track that or that. Now, uh, Mike, you asked a a a question that was one of my, you know, here's the thing. I think if we're really brutally honest, every so often we impress ourselves. We're like, that was kind of cool. One of my favorite that was kind of cool moments was and and I'll I'll sit there and I'll look at you and I'm like, there's got to be a way of doing this thing. How can I do that? How can I do that? So what you're talking about is how you are able to take two amps and get. So the the the the question the word problem was I got two Badlanders and they've got three modes uh clean crunch and crush I think or whatever they are. I should know this, but any case, you have three different modes, but I had two amps and I was like, there's got to be a way that I can choose which one is the slave and which one is the master, which is the question you're asking. And I was like, I've got it.
So, I used the the big brother box of this.
I used an AB box, a Mesa Boogie AB box to go into the two different amps and I could choose which one I was going into in the front end.
In turn, I came out of the effects loops of both amps into I think this box and I actually use this box in reverse of the way you normally would do it. Why would I do that? The deal is I'm coming out of the preamp out of both amps and I've got them such that they're going into here because I'm using an AB box to choose which one of those is. This box doesn't know which one's feeding the signal into it. Nor does it care. It just knows that one of them, this one or that one determined by the AB box is feeding signal into it.
And in turn, this is splitting this out into stereo. Pretty sure that's how I did it. Then I believe I was running delays and reverbs in in parallel in that crazy little setup or something like that. Um, but let's just imagine that I I I was one goes out to the delay. Uh, the other goes out in into maybe it wasn't.
Any case, I use this box to sum the the two outputs. And then I've got one output that it doesn't know whether it's amp one or amp two. It's just that output. Yeah, maybe I just took one output that went into my delay which went into my reverb. Uh I went in mono mono out of this into my delay which splits it stereo that's carrying in it that's carrying um the left and the right signal. That in turn goes out into the reverb. the left and the right signal. That in turn goes back into the two power amp bins. Now, there's a little bit more math here that need need to be done. All right. Well, if I toggle back and forth between the two amps, that could allow me to just kind of go, okay, well, you know, one's one's on one channel, one's on the other. But the thing that I needed to do was how can I make it such that I can get all three channels? Uh, so it meant that I had to be able to switch channels on at least one of the amplifiers.
and using the the PB66s as I switch presets, it's sending MIDI information out. So when I press one button, it's switching which amp I'm going into because the the the Maboogie AB box has um MIDI functionality. And in turn it then that that signal then is also sending information um via the Mesa Boogie makes a little box. It's not the abacus uh but it's it's a box that allows you to communicate information from MIDI from the RJM controller to this little box the MIDI matrix and then in turn connect that to the Badlanders and through that the Badlanders know to change channels and because I had three Badland I had four channels of Badlander but I only was going to choose three of them.
Why in this particular one was sent on clean, one was set on crunch, and one was set on crush. And two of them were on one each on on on one of the amplifier because they're a two channel amplifier and then the other was on the on the third channel. And the the trick was to be able to get the third mode, I had to be able to switch AB between the two the two different amps. Um, and then get it to and then by and to get it to channel switch. So that is say one amp I could go between two of the different modes by channel switching and the other one was on the other mode. But I had to go back and forth between the two amps and get the other amp to channel switch to get it to do that. Sorry that was a long winded explanation. Not as clear as I would like. But again, you got three modes, you got two amps. How do you make it work? So effectively what I'm doing then is I'm choosing one of the two amps. One's just got one mode, the other's got two modes and I have to ch talk channel switch between those. Those get summed together in mono because this box doesn't care whether this amp or that amp sending it signal that goes out to my stereo effects. That in turn goes back split back into the two power amp sections. So I'm now running in stereo and I can choose which of those three guys that I can do. Um, and I must admit I was kind of like flipping it a I figured it out because it was just one night I was sitting here looking at it and I was like there's got to be a way to make this happen. So Mike, to answer your question, yes, you can absolutely do that. Now, there is some nuance that you want to be conscious of. Um, I learned first about this uh that years ago there was a guy named Steve Vi. You might have heard of him. When I went down to git, a guy named Joe Satriani, who you've probably heard of as well, gave me the Steve guys phone number. And so I kind of got down there and, you know, called Steve. All right. And then I started showing up at his shows and then kind of I hung around long enough.
He was like, "Hey, can you give me a hand with my gear?" And I was like, "Yeah, mind you, this is Steve I playing little clubs, you know." So this is post Frank Zappa before Alcatra. Really, it was an amazing time because nobody knew who Joe was at this point. He was teaching guitar up in Berkeley. Um, and you know, I was down at LA going to git and and you know, Steve was known but not like Mr. Steve V is now, right? And so the point being what Steve did was he had the the the master head and the slave head. And the thing about the Carvin legacy amplifiers, it's really cool. Uh, for the most part is the master volume is before the effects loop. So, what this means is that your master amp, you can bring the level of that amplifier up or down and it changes the amount of level up or down for both amps because that's driving the overall master volume because it's before the split to the amps. Most amplifiers, the master volume is after the split uh for the center and return on the power amp.
So, if you bring your master head up, you also need to bring your slave head up. And most amplifiers or depending on which channel you're in on that amplifier, the presence control is going to be at a different place in the circuit. The presence control for the orange channel on this amplifier is in the power amp section of the amplifier. It's using negative feedback.
It's about as deep as I can get into that without getting out of my depth of field. Uh, but it's basically a different type of presence control than one that is basically in the preamp section because it's utilizing the power amp section, a negative feedback uh to filter information in a different way that the the presence control that's on the red channel here does. Um, so it means that if you're going to switch channels here, you got to be aware what's going to happen downstream in the in a in a in a twochannel amplifier where the presence control is located in two different places in the circuit.
That makes this a little bit nuanced.
Um, and and not only that, this amplifier has uh what they call channel cloning. So I can get the orange channel to behave like the red channel and the red channel to behave like the orange channel. But when the red channel is behaving uh like the orange channel in vintage gain mode, both presence controls are active which thickens the plot a little bit in that particular situation. John is Mike as it relates to the So John's tech, Maddie, sorry, John Patrrui's tech. So, uh, for those of you who don't know, because I didn't mention it, Mike has the JP2C, which is this Mesaoogie right there with the dual EQs. Brilliant amplifier.
uh but the presence control which actually has a pushpull functionality which engages a second frequency in the presence circuit which is flipping awesome for those of you who uh don't spend a lot of time recording or are endeavoring to record. One of the things that's so special about the presence control where most of us think of as we're playing live in the room, how much high-end and more high-end do I want when I add the presence control?
The presence control in the studio is the one control of like does my guitar feel a little bit buried and just bring that presence control up just a little bit. It's that one control, not the treble control. The other thing about this amp, because of the way that the topology is set up, you run from the gain into the treble control. The treble control also changes the amount of gain that comes through to the rest of the circuit. So, you're not just adding treble or cutting treble, you're adding gain or cutting gain. It's a big flipping deal. It's a huge deal.
And not only that, is the thing that I've discovered with these amps for the most part once I find a place and kind of like what happened when I sat down with this amp this morning. I'm like, I don't want to touch that. You literally just bring the gain control up and down.
And these amps, the magic of these amps, once you find that sweet spot, you just bring the gain control up and down and you can go between just a ton of different tones. Any case, the presence control when you're in the framework of mix is that thing that can just kind of make the guitar kind of like here I am.
And it's just and it's not a volume thing. It's not a treble thing, which again has downstream stuff. It's the present control just kind of just add a little bit of presence where normally when we're in the room we don't you know playing along with the dimeter bass player it's the one of the controls that I have a tendency once I got my amps that's I'm not touching that but in the studio it's what I discovered with the JP2C I was like and because there's two different frequencies you can do that with it's the magic thing to be able to go you make a guitar appear without doing any gain changes because we've all been in situations we're like man I just love how much gain that I've Not. But with this much gain, the guitar seems like it's just getting buried, a little too compressed. The press and control can allow you to kind of go, hey, let's just allow just that little tiny bit of stuff above the the den and all of a sudden you can kind of rescue that. It's it's magic. All that is to say, the presence control is after the effect loop on the JPTC. It is on on uh the orange channel on this end, which is my favorite channel. So, when you're using a a stereo amp setup like that, there are nuances. So, one of the things I'm talking with Maddie a bunch is, you know, when because in John's rig, they use two JP2C's, which Mike I think is probably what you're talking about doing. Um, and so in so doing, if they make any changes on the master volume or the presence control on any any of the channels, let me let me back up from that on the the gain channel, the drive, the the in your face. I I need to double check, but I my guess is that is the way it is for all the channels because it's a multi-channel amplifier uh that is downstream, but I can I can tell you on the high gain setting, you're going to need to to be aware of that the master volume is post effects loop on on on those amps when you're running it like that. Uh now, there are other ways to get that job done.
Uh one of the things that I and that don't require two of those. Um, this is my Seymour Duck and Power Stage 700. If 350 watts per side is not loud enough for you, you got problems worse than I have. So, one of the rigs, and I was thinking about this, and I'm not going to talk about probably in here um on on the video for this, is that I took by best recollection JP2C cab clone IR acting as a 100% reactive load on the JP2C mono out into Axe effects stereo out of the AX effects into the P seamour Duncan Power Stays uh 700 into two oversized rectifier standard cabinets.
Uh, the other thing about running into cab clone IR is I was coming out of cab clone IR not using an IR. So you could use it and you can just take the tap off the amplifier which is literally just all the vibe of the amplifier out of the speaker out without any adding any um cabinets.
That's one of the options on the back of that. And and that rig was nuts. I think u my buddy Albert here uh saw that rig once and it is it's just bone crushing. First of all, the volume 700 watts just so brutal. It's and and so loud and so clear. So the great thing about this is because this is a class D power amp generally speaking it doesn't care whether it's quiet, whether it's loud.
Uh, it's just like you want more. Great.
So, the thing about these amplifiers as you begin to turn up the master volume, one of the great things about them is you're you're choosing how much I like to liken the gain control to a distortion pedal and the master volume as you bring it up to an overdrive.
That's, you know, the funny thing is if you think about a tube screamer, I think most people I certainly got it wrong when I thought of a tube screamer. Oh, it's like I'm cranking the preamp tube.
Like, no, that's not what they meant. If you think about when a tube screamer was invented, it was in in the era of non-master volume amplifiers were still roaming the planet. And the idea is it's what happens when you turn up the power amp section, which is one of the most magical things. It's one of the reasons why I love plugging straight into an amplifier and straight into a cabinet is you're learning to wild ride the bucking Bronco because it's a little less ruly than the amount of of compression that you get when you start turning the gain control up a bunch or in combination with that the amp behaves a little bit you you're challenging the headroom of the amplifier where this amplifier that the Seboard Knuck Power Stage 700 as you turn it up it just doesn't care whether it's loud or quiet. It's it's solid state. It just doesn't care. Loud. Sure.
Quiet. It just sounds the same. And generally speaking, those those boogie cabinets, you turn them up up or down, they don't change anything because the rating speaker-wise, the headroom, if you will, of the cabinet is even though they're uh uh 200. Technically, the vintage 30s are 60 watts or 65. No, they're they're technically 60 watts.
So, you got a 240 watt rating. 350 watts into 240 watts is is bad math. However, one of the things I'm listening for is like what what's the cabinet telling me?
And so, generally speaking, you want to be very careful about your ratings. Um, and in terms of the blend things, sorry, I have a spider here that I'm going to have to decide. I'm going to let him just crawl away. I'm going to kill him.
Mosy on. Get a hall pass there, buddy.
Probably regret that.
No, sorry. Toast. Okay. I was like, well, what what do spiders do? They make more spiders. All right. Sorry. I digress.
Cabinets, wattage, amps. Um, so yeah, very fun stuff. All right, let me jump back in here real quick. Uh, and make sure I haven't missed anything. Uh, and first of all, good morning, Kevin.
Always great. Uh, I haven't seen the Paul Gilbert interview yet, but I know it's great. Uh, Rick, the pleasure is mine. Thank you so much. Awesome.
I'm glad things are are are This is a help. With pleasure, my friend.
Uh, and yep, you know, the the the the amount of resonance and and uh the influence of how dry or moist something is. There you go. the old guitars. I own a 1954 J45. Uh, and there is a clarity that you get as things dry out. It's just awesome. Albert, uh, yeah, that was a genius move getting out the Badlander voice and cleaning. Uh, it was it was first of all, I will humbly say thank you, but it was actually more out of desperation. It's kind of one of those word word games. You're like, there's got to be a way to figure this out. There's got to be a way to figure this out. All right. What a nice little boy. Okay. Uh, Miguel, what's going on, my man? Hello.
Hello. Hello. All right.
Uh, so in terms of scale, I I enjoy both of them for for the same reason that makes them different. I love the nuances between them. Generally, uh, Oh, this is awesome. What's going on, Buck Breaker?
Oh, this is awesome. Uh, so one of the interesting things that happened in my life, hello. Uh, uh, all is forgiven.
Let me start here. So, it's it's a funny thing. Um, there are moments in your life that you think it's going to be, and I'm saying this not to make you feel uncomfortable. Buckbreaker. I really really really really really appreciate your having the humility because you know I could any case one of the things that happens f first of all it's it's it's I last album I put out uh Guitar World reached out and said hey can you do a thing called Bet You Can't Play This I So I did this little little little little piece from what from from the album and a couple of things that happened that were not to my advantage was They were like, "We want it completely dry, no effects, whatever."
I'm like, "Okay." And they added this stupid short like eighth or 16th note delay that was just the worst delay sound I've ever heard. So, they basically added effects, didn't run it by me, and then they put it out, and it and it didn't sound like me, and it didn't sound what I thought was complimentary to the sound that was on there. But then I kind of got flamed. it just turned into this thing. Uh, and for lack of a better way of saying it, it was basically online bullying. Uh, and you know, here's the thing about about that particular thing was is that I was really aware of like part of it is it's a bunch of dudes and kids having fun at somebody else's expense. Like if we're all really brutally honest, most of us can go back into our past and kind of So the funny thing is uh uh Buck and first of all, thank you for having the decency and humility to go kind of go me. I I was I was I was there. I ran into a kid Brett. I'm not going to say his last name. Uh he was um in my local junior high school. Uh and as I said a little earlier in the program, you know, I didn't have a great time in junior high school. Uh, and you would think for a kid that kind of got picked on a little bit or we just didn't fit in, picking on somebody else, why would I do that? Well, at one point I decided I was going to pick on Brett a little bit because everybody picked on Brett. Um, years later I saw Brett. Hats off to you but downtown. And I was like, dude, I'm so sorry. And of course Brett said, I have no idea what you're talking about. Don't remember that at all. Uh, and I was like I I kind of I kind of felt even worse.
I'm just like, "Oh, he he's he's taking the the high high road." I'm just like I was like, you know, I just kind of I kind of But it was it was a valuable experience. You know, the sort of thing that that happens where you kind of go, "Okay." And, you know, all of us have had experiences where we, you know, uh, you know, we have some moment where we kind of go, "That's not really who I am.
that's not really what I do. And most of us are able to kind of get along, get get around through life and not have to be confronted with that. Uh versus somebody actually has the balls and the decency to go, hey, uh I was in this section. So, I really appreciate you taking the time and having the generosity of spirit to go, I was one of those guys, but hey, I was a kid and you know, but here I am. So, welcome to the family, first of all. Uh, and uh, don't feel weird, uh, because I just experience, you know, shared my experience with Brett. You know, it's like I was a kid that got picked on. Um, and I'm not looking for sympathy, but I, you know, so my response was when I had the opportunity to join in and become part of the, you know, I could either go one way or the other. I went the wrong way. So, um, so first of all, welcome and thanks for having the decency. That's kind of there is a bit of the therapy involved in that for me. So I will um so the the neat thing is is that as I from time to time I think back about that and and I have mixed emotions about it but this will be the overwhelming experience of it. So thank you for that. That's a that was a gift uh well welltimed and much appreciated. So you can hang out anytime. Zero weirdness. In fact uh celebration and bring questions. Gosh darn it. Uh, okay.
Uh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
Okay. Uh, yes. The JB2C stereo. That was a crazy rig. Uh, uh, oh, so, you know, uh, there's a guy there's a guy that that he's he's he's a a he's a YouTube troller. Um, and so Kirk, you know, is somebody that I've known. I don't, you know, We both study with the same guy, you know. I I've known Kirk.
I've got a t-shirt coming. Muboo Gardens. I'm hoping that it comes in time for when I'm doing this because it's possible that I'm going to I'm going to wear the Mabooh Gardens. So, the Mabuh Gardens was where I met Kirk when he was playing Exodus. And um and you know, I was sitting there running through this thing that Joe had taught me. And Kirk and I we're in this little backstage area. Kirk kind of looks over.
was like, "Where'd you learn to do that?" I was like, "Oh, there's this guy Joe Satriani. Here's his number." So, another buddy of mine, Danny Gil, both and I both gave Kirk Joe's number. Uh, but the point being is is that Kirk is is somebody that people really love to bully. And I'm like, first of all, you go write Ender Sandman. Like, you know, if you think about um iconic guitar riffs, Kirk wrote one of the most iconic riffs of the past in 30 years. Can't tell you. Just phenomenal riff. I mean, just like iconic, you know, and more than any guitar player that I've ever heard about over and over and over and over again. Uh, I started playing guitar because of Kirk Hammet. I No, I didn't start playing because of Kirk, but the number of people I've heard that from, it is a thing. Hey, Chris, you're back, my friend. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.
All right. Hey, by the way, I have a guitar lesson that's going to start in uh 20 minutes in in a moment or two.
I've got to kind of hop off and get ready for that. All right. Now, there are some things that are on my list here that I have yet to finish up. So, we have gotten through the minor and major pentatonic utilizing those. In case you're just tuning in, what we did was we played a this little chord progression. We had a major. We had, you can see that as C major or or sorry, A major in first inversion or A over C sharp. And then we went to uh and then Yeah, dude. I am stoked. Maboo Gardens shirt. All right. You played there. Uh awesome. Well, welcome home. So then I I think I played a a D minor 7 and a G major. So that basically was my one chord, my three chord, my two chord, and my five chord of which we played major pentatonic over the added the two. I shouldn't do that. Just pure minor pentatonic still over the five.
So I switch it. And now if I play this right, if I play the chords, you should hear me.
I shouldn't be playing the four. The major pentatonic has one, two, three, five, six. Any case, um, outlining that.
All right. Now, then we talked about, uh, switching. So, we talked about switchers, um, the one piece I missed on the switcher front, I've got a volume pot that's going out here, by the way. That's what that sound is. Um, is that the instead of running all your pedals in a giant row where you're going to dilute your tone, being able to have a switcher like the PBC 6x, which is a nice smaller switcher, just allows you to bring them in and out one at a time. The great thing about a switcher like that is you can also have one back there in in your rack where via MIDI you're saying, "Hey, you know what? Uh so in this little rack here, it's divided between things that I run into the front end of the amp and things that I run in the loop." Um not using it right now, but this is this this the uh Boss NS1X, which is a really great noise suppressor. And then this is this great little uh wampler Nice little reverb guy going on there.
But the point being, if I had another one of those, which I could shush, uh, and put it back in in in the rack there, I can control which pedals turn on or off. And it would en in fact I can can choose which ones are turning on or off that are before the uh the input of the amplifier like the drive pedals as well as the ones in the in the loop because of the of the the the IO of the device and the ability to be able to control that remotely from a MIDI controller or have another one of those basically functioning as the master where it's sending MIDI information to the other one where you press one button and all these things change at the same time.
Hugely convenient. Arguably the best part of it is well that's going to be two schools. One, the one button, everything changes at the same time. Who doesn't love that, right? It means we're not doing the pedal board tap down because if we're think about when that happens musically, it's at some moment where we're switching into a guitar solo. We're trying to get our vibe on.
We're like, I'm going to step in this thing. It's going to be the greatest thing I've ever played. You're like, um, let me hit that button and that one.
you're like you're thinking about all the wrong things as opposed like step on the button and hopefully I'm just going to kind of get into the zone. Uh but then the ability to kind of go, hey, you can also run those in pedal board mode where you're kind of going, hey, instead of having to jump on this pedal that's all the way over here and that pedal is all the way over there. I can then jump into a mode where I can just choose which loop I'm going to engage and because all the buttons are kind of close by, I can just jump between stuff.
The other thing is that thing has the ability to have what's called loop reordering. So if you want to put one drive pedal to another, but you're like, you know, I also like them the way they sound in the opposite direction, you can actually flip that with the mechanics that's in there. It's pretty flipping amazing. Uh I have a limited number of bass pedals. Uh there is of course the Mesaoogie uh Subway uh DI preamp uh which we would consider a pedal. So uh the answer is yes, but not classically.
you know, kind of marched out and bought all the all all the bass pedals that are out there. Um, but I have enough of them. This the um the Boogie Box is great. Uh, the Sands Amp uh is another great unit for bass.
If you're kind of looking for two great place starting places, those are great.
All right.
Uh, so we've got to metronome practicing. So, uh, the deal is if you want to really maximize your playing, it means being brutally honest with yourself about what you're good at and what you're not good at. And one of the things that I'm I'm spending a huge amount of time come time in and let me let me find my phone, my pocket. There it is. So, inside my pentatonic course notes and let me put you this way.
These are basically you can see pentatonic. No, you can't see.
No, you still can't see.
Yeah. So, basically, you're still not going to be able to see, but these are all the headings and subheadings uh that are in in this course. I mean, it's it's it's it's really really fullon. And so, there's a section specifically on practice uh metronome ramps ups, tween tempos, check-in tempos, target tempos. Uh so, that is to say, if you think about I only play scale shapes. I don't know what the note names and the numbers are and what the intervals are. there's a a level of perspective that is kind of onedimensional. Here's the thing is like I when I'm playing and I'm soloing um you know A lot of what I do is I'm playing shapes, but I've spent enough time kind of getting used to hearing where those shapes sit in the key that I can most of the time I can kind of pretty much tell you where it is. But the most important thing we want to have happen is when we go to solo, we just start playing without thinking about it. It's ultimately where we want to end up. Like I'm not thinking about one. My best solos is always having one. I'm not thinking about this shape going into that shape, but hearing the sound of those shapes and kind of having a framework in which you study that enough that you understand what's happening in the background. So that said, if I'm looking for one note, that's C sharp right there. I know it's a C#arp. I know I'm an A. One, two. No, right. There we go. There's my one. Hold the two. Hold the three. That's a hold of B. Hold the C#arp.
So as I play that D right there, tension that B tension and that C# sharp that's D and E and I walk to the C sharp for resolution and then the A the tonic for and even kind more tonic, if you will.
I can I can resolve with the three, but there's a really kind of almost a a final resolution when you kind of go when you get to the one. All right.
All that said, those are pieces of the equation of understanding how all those things fit together with metronome and practice. The idea is 80 BPM is your starting place. Uh for me, you can actually see it 120. I am uh I use the metronome in a couple of very specific ways and in the pentatonic course I'm going to be mapping out specifically what those are. Um and by the way, any of you have guitar pro still up?
Yeah, it is. Let's see if I can get over there. Here we go. Um, just one sec.
All right, here we go.
I've got this little gremlin that's in in uh my setup here that causes this wacky echo, and I've not yet been able to figure out exactly what it is. My apologies. All right, I'm back. All right, what I'm going to do is I'm going to jump into Oh, hold on. Let me just see one thing as I loop Guitar Pro here.
Back to the beginning.
All right, it's picking up the mic.
That's good enough.
All right, I'm going to make a selection here.
Oh, hold on. I need to change this right there. Uh, so that needs to not be a repeat bar. That needs to be that. Oh, hold on. How do I get rid of the repeat bar there?
I don't want that to be a repeat board.
How about zero? All right, hold on.
I don't want that to be a repeat bar.
Sorry. Uh I remember where I got to with this. All right. So, sorry. Let Let me show you what I set up here. And I And sometimes Guitar Pro does stupid stuff.
So, basically, you're cruising along here.
And then if there weren't a repeat bar, then it would go to here at 125 BPM.
Uh, and then I could write another one of those sequence where I basically cut and paste this little bit of business from there to there. Uh, you going to allow me to do it? No. All right. Any case, what what's happening there is I'm doing what I affectionately call ramp ups. And so the idea is you're starting off at 80 BPM. Well, that's not, but the idea is you start off then a little faster 85 BPM. And what we're looking for is a couple of different things. One of the things and I and I did the math. It's well fine. I actually I bet it's still in here. 264. So if I play the minor pentatonic up and down each pattern repeating the top note which is basically you play one octave there's a second octave it's an extra note up there the flat three by the time you go up and back down repeating that and you do that up and down the neck is 264 notes. So basically if you make one mistake you're basically less than 1% error rate.
Being aware of what percentage you miss the notes allows you to kind of go, okay, this is my accuracy level. So, one of the great things about practicing things slowly is it's where you're building the muscle memory. And this is one of the most important things I can I can share with you is that don't underestimate that power of slow practice. And so, literally, my days are spent doing rampups. So, not only with ramp ups, I'm doing stuff where I will do a ramp up tempo, ramp up experience. So, I'll go 80, 85, 90, 95. Uh, and 120 is kind of my my tempo where I'll I'll get up and I'll sit in the morning. And I'm also there's certain things that with certain sequences that is as fast as I can do it cleanly with the with the thoroughess of at eighth note triplets that I want.
So, I'm just living there until I work out these things. I can actually play much faster than that. However, in terms of total accuracy, that's kind of a plateau area. So, I'm just letting myself hang out there and let my hands get comfortable and build the muscle memory that I can do that. So, the deal is one of the other things I'm working is taking groups of three strings, but I'm taking each groups of three strings four times. And I'm doing that all the way up and down the neck at 80 BPM.
And the deal is is that I'm really working on taking my accuracy, that number if there's, and that's more than 264 notes there, but going I want to get to the point where my mistake ratio was so small that it doesn't matter what tempo it's at. That's what I'm having.
And that's where these ramp ups 80, 85, 90, we just bump up the tempo at which our accuracy begins to fall. There's also something I mentioned. They're called tween tempos that that and I made this analogy. I don't know if I shared this here. If you were to get a broom and you were to have a pile of dust in the room, the way you use that broom, you kind of drag that broom across the floor. There are tempos where it kind of feels rather than just kind of moving the pick that you're kind of pushing the pick. That has a tendency to be slower tempos. What we ideally want is tempos that are regardless whether they're slow or faster that the right hand isn't changing the angle at which the right hand isn't changing. So the the other thing is is that there's certain tempos where the crossing of the strings here for whatever reason it just becomes a little bit more challenging. And and what I'm really striving for uh is this little bit of an angle like this as opposed to being parallel with the strings. a little bit of an angle about like that that the string travels such that as I'm moving between strings up sorry and that the right hand that angle doesn't change, right?
That pod is going funky. Sorry about that.
And so, but that's all about I want to be able to play at any one of those tempos.
and the right hand and and when I'm playing and there are tones that are kind of that sort of tone is not necessarily Fred Fred friendly say that 10 times fast because you're taking a drive tone and it kind and really trying to get that so that at any tempo that I want to play it at, uh, I have the same amount of relaxation and the same amount of clarity. I'm not there yet, but I am leaning into the fact that like the amount of work that I'm putting in, I'm like I can see in the little bit of increments getting better. And it's just one of those things that we're we're in this for the long haul. Not just days, not just weeks, not just months, not just years, but decades. You wouldn't be here on a Saturday if that weren't the case. So, in which case, I'm like, "Hey, you know what? doing these doing these guys once, twice, three times, four times. Now, one of the other things that's happening here is that there are different string sets where your hand is spread differently depending on on kind of how you hold things. And this guitar has this strange thing. As I kind of discovered as I was practicing, this pickup sticks out about that much further than the other one does. So, I kind of have this thing where where I normally would rest my hand, I hit the pickup there. So, this guitar is a little bit different than all my others in terms of the way my hand kind of sits as I'm here.
And so, And so each one of those string pairs has a slightly different feel to the others. So learning to sit with each one of those long enough to kind of go, let me get comfortable with each one of those spots is one of the benefits of like setting at 80.
And part of what we're listening for is like, okay, can I do all four of those with I got that I got one minute until my lesson starts. Can I sit there with four of them at whatever tempo every note full duration to the next note as opposed to and also that there are no loud or quiet notes.
and in turn as we make our transition to our next spot.
And that's sort of practice is where you're building that muscle memory. So the thing about that is just be being okay with taking your time finding what that ceiling tempo is and just kind of going great, let me hang out at a tempo that's just a little bit below there.
So, my kind of start off my 120 BPM tempo means I get up and I'm kind of like, oh, okay. I it's got that sense that I'm kind of picking up where I was the day day before. And it means that I kind of I have a little quick little war work warm-up that I do. I run the triad chord relay and I basically run the triads for the key of G major. Uh, and then I'll go, all right, time to start running my scales. And I will start at I won't ramp up right away. I say instead of going 80 85, I'll start it at 120 and I it allows me to kind of judge how is kind of the tempo that I'm really kind of going. This is the tempo I'm striving for consistency at. How am I when I first pick up the guitar at that? That's a really good litmus test. And and I will sit there and I will play each pattern till I play it right at least once. Move up the neck and run run back down the neck. This is with the pentatonic, but it's true of anything.
So, what just allows you to do is kind of going, okay, this is the tempo that I'm looking for 100% accuracy at, but it's just a little bit, you know, whatever. That's a great tempo to sit at to try and fine-tune. I'm looking for the smoothness of the tempo that's downhill 5 BPM from there at that tempo where I'm like, "Oh, I'm having to work and I'm needing to concentrate." The other thing is keeping these guys face down and making sure that things that can distract you don't distract you. I need to get to the next uh part of my day, which is teaching a guitar lesson.
So, with that said, it's been a pleasure hanging out. Thank you for making my weekends awesome. I look forward to seeing you next Saturday. Thanks again.
Bye for now.
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