JackSnax: Office Hours

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:05]Hey.

[00:00:09]All right. We are here today to talk guitar. I am excited to say hello and pop pop on out into the internet here on YouTube. I've been uh working hard with my students and getting through with much of the year's work. Um, and if you'll allow me just a minute here, I'm going to log on to be able to see any questions that might be here.

[00:00:43]And close.

[00:00:47]I don't need that. Hey, somebody's already here. Sir Burgersworth. Hi, sir.

[00:00:52]How are you? Uh, glad to What' you say?

[00:00:54]Oh, what was that? Live chat. Sorry.

[00:00:57]Glad to catch you all having my morning coffee. Wonderful. What part of the country are you in? I already had mine and it's noon now. So, my wife and I spent the morning dealing with a couple of household administrative things. And sorry, I was rehearsing the other night and my strap was at standup height rather than sit down height. And I'm too frugal to change out the strap because I think it just looks really nice with this guitar and most of the clothes that I wear. I love this kind of thing. Um, it was a present from a from a a person that I guess I I thought I was friends with, but I guess since I stopped doing things for him when he never does anything for me, it stopped the friendship. So, um, anyway, hi. The camera quality is great. Oh, that's Oh, I see who. There's only one person in the world I thought would perceive this, and it's of course it is Justin. Justin is my partner in crime. Love you, bro.

[00:01:55]Good to see you here. Um, but it does look good. Anyway, here we are, you know, um, with a couple of new developments over here in the studio.

[00:02:05]Yes, there is a new camera in the house.

[00:02:08]Um, so it does do some autofocus stuff.

[00:02:11]So, like my my my poor excuse for a wedding ring on worn on my right hand.

[00:02:17]Um, and then uh I got a new keer actually so that I can I can loop again while the old one is being repaired. I figured it wouldn't wasn't the least um important thing to do. So I I went and took care of that. It was a minor minor expense but um and the the hassle of switching over the profiles was somewhat considered but um considerate but I did end up uh coming to some realizations that are super important here had uh had the opportunity to to swap out the profile for my speaker and I think it's made a a meaningful impact here. I just threw together a little loop here of Eyes of the World here just to solo over just to see how it sounds.

[00:03:01]I didn't bother to bring the keyboard over, so I did like some phony keyboard pad with the with like that ghosty reverb.

[00:03:08]I don't know why I'm doing this when it's really just this, you know, and um so clean, you know.

[00:03:28]But usually when I solo I have a little bit of overdrive on and this would be probably the more concerning tone, you know.

[00:04:09]Anyway, does that sound all right out there? Is it loud enough? Is it is the vocal uh well the the voice uh you know comparative to the the guitar sound and stuff? Sometimes it's difficult to tell what's going on over here. I am so technically challenged. It's it's it's [ __ ] laughable to be honest. Um anyway, that said, I do love doing these things and uh considering this is where I got my start is doing these kinds of free lessons, I figured I would I would get out over here and start doing some of this stuff. So, Sir Burgersworth, how's it going, bud? What do what do we what are you working on in your world?

[00:04:58]And is there anything I could maybe help you with or anything like that? I mean, I don't know if you ever have have been if you've never made one of these, you know, I'm pleased to have you here. And it's just you and me, I guess, at this point. So, maybe we can talk about whatever it is that's on your mind with your guitar playing and we can hopefully uh do something special for you here. If not, you know, no big deal. I just figured I would try out some of these new things. I can come back later and, you know, watch and listen and make sure everything sounds balanced. Generally when I do Eyes of the World, I'm I'm working with a little bit more, how shall I put it? Uh texture and uh atmosphere, you know, sometimes, usually, you know, it's more of a just some some reverb or something like that.

[00:05:45]But tonight, sorry, usually it's just more like this, you know, just just reverb. But when I do the uh when I do the the Eyes of the World stuff, sometimes there's more goo.

[00:05:59]give it that floating ambient sound that I liked from some of the latter ladder.

[00:06:03]It's not often that I refer to you know latter era Grateful Dead stuff when I play. But I definitely have liked some of the later um you know Garcia tones where he's got a little bit more sparkle um and a little bit more delay.

[00:06:19]Now I tend to keep the sparkle to a minimum just because my guitar and when I when I play it tends to sound a little piercing. Um, so I I do everything I can to kind of mitigate against the excessive high-end.

[00:06:34]But anyway, super happy. Well, look, Sir Sir Burgersworth, let's uh let's talk about let's talk about chord tone soloing and how how it actually functions in in a song like Eyes of the World. And something, you know, everybody always wants to find out is like how do how do how does one do what you're doing?

[00:06:53]And with a song like Eyes of the World, there's one real key component to it.

[00:06:58]Um, and that's realizing that you're not playing in one key the whole time. So while we're we are, you know, hearing that E major 7 chord very very prominently in the mix, that's going to be just like an E major chord, but somewhere in there, we're going to have a major 7th, which means we're going to take the octave or the root of the chord rather and just flatten it to give it that. It's a very dissonant sound, but it actually sounds beautiful depending on what what extensions we surround it with.

[00:07:34]All right. So, if you can think about playing everything you would normally play over an E major chord, let's say E major pentatonic, and then just include that D sharp, you're very close to the sound that we want over that first chord.

[00:07:56]Right? There's only one other note to add. All right? Because a pentatonic scale has five notes and our major scale has, you know, seven. So, if we've just add one, there's only one more to add and that's our four. That's the A in this instance, right? It's going to be this uh, you know, 10th fret B string note. So this this sound of that's what makes that note is what makes that that sound possible. Without the four, what do we have? So we would end up with or but no I mean the other option would be the sharp four which sounds great until we you know depending on what what chords are surrounding it but we we're going to come to the realization that what we're doing is over the first key center is we're going to be thinking about that E major.

[00:08:49]Okay. And then over top of the second two chords, the B minor and the A chord in our jam, we're looking at another key center. And that key center is the key center of A major. Right? So we're playing the second chord in that key.

[00:09:04]And then the first chord in that key. So over top of this first chord, we're thinking E major, but over top of this, we're thinking B minor.

[00:09:15]And then all right so the B minor.

[00:09:23]All right that's going to be the second chord in the key of A. And if you know anything about your modes that makes that B minor a Dorian sounding chord.

[00:09:32]Okay. That's the sound that sounds good over top of that. All right. So right because the A major scale has a G sharp in it. Okay. So that's why we're thinking about it as being a B dorian chord because we're shifting keys to A major. We're playing its second chord and its first chord. Okay? So it's an interesting it's an interesting bit of study there for a lot of students. They don't understand what's really happening. If they're not educated but have a well-trained ear, they recognize that basically the crux of the matter lies in these three notes. And you can you can amuse yourself to no end, I'm certain. um simply by playing the D sharp over the first chord and then coming back a fret and then back a fret again and then again or any any information that pertains to the E major could be the we could go up So you see how this little descending line cliche is happening here. And that's that's that's really what's happening everywhere we go. All the other notes are actually staying the same. Okay, nothing else changes except for those those notes right there. And frank and frankly over top of the last two chords, either of these notes works.

[00:11:14]It's just generally this D sounds great over the B and the C sharp because it's the major third of the chord we're resolving into sounds really grounded.

[00:11:23]All right, so yes, there's some theory behind what you're hearing, but you don't have to know it in order to do it.

[00:11:29]I think that's one of the big misconceptions is that players, they tend to think, "Oh god, there's all this theory associated with music." No, the theory should be something that explains why what you already do and know and love the sound of works so that you have a better inkling as to how to reproduce that before experimenting. Like so if you were in public, you'd be able to say, "Well, there's a tendency for this to work." So, you know, you could you could try that. All right. So honestly, if we look at just the major pentatonic scale and then flesh it out and then think about what changes within that octave, the only note that changes is this.

[00:12:13]Okay? And now granted, the order and the placement of those notes over the last two chords. Like I said, we're going to want to favor ideas that go involve involve this over the first one. That was all playing the B minor sound.

[00:12:38]Okay. And the A major sound is Okay. So, all we really do is switch between three different flavors. E major, B minor, A major.

[00:12:57]Back to E major, B minor, A major.

[00:13:27]Anyway, I hope that explains the ideas that are taking place in my basically little empty head. But that's all that that's all I'm really thinking about when I play this stuff. I stack up a bunch of ideas that function um you know relative to an E major sound, a B minor sound functioning as the two chord, right? That's the Dorian sound. So Dorian ideas over the B.

[00:13:53]Ionian ideas over the A. Ionian is the first mode of our major scale.

[00:13:59]The Dorian sound is the second mode. All right. So that's going to be the, you know, the Oaya Kova kind of sound.

[00:14:06]All right. And that resolves very nicely back to where we're coming from. But funny enough, they're not that the whole song is not in one key. And that's the thing that tends to throw people for a loop with this kind of music because most guitar players in the rock pantheon or whatever you want to call it, you know, uh they're we're we're used to kind of parking in one area and developing the sound of of one key. Most of the chord changes don't don't break out of the chord family that's associated with the major scale of the chord or the minor scale of the chord. And when we do when we have a chord progression that contains only the progression like the chords that are inherently derived from the scale, we call that a diietonic progression. Right? That means that it plays nice. It plays by all the rules.

[00:14:55]Okay? uh when we have a noniotonic or a non-conforming uh chord, right? One that's outside of the key center, that's when we have to actually break ranks with what we were thinking was going to be the case and kind of adopt a secondary language or a secondary sound while we approach that chord. So each chord effectively can be its own little idea and that's where the sound of Bbop and to some extent Grateful Dead music for sure. All right, starts to happen. So, um, I'm not sure whether or not that was a clear enough explanation as to what I'm thinking or how I proposed to educate folks when we worked together about how how this how this beautiful music has come to exist and why it befuddles many of the average guitar player because they're sitting there going, "Well, that's clearly an E major." And then all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose when it goes to that second chord. What do I do there? And then they think, "Well, that's a B minor chord." and they start playing, right? Effectively the D major scale, but that's all kinds of wrong. The D major scale has that G note in it, which is going to sound like hell up against that B minor chord, you know, in this instance. It's on its own. There's nothing inherently wrong about that kind of sound. It's pretty dense, but it's not there's nothing wrong about it. All right. And then again, when we go to the A major, that G is going to clash as well. So we tweak the scale to accommodate for that and uh that's where we end up making the pretty sounds, right? That's really what it's all about. So when you see scale ideas, let's say we see this this kind of E major sound, right? That's stemming out of this E major chord that's shaped like a C chord starting on the whatever that is, the 15th, 17th, 19th fret pinky, right? It's like a little D chord shape.

[00:16:54]and then it turns into a C chord shape.

[00:16:55]That little D chord shape is hidden inside the C shape, right?

[00:17:02]All right. So, if we heard something in that little sounding area, it's going to sound really pretty over that first chord, but we're going to need to move it for the second Just like that. All right. Now, let me explain to you why what I just did worked. All right. This idea of playing the C chord shaped D uh E chord.

[00:17:37]Okay.

[00:17:39]Let's see what's going on. There's some tuning issues. That could just be intonation.

[00:17:43]That's pretty high up on the neck for a Strat. They don't like that.

[00:17:48]At least not this guitar. This guitar is kind of a little wonky.

[00:17:53]Let's see if that Yeah, that G is running sharp up there.

[00:18:02]Anyway, the idea is that we're playing over top of the E chord and we're going to a B minor. All right, which yes is the relative major of D major, which is just down two frets.

[00:18:16]So, if we stick to simply the three notes of the chord, we're not going to have any problems, right? We could see how that's going to stack up nicely against the the B minor chord. Let's just wait till that that comes. All right, we're not playing over the E, but here.

[00:18:39]All right, so E major, D major over B minor.

[00:18:46]And then a mage, right?

[00:19:26]All right. So, here we are taking the relative major of that B minor chord and doing a little substitution for it. It's not really a substitution because every single one of those notes is interchangeable. It's just if you see a shape and you go, I'm playing out of E major.

[00:19:42]It's really easy to move it back and say two frets and go, well, now that's D major. Right. It is. It is also B minor.

[00:19:49]Right.

[00:19:52]Starting on the B, it sounds very B minor E.

[00:19:57]Right.

[00:19:59]If you start on the fifth of the D sound, you're actually starting on the flat seven of the D minor of the B minor 7 sound. So, back two frets.

[00:20:14]And all we need to do is kind of end on uh something that relates to the A chord. In this instance, I just landed on the E, which is the five of where we were. We could have landed on the C sharp for some extra resolution.

[00:20:30]Back two frets.

[00:20:33]And then like right there.

[00:20:47]Super pretty. All right. But again, we're probably not taking advantage of everything you already know. All right.

[00:20:53]So, Sir Berserith, you still with me or did you bail?

[00:20:57]You're in Where' you say you are? St. Louis. Is that where you are? Missouri.

[00:21:03]Oh my goodness. Never been never been to the show me state. I wonder what it's all about. I hear the ribs are good. And I do like the St. Louis blues. I like that song quite a bit. Um I think the Fox Theater's from there as well.

[00:21:19]Some pretty amazing Grateful Dead material was recorded in that venue.

[00:21:23]Anyway, one of the things that we can do though is start to realize that um the same way that like the inter there's an interchangeability between not just the pentatonics or the triadic information of certain chords, right? Like a relative major and a relative minor, right? We if we think about this as being, you know, both E major and C sharp minor and we bring it back two frets and then think about it as being D major and then also B minor.

[00:21:58]Okay, fine. But that again, that's really all we're doing is playing four notes. We're just playing the one, the three, the five, and the flat 7. They're kind of generic, right?

[00:22:07]there are opportunities for us to add the scale tones that actually make it fit perfectly like those other two or that other note. And that other note that we're looking for over the B chord is the note that distinguishes it from being makes it the two chord in A. So in A, the two chord is a Dorian chord. And the note that really kind of is emblematic of it being Dorian is going to be that isn't already, you know, implicit in it being a relative minor of the D chord is this this G sharp. So, if we can think about how to modify that D major shape to have a G sharp in it, right, we're going to end up with Right, there's the G# sharp right there at the top.

[00:23:06]That's a very hip sound over top of that. So, let's just try going E major.

[00:23:13]And now we're going to do our D major with the Dorian 6th again.

[00:23:30]We end up with that. All right. It's a lovely lovely thing to be able to understand that uh by playing the D Lydian sound, right? That's D major with a raised four. That's the same thing as playing B minor with a major 6.

[00:23:52]Those are the same notes. All right. So, I don't I don't know whether or not I'm just talking gibberish here to a lot of people. It's not it's not supposed to be confusing. It's supposed to actually shine a light on what's actually taking place and give you basically the flip side to the coin so that any of the language that you already know and recognize as being um the the Lydian sound can now be implemented. Let's see what we say. Let me just see somebody.

[00:24:22]Jerry Yakbar 147 writes in and says, "Kiel Auditorium 1981. Took the gray rabbit from Madison Square Garden, 70 bucks." Not quite sure what that means, but I saw The Grateful Dead at Madison Square Garden in 1981 on I believe it's March 19th or something like that. I can't remember the exact date. I believe I was at the show where Jerry's amp falls over and the reverb went bonkers in the first song. So, Um, is that what you're saying your first show was? But, uh, anyway, please. The Gray Rabbit. Is that was that a bus? The Gray Rabbit. Was that what that So, was it really from Madison Square Garden or did you take it from Penn Station or the Port Authority and take a bus someplace to go see it?

[00:25:11]Thanks, Jack. Just the concept of the descending cliche was great information.

[00:25:16]Okay, wonderful news. I'm so happy to to be able to, you know, meaning just this this stuff right here, just figuring out that it's E major, then then basically playing and then finally, yeah, just changing those three notes was a was a real game changer for me as well. I remember when I realized, holy [ __ ] I don't need to really even think about it. If you want to, you can just think it's the E major scale and then the effectively the E mixelyian scale because E mixelyian is the five of the one chord we're heading to and it's also in it's also the um well it's the five in the same key. So, you know, you could think about it like that. So, if we're just going to kind of go that kind of thing. Okay. The gray rabbit was in fact a bus. I am now that much smarter. Thank you for hipping me to that, man. You know, I tell people sometimes, yeah, when I was a kid, I used to go take and I would I'll jokingly say the Yankee Clipper. The Yankee Clipper was the name of the of the train line that ran Amtrak from um Penn Station all the way to Providence where I used to go to school uh not too far from Providence. Anyway, I could get a ride from Providence to the school.

[00:26:54]Uh, during my high school years, when my parents were going through their divorce, and I was [ __ ] hell on wheels and dropping acid and snorting everything I could find, they ended up booting me out of the house and sending me off to prep school where there was just more of the same. So, stupid move, Mom, Dad, but whatever. uh ended up finding the joys of attending Max Creek concerts at and uh Steve Moroski is still to this day just a omniresent influence on my guitar playing. If anybody here ever has a chance to go see uh Max Creek play, you may or may not like the way the band currently sounds.

[00:27:31]I don't know. But you'll have a blast watching Steve Moroski [ __ ] blow a hole in the stage. He's great guitar player. Just a dynamite guitarist.

[00:27:40]um kind of unsung hero. I think he occasionally gets to sit in with um Mike Gordon from Fish. I think the two of them are friends. Um so, you know, it's like that kind of thing. Did I go to Lewis? No, I went to Portsmouth Abbey. I went to I am not a religious person, but my parents and I were at Loggerheads and my parents were getting a divorce. So somebody my mom left the country as is the I guess the right and the privilege of every successful divorce.

[00:28:11]Um and so I ended up kind of being uh cut cut loose and sent away to Newport because my dad was certainly not the kind of guy that was going to stay at home and be a good dad. He was not like that. I mean he he was a good provider but he was not a good he was not an involved parent in that regard. It was super fun, super charming, but having fathered and parented two children, there's a big difference between fathering two children and parenting two children, I'll have you know, and so this could never be more evident than in the uh example of my own father. So anyway, so that's cool. So from 34th Street, you caught a bus and caught your that was your first show. Is that the one that got you hooked there, buddy?

[00:28:54]Um, Jerry and uh Jerry, you're Jerry Akbar, not Jerry. Or is that Jerry A.

[00:29:03]Baker or I don't know what I don't know what's going on there. Anyway, I've been having so much fun since cleaning up my signal with this. Um, I think it's probably, you know, the kind of thing that may or may not make it over the internet because the frequency response is probably compressed or, you know, uh, less less apparent because you're hearing it out of a little phone. But my goodness, at concert volumes, the things I was the amount of lowend that my rig was reproducing was just so excessive. And I I ended up a dear friend of mine uh hipped me to a JBL uh profile of of just the speaker and I was able to compartmentalize almost all of my patches and say, "Hey, what sounds better? the default speaker that I was using this, you know, this kind of uh impulse response from the Fender amp that most of the time you're hearing me play through or effectively swapping out the speaker in there for a higher a higher resolution speaker like a JBL which has more profound amount of upper uh mid-range clarity and a distinct lack of low-end if you if you starve it. So, um the nice tight low-end thing started happening pretty good.

[00:30:24]So now without a direct AB, you can never really tell me that you like one more than the other. It was It's pretty inside, but when you're when you're in the room and have it up at like louder than a drum set volumes, you can really hear how much less mud the cabinet is producing, which if you're unaware of what's happening when you're playing in a band, you're constantly sharing the amount of space there is in the mix with your with your bass player.

[00:30:57]As a guitar player, don't forget the the low open E string, I believe, starts at 82 hertz. So, anything south of there is kind of redundant, right? Having like boosting low lows is is a big big bo big boo boo because what you're doing is you're effectively claiming area that's going to be occupied by the bass or the left hand of the keyboard player if they're inclined to to do double octaves and this kind of stuff. And this can I I'm aware of it and I was still I was still inhabiting that space unbeknownst to me because of the speaker having such a a deep extension like the fidelity of the keer was so great and I was thinking man this sounds great and then every time I would play with the band I'm like man the bass is just I can't hear the punch of the bass and uh you know and my guitar it it was like it we were we were waring and that was mainly because of me. I I think that's the reality. And I sitting there thinking, feeling poorly about what I was doing, what I was doing in my head, like the the criticisms I I was levying in my head against the the bass player. But anyway, um I hope I hope it's fixed, you know.

[00:32:20]Right.

[00:33:00]Anyway, I don't think you can hear it, but whatever. Maybe you can, maybe you can't. I never really felt like it was represented like that on my recordings that I would make for these podcasty thingies, but uh this definitely seems to sound good to me. Uh, did I go to Lewis? No. Oh, we already talked about that. Uh, sounds great. Thank you very much, Jerry. I appreciate it. Speaker choice feels like more than n 50% of good tone sometimes. You know, I never really was a speaker a speaker [ __ ] I was always more just like whatever, just make it loud. And then I started realizing that I started uh going to see somebody get my um my amps kind of tuned up to sit in the band in in a Jerry voicing way. And I remember playing through the JBL, but it was so [ __ ] heavy. I was I just was like, man, I can't have a 140 pound amplifier. I'm just not going to do that. So, I didn't.

[00:33:56]And you know, in the end, I ended up being frustrated and ended up getting the Keer. And then that I mean, there's been a lot of frustration. And the more the more I think about it, you know, it's like if you want to sound like the the guy using the gear that the guy used is is usually a pretty good starting point, you know. But um anyway, the the truth of the matter is though that now I figured out a digital like surrogate for it by um you know, getting it. I believe I purchased it for free. So I it's not really a purchase I suppose um from the Jerry Tone store. And if any of you guys are unaware of that place, it's a it's a meaningful it's a meaningful stop for you on the information superighway as guitar players who are interested in Grateful Dead music. Jay Ferris is a dynamite guy and uh has made for himself has hung out a shingle dedicated to dorks like me and to some extent probably you guys too that helps explain the mystery and uh help it help help this stuff kind of become more uh attainable, you know. So he's he's a dynamite cat. And if you have any questions about your tone, I think you can also rent this time to talk about things like that if that's if you're that lost or you can just kind of just dive in and, you know, kind of buy the answer. So that's kind of what I did.

[00:35:14]But I was fortunate that much of what I already had on deck here was going to suffice. Um, tuning in late when playing over a jam like the Eyes of the World, am I trying to use blinkers? No, not at all. Um, so okay. So let me let me understand let let me help anybody out here who's tuning in that doesn't understand what the gibberish that I speak sometimes has yielded as is there's be there's effectively become uh a glossery of terms or that rather each one of these podcasts or whatever live broadcast should come with a glossery of terms. I I've started referring to this concept of the blinker as a way of signaling to the band or the listener that hey uh a change is coming by basically introducing the flat 7th. And while we could do that here, it really doesn't make any sense because we're not really going to the four chord, which is really what the or to the five chord of where we're trying to go to. Now granted, we're going to the two chord, which could substitute for blah blah blah. like that. You could you could rationalize it, but it's just not going to sound like the song. So, I would not suggest utilizing the D note to indicate that you're going to a chord that requires that you land on the D note.

[00:36:28]The reason why the blinker works so well is that you're creating tension a semmit tone away from where you're going to go.

[00:36:35]So you're playing the sound that's most tense and at the same time closest to the most definitional of the tones that are inside the chord that you're headed to. So you move the least amount to get to the most significant point of resolution. And that's why it makes it so powerful. All right. But here, if we started playing the the the flat seven or the E, we'd we'd just be playing the note we're actually headed to in advance. So if we want to find a a a one note resolution away, we would we could approach from the C sharp up like if we were doing watch that sounds good or we can do it from the D sharp.

[00:37:28]All right, but either way we want to end on the D. So utilizing the D as the blinker doesn't really make sense in this instance. Okay? I would not suggest doing that. Um you might be able to get away with using the G. That would be the flat 7 of the A chord to head back in. Let's try that. 1 2 3 4 That works.

[00:38:13]All right. You could definitely do that if you want to hit the G right before.

[00:38:17]All right. So, that would be right. create that stinky tension right before we resolve it back into the land of the pretty pretty. All right. So, uh I believe on a standard 14 you have explained that targeting the flat 7 before going to the Yes. So, the major three. So, uh the major third of the four chord. Yes. So, I'm reading Grateful Goose's uh comment and hopefully I've explained that. Grateful Goose. Do you kind of see why we wouldn't do that going to the B minor now? And uh how come it we could effectively utilize it? But it's typically reserved for more of a bluesier sound or a folkier sound as opposed to the jazzier sound that we're hearing here in terms of the chord flavors. Okay. We could do it uh over that A though for sure. Uh uh I'll cut high I'll cut I'll high cut the input the amp 40 to 80 hertz sometimes to get snappy bass. Yes. Absolutely. You need nothing down there. Frankly, absolutely nothing that exists south of 80 hertz is required. If you have a bass player and a keyboard player, you just don't want to be there. Going back to the frequency masking conversation we were having about the JBL profile and stuff like that. All right. Oh, Grateful Goose has responded. Okay. So, the concept of the blinker or leading tension can still be applied, but it's just not strictly a flat 7 in all applications. That's not really what I'm getting at. I still think of when I talk about blinkers, I'm us I'm always referring to flat 7s. And they it can still be used over a major chord go as long as it's going to the the chord that we're the chord that we're going to when we use it as someplace else. But by using if you use the flat 7, you're already on the note that you're resolving to. So it's kind of like a hello redundancy department department kind of situation. So I would seriously suggest that you consider just the line cliche as the the road map to the A chord. And then if you wanted to consider the blinker, you would just be thinking like here's the line cliche.

[00:40:28]Right.

[00:40:30]Right.

[00:40:32]then and then and then you could go right. We could hear that G. Again, it's not my favorite of the resolutions to be honest. I prefer resolving to one note above the uh third of the E major 7 chord. So that would make the G this A note and then going that's my preferred resolution. All right. As evidenced in the line that I I put in my the solo that's been on the internet for the last whatever five or six years with that little right.

[00:41:22]You can hear how that that resolves nicely from the A back into there. Now I'm using those those like kind of pyramid shapes and and then a pentatonic major.

[00:41:38]And those are the two shapes and ideas that are uh at play there on this. Uh some other answers or questions have come through. I'm not sure here. Let's see. Put on my old man old man eyes here.

[00:41:56]All right.

[00:41:58]Aiden Blockman, how's it going?

[00:42:02]How have you been, Jack? It's been a while. Yeah, you know, the truth is I've been I've been super happy and super busy. I've been a little preoccupied with some parenting stuff to be frank with you guys. I have a I have a younger son who's, you know, uh coming into the the home stretch of the beauty pageant that is the college application and recruitment process from high school to college. And there's obviously a ton of competition and uh it's not just like, hey, I'm a gentleman from a respectable New York family. Of course, I shall go to Harvard. You know, it's not like that anymore. Everybody is applying to college and college has become the new high school diploma. And so, you know, the the new college is actually a legal or medical degree. So, anyway, it's tough. All right. So, you do So, Grateful Goose seems to have gotten hip to the whole thing. And then chord low.

[00:42:56]The Bbop scale is a great tool for this jam. And Barry Harris, why do I feel like that cordlo is is this? I thought I thought that Did you change your your your name, sir? Cordlo, or was that always been your handle here? The Bbop scale. So, you're talking about the you're talking about the chromatic.

[00:43:18]So chromatically adding the major 7 to the to the mixelyian. Is that what you're talking about? So that we end up with that one and two and three and four and kind of like Right.

[00:43:36]And one and two and three and four and one. Right. That way we can play uh up down and upstrokes and have it be on the strong beats and the weak beats. Is that is that what you're talking about? Glad to hear things are going well, brother.

[00:43:51]I hope that hope my boy is able to get into the school he wants, you know. Me, too. Yeah, Craig. That's what I thought.

[00:43:58]So, I thought you did you So, you did change your you So, yeah. So, you changed your handle. You were cheostasis or something like that or something before, right? So, hi Craig. I figured I I could rec I was like, man, that sounds like the guy from school. That sounds like Yeah. Yes. But there are rules to the Bbop scale. When notes are next to each other, you're approached from above or below. Enclosure types. You know what, man? You're smarter than me, but I I I just I I just don't I don't get into that stuff on this tune. I'm too busy just kind of uh spray painting and just kind of going. So the way my brain thinks is I have a bunch of vocabulary that uh affords me the ability to create sounds whether it's C# minor.

[00:44:46]All right. Or E major F# Dorian Gsharp.

[00:45:01]Okay. any of those arpeggios all can be superimposed over top of the um and yeah and B major to some extent I suppose all right can be uh superimposed on top of that E major 7 chord with great effect and so I'm kind of busy chromaticizing for lack of a better word those various arpeggios so wherever there's a run of notes between two chord tones chromatically connecting them and um and and trying to just generally develop some sort of melodic sense rather than focusing on trying to implement a new tool. I tend to think about I tend to think about the the things that I already have and I try to kind of reconfigure them in a way that's novel to me and still sort of sounds on brand for a Jerry Garcia style solo which I'd never hear him really utilizing the Bbop scale even though I'm sure he did. I don't know whether or not he was utilizing it. See? Yeah. He's saying that that he uses it all the time. You're basically doing Bbop scale already with chromatics. Okay. Well then then yeah. So then what can I say, bro?

[00:46:13]Um, so if I'm already doing it, I I I I love the fact that I'm I'm doing it.

[00:46:18]That's awesome. Thanks for noticing. I had no idea I was doing that. So, you know, as much as I feel like I'm I'm I'm a responsible educator, I guess I don't know everything, folks.

[00:47:08]I'm Anyway, I've always loved this tune. It's just a spectacular opportunity to explore the concept of multiple key centers. And it's one of the few songs in the Grateful Dead's catalog where we don't actually get a melody that we have to kind of hit. Right. Most most of the time when we play Grateful Dead music, what we're doing is kind of guitarifying, for lack of a better word, the vocal melody and representing it, you know. So, you know, when we play various songs, we're we're we're mimicking the ve the phrasing and the pitches, you know, temp tempo and pitch associated with the vocal melody. And then we occasionally we'll go off road with that sound. And you know, if we're doing, you know, uh, let's ditch the all the space here, you know, right? We could end up very easily seeing ourselves go All right. And if you don't for the uninitiated. Yeah. So, we're basically just singing the vocal melody to They love each other. He could pass his time.

[00:48:54]He could pass his time around, but you know, he chose his place. beside her.

[00:49:07]Whoop.

[00:49:15]And every now and again we get a wild hair up our booties and we go right and do little enclosure ideas or some of the, you know, maybe we'll find a uh, you know, something over the G chord that's a little fancier, something, you know, it isn't always playing the melody. If you all you do is ever play the melody, then you know that that's kind of stiff, but it's super musical just the same. All right. Well, look, um gosh, I don't know who the hell's calling me here, but I guess I should find out. Let's see what's going on here.

[00:50:02]Hello Okay.

[00:50:46]>> All right. Thank you very much.

[00:50:47]>> If you would like to go with us, we can provide you with a service for that.

[00:50:51]>> How much would it be if if they won't cover it?

[00:50:55]>> It's not being covered.

[00:50:56]>> I know. How much? How much would it be if you were to cover it? Not them.

[00:51:02]>> Let me just try to answer.

[00:51:04]>> Okay. Why don't you Can you do me a favor? I'm I'm actually teaching a class right now, so it would be good if I if you could just uh write me an email or or text me back the information. Is that possible?

[00:51:14]>> Yes, that would be possible.

[00:51:15]>> All right. Wonderful. Thank you very much, ma'am.

[00:51:18]>> Have a great day. All right. Sorry, we were getting the air conditioning repaired over here and uh sorry about that. That's our home our home insurance uh policy is not covering apparently freon even though it has done so in the past.

[00:51:37]Anyway, friends. So, look, that's kind of the whole point about Eyes of the World is there's nothing for you to there's nothing for you to transcribe on your own and like listen to the song and sing the song through the guitar. There is nothing there. So, you have to either feel you have to have a lot of vocabulary available or figure out how to build vocabulary. And that's kind of what's the the central crux of that that cliche concept here is when we sit down with this idea and we kind of go fill in the blank and then and then fill in the blank. So if I go Right. I'm basically just kind of filling in the gaps that exist between.

[00:52:56]Right. So, I'm basically just running a muk and making sure that on those strong down beats, I'm hitting one of those three notes. And that pretty much sets you up for a for a win. Let's see what else we've got here. We've got some other I'm basically doing the Bbop scale already with chromatics. Okay, so nothing no new no new information there.

[00:53:30]All right. So, nothing new under the sun. suppose it's not the probably the first time you've heard this explained and if you if you have any other questions other than this uh I'm happy to I'm happy to talk about it. I have a few. This is my guitar handle. I see. Well, it does make sense.

[00:53:46]Cordlo it's uh it's very very very witty there. So much appreciate the humor.

[00:53:59]Uh the Bbop scale equals playing the scale chromatically but when approaching the tones a semmit tone away approach with an enclosure. You do this with the Parker enclosure. Okay, cool. So that's wonderful.

[00:54:12]I just find that if I I think I'm I maybe I'm just not that smart a guy. I feel like if I am thinking that much, I'm never going to be able to hear what I'm actually playing fast enough to be able to to do what I want to do. And so at this point I I think I might just be I'm not opposed to practicing and learning new things. But when I am teaching I guess I don't teach things I don't know. That's kind of the like I if I'm using it it's unbeknownst to me and so I can't really speak as to how I'm if I am it's just purely kwinky dinky. Um, so Craig, I appreciate you uh offering up the suggestion and I will certainly take it under advisement and figure out if whenever I have enough time to do this. Hey, by the way, don't forget I I'm hoping that you'll you'll participate in the end of the year project over at school. Craig is a student of mine online at the at the snack school. And um we just started doing well I just made an announcement to the student body that I was hoping that people would take the next month to either look back on the classes that they attended or didn't and choose a an independent study project of their own uh to be I'll be shephering each student from to you know for the next month and then they can present or not present if they don't feel like it. I mean, I never make anybody do anything, but you know, I'm asking people to actually approach it like kind of like a final project before we go uh into our summer season, which is still, you know, fully engaged.

[00:55:44]But, you know, I just I being being a child of the 70s, I think of uh school as starting after Labor Day and finishing roughly at the end of June.

[00:55:54]So, uh, I can't help but think, oh, well, now it's time for some sort of cumulative exercise for every student to do. So, we've just embarked upon that after we did a uh song by song walkthrough of all the acoustic material that isn't on other records um from the Reckoning album, which was super fun. We all we got out our acoustic stuff. I think we only have two more songs to do.

[00:56:19]We just have I think we're going to do Direwolf because everybody just loves that version of Direwolf. And uh we'll be doing Jackaro because that's not on any albums. So anyway, I just I I I just can't I can't appreciate the the participation that those guys over there at the school program have have shown. They've just been amazing. And if any of you guys are interested in studying with me on a more regular basis, then these catches catch can kind of office hour things.

[00:56:48]That's how it's done these days because I don't I don't teach privately any any longer.

[00:56:57]So, how's that neck pickup sounded? Does that sound like good and juicy?

[00:57:03]I don't really know. I don't think Garcia really used his neck pickup. Even when he was like once he got the once he got the wolf, I don't really hear too much neck pickuping going on. It never really sounds like neck pickup to me except the 72. Like here 72 I hear a lot of Strat neck pickup like I hear I think that's that kind of thing. Maybe that's better to do.

[00:57:41]Anyway, I just love my little Stratacaster here. Uh, I'm actually going to be bringing it to the doctor soon, though. I think it's might be time. It's only been 22 years or something like that. Uh, it's been played on these frets and they might be might be time for some new ones there.

[00:57:59]Uh, so let's see what we've got here.

[00:58:02]Yes, next week I've been working around the clock. Okay, wonderful, Craig. I can't wait to hear what you want to do because you're one of the more uh inspired students in a lot of ways in terms of your uh your theoretical awareness and stuff like that. So, I'm curious to see what the mad you're the mad scientist of the crew over there.

[00:58:20]I'd love to see what you come up with.

[00:58:23]Um, also Craig's got mad computer skills, so we'll see see whether or not anything interesting pops up out of that.

[00:58:31]So that um the neck pickup sounding pretty good.

[00:58:41]Sometimes I like to take the eyes solo on that. You know, it sounds very a little bit more subdued, you know.

[00:59:22]Add a little bit more overdrive.

[00:59:40]I don't know. I think it kind of sounds nice. It's a little It's a little dark, a little creamy, but hey. Tone is so good. Makes me want to ditch the deluxe reverb. This is the deluxe reverb.

[00:59:51]Oh, you mean you're not using a deluxe re? You're not using a keer. Yeah. Well, it it it it would be basically like a deluxe reverb with a infinite amount of uh output power. So, you know, it's I'm still using the preamp of a deluxe reverb. But the the funny thing is I'm not because the the way the Keer actually represents the Deluxe Reverb is kind of facious in that it it has both uh it has a TMB tone stack where a true Deluxe Reverb would be modeled with just a treble and a bass control, no middle.

[01:00:24]Um so, you know, I I I assume this is just their their way of presenting it in in a uniform fashion. Um, but the the truth is the profiles that I could find for an actual twin reverb all sounded like [ __ ] but this one just sounded dynamite. So, I've always I've always loved this this profile. Um, even if I'm I mean, right now it's set to a pretty clean and a very clean and bright sound.

[01:00:51]But you know like you the kind of that's just the that's just the clean that's middle pickup everything all the way up.

[01:01:12]Um you know and this is with like a little bit of break up on it.

[01:01:24]just a little bit more of like that.

[01:01:33]So, playing those low E before with the with the in-house speaker rather than the imported JBL profile that was like it was like a subwoofer was on my guitar compared to this. This is it feels very like uh lightweight.

[01:01:54]So, I was just I was kind of scared, but the truth is I was just used to carrying all that low end around with me. And now that I'm not, I kind of feel refreshed.

[01:02:04]I I can't wait to play with the guys again so that I'm not stepping on the bass player. And all the time I was looking at the bass player like, "Your [ __ ] is so [ __ ] boommy." I'm thinking that in my mind, but but the reality was it was probably him normal me boommy. He's supposed to be boommy. I just was adding more to his sound already and unnecessary kind of thing. Anyway, you add the uh add the little bit of overdrive that I always have available.

[01:02:34]And that's the that's the more driven sound of the Skull and Roses kind of And then I can't help myself. I always put a delay on there to get, you know, if I want to get creamy like Anyway, I just love the sound of a little bit of extra space in there. Um, especially when things break down and things get kind of, I don't know, kind of trippy.

[01:03:54]Tone is so good. Okay, that's great. I I'm listening through these little shitty headphones.

[01:04:04]and consequently can't tell what anything really sounds like.

[01:04:15]And then, funny enough, uh when things really break down and gets crazy spacey, I like this. This is an interesting effect that's available. It's kind of like a long throw reverb. It's like 20 seconds of decay. So, if you hit the if you hit this and kind of go You can hear all that kind of building up behind you. So if I let it really build, it fades in the attack into it.

[01:04:41]So you never hear. But see how if I leave it open then if I start building on top of that Heat.

[01:05:27]Heat.

[01:05:45]Uhoh, I got to go get that. Class is dismissed, my friends. I am so sorry.

[01:05:50]That is the end of today's broadcast. I love you all and I'm happy to see you and share time with you. And whatever I know, I'm happy to share. And if you're interested in working with me, please sign up for snack school. Uh it is rolling admission and there's all kinds of fun stuff to talk about there. And if you're into it, please do. All right. I got a jet. My apologies though for this for the Irish goodbye. Gotta go.