Lick By Neck

GSCC Lesson 16

Past Lessons Summary and Links

If you are new to this series, here’s the links to past lessons:

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Lesson 4

Lesson 5

Lesson 6

Lesson 7

Lesson 8

Lesson 9

Lesson 10

Lesson 11

Lesson 12

Lesson 13

Lesson 14

Lesson 15

We had covered all the family chords and their siblings in key of C and G Major:

Key of C Major
Key of G Major

Key of C major and G major are common keys used by guitarist to play sing-along guitar.

We also looked at the guitarist best friend – CAPO , and it’s application.

CAPO

When we use the CAPO in conjunction with chords from C and G keys above , we are able to play almost every pop songs we wanted to play.

We have also looked at some basic strumming patterns:

1One strum per beat
2Up-stroke strumming
3Strumming lightly on first few strings
416 beat strum
5Campfire Strum
6“Chuck” Strum
73/4 Strum
86/8 Strum

And we had explored some basic pluckings.

18 beat pluck #1
2Double string pluck
33/4 Pluck
4“Alternate Bass” Pluck
56/8 Pluck
6Slap Rhythm

And of course, we had fun learning all these songs !! They are specially produced “Karaoke for Guitar” videos (only vocal and metronome count) for you to practice your strumming / plucking:

LessonSong
Lesson 1Song #1 (English: Because I Love You) Lesson 1
Lesson 1Song #2 (Chinese/Cantonese: 喜欢你) Lesson 1
Lesson 2Song #1 (English: Happy Birthday)
Lesson 2Song #2 (Chinese: 月亮代表我的心)
Lesson 3Song #1 (English: Let It Be – Beatles)
Lesson 3Song #2 (English: Perfect – Ed Sheeran)
Lesson 3Song #3 (Cantonese: 海闊天空)
Lesson 4Song #1 (English: Deperado – Eagles)
Lesson 4Song #2 (Chinese: “最长的电影” – 周杰伦)
Lesson 5Song #1 (English:”Creep” – Radiohead)
Lesson 5Song #2 (Chinese: “你要的愛”)
Lesson 5Song #3 (English: “Last Christmas” – Wham)
Lesson 6Song #1 (English: “Reality”)
Lesson 6Song #2 (Chinese: “刻在我心底的名字”)
Lesson 6Song #3 (English: “Auld Lang Syne”)
Lesson 7Song #1 (English: “Country Roads”)
Lesson 7Song #2 (English: “Time of Your Life”)
Lesson 7Song #3 (Cantonese: “朋友”)
Lesson 8Song #1 (English: “Sweet Child O’ Mine”)
Lesson 8Song #2 (English: “I’m Yours”)
Lesson 8Song #3 (Chinese: “简单爱”)
Lesson 9Song #1 (English: “Hey Jude”)
Lesson 9Song #2 (Chinese: “小幸运”)
Lesson 10Song #1 (English: “Sway”)
Lesson 10Song #2 (Chinese: “可可托海的牧羊人”)
Lesson 11Song #1 (English: “Edelweiss”)
Lesson 11Song #2 (English: “Que Sera Sera”)
Lesson 12Song #1 (English: “What A Wonderful World”)
Lesson 12Song #2 (Chinese: “新不了情”)
Lesson 13“Happy Birthday” melody on guitar in key of C and G Major
Lesson 14“Happy Birthday” Solo Guitar Playing
Lesson 15“Can’t Help Falling In Love”

Last week, we looked at how to put together a simple chord melody guitar song,

Here’s the concept behind chord melody guitar playing!

Step 1: Play the melody

Step 2: Find out the chords

Step 3: Combine the melody and the chords

Step 4: Add in the accompaniment

We demonstrated it using “Can’t Help Falling In Love” as the example.

Click here to ask a question …

Let’s try what we learned last week on another song

Let’s try it on a classic Chinese song : “月亮代表我的心”

Again, we will go through the following steps:

Step 1: Play the melody

Step 2: Find out the chords

Step 3: Combine the melody and the chords

Step 4: Add in the accompaniment

Click here to ask a question …

Step 1: Play the melody

Let’s learn to play chord melody guitar of the song “月亮代表我的心”.

First, learn and play the melody:

Verse 1
Verse 2
Chorus

Click here to ask a question …

Step 2: Find out the chords

You can either get them online or use your ears!!

Verse 1
Verse 2
Chorus

Click here to ask a question …

Step 3: Combine The Melody And The Chords

Let’s combine the melody and the chords.

As we mentioned in last week lesson, the trick is to play the chords “below” the melody notes. This means we are gonna play part of the chords.

Verse 1 (The melody is in RED)
Verse 2 (The melody is in RED)
Chorus (The melody is in RED)

Click here to ask a question …

Step 4: Add In The Accompaniment

Yeah! We have the melody and the chords!!

Let’s make it more complete by filling in the gap between the melody.

We can fill in the gap by playing the plucking accompaniment just like we are accompanying someone to sing:

Verse 1 (The blue box is the accompaniment)
Verse 2 (The blue box is the accompaniment)
Chorus(The blue box is the accompaniment)

Click here to ask a question …

Issues in last 2 songs we learned

You may noticed there are some issue on last 2 songs we learned:

Yes, the notes jumped to a lower octave, where it should go higher.

Same thing happened to the chorus of last week’s song:

That was because we are running out of notes … or , rather, we only mastered the notes for the 1st 3 frets. So, we play the higher notes on lower octave.

So, how can we go higher?

To The Infinity And Beyond!!

First step, is to venture out!! Or, UP!

In the past , we had learn the notes of C Major scale for the 1st 3 frets

Which is also this:

Here’s all the notes on the fretboard:

Let’s filter out all the non C Major notes, here is all the C Major notes on the guitar fretboard:

That’s a lot of notes!!!

Yes, it is ….

Don’t quick, I’ll show you a easy way (which build on things you already know) to play notes and chords beyond the 1st 3 frets.

Enter the “CAGED” system!!

Click here to ask a question …

CAGED system

What is the CAGED system?

It is a system based on “C” chord, “A” chord, “G” chord, “E” chord and “D” chord, thus C-A-G-E-D 😉

CAGED

If we take the “Chord” :

Move it to the right, and use our index finger as the “capo” :

C# Chord

We got a C# chord!!!

This is just like putting a capo on the 1st fret, making the “C” chord into a C# chord. But, this time , we are using our index finger to act as a CAPO!!

How about we up another step?

D Chord

We got a D chord!!!

So fun!! Let’s go up, up and away!!!

Eb Chord
E Chord
F Chord
F# Chord
G Chord
Ab Chord
A Chord

So, up until now we are using “C” shape chord to move up the fret board and producing different chords!! We were only using 1st member of the “CAGED” system!!

Let’s try the next member, “A”:

A Chord
Bb Chord
B Chord
C Chord

As you can see, we can use “C” shape to get D chord,E chord,F chord and G chord. “A” shape to get B chord and C chord.

So, we may called the new chord “C” shape G chord, or G chord in “C” shape. “A” shape C chord, or C chord in “A” shape.

Take a few moment to let this concept sink in 😉 I know, it maybe confusing at the start. Take your time …..

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Now, let’s continue with 3rd member of the “CAGED” system, G:

Normal G chord

Let’s move it up!

Ab chord
A chord
Bb chord
B chord
C chord

Now, we have “G” shape C chord, or C chord in “G” shape. Compare this to “C” shape G chord, or G chord in “C” shape. Once you see the difference, you will understand the CAGED concept 😉

Let’s continue with 4th member of CAGED system, E:

Plain E chord

Let’s move it up:

F chord (this is the FULL F chord)

This is the FULL F chord. When we first started , the F chord we learned was the simple partial F chord.

F# chord
G chord

Finally , let’s try out the last member of the CAGED system, “D” shape:

Normal D chord

Let’s move up:

Ed chord
E chord
F chord

That’s the magic of the CAGED system!!

Click here to ask a question …

Linking CAGED system to the notes

So, we see how we can use CAGED system to remember and produce various chords.

Let’s see how we can use it to link notes.

Let’s look at this:

These are the notes from C major. Can you see the shapes?

Let me give you more clue :

Yeah, that’s the 2 shapes.

The 1st box is the C major scale we learned before. The 2nd box is the G major notes “shape”, but we are playing them in C notes. So think in term of the shapes.

Here’s the same diagram with the C and G major notes we learned before:

With that, adress the octave issues of the past 2 songs!

Click here to ask a question …

Let’s play today’s song at the correct octave

The blank part is the one supposed to have higher notes:

We have the notes and the chord symbols, let’s utilize what we had learned to get the chord shapes for those chord melody line.

If we analyse that part, they are in the “G” chape. Let’s play them in “G” shape!

Here you go:

Verse 1(Higher Octave for bars 3 ,4)
Verse 2 (Higher Octave for bars 3 ,4)
Chorus
Verse 2 (Higher Octave for bars 3 ,4)

Click here to ask a question …

For “Can’t Help Falling In Love”

Fixes for last week song:

Click here to ask a question …