Lick By Neck

GSCC Lesson 18

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

Lesson 16

Lesson 17

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” Solo Guitar Playing
Lesson 16“月亮代表我的心” Solo Guitar Playing
Lesson 17“Let It Be” Solo Guitar Playing

Last week, we looked at quite a few topics.

How to move minor and dominant 7 chords across the neck:

Bm chord
Gm chord
Fm chord
F#7 chord
C7 chord
F7 chord

Why are we learning those barred chords?

1. If we encountered a chord we never learned before, we can work out the chord ourselves.

2.If we play in a difficult keys, we know how to play those chords

In key of Eb – Eb Cm Ab Bb7

3.For Chord Melody Guitar playing, we can find the chord which is closest to the melody

Faster ways to build chords

  1. Find the bass note of the chord
  2. Locate it on the fretboard
  3. Build the chord on top of it
“C” shape chord build on Eb bass note = Eb major chord
“G” shape chord build on Bb bass note = Bb major chord

Establish “landmark” on fretboard

Locating Eb note on 5th string
Locating G note on 5th string

Click here to ask a question …

Two new chord types : Major 7th and Minor 7th

So far, we had learned 2 types of 7th chords: Dominant 7 (eg. G7) and half diminished 7th (Bm7b5 )

G7 (dominant 7 th) and Bm7b5 (half diminished)

Now , let’s look at the other 2 common 7th chords: Major 7th and Minor 7th.

Let’s start by looking at Major 7th chord shapes:

C Major 7 and F Major 7

As you can see here, the chord shape can also be barred and move across the fretboard and form another chord just like before.

Major 7th chord can also be written as M7 (upper cased M). Thus, C Major 7 can also be written as CM7.

Here’s a few more Major 7th chord shapes:

GM7 and CM7
CM7 and FM7 (“A” Shape)
DM7 and GM7

Now, let’s look at Minor 7th chord shapes:

E minor 7 and A minor 7

Again, they can be barred and move across the fretboard to form other chords.

Minor 7th chord can also be written as m7 (lower cased “m”). Thus, A Minor 7 can also be written as Am7.

Here’s a few more Minor 7th chord shapes:

Am7 and Dm7
Dm7 and Gm7
Bm7 and Dm7

Here’s a slightly different version of Bm7 shape. It is an useful m7 chord shape to put in your chord arsenal.

Bm7 (alternate form) and Em7

Click here to ask a question …

Why 7th chord?

Yes , you may asked, what’s the difference between a C major chord and a C Major 7th chord? And what’s the difference between a A minor and a minor 7th chord?

You can play them and do a A-B comparison;)

Go play it, I will wait for you …

….

Yes, your ears will tell you that the 7th chords sounded more lush, rich and jazzy, where the basic major and minor chord sounded “hard” in comparison.

In most cases, you can interchange between the normal and 7th chords:

eg. C – Am – F – G7 ==> CM7 – Am7 – FM7 – G7

Some songs called for a more straight forward feel and some songs are more relaxed. Let your ears be the judge.

For the solo guitar song we gonna play today, a lot of 7th chords will be used. After you mastered them, you can also play it and comnpare with non 7th chords , ley your ears tell you the difference.

Click here to ask a question …

Let’s try to apply the 7th chords we just learned to another song on Chord Melody Guitar

Let’s try it on another classic song : “What A Wonderful World”

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 “What A Wonderful World”.

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 before, the trick is to play the chords “below” the melody notes. The melody note will be the higher notes of the “chord”. This means we are gonna play part of the chords, below the melody.

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 …