Hey folks! In this Captain’s Privates lesson, we expand on the blues legato lines from last time and have a total geek-out on blues extended chords. Let’s get to it. :)

Practice and Real Playing

At the start of the lesson, Lee told me he’d noticed an interesting pattern in his live jamming sessions. Once the camera was rolling, he saw that he was resorting to old patterns and licks for the various chords, licks that he’s played for years. He also found it hard to move licks into different positions.

I want to assure Lee and other guitarists with this tendency that this is all normal. You just need to practice more to expand your soloing skills. It’s a matter of practicing new licks and positions until they become second nature. Then you’ll bring them out without realizing it.

🧐 Learn About Learning! – In my Effective Practice series, we cover the A-Z of skill development along with methods to optimize your practice sessions. :)

Playing In Fourths

We reviewed Lee’s progress with the fourths exercise. He worried he was muting the string primarily by lifting it off rather than muting with the tip of the finger. It turns out he was doing it totally right!

He mentioned that he still has to do it deliberately; it doesn’t happen spontaneously. Because of that, his fingers don’t use the technique when he's playing for real.

We always have to practice deliberately to begin with. Only with time do things become automatic. Keep doing the exercises and have faith that the techniques will become second nature.

Three-In-A-Line Legato

I sat down after Lesson #9 to figure out how to teach the three-in-a-line exercise. I realized that I never use these runs on the thickest strings! What’s more, if you want to play them on those strings, your hand position has to change. This makes these patterns impractical.

If you stay on the thinnest four, your arm doesn’t need to move, it feels more natural, and the licks sound better! So descend the scale using the three-in-a-line legato, then stop when you reach the root note at 4:7 (the note A). It sounds awesome!

🎸 Justin’s Journey – When I was a teen, I used to believe I had to practice every lick, chord, and scale in all positions. Now that I’m older, I realize that if you’ll never use something, there’s no point in learning it. Our time is limited: let’s use it wisely!

The trick to nailing this (and any technique) is to start slowly, at around 20% speed. Play it through a few times really slow, then speed up. You’ll be able to go faster quite easily that way. If you start at 50%, you’ll find it tricky to speed up. Seriously – play it slow! As for rhythm, count this one in triplets.

Last week, we covered a very similar exercise: the four-in-a-line legato. You’ll need the rolling technique for this, and you’ll need to count 1e+a, 2e+a, etc. The lowest note you play is 7:7. See the TAB below. :)

Lee’s Thick String Problem

Lee has noticed that he uses the thickest string as his pacifier (his words!). What does this mean? He loves starting licks and riffs from the thickest string and does this almost automatically. His buddy Pete has told him that these notes are difficult to hear in a band context.

It’s true that they don’t stand out, and they muddy the rhythm parts. Another point is that these notes and riffs sound… beginnery! The problem is that we all learn barre chords and scales using the thickest string as our reference, so it becomes our go-to for everything on the neck.

The key to undoing this is to learn licks on the thinner strings and to learn the notes on the entire fretboard.

Legato Variations

There are many, many variations of these legato patterns. One of my favorite ones is the following:

|----------------------5------8f5---5--|
|---------5------8f5—-----8f5-----8----|
|--7f5------7f5------7-----------------|
|---–--7-------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------|

So we play descending three in a line, but the starting note moves up one note of the scale each time.

Don’t try to learn dozens of these patterns. And don’t switch positions! You’re much better knowing a couple patterns well and using them. Expand once you have those under your belt.

Theory Geek-Out Time

Lee asked a question before the lesson about why the D Major Scale works over the A11 chord!

To tackle this, we need to realize that a basic triad chord is built from the root, third and fifth of the scale. For instance, the C Major Scale is CDEFGABC, so the C chord contains the notes C, E, and G.

🎸 Chord Construction – To go deeper with triads, 7th chords, and extended chords, check out my course Practical Musical Theory.

The most common chords with four notes use the 7th in addition to the root, 3rd, and 5th. We can manipulate those basic notes to get Major 7th, Dominant 7th, minor 7th, and minor 7 b5 chords.

As for keys, each Major key has three major chords within it. These are built off the 1st, 4th, and 5th scale degrees and are called chords I, IV, and V. They also have three minor chords, which are built off the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th degrees. These are chords II, III, and VI. So the pattern is Major, minor, minor, Major, Major, minor.

If we do the same for four-note chords, the pattern extends to Major 7th, minor 7th, Major 7th, Dominant 7th, and minor 7th.

Beyond 7th Chords

If we keep building, we eventually get 9th, 11th, and 13th chords. These can all be simplified to a Major 7th, Dominant 7th, or minor 7th chord. For instance, if you see G13 (this is G Dominant 13th) in a song, you can play G7. If you see a Dm13, you can play Gm7. You can replace C Major 13 with C Major 7, and so on.

Back to the chords Lee was playing – A11 and B11. Remember, we can reduce A11 to A7, which is the V chord in D Major, hence why this scale sounds wicked over A11. As for the B11 shape that Lee plays, it’s 7X765X. He’s playing B, A, C#, and E. These notes all belong to the D Major Scale (D E F# G A B C#). So this scale also sounds great over the B11 chord.

D Major played over the IV chord in D, which is A7, is called the A Mixolydian mode (A B C# D E F# G). This is the A Major Pentatonic Scale with D (4th) and G (b7th) added. This is a typical blues mode.

Chord Extensions In The Blues

This chat about chord extensions is relevant in a blues context because A9, A11, and A13 are all excellent substitutions for A7. There are loads of grips for each. The first step to making them part of our repertoire is to learn a couple and use them in context.

Try using A9 (X4545X) instead of A7. Note that we aren’t playing any A notes! As Lee said: “Have we got any A’s in here?” While we don't fret any root notes, the reference root note is at 6:5, on the same fret as two of the chord tones.

Move this shape up five frets to get D9 (X 9 10 9 10 X) and up another two for E9 (X 11 12 11 12 X).

💡 Take It Easy – Learn a few chord grips at a time. Make sure you can switch to them easily and use them in context before you learn more. It’s way better to know a few chords well and put them to use than half-know loads of grips.

An ultra-common D9 grip is X54555, with finger 3 barring the notes on fret 5. This is also moveable, and it’s easy to switch to A9 (X4545X). Another cool option for D7 is XX7778. This chord is the common A7 open variation (X02223) moved up by five frets.

Lee noticed that he was putting his fingers down one at a time for these new chords. That’s totally normal! In this case, I suggest he plays these chords frequently in the blues. He’ll be under pressure to switch to them, which often does the trick.

Music Theory: Big Picture

Forgive me if I sound arrogant by saying this – it’s not my intention! I think music theory is a doddle. It’s like a ball of string in which all of the various parts are connected to each other.

Once you can see the entire ball, it becomes clear how all the areas are interrelated. Until you’ve understood all the concepts, it’s complicated. You have to search through the fog.

💣Nail the Notes on The Neck – Find powerful exercises for learning the fretboard in Lesson 2 and Lesson 3 of this series.

If you’re into guitar and really want to advance, you must learn music theory and the notes on the fretboard. I promise you it makes everything so much easier! It opens up the fretboard in a way that’s impossible if you don’t have the knowledge.

Many of the best players don’t have a clue about music theory. But they do know the notes on the fretboard. On any other instrument, you simply have to know them. And on guitar, it’s not super hard to learn the notes – it just takes some persistence. So go and learn them!

Stick around for more of Lee’s Privates if you want to advance as a blues and rock player. From Justin and Lee, laters :)

🎸Into 9ths, 11ths and 13ths? Build a huge repertoire of blues chord extensions.

Homework

Three Pattern Sequences (Three In A Line, Four In A Line, Variation in TAB above)
9th Shapes + Write down all Dominant 9th, 11th, and 13th shapes you know