Hi Your Guitar Tutor readers, after reading Part 1 and 2 of the Advanced Guitar Lesson series I hope you are getting a feel for the quality and standard of lessons I have been receiving whilst attempting to push my own guitar playing up to the next level.
Scale Pivoting (Dorian Mode on the D string)
Up to now you have learnt how to do the pivot technique with the Dorian mode moving chromatically on the E and A string. Today it’s time to learn the same concept on the D string. If you have not read part 1 and 2 of this series I would recommend doing so as the following information will make more sense to you. As a basic concept though, this approach to practising the Dorian mode allows you to be able to build a Dorian off any note you wish in the closest position possible. Each mode ends on a crotchet so you can hear its Dorian sound before moving to the next Dorian mode a fret below.
Scale Pivoting Dorian on the D String
Chord Inversions (Maj7 chord inversions)
Along with the pivot technique the Chord Inversion portion of the lesson was an eye opener and definitely worth some attention. The idea here is to take a chord such as a Gmaj7 and play it in 4 positions up the neck, each time with a different note from within the chord playing the lowest note on the low E string. If you take the G maj7 and first of all look at which notes it contains and write them down you can work out how to invert this chord. So take the notes and rearrange them so that the B note from the Gmaj7 is now the lowest note (7th fret low E string, second finger), 5th fret D string first finger, third finger 7th fret G string and fourth finger 7th fret B string. You have now created an inversion of the Gmaj7 chord. This same process happens with the D as the lowest note and the F sharp as the lowest note both on the E string.
What I noticed was that by just using these shapes Scott was able to make some really interesting sounds. He asked me to take the inversions and then play a note or two off each inversion before moving to the next inversion, this made it sound really interesting and with some experimentation I found melodies falling under my fingers.
He explained to me that this inversion concept should be repeated with different forms of the G chord, for example a G7 chord, Gm7 chord, Gm7b5 chord and G dim7 chord. By writing which notes get altered compared to the the Gmaj7 chord we could then start to invert the new forms by slightly changing the shape of the Gmaj7 inversions. In coming parts of this series I will give you the TAB for the inversions of chord forms mentioned above.
GMaj7 Chord and its inversions on the E Â String
G Major 7 and the Inversions ( E String)
Notes of the G Maj7 chord- G (Root)- F sharp (7th)-B (3rd) and D (5th)
G Dominant 7 and its Inversions on the E string
G Dominant 7 and its Inversions (E string)
Now comparing the G Dom7 shown above to the previous example of the GMaj7 we can change the F sharp note in the chord and each inversion to an F note and this will turn the G maj7 into a G Dom7.
Notes of the G Dom7 chord- G (Root)- F (b7th)-B (3rd) and D (5th)
If you have enjoyed this free guitar lesson then you might be interested in learning guitar with Your Guitar Tutor eBooks or Private Guitar lessons.
Tom Clark