Advanced Lead Track Lesson 1: Entrance Exam, "Blueside", and Scales for Lead Theory Introduction
Congratulations on making it to the advanced lessons. It's important that you not skip the beginner lessons because you've been playing for a while already. If you can't pass the entrance exam then go back and fill in any gaps in your guitar education. Also, it takes time to build your musical ear and I'm relying on the fact that your ear has developed enough to hear certain aspects of the music in these following lessons. Ok, let's get started.
Take the entrance exam and use all notes and brainpower that you have to complete it 100% correctly. Once you finish and feel good about the concepts on the entrance exam listen to "Blueside" by Rooney.
Now that you've listened to "Blueside" enough to hum through the main guitar parts let's learn it. Start by playing through the introductory chord progression. Recall that the "/" in a chord name means to:
- Play what comes before the slash, e.g., Bm/A....play a Bm chord.
- Change the bass note to whatever note comes after the slash.
So, play an A form Bm chord but only bar from the D string down so that the A string is being played open. This is the beginning of a descending bass line for which the intro exhibits throughout the progression. The strumming pattern is shown above the chords for the intro. (Down Down Down Down Up) Notice that the strumming pattern changes for F# and G. (DDU) Use your ear to get the rhythm just right. Try to figure out how to play all the "/" chords for the introduction. Remember that all you're changing is the bass note of the original chord. Also, muting strings to make a chord more playable is fine. Message me with any problems you encounter. Oh yeah, The G chord is played in open position and the F# chord should be played as an E form major bar chord.
Now read through the notes in the tab for Lead 1. This is the lead played during the intro and on the recurrences of the intro as an instrumental break. This part starts as a pickup to the Bm chord on the 2nd repeat of the intro chords, i.e., the first note of the lead part begins on the 2nd down stroke of the F# chord. He swings the rhythm on Lead 1. This means that instead of a consistent 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and beat pattern he drags the "and" or upbeat creating a bouncy sound. If we divide the beat pattern further this swing beat can be seen:
1 e and uh, 2 e and uh, 3 e and uh, 4 e and uh
Cover all the strings with your fretting hand to mute the strings and practice saying this divided rhythm and strumming on the numbers and the "uh". Keep the strumming arm moving up and down so you move 16 times across the strings at the end of this exercise. Try to internalize the way that sounds. Beat on your chest, snap your fingers, and/or sing the swung rhythm back to yourself. Once you can do this, try playing through the first lead part again. Notice that he doesn't purely use the swing rhythm during the lead part but does use it in groups. There's a note about the slide from 4 to 11 that starts the lead part. Usually when a guitarist slides he or she doesn't pluck the destination note because it can already be heard by doing the slide. However, this situation calls for plucking the destination note as it is reached. You'll hear two notes if you slide to 11 and then pluck. The goal is one note so pluck at the exact moment that 11 is reached in order not to hear 11 twice.
Lead 2 is also played during the first verse. The first four notes are played normally and are held for four beats. The next four notes are swung and played quickly. The ninth note is the same as the first note of the 2nd line of lead 2. This is called an elision, where the last note of a musical phrase is the same as the first note of the next phrase.
The chorus explains itself. Check what form you should use with the indications to the right of the chorus. Strum each chord once.
- The opening slides are octaves.
- The ( ) that enclose the triplets are there just to help you see how the notes are grouped.
- The half bend means bend up 1 half step, full is 1 whole step.
- The x/\x or what I call the "dead frog face" means you should slide up by pitch then down on the specified string with no specific starting or ending point.
- There is a pause between the last two notes, 16 and 4 on G.
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The 2nd solo could be learned but instead use this as a time to tryout some new scales and further the journey of improvisation. Check out the next three pages on scales. The table of contents page gives information on how to read them and hopefully answers all the questions you'll have. Choose one of the major and one of the minor forms to learn and commit them to your memory. Here's how to do it:
- Read and play the scale looking at the sheet. (once)
- Play the scale from memory only look at your hands. (once)
- Play the scale, eyes closed. (once)
- Repeat these steps eight times.
"Blueside" is in the key of B minor. Use whatever minor scale form you chose and start the scale on a B. Find B minor's relative major and begin whatever major scale form on that note. Improvise over the intro chords. E-mail me and I can send you the entire scale packet so you can have it all in one place as a PDF file.
Now relax and go watch some Futurama or something.
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