A chord progression is a series of chords arranged over time, creating a sense of motion and structure in the music. Our challenge as improvisers is to target the right notes at the right times in our improvised lines. Chord tone soloing is the ability to land on a note of a chord just as that chord is (or is about to be) played. When a solo targets chord tones, it sounds purposeful and connected to the harmony. It isn’t necessary to target a chord tone for every chord change, but it is incredibly valuable to develop the ability to do so on demand.
To do this, you will need to know all the chords in the progression and which scales will work with them. Sometimes a single scale will suffice, but sometimes you’ll need to change scales on the fly.
You will need to learn to keep track of where you are in the progression at all times and know when the next chord change is coming.
And you will need some strategies for finding chord tones under your fingers, no matter where your fingers happen to be on the fretboard. The rest of the course is dedicated to making these topics understandable and manageable.
In this module, your goal is to learn the positions of all of the B notes on the fretboard.
Exercise 1: Start from the B notes on the E and B strings and find the other B notes using octave relationships.
Exercise 2: With your fretting hand, choose a random fret and find the closest B note toward the bridge and nut.
Exercises 3-n: Reuse exercises from previous modules and apply them to finding B notes.
Be sure to cycle through multiple exercises to keep this challenging from day to day. When all of them become easy, use spaced repetition to continue practicing less frequently. Don’t forget to keep practicing finding E, A, and D notes occasionally!
Triads are essential building blocks for music, and they are a powerful tool for finding target notes while chord tone soloing. For our purposes, a triad is a three-note chord created by stacking two sequential intervals, either of which can be a major or minor third.
There are four triads that can be created this way:
| Triad type | Bottom 3rd interval | Top 3rd interval | 5th type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Major | Major | Minor | Perfect |
| Minor | Minor | Major | Perfect |
| Augmented | Major | Major | Augmented |
| Diminished | Minor | Minor | Diminished |
When created by stacking thirds, the lowest note of a triad is called the root. The next note is called the third, and it is either a major or minor third above the root. The last note is called the fifth. In a major or minor triad, the interval between root and fifth is a Perfect 5th.
If the root is the lowest note played, the fifth is the highest, and the third is in the middle, that arrangement is called a root position triad.
If the root is raised up an octave, so the third is now on the bottom, that arrangement is called first inversion.
If we then move the third up an octave, so that the fifth is now the lowest note, the triad is then in second inversion.
On each set of three strings, there are exactly three ways to play closed-form triads (meaning the notes are all inside one octave), one corresponding to each inversion.
Here are the A major triad inversions on the G, B, and e strings. Starting from the nut, these are root position, first inversion, and second inversion:
We can find similar fingerings for each of the other groups of three strings. Note that if not for the warp, each inversion type would always have the same fingering.
To create a minor triad from a major triad, we can simply move the third down one fret, changing it from a major third to a minor third. Here are the resulting A minor triad fingerings on each set of three strings:
You can create an augmented triad by raising the 5th of a major triad by one fret, and you can create a diminished triad by lowering the 5th of a minor triad by one fret.
It is not necessary to memorize these shapes for the purposes of this course, but they are absolutely worth learning and practicing, and I do recommend memorizing them as a part of your guitar journey. They are valuable as compact voicings for playing rhythm guitar, and they can play a large role in finding chord tone targets.
To get the most out of these shapes, learn where the root is in each fingering pattern. The fifth will always be one string lower or two strings higher. The third will always be one string higher or two strings lower.
Exercise 1: Choose a root and a set of three adjacent strings. Play the major triad in its three inversions. Repeat with additional string sets. Do the same with the minor triads.
Exercise 2: In a small area of the fretboard and on three adjacent strings, play the major triads for B, E, A, and D.
Exercise 3: Repeat exercise 2, but alternate between minor and major triads.
Create your own exercises by mixing and matching different variables: region of fretboard, set of strings, root notes, and major vs. minor. There are dozens of ways to practice this, and you should challenge yourself every time you practice.
The major and minor pentatonic scales share the same sequence of intervals, but each treats a different note as the root. When played on one string, each scale is a sequence of major seconds and minor thirds.
Here is the minor pentatonic scale on one string:
and here is the major pentatonic scale:
Notice that in each scale, there are three major second (two-fret) intervals, two that are next to each other and one that is on its own.
Memorize this: When the pentatonic scale is played on one string, the minor pentatonic root is the upper note of the isolated major second interval. The major pentatonic root is the lowest note of the adjacent major seconds.
Exercise 1: Practice playing the major pentatonic scale on one string, keeping track of the root location and playing all the way from the nut to your highest fret and back.
Exercise 2: Repeat exercise 1 with the minor pentatonic scale.
Exercises 3-36: Repeat exercises 1 and 2 over one of the backing tracks from the previous modules. That will help you hear mistakes more easily. By using all three backing tracks, major and minor, and all six strings, there are 36 exercises to try!
Exercises 37-72: Repeat exercises 1-36, but play melodically.
Recognizing the positions of the major second intervals will allow us to connect pentatonic stacks to the one-string version of the scale. The isolated major second interval runs through the middle of a stack, and the adjacent major seconds connect two stacks diagonally.
Here are the stack connections for the major pentatonic scale, ignoring the warp:
and for the minor pentatonic scale:
Note that we can use our knowledge of these transitions to switch in or out of single-string playing any time we want to.
Exercise 73: Start by improvising over a backing track using a single string. When you feel like it, move into a stack at one of the intersection points. Then, return to playing on the original string and move to a different stack. When you switch to in-position playing, feel free to alternate stacks and rectangles vertically to access the full six-string pentatonic forms.
Exercise 74: Play primarily on one string at a time, using the stack connections to switch to a different string every now and then.
When improvising using a baseline pentatonic scale, one of the most powerful ways to find chord tone targets inside a progression is to learn where the notes of each chord overlay on the pentatonic rectangle and stack.
For now, we will focus on learning the locations of chord tones for the A minor and F major triads in relation to the A minor pentatonic rectangle and stack. This will be everything we will need to improvise over the classic “Stairway to Heaven” outro jam in the next section.
Memorize this: These are the target notes for the A minor and F major triads over the A minor pentatonic scale. It is not necessary to memorize the names of the notes, only the positions of the blue notes relative to the rectangle and stack shapes. Notice that these patterns each differ by exactly one note:
Note that these patterns are a subset of the triad overlay patterns you’ll learn in Module 7.
You should not need to memorize these, but for reference, here are the A minor triad targets overlaid on all five pentatonic patterns:
And here are the F major triad targets overlaid on them:
I find that the trickiest places to reliably hit targets are when the rectangle and stack fall across the warp, so I especially recommend practicing them in those locations.
In the outro section of “Stairway to Heaven,” the chord progression is:
Am - G - F
Because all three chords come from the key of A minor (or, equivalently, C major), and A sounds like “home,” A minor pentatonic is a good scale choice for improvising over this vamp.
As noted in the video, we can ignore the G chord because it passes quickly, and our ears are most closely attuned to what we hear at the beginnings and ends of phrases.
Exercise 1: Practice creating phrases that start on a target note from the A minor triad and end on a note from the F major triad, using the A minor pentatonic scale in between. Your phrases should last for one pass through the chord progression. Start by doing this inside a single rectangle or stack.
While you practice, use all of the articulations you have at your disposal (bends, hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, etc.). Try practicing call-and-response over this chord progression, perhaps ending your first phrase with a non-chord tone and then responding with a phrase that ends on a chord tone, or playing a mini-“call” over the first measure (Am-G), pausing briefly, and responding over the F triad.
Exercise 2: Branch out and use the techniques you’ve learned for moving around the neck: vertical alternation of rectangles and stacks, diagonal stack pathways, and playing along one string. Practice each of these techniques in isolation.
As you practice improvising over this chord progression, practice switching improvisation strategies frequently. Switch from rectangle to stack, from Form 1 to Form 4, and from playing in position to playing along one string. These are all techniques you can interleave to increase the difficulty in a way that will build your skills faster in the long run.
Exercise 3: Spend a little time improvising freely, drawing from all the techniques you’ve learned in the course so far. Then go back and focus on the areas you’re finding most challenging.
The Stairway Jam
A minor · 100 BPM · Am–G–F
Am for two beats, G for two, F for four, looping. One pass is the unit your phrases should fill: begin on an A minor target, end on an F one, and let the G go by.