Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Learn Guitar Music Theory In 16 MINS! (Chords, Scales, Cadences, Improvisation)

Are you tired of always using the same scales chords and ideas when you're playing guitar

especially when you're trying to write your own stuff? If that's the case you came to the perfect

place today - I want to show you two awesome and really helpful systems today that will

make it easy for you to get creative using exotic sounds and scales - to make all of this

very practical and useful for you we will write two quick songs together one in harmonic minor...

and one in hungarian minor...

two really awesome exotic sounding metal scales that you should use much more often

and after watching today's video until the end it will be easy for you to apply these

concepts to any kind of scales you want to work with! So let's get started right away

So the first system and the 'by the books' approach so to say would be writing down the scale

that you want to work with and then you're building the chords on every single scale degree

by adding the third, fifth, and also the seventh if you want to, to every single scale note only using

notes we can find within the scale - let's go with G harmonic minor for the first short composition

So in this scale, we have the notes G A Bb C D Eb F# and I know that it looks weird

to mix sharps and flats like that but in the key signature for G minor we have two flats, Bb

and Eb and in comparison to the G minor scale only one note changes right here we have to raise

the seventh note so F turns into F# - up next you're just adding the third and fifth to every

single note in the scale only using notes that you can find in the scale so for example for the first

note in the scale for G we are adding Bb as the third and D as the fifth and since that is a

minor third and a perfect fifth we have a G minor chord on the first scale degree - the interesting

thing that happens right here is that we get a really cool chord when we add the seventh as well

when we add the seventh note in the scale to this chord, F#, we get a G minor-major seventh chord

since it's a G minor chord with a major seventh so when we continue to add the third, fifth and

seventh to all of those scale notes we get the following chords: we have a G minor major seventh

chord on the first scale degree, an A minor seven flat five chord on the second scale degree, a Bb

major seven sharp five chord on the third scale degree, a C minor seventh chord on the fourth scale

degree, a D7 or D dominant chord on the fifth scale degree, an Eb major seventh chord on

the sixth scale degree and an F# diminished seventh chord on the seventh scale degree - so those

are the seventh chords of the G harmonic minor scale that I can work with for my composition - so

to finally get started with the creative process I could combine those chords and see what kind of

cadences I can come up with - so one thing I really want to include in my composition right away

is the cool sound of that minor major seventh chord on the first scale degree

that immediately gives away the sound of harmonic minor - one easy trick that you

can use to immediately get that sound is just using that G power chord with the octave on top

and then switching that to the major 7th interval so from G to F#

that immediately gets you that cool sounding dissonance - another detail

that I really want to take advantage of is that we have an augmented chord on the

third scale degree in harmonic minor in our case that's Bb augmented

it's a really cool and dissonant sound the great news with that kind of voicing

is that you can move it symmetrically in major thirds just like you can move diminished shapes

symmetrically in minor thirds - so I can just move this voicing up like that for example...

So the shape always stays the same and I can just move it up in major thirds

so as you can see we can work with tons of very interesting exciting and dissonant sounds

but things won't get too crazy for the listener since we're not just randomly putting those

dissonant sounds together, we are still working with a harmonic framework right here

so I think I will go for an idea like that starting off with the tonic with G minor

then adding the major seventh to that to get that minor major seventh sound and then

moving to those augmented kind of voicings - let's

get a basic drum beat down, just to get inspired for our main riff

okay so that's a pretty cool pattern we have right here I just want to make it a bit more

dynamic with the accents - let's have a listen...

maybe with heavier accents on the...

yeah maybe we need another accent right here that would be pretty cool I think

I'm already hearing the chords changing right here

on the four and not always on the one of every new measure so

I think that would be a bit more interesting - so let's copy that one

once again and yeah let's just loop it and listen to it real quick

yeah so programming a basic drum layer like that not only helps

me with playing in time when I'm recording my rhythm guitars, it also

really helps with getting more creative concerning the patterns that I'm playing

so now I was just practicing the idea and I was defining where the down and upstrokes are

located within the pattern so that I'm playing it consistently every single time - as always you

can download the tabs and guitar pro files of everything that I'm playing in this video on

patreon.com/bernth - you very special guys and girls on Patreon also voted for this video topic, that's

why I'm recording it right now - so in case you also want to decide on what to discuss next and

download the tabs, guitar pro files, video play-alongs and backing tracks for all of the videos

that I post on youtube make sure to join us in the Shred Guitar Community over there today! So let's

get some tight takes of this idea once again I'm looping the section here in Cubase and I'm just

looping it until I'm happy with the takes that I'm getting and usually I record until

I have two takes that I really like in a row so that I can pan them left and right

Okay so now I recorded a couple of takes and for a pre-production that's more than enough

for me - so we can just take two takes that we really liked and then we can just loop them

okay so that works for now, let's also get a basic bassline for that - once again we're programming

in the bass, I'm sorry I still don't have a really good bass at home so I'm just programming a basic

midi track...

then we have 16th notes right here followed by the eighth notes... so the pattern should be correct now

Nice evil sounding bass line! It's really simple, just the root notes of the chords

but for now it works - let's listen to everything played at the same time...

Okay so now that we have the rhythm tracks down we should also include some shredding of course

since it's this channel and the great news with that composition is that I already know which

kind of scale could work pretty well over a composition in G harmonic minor - it might be

the G harmonic minor scale and just to accent the chords a little bit I also want to include

some small augmented triads or arpeggios in there - let's see what I can come up with...

Okay now I got a couple of takes of this idea let's see which one

sounds best for our little song...

Okay so I think I like this take best, yeah just to turn it into a short little song

we will start out just with the riff and then we'll make some small changes

with the drums as soon as the guitar solo hits...

yeah I think that's the right choice...

I like that a lot and then...

we're gonna need a fill just to move into the guitar solo

yeah I think that works...

Okay so now let's take a listen to what we came up with by using the first method

writing down the scale identifying the chords on every single scale

degree working with cadences and of course with the scale itself for the guitar solo

Yeah sounds pretty good for a rough pre-production that's just a demo but as you can see this way

of composing in odd kind of keys and with exotic scales is really effective and fast

We worked with tons of interesting and dissonant sounds and chords but it still sounds harmonically

connected, awesome, and not just like throwing random chords and ideas together - alright now

let's discuss the second method that you can use to easily come up with really cool material in

exotic keys and scales - this one is for you in case you don't really want to work with chords

and cadences that much and if you want to focus more on riffs and intervals which is much more

common for rock and metal music - let's go with the e hungarian minor scale for the next composition

This one is even more exotic than the harmonic minor scale, we have the following notes in the

E hungarian minor scale: E F# G A# B C and D# - and yes I said A# instead of Bb

because we have a #4 in the scale structure - so compared to the natural minor scale

we're not only raising the seventh notes to get harmonic minor, we're also raising the fourth note

so this time instead of writing down the scale and forming the chords on every single scale degree

we're just gonna look at the scale diagram all across the neck just like you can see it on screen

and we are looking for interesting structures in there to come up with some really cool riffs - this

particular scale diagram is really helpful because you can see all the intervals that you're playing

you can also pick one that shows you the notes of the scale that you're playing all across the

neck but maybe try to avoid scale diagrams where you just see the dots and where you have to put

your fingers across the neck you won't really learn that much with those - so the interesting

thing I can see with this scale is that we have an almost chromatic sounding sequence down here

so I definitely want to work with that for my riff and the second cool thing I can see

about this is that we have those perfect fourths that are quite symmetrical down here

that sounds pretty evil and we also have major thirds just a half step away from each other

so there are a lot of interesting intervals that I can use in there - so let's get creative immediately

and let's see what we can come up with - I think I want to go with triplets this time and as always

I'd like to program drums first just to get a feeling for the rhythm and for what I want to do

on the guitar and yeah let's go with the classic- let's go with double bass in eighth note triplets

and we want a crash on the accent and maybe just snare on two and four the tempo is 180 beats per

minute so it's quite fast and then let's just do some interesting accents with the ride maybe

oops that's not the ride it's a tom...

that sounds pretty cool!

Yeah and I'm looping it. let's see what I can come up with

I think something like that would be pretty cool just alternating between two different endings

taking advantage of those perfect fourths and also including those major thirds once again

that sounds pretty crazy, those intervals, combining them, but it doesn't really sound like

random stuff - it still sounds like a connected harmonic system since we are basing our ideas on

the scale and not just randomly throwing notes and intervals together - now let's get some better takes

Okay I played a couple of takes once again let's see if we find two takes that we really like

Okay I think that works pretty well of course we need our bass

Okay that sounds pretty good now let's see what happens when we add a lead track to

that working with the E hungarian minor scale - let's see what we can come up with...

Okay so I tried out a bunch of different ideas and takes and this is what I like best so far because

the riff is already really busy and shredding over that wouldn't really do us any good in the

arrangement - one thing that we can do is harmonize it just a little bit to make it more interesting

just in the beginning for those long notes so just to double that I'm only using octaves here

nothing too crazy because it's already quite crazy then i'm just lowering the volume of that

track...

so that it just shines through a little bit just complementing that

main melody we have going on right here Okay so now let's listen to the whole thing

that's another pretty nice demo that would go right into my pre-production folder where

I'm gathering ideas and as you can see that is an equally powerful system of

just experimenting with odd kind of sounds and scales and seeing what you can come up with

When you look at the scale diagram so this is a lot of fun if you're just starting to explore a

new sound or a new scale and you don't really know it that well across the fretboard yet

That way you get to be creative right away and you get a bit of a feeling for the sound

and what you can do with that kind of scale! I really hope that you enjoyed today's video

about composition and about working with exotic scales in the context of Rock and Metal music

Don't forget to download your tabs, guitar pro files and backing tracks for this lesson

on patreon.com/bernth - over there you can also download these extremely helpful files for every single

video that I published on YouTube so far and we also have a secret VIP Facebook group

where we are discussing exercises, practice concepts, practice routines, and members are

posting videos of their progress constantly so that's the perfect practice environment for you

in case you need some motivation or some input on your technique or theory skills! In the end

make sure to subscribe to stay updated, that way you'll never miss another video again, leave a

like in case you enjoyed that one, and a comment in case you have any questions - I hope I will see

you again in the next video, have a lot of fun working with exotic scales and keys until then!