This Stupid Trick Helped Me Play Everywhere On The Guitar!

0:00 Hey up fret heads. If the guitar neck has ever felt absolutely huge, confusing, and impossible to memorize, then this lesson is for you. What I'm about to show you explains why shapes repeat on the fretboard and why one part always messes people up and how to use that to move anything you learn into a new position without starting again. This is something that I call string pairs. And once you see it, the neck makes sense. I'm going to jump over to pen and paper now and show you how that works. But once I've done that, I'll show you how it works on the guitar as well. So what we have to do is we have to start with how the guitar is tuned. Most of the guitar is tuned in something

0:47 called fourths. Those are called perfect fourths. Let me write this up here. Now, don't worry if you're in PDF Club, then you will get the handout for all of the notes in this lesson, but there's more details about PDF Club in the video description below. So, like I say, most of the guitar is tuned in fourths. And how does that work out? What I'm going to do is I'm going to use the good old musical alphabet. And there we put the names of the notes in for the strings. E A D GB Eddie 8 dynamite. Goodbye Eddie or Elephants and Donkeys Grow Big Ears. Whichever one it takes for you to remember until you just know that those are the names of the notes there. That's fine by me. What we're going to do is

1:33 we're going to look at the distance between this E and the A. And we'll just do it with letters. So, if we go like this, we go E, F, G, then A. We can see that what happens is if we go from that E to this A here, we go up 1 2 3 four notes. And that's what we're going to call a fourth. That's a fourth there, guys. So, let me just put that over there. That's going to be a fourth there. And that's going from the E string to the A string. Now, what happens if we go from the A string to the D string? Let's do the same thing and see what happens. A B C D. Oh, look what happens here. You can see it goes up 1 2 3 4. So, we get another fourth

2:20 just there. I'm just going to put that on here. Now, let's look at the D to the G. Let's go a little bit further down there. D E F G. You can see there we've got the D note. We go one, two, three, four again. And that's going to give us the same pattern. And if I draw this like this, you might be thinking to yourself, "Oh, hang on, Ricky. Is the next one, let me guess. Is this going to be four?" Well, let's have a look. If we go with this one, we're gonna go G A B. And we can see that this one is different. When we go from the G to the B string, we go up a third. And that's a major third that we go up there. So that's a third. That's a fourth. So is that. So is that. So what we do is we

3:07 have to watch out for this because this distance between the G and the B string is the thing that throws us out. So let's take that here. So we've got that G to the B here but the B to the E here. Let's try that. See what happens here. We go from the B C D and then we get to the E again. Oh, look. We've got our pattern back again. There is the fourth. So you can see that these fourths they take up the most of the fretboard. And this is one of the things that I think is pertinent to understand is that when people say to learn the cycle of fifths or the circle of fifths really what we want to do for guitar for guitar specifically is to learn the circle of

3:52 fourths which is the circle of fifths in reverse. Because if we look here, we can see that there are fourths moving across here. This is going to explain a lot later on as we go through how to understand chords in keys and all sorts of good stuff like that. I want to show you something here. And this is how I mentally divide up the fretboard because if you try and look at that all there in one go, it's a lot to consume. It's a lot. It's far too much. So, what we're going to do is we're going to split these up into pairs. We've got six strings. We're going to get three pairs. So, if I take the E and the A, which I know are a perfect fourth, that is going to be my first string pair. Okay. So,

4:39 I'll just color that in there like that. I think that just makes it nice and pretty. And then I'm going to go D and G string here. So, there's the D and there's the G. That is, you can see that's a fourth as well. So, we've got a fourth here. And now, let's do another one here. We can see that we got the B and the E string. And the cool thing that you will hopefully have noticed by now is that the E, the A is a string pair. The D and the G is a string pair. The B and the E is a string pair as well. So, we've got those there. Now, not only do we have three string pairs there, we also have a subset. and the subset it lives on the A and D string which fortunately happened to be on a

5:27 fourth as well. So we can look at that between A and D that's a fourth. Yes, we can see that there. Let me color all these in here so you can see that they're all complete. B to the E. We got the blue string pair there. But we have this pesky string pair that is between G and B. Now, this is the one that throws you out, guys. This is the one that you need to compensate because this is a three. What we want to do is we want to make it into a four. To do that, what we have to do is we have to move up a fret. We have to in between these when we want to take a note across, we have to go up one fret to compensate. Now, I will say that the

6:13 patterns that I'm going to show you today are going to be primarily using these three string pairs here. So, these are what I think of as being the primary string pairs. These are the subset and string pairs are absolutely amazing what you can do with them. So, instead of thinking about six strings at once, we chunk the neck into string pairs. So these are the three main pairs E and A, D and G, B and E. And these are the main lanes where patterns repeat cleanly. So what we know now is that G and B are the string pair with the kink in the tuning. They do not follow all the same rules.

6:58 Anytime you cross G to B, you slow down. You have to compensate and think. And this is why this system keeps you out of trouble knowing the string pairs. So now we understand our primary string pairs and our subset of string pairs. What we have to do is we have to understand how to bridge the string pairs with octaves. So one of the first things you need to know here is your caged octave shapes. If you don't know what the caged octaves shapes are, then I'll put a link to that at the end of this video. But needless to say, what they do is they follow the five cage chords and the root notes of those chords. So the C-shaped octave goes straight across like that. You

7:45 could count it across and go from the A string one, two, three strings, then down two frets. It's up to you. But that is the C-shaped octave. What I'm going to do now is with the A-shaped octave, which is a little bit easier to see, and I would hardly recommend this for beginners. What we do is we go up two frets and over two strings. So, that's how we get the A-shaped octave. And then let's take the open G string here. And then what I do is the third fret there. We go up three frets over two strings. Now, you can, because this is an E string, have another one over there. So, you could connect that up there if you wanted to. But generally, once you know this G-shaped octave, what you do is you

8:31 just remember that's an E string and that's an E string. So, they're going to be the same. So, E string, E string, same position. Now, we're going to do the Eshaped octave. And what we do, just like the A shape, funnily enough, is we go up two frets, over two strings, and that takes us to the D string there. So, you can see I'm jumping over. And this is how it works, guys. Because what we're doing is is we're landing in different string pairs every time. So, if I take this C-shaped octave here, and I just highlight those green ones that I had there before, you can see how I've highlighted those. And then I put the orange ones in here. You can see that what happens is I end up jumping from the green string pair into this blue

9:18 string pair here. Now, when I say green string pair, blue string pair, the strings aren't green or blue. What I'm on about is these two strings where we think of the B and E as a string pair. The DG, the E, A, the GB, and the A and the D. We think of them in that manner. So, we can do this going through all of these. Let me just color all these in. And there's one more because it is caged. C A G E D. That starts on the D string. And just like the G, what it does, it goes up three and over two. So, it goes up three frets, over two strings. And that's where I get my D-shaped octave. Now, what I can do is I can fill in the rest of those colors. So, now you can see we've got our five caged octaves. the C-shaped octave here,

10:04 it bridges from the A string to the B string. If you do the A-shaped chord here, we go up the A-shaped octave to land on the middle string pair. Then what happens is we jump from the G string to the thin E string. And you can see that we're moving from one string pair to another string pair there. You can see that the A-shaped octave is much like the E-shaped octave. It's just on a different set of strings. So, we've got the E-shaped octave jumping onto the orange there. So, the green string pair onto the orange string pair there. And if you look here, you can see that the D-shaped octave helps us to jump from the middle string pair to the B and E string pair, which I've colored in blue there. Now, what do those look like on guitar? Let me just quickly show you.

10:51 So, there's the C chord. If [music] we take all the notes off apart from that C-shaped octave, that's a [music] C. That's a C. Wonderful. Now, if we go to the A chord, [music] you can see that we have the open A string here. And if we take the notes off to get that octave, you can see that we've gone up one, two, and over two to get that A on the G string. Let's look at the G chord. [music] Now, you might not know that there are three G's in this. Not [music] B G's, three G's. We've got a G here, and we've got a G here because these guys here are both E strings. [music]

11:38 Now, what we do is we come from this open G, and we come up one, two, three frets, jump over two. So open G [music] to this G on [singing] the E string just here. [music] So really we have three there. We could go this [music] and these two here. Let's look at the E chord. [music] So we've got the E chord here. A little bit out of tune, but close enough for rock and roll. We've got the E note here [music] on this open string. One, two frets up. and one, two strings over. That's how we get the E again. [music] Now, the last one we've got is the D.

12:24 Let's just play the D chord there. So, there is our lovely lush D [music] chord. And if we look, we've got an open D as our root note here. This D string is open, ringing. And if I go up three, just like I did with the G-shaped octave, I go up one, two, three, and then over two strings. One, two. I get another D. [music] And that's the octave. And you should hear there somewhere. [singing] Those first two notes of that. So now you might be wondering, why do string pairs matter? And I'm going to get into the juicy business of that here. This is not theory for theory's sake. String pairs let you move the same idea into a different register. So you

13:10 could play the same power chord, you can play a scale fragment, you could play arpeggios just using this string pair framework. So instead of learning lots of big old patterns, you learn one small idea and then you move it into a different octave, which you can think of as being a different voice. So let's look at taking a power chord across string pairs. Let's take a G5 power chord, a simple chord. [music] There's the G note. That's the root note of our power chord. There's the fifth. Now, here's where that bridging comes in. The root note of this power [music] chord is on the E string. And what we need to do is we need to get it over onto the next string pair. And this is where those caged octaves come in. We're bridging

13:56 across. So, if I go from here, I go one, two, and over two. And that gets me into the string pair in the middle, the D and G string pair, which are a perfect fourth apart. So if I go there, that is the root note again. And I know because the E and the A string are tuned in fourths and the D and the G string are tuned in fourths. I know it's going to be the same shape, guys. My fingering is exactly the same. It's just that this chord is now an octave higher. [music] So you can hear I'm exploiting the voices on the guitar. But it doesn't stop there. What I can do now is I can bridge that into my other string pair by using the

14:43 D-shaped octave because basically I know that my root note of my power chord is there. It's on the D string. And I know that if it's on the D string, what I need to do is go 1 2 3 over two. And that's how I discover it on the B and E string pair. Now I found that note there. [music] Then what I can do is I can play my power chord again. [music] Now you hear what I did there is I took the power chord, that little idea there, and I extended it by one fret to make it into a minor 6. Well, I could do the same down here,

15:30 but it's a different register. Let me do it down here. [music] It gives us a different vibe completely. And what we could do is we can say to ourselves, chug on this one. And then what I do is I put this one on top. I find it. I use my octaves to help me to move her along. And I can make up a different pattern there, but I know that that is always going to rhyme musically with what's going on here [music] because it's the

16:15 same harmony, but it's in a different voice. Let's tie this into another example. So, that was a power chord. What we can also do with this is we can use scale fragments. Now, if you've been on my Facebook recently, you'll have noticed that I've been publishing a lot of string pair diagrams and a lot of pentatonic patterns on those string pairs. And this is one that people call all sorts of names. I've heard it called all sorts of names this week, but this is what I call the rectangle and leg. And we're going to do this. This is a minor pentatonic, guys. So, what we've got is we've got five notes. And I'm starting on G because I know that's the flat seven of my pentatonic. And there's the root. And there's the flat third. There's the fourth. There's the fifth.

17:03 So those are my [singing] notes. And I can hear that. And I think of that as starry night. [music] Yeah. So I've got star star night on there. That's the cue that you need to help you to know you're playing it right. So there that's what I call rectangle and then leg. [music] Now what we can do is if we just look at [singing] how we cross those octaves again what this does wonderfully [music] puts the first finger in the spot where we can just grab that octave really easy in the middle string pair and play exactly the same pattern. This is a rectangle and a leg. [music] You can hear it. Starry starry night. [singing] It's still the same melody. Let's do it

17:48 down here. Let's jump up that octave. [music] So, you can hear that what I can do is I can exploit these different voices on the neck. We're not stuck in a box pattern, for example. So, what we had before was the minor pentatonic. Well, what about the good old major pentatonic? This is on my Facebook as well. So if we do this, this is the leg which is followed by the rectangle. So I'm gonna slide up a whole step with that first finger on the E string and then [music] and I'm just using that string pair. All I'm thinking about, guys, is this.

18:34 What's going on here? I've chunked it down. I'm just thinking about what's going on on the E and the A string. That's as much as I need to think about until I jump a bridge over with the octaves [music] and play exactly the same pattern. Now look, there's my octave. [music] Put them all together. >> [music] >> So that's how we can play those pentatonics guys. But it's not just

19:21 pentatonics. This is why string pairs are the gift that keeps on giving. It's extremely powerful visually. Let's look at something as simple as a major triad arpeggio. So what we do is we look at at this A major again. Let's look at the A major. We've got the root note here. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to play the notes of a triad. We're playing the root note, the third, and the fifth. Well, let's find them on the string pair alone. That's all we're doing. There's the root. There's the third, there's the fifth. [music] Bless them [singing] all. Yes. So, we play those there. Now, what we can do, we can cross over. Now using that octave

20:08 shape and we can find that octave [music] of that A major triad just there on the D and G string pair. [music] Let's jump over. Now what's happened is the string pairs have made it easier for us to see a much bigger pattern. So let's look at that and break that down slowly. So what I do is I take the E to the A string pair. So there's the root on the E and A string pair. There's the third [singing] on the E and A string pair. And then I move up to the [music] fifth just here. I'm going to roll over from the A string to the D string to get that bridge over there as well physically. [singing] Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to find that third. There's my notes. But

20:54 what I'm going to do is I'm going to slide up there because I know this is going to take me into my D shape. Then what I can do is I can jump from that fifth root 3rd fifth. [music] [music] So guys there you can see what happens is I get that big arpeggio. What if I wanted to take something like my blues scale? Let's look at this minor blues scale. We've done the major pentatonic there. Let's look at this. And this is showing you that it isn't just about these patterns, these pentatonic patterns. What we can do is we can take other parts and patterns of the pentatonic and turn those into these repeating patterns as well. So going from the flat 7 to the root to the flat third,

21:40 [music and singing] the fourth, flat five to the fifth. Jump over onto the next string pair. [music] jump over onto the next string pair. And I find that last pattern extremely useful because you may be used to playing this [music] up here. And we can blend that [music] into the BB King box as well. So we can take that there. Now let me just drop drop it down an octave. [music]

22:41 [music] So I just played that same pattern in three different positions. And that's what helps you not get stuck. So like I said as well guys, those are the three main string pairs. We also have the subsets and I've already tackled that in fact in something that I call elevator triangles. But for this to really work, what you have to understand is you have to understand the caged octaves. And if you want to understand the caged octaves, then you really, really need to watch this video