January 18th Webinar Follow-Up & Key Takeaways

Thanks to everyone who joined yesterday’s webinar! For those working on applying what we covered, here are some key areas to focus on:

Understanding Harmony course (Major Modes section)
Fingerboard study for major modes
Pentatonic practice across vertical positions

Remember: Chunk your practice (20-30 min sessions), go slow, and track your progress. If you want personalized guidance or video feedback, just reach out, I’m here to help!

Looking forward to the next one. Keep practicing!”

Hey Michael, yes absolutely. I have some ideas. All of what you suggested sounds great. I’ll set up a schedule maybe every 2 weeks and the following 2 weeks a Q&A, I’ll also start filming these. It will be a lot easier for me once the web guys upgrade the system and there is a members lounge.

Anyone else chip in and write a list of specific webinars you’d like me to do.

Hi Scott, always great to see you on the webinars, thank you for joining in.

Yes the Pentatonic is a very powerful tool for soloing and grooving. Over the changes to Now’s the Time you can use the F major Pentatonic over the whole progression as long as you use your ears to avoid any clashes. Creating short phrases really helps with this as it creates a lot on intention which the ears love.

You can also try experimenting with the F minor pentatonic as well to create a more bluesy sound. Leaning on the b3rd can be a strong color.

One idea I talked about was to use the F major pentatonic over the F7 chord and the F minor pentatonic over the Bb7 (IV) chord. The note Ab is also the b7th of the Bb7 chord and has a great sound.

n the Understanding Harmony course you have all the chord tones for the triads and 4-note chords and as a fundamental rule, I believe it is important to be comfortable with all the chord tones for the commonly used chords for example: Major, Minor, Dominant and Minor 7(b5). These chords appear all the time and if we have these as second nature we can bounce our ideas from them. I think I will also do a class on this subject as I think it’s one of the most important elements of your playing.

I also suggested writing out 2 short phrases with the major and minor pentatonic scales and to think of them as statements kind of like a call and response dialogue. I’ll have a think about a short video that will help reinforce these concepts.

As far as chords for the major pentatonics. Cmaj7 chord can use C major Pentatonic (gives you chord tones C, E and G and the non chord tones (D and A), G major Pentatonic (gives you chord tones E, G and B and the non chord tones (D and A) and D major Pentatonic (gives you chord tones E and B and the non chord tones (D, F# and A).

C-7 chord can use C minor Pentatonic (gives you chord tones C, Eb, G, and Bb and the non chord tone (F), G minor Pentatonic (gives you chord tones C, G and Bb and the non chord tones (D and F) and D minor Pentatonic (gives you chord tone C and G and the non chord tones (D, F and A).

If you want me to check out anything you are working on please send them over..

Thanks so much.. Tony