Guitar Lesson 8 – G Major Scale & NEW Song! [10 DAY Guitar Course]
hi guys welcome to day eight of this ten day guitar starter course with me andy crowley in this lesson we're gonna be going for our first scale which is the g major scale and we're also gonna use that scale to play a great riff which is the joker by the steve miller band now the major scale is the foundation of all western music the notes of the major scale how we get all the chords that we use in popular songs and this scale of g major scale we're going to learn it in the easiest possible way and it's also going to use the same notes as the riff that will learn the joker so let's have a close up on that straight away now on the g major scale so earlier in this course we learned the g major chord played like this now the lowest note of that chord is a g note and we want to play this with our middle finger and pick the thickest string there it is the next note of this eight note major scale is the open string next is our first finger where it would normally go in a g chord so one two three and if i just play the rest of the notes now just so that you hear what we're going for that's the full scale and then if i play the start of the joker you can hear that it uses those same notes and does go up them in this order so learning the scale gives us the order of the notes and then we'll learn the riff quick recap note number one third fret on the thickest e string note number two the open string five open here second fret on string five middle finger on the dotted fret so this is third fret of string five and then the open fourth string recap through those notes let's play together g second note open a third note fourth and fifth and those notes go ascending through the musical alphabet starting from g which goes g and then just follows the standard alphabet a b c d and e is the next note second fret on the fourth string with our first finger the second to last note is our third finger on the fourth fret of the fourth string and then we go to the open third string the g now it's these last two notes that aren't used in this particular riff so we're not going to focus on them now but if you'd like to work further on this scale you can use the tab above and go ascending and then descending up and then down the scale to sort of practice and develop that but we're going to move straight on to the riff now because it uses the same notes in the same order so the joker riff starts from the third fret but we need to play this note twice and then we have a mute so if we relax our middle finger that note will stop but we might still have some other strings ringing out so we do want to mute with our right hand as well then we go up second note third note fourth note of the scale so to recap and then we play this note twice as well so already it should be sounding like the joker if you're familiar with the song let's play together three four one more time three four nice easy bit next open to second fret open and we play the last open twice one two three four zero two zero zero on string four together three four one more time three four okay let's play all that together from the top recap three four that's what we're going for one more time really slow i'll slow it right down for you guys three four one more just to make sure three four with our pick in hand it's best to try and keep your forearm as still as possible and even on the guitar itself laying across the guitar and then just moving our wrist and sort of plucking outwards like this rather than sort of plucking up and down like a small strumming motion we kind of want to pluck under the string and then out really small emotion as possible let's go for this one more time the joker if in two three four and to finish up we have the last sequence which is open second three three three three two two zero i'm doing that with all with a down pick at the moment but this can be an opportunity to do it with down and up picking which is something called alternate picking alternating between downs and ups down up down up down up down up down but that is if you're kind of used to this single string picking game if you're not just go with downs you won't quite be able to do it as fast but it will be fine for now it's better to get the notes correct without playing the correct notes this whole thing is isn't going to sound like anything okay so be very careful to play the exact notes play play it slowly and get it correct so that last section open second one two three four one two one one two three four one two one and putting the whole thing together now so let me play the whole thing through let's have a go at it together really slow guys you can do this play along with me two three four and let's repeat it in two three four and again and that's how to play the lead line to the joker which starts the song and also plays throughout all the verses now in the previous lesson to this in day seven we learned how to play oasis style chords in the key of g which was where we learnt a g chord played like this so one two and third and little finger on the thinnest two strings like this um on the third fret what i call a four finger g we learn to see add nine where we just move this down a string so a really easy change and a great way to play a c chord if you ever have a c chord in a song that starts on g i would be going for a c add 9 a lot of the time and a d sus4 where we play a d chord but we don't need the middle finger down when we keep that third and little finger down d sus4 where we have the fourth finger down basically and to play the joker chorus we just strum each of these chords twice g g c add9 ds4 back to g fairly straightforward so let's give that a go together if you haven't got these chords quite mastered yet give them a little bit of time and you can focus on the riff for now but let's try and play this together just strumming on the beat nice and easy i'll sing it a little bit to give you the idea but i don't want to sing too much to put you off so we'll try and get a balance from the g chord cr9 d back to g two strums per chord in three four g g c add nine d sus4 back to c and repeat cause i'm a picker i'm a grinner i'm a lover and i'm a sinner keep it going play my music in the sun keep it going cause i'm a joker i'm a smoker i'm a midnight talker i sure don't wanna hurt no one and you can even do that if you find it easier do that throughout the whole song to sing along to it the riff would start the song and it would also play throughout every one of the verses and in the original that's just left for the uh for the chorus however if you do just want to sing along as i say you can just strum those four chords and it's quite easy to sing along because the the rhythm of the riff does make it a little bit hard but let's have a jam along to the whole thing now so we'll start off with the riff we'll do that around eight times and then we'll strum the chorus as we just have and then you can play the joker you can play this song so ready with your middle finger for the first note of the riff let's play this together guys in two three four a bit slower some people call me the space cowboy keep it going some people call me maurice last time then we'll go to a chorus chorus two three from a g cause i'm a picker i'm a grinner i'm a lover i'm a sinner i play my music in and then we'd go back to the roof and that is how to play the joker by the steve miliband and that is the end of day eight of this little kind of guitar starter course for you guys if you found anything super challenging there do definitely check out day 7 the previous day where we looked at these sort of oasis style chords as i call them this way of playing a g c add 9 and d and if you need more help with the major scale or any other guitar techniques at this level my free beginners course is available at andyguitar.com.uk we'll cover the g major scale more in depth all these chords and lots of strumming and techniques and everything that you need at this level to make sure beginners are on an absolutely sound footing and that everyone will be able to play this song but that's the end of this lesson please subscribe if you like what i do and come back tomorrow for day 9 of this 10 day guitar course where we'll be checking out the proper way to play the c chord and some real tips on how to change between particularly g and a full c chord which can give people some real problems get your chord changes a little bit quicker and of course another great song so i hope to see you there guys take care of yourselves and bye for now
