I believe it's very important to understand a piano keyboard first. The relationship between notes does not change from a piano, to a guitar, to a flute. The letters of the notes are always the same; the steps and half steps are always the same, and the relationship of sharps, flats, and naturals are always the same. Where it's played matters. A guitar nut is equivalent to the beginning note on that string: an open G string should play a G note equal to a piano G, on the middle section of keys. An open A should correspond to an A on the piano. The higher piano notes of those same letters, will of course, be found when you place your finger on the string at a point farther up the neck. If you can pause his video, where it shows all of the notes on the neck, screen capture and print it. Maybe this will help some.
As a beginner, want do you want to play?? best to start with your goals then learn what method gets you to your goals. this is an advanced lesson, if you want to play simple blues and rock, this is TMI !!!!!!
@@patriciajrs46 learning your intervals is way easier. every major scale is whole,whole,whole,half,whole,whole,whole,half c major for instance C D EF G A BC. its relative minor is A minor intervals allow you to start anyplace on the fretboard and know the distance between the notes regardless of instrument this works and is straight forward
I came here to learn the notes on the fretboard and I feel like I learned way more than I bargained for. This video is gonna be a heavily rewatched one for me.
This is great! Just want to point out your circle of fifths legend at 7:42 has an error (Db between B and Db) which might throw some people off when trying to see how the vertical notes on the fretboard line up with the circle of fifths. But this explanation/breakdown is really awesome.
I’ve watched countless videos on UA-cam and never felt the desire to comment. I’m a retired AF pilot with multiple degrees and am an avid “self taught” student of many skills. Not bragging just making it clear that I love learning and have been in school pretty much for the past 50 years. Having said all that… I rarely come across instruction that is clear, concise, visual, audible, and enjoyable all in one. Bravo! I thoroughly enjoyed this video and felt my mind, body and spirit all illuminate over the information by how it was presented! Thank you, I’m truly grateful!
I picked up the guitar 11 years ago. Sending love to Marty Schwartz. This video, amongst 11 years worth of guitar related UA-cam videos, blew my mind. You just answered questions I’ve had for so long that I didn’t know how to ask. I couldn’t even articulate what my questions were. I mean I knew I needed clarification, I just didn’t know what I needed clarified. You have a real talent for breaking things down and making connections that really help visual learners like me. I mean I’m a diagram maker myself. A proud one (Visio love). I’m severely impressed with your work. Thank you.
I'm a drummer and also have been playing rock/metal guitar for 40 years and i still don't understand the fret board ..this video makes it even harder to understand, need to watch it a few times.. but i can still ALMOST play eruption by VH and noodle around very fast..it's crazy
Can you explain what this video clarified for you? It SEEMS like he’s giving useful information but he doesn’t give any examples for how these color relationships might actually benefit you in practice. Surely, he doesn’t expect everyone to tape these things to their fretboard, right?
Just took my first lesson three days ago, and he asked what I wanted to learn. He kept asking what song. I told him I didn’t want to learn anything specific. He was upset. He said, what does the end of the journey look like for you. I told him, I want to fully understand what the instrument does so that I can create things with it. He said, “music theory”. Then he blew my mind. Now I am hooked. It finally clicks after 34 years. This video helped even more. Thank you.
I must be really dumb, I found this ridiculously complicated. It seems like a really easy to understand simplified way of explaining something.... to advanced people who would understand it easily. Appreciate people like you though.
This video overcomplicates things. If this "color" approach was so useful, why isn't every classical guitarist for the last 300 years using it? Dots are perfectly fine. Learning the fretboard is all about learning SHAPES. This video is snake oil, he's trying to get people to join his course. Yes, learning the circle of fifths is extremely useful, but in practice you're going to navigate the fretboard far more often using shapes (i.e. Caged, triads, Scale shapes, etc.)
@@shinjonmal8936 Hmm, in my experience, learning triads are a much better way to improvise over a key than just learning scale shapes. (You can connect arpeggio shapes with pentatonics, play double stops, etc far more easily.) Yes, you do need to know some scale shapes and incorporate them into your style.
I self taught myself guitar a long time ago. Eventually got to the point of playing in a band for well over a decade playing rhythm and lead and for the life of me, I cannot wrap my brain around this. Even after watching this, I'm totally lost. It's always been such a point of personal frustration for me to not understand this. I'm going to watch this a bunch of times hoping it will finally click for me.
@@vgsounds23 I've been playing piano for 48 years, and I'm having issues with the fretboard. My problem is I see the fretboard as six different keyboards.
@@Chrsly lol yeah that's an issue, I mainly said it bc i learned piano and then guitar much later, and piano is a much easier way to visualise note relativity. On a guitar the note relativity is in large jumps and it looks like an upside down cartesian grid.
I have had a guitar since I was 12. I have learned from orchestra directors, friends, other players but I have never had a lesson that connected the notes, circle and scales like this one. Subbed.
What exactly did it help you with? It definitely taught the circle of 5ths well and also what the major scale is but the color wheel stuff and the blending of colors didn’t seem beneficial to me at all. Maybe I just don’t get it. That’s why I’m asking!
@user-dj9iu2et3r same, I feel a little lost. But will say, if I had that chart my brain would recongize where notes are quicker, but I don't see how it intuitively makes learning scales easier yet
Recently started learning guitar and could literally not follow any other tutorial on tears in heaven, but with your one everything is so clear. I can't describe how grateful I am!! Thank you so much!! :)
The relationship between color and music while seeming random actually has a plesent explination thats defidently worth hearing. For humans what we call colors is our representation of the visible part of a spectrum of light waves called the electromagnetic spectrum. Music or notes is likewise the hearable parts of a spectrum of waves that travel through our air and sometimes other mediums. Both light and music are waves which we can represent and do calculations with through sin waves. Every sin wave within certain frequencies represents one of infinite notes or colors we group similar sounding sin waves together by notes such as b or c# and with colors such as red or green. Things get intresting when you mix colors or notes together. Sin waves found in nature are rarely uniform, and are often combinations of infinite sin waves all pitching in at different magnitudes, this is called a fourier siries. Forier siries are mostly random sort of like sunlight which might look like a squiggle not a uniform wave. With the correct combination of individual sin waves destructive or constructive interference occurs in order to create truly beautiful things. Finding out which sin waves are good together is all there is to both creating good sounds and colors and this is where kusic theroy meets physics. Our brain will then do complex things to break down the forier siries back into its parts of individual sin waves as best it can and intrepret the information in the form of music or color whichever were talking about. The only difference between sound and light is that without a medium for the sound to travel through nobody will hear you scream. If you shine a light into space the very small portion of that light that escapes the atmosphere and misses clestial bodies will tavel in a straight line forever. Keep in mind that every time you go outside the light from the sun bouncing off of you and making its way into space is sending a message so far into the future time has no relevance telling the universe you were here in that way you are immortal because it will always be possible to see you. When you look into the stars you are seeing the stories of millions of galaxies long dead for billions of years still shining a light on us. If you went to that distant galaxy you see instantly, and turned around to look for earth you would see nothing, not because its too far to see but because the earth does not exist yet the earth will not exist for billions of years after the sun your standing on is dead. Music, light, time, gravity the universe was built perfectly and intentionally for your enjoyment and on a final note of peferct forier harmony please enjoy it the best you can.
that slide at 7:45 blew my mind. imagining chords and just looking at the colors and major/minor symbols on the fret-board completely explains why they "belong" together. Why they work. Amazing video!
How do the colors show the relationships? I didn’t understand beyond the fact that two similar colors mean they’re part of the same section of the circle of 5ths…
@@user-dj9iu2et3r They don't. The fact that you stopped to think and ask questions indicates to me that you probably understand more. It "just so happens" that periodicity in physics of sound is presentable in any other periodic "scale," such as the "CIRCLE" of fifths, or an arbitrary loop within a 3d color space projected to 2d - while in reality C4 is not same as C3, C5 etc... As far as I understand we just figured that assigning the next best case of consonance after unison - i.e. the frequency relation 2:1 of octaves - the same symbol would be a reasonable way to classify pitches in terms of usefulness for systematizing music, since consonance is kind of... central.
I don’t understand why people are confused. This is one of the clearest explanations I’ve heard! Teachers in the past had me playing chords and I got all these questions cause I’m trying to understand, and they’re just like “be patient”. I needed these pictures…lol
Heard this stuff a million times and this is one of the clearest, most concise lectures on the fretboard and circle of fifths. The geometric diagrams inside the circle of fifths are the best!
Fantastic! Another person who used colour to make things clearer. Love it! I really loved how you used this to open the door on the circle of fifths and the patterns contained within. For those very new or still confused, I think you need to start a couple of steps back. Look at a piano to understand intervals (each key is an interval or “half step” (also called a semi tone). 2 piano keys is then a whole step. A major scale is a pattern named after the note you start on. First some short firms: starting note is the root - R. Half step is H and a whole step is W. A major scale is always RWWHWWWH. Use a piano to help this concept sink in. Then this lesson gets much easier to grasp!
I memorized the pentatonic chords years ago. This made a ton of sense because of that. That, and knowing how these keys work on a keyboard visually helps when it comes to half steps.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! finally someone who broke down the relationship between chromatic scales and the circle of fifths and visualised it beautifully on a fretboard. using color schemes was a genius move. i am a visual learner and i use imagination and visualisation pretty much to understand many things, mathematical concepts for example. as a beginner, i have independently noticed the pattern of notes repeating on the fifth fret of each next string too. i learned about the circle a while back when i was studying piano, but couldn't wrap my head around it immediately so i put that off for later. this video motivated me to get back to studying the harder topics of music theory i couldn't bring myself to touch upon yet. ❤🎶
I cry sometimes when I think about having access to this kind of quality instruction 20 years ago. I spent an incredible amount of time trying to figure some of this stuff out without any successs. I have learned more i n the last two years from UA-cam than the previous 18.
THIS MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE OH MY GOSH. I’ve been struggling with understanding music theory and how to apply it on the guitar, but this video laid it out so clearly ! Thank you!!
Maybe it’s the geek in me, but I love to know how things are constructed. I'm one of those people who, as a kid, wanted to know how a magic 8 ball told fortunes. It’s just a little jar filled with black liquid…but I digress. Music theory guides our thinking as we learn to play. Understanding the instrument on a purely techincial basis informs your playing and makes you better. The learning actually becomes easier with an understanding of the logical, almost magical, complexity of music. Thanks for your brilliant explanations. Your demos add immensely to my enjoyment of learning finger style guitar picking.
Oh My God! Yes! Thank you so much! I studied the classical guitar for 4 years as a pre-teen, with musical theory and all, but the color thing was never explained and I really struggled to make sense of all this, so I could only play compositions I memorized. And then i quit. Now, 16 years later, I'm getting back into it, and you just gave me the key! I'm a visual artist and I understand visual information best, the charts are FANTASTIC thank you so much! I can't express how excited I am. Gonna make color stickers for my fretboard today
man after 10 years of playing and struggling to truly internalize music theory concepts, this was awesome and gives me hope. i still need to study more but this was the best explanation i've seen so far.
The explanation of the conversion of the chromatic scale to the circle of fifths was a revelation to me. After grasping some concepts after 3 years (e.g., G is the 5th of C, D is the 5th of G, etc.) I still didn’t understand until he explained the whole step - whole step - half step pattern. I was able to write out on a sheet of paper each note in the 12 keys moving clockwise along the circle of fifths, then the major, minor and 7th chords. I get the intersection of the circle and the chromatic scale on the fretboard much better now. Im not totally sold on the color idea, but this video was a huge help.
The color idea is useless lol. You can literally just go by note names. It feels like this guy just really wants people to join his course. This video is just a fancy way to explain the circle of fifths. In reality, you're DEFINITELY going to use shapes, to navigate the fretboard. You don't even need to memorize note names, they'll come to you. What matters is intervals (which is what shapes help you visualize).
I am an intermediate guitar player, i tried finding videos on how to get better, then i searched how to learn the fret board, you showed me my first scale!! thank you!!
@@user-dj9iu2et3r Well I’ve never been taught scales, i’ve been self taught my entire life. But yeah there are some things I have to do. I just don’t know where to learn scales Also a famous guitar player named Jimi Hendrix never learned music theory, lol
Ive been playing for over 40 years, while never understanding fretboard theory, and you took away the mystery and the guesswork in less than 13 minutes. Well done, sir!!
Began learning music theory on guitar at 10 years old and after 4 years, quit to learn how to only play/cover songs because of how confusing music theory was. This video reinvigorated my interest and inspired me to pick up my guitar that laid dormant for 6 years. Thank you.
Let me just reassure you: learning songs is the most valuable thing a musician can do. I grew up just learning my OWN bands’ songs and even though I know theory now, I HIGHLY regret not having a library of songs to play at will.
coming from a visual art background, I can now SEE what makes notes, that add up to chords, and the much easier, way to make music! Isn't that what we all want? Thank you Mike.
I must say… I never truly understand these types of videos but the format you do them in is so understandable. The figures you used and the sounds to complement what you were explaining simultaneously was awesome. Thanks
i’ve spent so many hours trying to figure this out. the barrier to entry is so hard but once you have it laid out in front of you like this it makes so much sense. thank you!
I’ve been aimlessly playing guitar for NINE YEARS and just recently started really being dedicated again and delving into the theory. Nothing has helped to crystallize theory in my mind as majorly as this and the 8 Steps to Understanding theory vid (not in that order) I finally feel like I’m starting to understand. I could cry rn
I've been playing for over 20 years and this is THE most concise, intuitive way to learn guitar and theory at the same time. If I had this when I was 15 I would have been a monster.
@@shinjonmal8936 Step 1: Learn the basic pentatonic shape. Starting on Low E, we have 1-4,1-3,1-3, 1-3, 1-4, 1-4. Step 2: Find the key of the song you want to play. Step 3. If the song is in a major key, you find the root note of that key on the low E string, and use that note for the '4' in the first '1-4' on the low E. If you're song is in a minor key, you find the root note of that key on the low E string, and use that note for the '1' in the first '1-4' on the low E. So let's take the key of C for example. First we find the root note, C, on the low E string, and its on the 8th fret. If I want to play a C major pentatonic scale, I put my pinky on the 8th fret and then play the pattern from there. So starting on low E we would have 8, 5-7, 5-7, 5-7, 5-8, 5-8. If I want to play a C minor pentatonic scale, I instead put my index on the 8th fret and then play the pattern from there. So starting on low E we would have 8-11, 8-10, 8-10, 8-10, 8-11, 8-11. So now, if you know the key of a song (which if you don't you can google very easily), just find the root note on the low E, and using the pentatonic pattern you can shred along with it. I hope that helps!
@@emmawatzon Give me a song you want to be able to solo over, and I'll see If I can explain it better for you. I'll tell you the exact frets that you want to press for the notes you play to "sound good" with the song.
Mike, What a brilliant presentation of the basics of Music Theory. I've been playing by ear for years; and, at seventy-eight, I decided it was time to learn theory. I loved the logical structure of your video and your graphics really helped me to grasp all the interrelated concepts. Thank you for your generosity in putting so much passion into sharing your knowledge with the rest of us. Randall
This blew my mind. I totally get this after playing guitar for a few months. Songwriting is gonna be so much easier overtime through understanding the relationships of notes this way. Totally unlocked my perception of this challenge. Thank you 🎉
By far the simplest yet detailed and easily digestible method of learning! I loved this content Mike; Thanks so much for creating such insightful video on learning the fretboard theory. It is more than a decade I kept seeing my guitar lying in a corner of my home, eventually cleaned up and put back again in the same place. Now I am again becoming hopeful to restart my learning after getting encouraged by seeing this video. Thank you once again!
@@nuberiffic yeah, I wouldn't say it's that beginner friendly. It's more for Advanced knowledge when you already have a Basic coordination of left and right hand and have various songs under you.
This is great! I am someone who learns better through conceptual frameworks rather than rote memorization, and this is the first time I've ever seen a method for visually organizing the notes on the fretboard that isn't just telling me to memorize a bunch of patterns without any way of connecting them to concepts. I have been looking for videos to help me learn a way to learn the fretboard that will actually work for me, and this feels key!
This is fantastic. Loved the circle of fifths as a color wheel. There is a typo at 8:24. The upper circle has 2 D-flats, and no G-flat. Really cool visualization
I’m a visual artist coming to guitar for the first time… thank you so much for providing a link to colour and the colour wheel…it did all feel like braille in black and white
As a singer and new beginner guitar player (as of a week ago), this is extremely helpful! I mean, I've already been doing lessons watching JustinGuitar and some from Marty Schwartz, but I have to say that this is really awesome and beneficial for any new player. I'm sure my hubby will think the same thing as he's also a beginner himself. Us newbs over 40 gotta stick together with this lol... Thanks for this information!
Very Easy to understand and grasp especially since I started teaching my self piano first, seeing the fretboard map, its just a piano really. this will help me with my music journey cheers champ.
I spend 3 hours building this fretboard map on an old guitar. OMG! This should be the first thing beginners should do to learn about the instrument. Not only I can now find any note easy breezy but reading tabs is much easier. Creating my own covers and twists it's more intuitive. Wow! Great work man. Amazing job! Btw you should think about selling this stickers kits yourself. It would be so handy. Like training heels are on bikes. Reading the map and adding the stickers alone is a game changer.
Now I can see the fretboard and associate it with emotions, instead of learning each scale and mode, then trying to get musical within them - this is a key to help people visualize notes to play anywhere on the fret board. The negative commenters must have never learned about color coating. Associating patterns with colors makes it easier to memorize. You don't have to understand music theory to comprehend that playing similiar notes sound good together.
This color method is how music should be taught. I've tried other styles of teaching? and the others do a lot of confusing talking and odd diagrams that don't seem to interconnect, using lines across to make a memorizable pattern that is toooo confusing. Your method has its own questions answered using visual color. So simple and it flows together swiftly which allows more time to MAKE music instead of constantly memorizing patterns and ill fitting shapes. Thank you, Mike.
Absolutely incredible. This lit me up from within. It helped me to understand why music is so IMPORTANT. And it gives me so much energy to keep learning. I feel like I can actually get to a point one day where I understand the guitar and its gift, even if just a little. Or at least, be able to honor the gift that it is though my playing. The universe truly is a symphony
Honestly, I have never met a serious guitarist with all those ridiculous colorful stickers on their fretboard. He basically took 11 minutes to explain what a C major scale is and painted it like it was the secret sauce to songwriting.
@@manofthepeople2165 Yeah and it's extremely misleading to tell beginners that shapes aren't useful. Shapes are how you visualize intervals, and navigate the fretboard.
@manofthepeople2165 I did stickers for a buddy ,but I I only put green stickers on for the chord root notes .the rest I did in white stickers for the scales.its like I know the 5 scales and positions ,so if someone days to ne I am going to strum a song in say G ,I can start a lead in the corresponding C position in the G scale.Or slide to 15th fret and play in scale num 1.
You have laid this all out in such a way that I can finally understand the guitar and how you would apply the circle of fifths. I actually couldn't stop pausing this video to stop and smile at the realizations firing off in my brain about music. I have decided to try and learn to play guitar at 30 so this video has been a gift. thank you!
That was crazy cool. I had it in my head forever and just couldn’t pull it out. With you saying colors then noting the 5th reference, I couldn’t believe I’ve missed it this whole time. It really is the difference between book learning, where you simply memorize, and being able to drive the guitar like a pro race driver brain surgeon. Very nice. Favorited.
Can you explain what you mean by the “fifth reference?” I know music theory at an intermediate level and I’ve been playing guitar for over 10 years but this video just seemed overly complicated and filled with “woo woo” like “putting the energy of music into the notes.” I’m not really sure what we’ve learned from watching it so I’m genuinely asking people.
Such a great way to explain this and break it down into an easy to understand way. Btw. - there's a TYPO: at 7:44 in your circle of fifths above the fretboard there's a "Db" in the box between the "B" and "Db" circles instead of a "Gb"
Also another typo in the circle of fifths @5:20, is it supposed to be A instead of F, in between G and D? Also how the circle of fifths is obtained could use a more detailed explanation.
@@akiram6609 Ditto. Lucky for us, we know the Circle of Fifths. I like watching these UA-cam videos from time to time to stay on top Music Theory, etc.
Most folks want to learn the top and bottom layers of theory and implementation, but this approach is kinda like the mortar between. I am really enjoying your approach. Keep it coming
This is the first time i understood what the circle of fifths implies and how its useful. Over a decade of guitar playing and this was maybe one of my biggest lightbulb moments
I'm a beginner player. I've tried learning the guitar many times throughout my life but always get overwhelmed. I just couldn't understand the patterns, they made sense audibly just in how they sound good together, but it just felt so random with no logic to why it worked. I'm a visual learner and visual art has always made more sense. This actually helped make music make some sense to me. Thank you!!!
Very interesting - I have never seen it explained this way - I think I actually understand this - time to pick up my beginner guitar again and start fresh - thank you
pick up that guitar and have to put stickers all over it first to use his method, you will have to remember this entire method using colors and stickers that are not found on a guitar. so once you start playing without the stickers, you will be back to having to remember the method using the traditional dots found on the guitar, so why not just start with a traditional method first, trust me, you will have to relearn everything once you remove those little colored stickers, this is also making guitar even more sight oriented and you will find that learning by ear is better training your hand/EAR coordination is more important than your hand /eye coordination ( which is what this method is)
oh my god. thank you so much for making these kinds of videos for free in youtube. I cannot explain enough how much helpful this is. I gave up playing guitar because i could not stand anymore just memorising each chords and not really understanding them. Thanks to your video, i feel hopeful in playing guitar again
I think, given the right amount of time/study, this will prove very useful, so thank you. On another point, the artwork/animations are very impressive and clear. I’d be interested to know which app you use to demonstrate your vids, thanks.
Look up 8 steps to understanding music theory video and get that nailed and then come back to this you will immediately understand at least the basics of it. I’m so ecstatic rn I’ve been playing 9yrs
Visualizing the fret board and string as an axis between the chromatic scale and the circle of fifths (and fourths in the other direction)...brilliant and extremely helpful. Thanks x 1M.
I’ve just started learning guitar, coming from the gateway instrument, Ukulele! 😂 Just learning chords rote was clearly only going to get me so far and I was interested to get an understanding of music theory. Your video is by far the best explanation I’ve seen! Thank you so much!
If you go around the circle of fifths in the opposite direction, you get the circle of fourths. Since guitar strings are tuned a fourth apart, I find it easier to think in terms of the circle of fourths to go across the strings in the low to high direction.
Going counterclockwise around the Circle of Fifths (i.e. in 4ths) gives you every ii-V-I progression by reading 3 letter names in order. For example: start on D and go counterclockwise you find G then C. That’s the ii-V-I in the key of C (Dm7, G7, CMaj7). Go to the Eb; you get: Eb-7, Ab7, DbMaj7.
@@SalimSivaad that’s a great example of how to apply the circle of fourths. If you go just two steps extra, you can extend to the also popular iii-vi-ii-V-I progression (for example, Em7-Am7-Dm7-G7-CMaj7)
I can see why you got a million views in one year! This is a very creative way of teaching keyboard theory - and practice! Very fresh approach. Much appreciated.
been self taught for years, finally eating up theory, thank you! i had a skilled friend of mine trying to say oh you dont need to know this or that just know octaves and blah blah. this helps
Probably the best explanation of the circle of 5ths I have ever seen!🤯. I was taught it when I was learning the viola in high school but it never really stuck till I watched this video! Keep creating content!!!
The circle of fifths explanation here was the best I’ve seen. Love the color coding. I’ve learned piano scales, chords, etc so this all makes much more sense but…I wish you’d pause on some of the heavier concepts. Sure I can, but I get left behind fast. You do a good job of explaining things, but your delivery is fast and there’s no chance for a learner to soak it in. Relying on pause isn’t a good UX. Just my 2 cents! I’ll be watching your vids though! Great stuff
I feel like the video fell off a cliff after he explained the circle of 5ths. I don’t really think the color coded system he put on his fretboard is any different/better than just memorizing keys and intervals and KNOWING what notes work in which keys (as all jazz musicians must).
There needs to be a UA-cam competition on who can create the best visualization/lesson on the circle of fifths. It feels like every UA-cam video I’ve seen on this topic has comments like “wow I’ve never seen it explained in this way! You are so good at explaining this” and I learned a lot from this video too. It is so interesting to see how everyone approaches this topic and how many allegories people can make about the same exact thing. But the topic itself is so important to musicians that I don’t think it’s harmful at all to have a lot of redundancies between creators. Musicians are so cool 😎
Probably a great explanation. I’m totally lost as a beginner.
Makes a lot more sense on a piano keyboard which is much easier to learn first rather than guitar fretboard.
I believe it's very important to understand a piano keyboard first. The relationship between notes does not change from a piano, to a guitar, to a flute. The letters of the notes are always the same; the steps and half steps are always the same, and the relationship of sharps, flats, and naturals are always the same.
Where it's played matters. A guitar nut is equivalent to the beginning note on that string: an open G string should play a G note equal to a piano G, on the middle section of keys. An open A should correspond to an A on the piano. The higher piano notes of those same letters, will of course, be found when you place your finger on the string at a point farther up the neck.
If you can pause his video, where it shows all of the notes on the neck, screen capture and print it.
Maybe this will help some.
As a non-beginner, I too am totally lost.
As a beginner, want do you want to play?? best to start with your goals then learn what method gets you to your goals.
this is an advanced lesson, if you want to play simple blues and rock, this is TMI !!!!!!
@@patriciajrs46 learning your intervals is way easier. every major scale is whole,whole,whole,half,whole,whole,whole,half
c major for instance C D EF G A BC. its relative minor is A minor intervals allow you to start anyplace on the fretboard and know the distance between the notes
regardless of instrument this works and is straight forward
This was very well explained. Let me process for a decade.
@@tuams 😂👍
@@tuams lol
I have never seen the circle of fifths explained this clearly. Please don't stop teaching.
I came here to learn the notes on the fretboard and I feel like I learned way more than I bargained for. This video is gonna be a heavily rewatched one for me.
No, seriously!!
Same, and I've been playing nearly 20 years!
Agreed
This is great! Just want to point out your circle of fifths legend at 7:42 has an error (Db between B and Db) which might throw some people off when trying to see how the vertical notes on the fretboard line up with the circle of fifths. But this explanation/breakdown is really awesome.
I’ve watched countless videos on UA-cam and never felt the desire to comment. I’m a retired AF pilot with multiple degrees and am an avid “self taught” student of many skills. Not bragging just making it clear that I love learning and have been in school pretty much for the past 50 years.
Having said all that… I rarely come across instruction that is clear, concise, visual, audible, and enjoyable all in one. Bravo! I thoroughly enjoyed this video and felt my mind, body and spirit all illuminate over the information by how it was presented!
Thank you, I’m truly grateful!
I also felt the same, the video is too good that i cant explain it into words( bad vocabulary). And you said it all what i thought❤
You nailed it for me too! Thanks!
My experience too! full self illumination.
I picked up the guitar 11 years ago. Sending love to Marty Schwartz.
This video, amongst 11 years worth of guitar related UA-cam videos, blew my mind.
You just answered questions I’ve had for so long that I didn’t know how to ask. I couldn’t even articulate what my questions were.
I mean I knew I needed clarification, I just didn’t know what I needed clarified.
You have a real talent for breaking things down and making connections that really help visual learners like me.
I mean I’m a diagram maker myself. A proud one (Visio love). I’m severely impressed with your work. Thank you.
Same....SAME
Can you please explain what the colors mean?
I'm a drummer and also have been playing rock/metal guitar for 40 years and i still don't understand the fret board ..this video makes it even harder to understand, need to watch it a few times.. but i can still ALMOST play eruption by VH and noodle around very fast..it's crazy
Can you explain what this video clarified for you?
It SEEMS like he’s giving useful information but he doesn’t give any examples for how these color relationships might actually benefit you in practice.
Surely, he doesn’t expect everyone to tape these things to their fretboard, right?
Marty is a real OG
Just took my first lesson three days ago, and he asked what I wanted to learn. He kept asking what song. I told him I didn’t want to learn anything specific. He was upset. He said, what does the end of the journey look like for you. I told him, I want to fully understand what the instrument does so that I can create things with it. He said, “music theory”. Then he blew my mind. Now I am hooked. It finally clicks after 34 years. This video helped even more. Thank you.
@@TechBrosWilkes Good for you. Congrats.
This is one of the best explanations of the fretboard music theory for guitar out there. Truly eye opening
As someone who was really confused with black dots and letters, I can now say I am confused with colors too
I must be really dumb, I found this ridiculously complicated. It seems like a really easy to understand simplified way of explaining something.... to advanced people who would understand it easily. Appreciate people like you though.
"With the colors you can see everything very clearly"
Yeah mate, well, I'll pass on that one. I do not see a single thing there^^
This video overcomplicates things. If this "color" approach was so useful, why isn't every classical guitarist for the last 300 years using it? Dots are perfectly fine.
Learning the fretboard is all about learning SHAPES. This video is snake oil, he's trying to get people to join his course.
Yes, learning the circle of fifths is extremely useful, but in practice you're going to navigate the fretboard far more often using shapes (i.e. Caged, triads, Scale shapes, etc.)
Colors don't help, mastering the changes from one note to another along-string, vertically or diagonally is very helpful
@@arunkarthikma3121 true to some, however I don't use many chords while playing
@@shinjonmal8936 Hmm, in my experience, learning triads are a much better way to improvise over a key than just learning scale shapes.
(You can connect arpeggio shapes with pentatonics, play double stops, etc far more easily.)
Yes, you do need to know some scale shapes and incorporate them into your style.
I self taught myself guitar a long time ago. Eventually got to the point of playing in a band for well over a decade playing rhythm and lead and for the life of me, I cannot wrap my brain around this. Even after watching this, I'm totally lost. It's always been such a point of personal frustration for me to not understand this. I'm going to watch this a bunch of times hoping it will finally click for me.
I'm right there with you man. Keep going!
Learn basic piano. Then it’ll make sense.
@@vgsounds23 I've been playing piano for 48 years, and I'm having issues with the fretboard. My problem is I see the fretboard as six different keyboards.
@@Chrsly lol yeah that's an issue, I mainly said it bc i learned piano and then guitar much later, and piano is a much easier way to visualise note relativity. On a guitar the note relativity is in large jumps and it looks like an upside down cartesian grid.
Ask ChatGPT-4 to help explain it to you. I NEVER understood Circle of fifths until I did that.
13 years of music...and I finally understand the purpose and how the circle of 5ths work......
Thank you!
I have had a guitar since I was 12. I have learned from orchestra directors, friends, other players but I have never had a lesson that connected the notes, circle and scales like this one. Subbed.
Oh my god dude where was this video all my life, as someone who’s a huge visual learner this is so helpful
What exactly did it help you with? It definitely taught the circle of 5ths well and also what the major scale is but the color wheel stuff and the blending of colors didn’t seem beneficial to me at all. Maybe I just don’t get it.
That’s why I’m asking!
Ikr?
@@user-dj9iu2et3r well I wouldn't say "learning" . Rather, it makes things make more sense
@user-dj9iu2et3r same, I feel a little lost.
But will say, if I had that chart my brain would recongize where notes are quicker, but I don't see how it intuitively makes learning scales easier yet
Recently started learning guitar and could literally not follow any other tutorial on tears in heaven, but with your one everything is so clear. I can't describe how grateful I am!! Thank you so much!! :)
The relationship between color and music while seeming random actually has a plesent explination thats defidently worth hearing. For humans what we call colors is our representation of the visible part of a spectrum of light waves called the electromagnetic spectrum. Music or notes is likewise the hearable parts of a spectrum of waves that travel through our air and sometimes other mediums. Both light and music are waves which we can represent and do calculations with through sin waves. Every sin wave within certain frequencies represents one of infinite notes or colors we group similar sounding sin waves together by notes such as b or c# and with colors such as red or green. Things get intresting when you mix colors or notes together. Sin waves found in nature are rarely uniform, and are often combinations of infinite sin waves all pitching in at different magnitudes, this is called a fourier siries. Forier siries are mostly random sort of like sunlight which might look like a squiggle not a uniform wave. With the correct combination of individual sin waves destructive or constructive interference occurs in order to create truly beautiful things. Finding out which sin waves are good together is all there is to both creating good sounds and colors and this is where kusic theroy meets physics. Our brain will then do complex things to break down the forier siries back into its parts of individual sin waves as best it can and intrepret the information in the form of music or color whichever were talking about.
The only difference between sound and light is that without a medium for the sound to travel through nobody will hear you scream. If you shine a light into space the very small portion of that light that escapes the atmosphere and misses clestial bodies will tavel in a straight line forever. Keep in mind that every time you go outside the light from the sun bouncing off of you and making its way into space is sending a message so far into the future time has no relevance telling the universe you were here in that way you are immortal because it will always be possible to see you. When you look into the stars you are seeing the stories of millions of galaxies long dead for billions of years still shining a light on us. If you went to that distant galaxy you see instantly, and turned around to look for earth you would see nothing, not because its too far to see but because the earth does not exist yet the earth will not exist for billions of years after the sun your standing on is dead. Music, light, time, gravity the universe was built perfectly and intentionally for your enjoyment and on a final note of peferct forier harmony please enjoy it the best you can.
@@Johnnysboy3987 Very well said ! Thank you for taking the time to type it out .
that slide at 7:45 blew my mind. imagining chords and just looking at the colors and major/minor symbols on the fret-board completely explains why they "belong" together. Why they work.
Amazing video!
How do the colors show the relationships? I didn’t understand beyond the fact that two similar colors mean they’re part of the same section of the circle of 5ths…
The g flat on the bottom of the fifths wheel is a d in this video and it killed me
@@user-dj9iu2et3r They don't. The fact that you stopped to think and ask questions indicates to me that you probably understand more. It "just so happens" that periodicity in physics of sound is presentable in any other periodic "scale," such as the "CIRCLE" of fifths, or an arbitrary loop within a 3d color space projected to 2d - while in reality C4 is not same as C3, C5 etc... As far as I understand we just figured that assigning the next best case of consonance after unison - i.e. the frequency relation 2:1 of octaves - the same symbol would be a reasonable way to classify pitches in terms of usefulness for systematizing music, since consonance is kind of... central.
I don’t understand why people are confused. This is one of the clearest explanations I’ve heard!
Teachers in the past had me playing chords and I got all these questions cause I’m trying to understand, and they’re just like “be patient”. I needed these pictures…lol
Heard this stuff a million times and this is one of the clearest, most concise lectures on the fretboard and circle of fifths. The geometric diagrams inside the circle of fifths are the best!
I’m a 50-something newbie. This is, without hesitation, the clearest explanation of the fretboard I’ve ever watched.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It's finally clicking! I've known chords for rhythm for years but now scales and fingering are starting to make sense. Thank you dude!
Fantastic! Another person who used colour to make things clearer. Love it! I really loved how you used this to open the door on the circle of fifths and the patterns contained within. For those very new or still confused, I think you need to start a couple of steps back.
Look at a piano to understand intervals (each key is an interval or “half step” (also called a semi tone). 2 piano keys is then a whole step. A major scale is a pattern named after the note you start on. First some short firms: starting note is the root - R. Half step is H and a whole step is W. A major scale is always RWWHWWWH. Use a piano to help this concept sink in. Then this lesson gets much easier to grasp!
This changed everything for me, moving from piano to guitar and this made everything fall into place. Thank you!
I memorized the pentatonic chords years ago. This made a ton of sense because of that. That, and knowing how these keys work on a keyboard visually helps when it comes to half steps.
One of the most clear and concise music theory tutorials out there. Bravo good sir
THANK YOU SO MUCH! finally someone who broke down the relationship between chromatic scales and the circle of fifths and visualised it beautifully on a fretboard. using color schemes was a genius move. i am a visual learner and i use imagination and visualisation pretty much to understand many things, mathematical concepts for example. as a beginner, i have independently noticed the pattern of notes repeating on the fifth fret of each next string too. i learned about the circle a while back when i was studying piano, but couldn't wrap my head around it immediately so i put that off for later. this video motivated me to get back to studying the harder topics of music theory i couldn't bring myself to touch upon yet. ❤🎶
I HAVE FINALLY UNDERSTOOD THE CIRCLE OF FIFTHS THANKS TO YOU. THANK YOU. FOR REAL.
Yep. The way it was explained here was a total a-ha moment for me, too!
Im going to start learning guitar coming from a background of violin, this makes so much more sense than everything i've seen so far. Thank you!!
I’ve been playing blindly for 20 years! This is what I’ve been looking for! Thank you! 🙏🙌
I cry sometimes when I think about having access to this kind of quality instruction 20 years ago. I spent an incredible amount of time trying to figure some of this stuff out without any successs. I have learned more i n the last two years from UA-cam than the previous 18.
THIS MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE OH MY GOSH. I’ve been struggling with understanding music theory and how to apply it on the guitar, but this video laid it out so clearly ! Thank you!!
Maybe it’s the geek in me, but I love to know how things are constructed. I'm one of those people who, as a kid, wanted to know how a magic 8 ball told fortunes. It’s just a little jar filled with black liquid…but I digress. Music theory guides our thinking as we learn to play. Understanding the instrument on a purely techincial basis informs your playing and makes you better. The learning actually becomes easier with an understanding of the logical, almost magical, complexity of music. Thanks for your brilliant explanations. Your demos add immensely to my enjoyment of learning finger style guitar picking.
This just completely blew my mind. Best lesson I've heard in 30 years of playing the guitar.
Oh My God! Yes! Thank you so much! I studied the classical guitar for 4 years as a pre-teen, with musical theory and all, but the color thing was never explained and I really struggled to make sense of all this, so I could only play compositions I memorized. And then i quit. Now, 16 years later, I'm getting back into it, and you just gave me the key! I'm a visual artist and I understand visual information best, the charts are FANTASTIC thank you so much! I can't express how excited I am. Gonna make color stickers for my fretboard today
man after 10 years of playing and struggling to truly internalize music theory concepts, this was awesome and gives me hope. i still need to study more but this was the best explanation i've seen so far.
The explanation of the conversion of the chromatic scale to the circle of fifths was a revelation to me. After grasping some concepts after 3 years (e.g., G is the 5th of C, D is the 5th of G, etc.) I still didn’t understand until he explained the whole step - whole step - half step pattern. I was able to write out on a sheet of paper each note in the 12 keys moving clockwise along the circle of fifths, then the major, minor and 7th chords. I get the intersection of the circle and the chromatic scale on the fretboard much better now. Im not totally sold on the color idea, but this video was a huge help.
The color idea is useless lol. You can literally just go by note names. It feels like this guy just really wants people to join his course. This video is just a fancy way to explain the circle of fifths.
In reality, you're DEFINITELY going to use shapes, to navigate the fretboard. You don't even need to memorize note names, they'll come to you. What matters is intervals (which is what shapes help you visualize).
I am an intermediate guitar player, i tried finding videos on how to get better, then i searched how to learn the fret board, you showed me my first scale!! thank you!!
I don’t think you were intermediate if you didn’t know a single scale… that’s more like beginner, I think.
@@user-dj9iu2et3r Well I’ve never been taught scales, i’ve been self taught my entire life.
But yeah there are some things I have to do.
I just don’t know where to learn scales
Also a famous guitar player named Jimi Hendrix never learned music theory, lol
Ive been playing for over 40 years, while never understanding fretboard theory, and you took away the mystery and the guesswork in less than 13 minutes. Well done, sir!!
Began learning music theory on guitar at 10 years old and after 4 years, quit to learn how to only play/cover songs because of how confusing music theory was. This video reinvigorated my interest and inspired me to pick up my guitar that laid dormant for 6 years. Thank you.
Let me just reassure you: learning songs is the most valuable thing a musician can do.
I grew up just learning my OWN bands’ songs and even though I know theory now, I HIGHLY regret not having a library of songs to play at will.
All my time spent on UA-cam has just become worthwhile from this video alone. Thank you!
Having self learnt for about 2 decades I've totally mastered the Map and beyond...it's everything I need to know
coming from a visual art background, I can now SEE what makes notes, that add up to chords, and the much easier, way to make music! Isn't that what we all want? Thank you Mike.
I must say… I never truly understand these types of videos but the format you do them in is so understandable. The figures you used and the sounds to complement what you were explaining simultaneously was awesome. Thanks
i’ve spent so many hours trying to figure this out. the barrier to entry is so hard but once you have it laid out in front of you like this it makes so much sense. thank you!
🤯
I have been studying theory for months and then I stumble upon this video that just lays it out in 12 minutes 😂. Great job!
I’ve been aimlessly playing guitar for NINE YEARS and just recently started really being dedicated again and delving into the theory. Nothing has helped to crystallize theory in my mind as majorly as this and the 8 Steps to Understanding theory vid (not in that order) I finally feel like I’m starting to understand. I could cry rn
I've been playing for over 20 years and this is THE most concise, intuitive way to learn guitar and theory at the same time. If I had this when I was 15 I would have been a monster.
I'm 15 and I am learning this now. Can you provide a few tips to navigate the path to play guitar freestyle?
@@shinjonmal8936 Step 1: Learn the basic pentatonic shape. Starting on Low E, we have 1-4,1-3,1-3, 1-3, 1-4, 1-4.
Step 2: Find the key of the song you want to play.
Step 3. If the song is in a major key, you find the root note of that key on the low E string, and use that note for the '4' in the first '1-4' on the low E. If you're song is in a minor key, you find the root note of that key on the low E string, and use that note for the '1' in the first '1-4' on the low E.
So let's take the key of C for example. First we find the root note, C, on the low E string, and its on the 8th fret. If I want to play a C major pentatonic scale, I put my pinky on the 8th fret and then play the pattern from there. So starting on low E we would have 8, 5-7, 5-7, 5-7, 5-8, 5-8. If I want to play a C minor pentatonic scale, I instead put my index on the 8th fret and then play the pattern from there. So starting on low E we would have 8-11, 8-10, 8-10, 8-10, 8-11, 8-11.
So now, if you know the key of a song (which if you don't you can google very easily), just find the root note on the low E, and using the pentatonic pattern you can shred along with it. I hope that helps!
@@one4runner435 im so lost reading this
@@emmawatzon Give me a song you want to be able to solo over, and I'll see If I can explain it better for you. I'll tell you the exact frets that you want to press for the notes you play to "sound good" with the song.
I’ve been playing for 25 years and this is the best I’ve ever seen this topic explained. Amazing job!
Mike,
What a brilliant presentation of the basics of Music Theory. I've been playing by ear for years; and, at seventy-eight, I decided it was time to learn theory. I loved the logical structure of your video and your graphics really helped me to grasp all the interrelated concepts.
Thank you for your generosity in putting so much passion into sharing your knowledge with the rest of us.
Randall
I'm a beginner, and I've been trying to play from sheet music for a while now, and this has finally made it click for me.
Absolutely amazing! Such clear instructions and helpful tricks.
This blew my mind. I totally get this after playing guitar for a few months. Songwriting is gonna be so much easier overtime through understanding the relationships of notes this way. Totally unlocked my perception of this challenge. Thank you 🎉
By far the simplest yet detailed and easily digestible method of learning! I loved this content Mike; Thanks so much for creating such insightful video on learning the fretboard theory.
It is more than a decade I kept seeing my guitar lying in a corner of my home, eventually cleaned up and put back again in the same place. Now I am again becoming hopeful to restart my learning after getting encouraged by seeing this video.
Thank you once again!
I'm very curious,
What exactly did you learn from this?
What can you do / understand now that you couldn't 2 weeks ago?
@@nuberiffic buy the fuitar fret color map and start from the 1 at of his videos
@@JuanGuzman-op3hw ...what?
@@nuberiffic yeah, I wouldn't say it's that beginner friendly. It's more for Advanced knowledge when you already have a Basic coordination of left and right hand and have various songs under you.
@@yesicalicht4882 I have advanced knowledge though.
I already know all this stuff, but I learned it a very different way
This is great! I am someone who learns better through conceptual frameworks rather than rote memorization, and this is the first time I've ever seen a method for visually organizing the notes on the fretboard that isn't just telling me to memorize a bunch of patterns without any way of connecting them to concepts. I have been looking for videos to help me learn a way to learn the fretboard that will actually work for me, and this feels key!
This is fantastic. Loved the circle of fifths as a color wheel. There is a typo at 8:24. The upper circle has 2 D-flats, and no G-flat. Really cool visualization
That typo tripped me up too. :p
I've just bought a guitar and am a complete beginner. I trained as a fine art painter so I just LOVE this lesson. Thanks.
I've been playing guitar for 15+ years. This is incredible. I get it now.
I’m a visual artist coming to guitar for the first time… thank you so much for providing a link to colour and the colour wheel…it did all feel like braille in black and white
As a singer and new beginner guitar player (as of a week ago), this is extremely helpful! I mean, I've already been doing lessons watching JustinGuitar and some from Marty Schwartz, but I have to say that this is really awesome and beneficial for any new player. I'm sure my hubby will think the same thing as he's also a beginner himself. Us newbs over 40 gotta stick together with this lol... Thanks for this information!
Hands down the best explanation off the gutair I have ever seen!
. Thanks!
Thanks for the enormous amount of work you put in for this video. May you be blessed!🙏🏽
This is the single most helpful thing I’ve watched on the fretboard, thank you so much.
Very Easy to understand and grasp especially since I started teaching my self piano first, seeing the fretboard map, its just a piano really. this will help me with my music journey cheers champ.
I spend 3 hours building this fretboard map on an old guitar. OMG! This should be the first thing beginners should do to learn about the instrument. Not only I can now find any note easy breezy but reading tabs is much easier. Creating my own covers and twists it's more intuitive. Wow! Great work man. Amazing job! Btw you should think about selling this stickers kits yourself. It would be so handy. Like training heels are on bikes. Reading the map and adding the stickers alone is a game changer.
Dude this video is freakin’ spot on. I’ve been trying to get someone to explain it this way. Thank you.
you’re the first person to explain this in a way that i can genuinely understand
Wow…. It’s just so enlightening
I consider myself a beginner, with some UA-cam videos as my teacher
And I understood everything
AMAZING ❤
Now I can see the fretboard and associate it with emotions, instead of learning each scale and mode, then trying to get musical within them - this is a key to help people visualize notes to play anywhere on the fret board.
The negative commenters must have never learned about color coating. Associating patterns with colors makes it easier to memorize. You don't have to understand music theory to comprehend that playing similiar notes sound good together.
Wow. Been playing for 30 years. Wish I had seen this 31 years ago. Brilliant. Liked and subscribed!
This color method is how music should be taught. I've tried other styles of teaching? and the others do a lot of confusing talking and odd diagrams that don't seem to interconnect, using lines across to make a memorizable pattern that is toooo confusing. Your method has its own questions answered using visual color. So simple and it flows together swiftly which allows more time to MAKE music instead of constantly memorizing patterns and ill fitting shapes. Thank you, Mike.
This is amazing. I cannot even imagine how much work you have put into this. Thank you so much.
Absolutely incredible. This lit me up from within. It helped me to understand why music is so IMPORTANT. And it gives me so much energy to keep learning. I feel like I can actually get to a point one day where I understand the guitar and its gift, even if just a little. Or at least, be able to honor the gift that it is though my playing. The universe truly is a symphony
So now it is even more confusing.
Honestly, I have never met a serious guitarist with all those ridiculous colorful stickers on their fretboard.
He basically took 11 minutes to explain what a C major scale is and painted it like it was the secret sauce to songwriting.
Not to worry, you will get it as you continue practicing and looking.
😂😂😂
@@manofthepeople2165 Yeah and it's extremely misleading to tell beginners that shapes aren't useful. Shapes are how you visualize intervals, and navigate the fretboard.
@manofthepeople2165 I did stickers for a buddy ,but I I only put green stickers on for the chord root notes .the rest I did in white stickers for the scales.its like I know the 5 scales and positions ,so if someone days to ne I am going to strum a song in say G ,I can start a lead in the corresponding C position in the G scale.Or slide to 15th fret and play in scale num 1.
You have laid this all out in such a way that I can finally understand the guitar and how you would apply the circle of fifths. I actually couldn't stop pausing this video to stop and smile at the realizations firing off in my brain about music.
I have decided to try and learn to play guitar at 30 so this video has been a gift. thank you!
That was crazy cool. I had it in my head forever and just couldn’t pull it out. With you saying colors then noting the 5th reference, I couldn’t believe I’ve missed it this whole time. It really is the difference between book learning, where you simply memorize, and being able to drive the guitar like a pro race driver brain surgeon. Very nice. Favorited.
Can you explain what you mean by the “fifth reference?”
I know music theory at an intermediate level and I’ve been playing guitar for over 10 years but this video just seemed overly complicated and filled with “woo woo” like “putting the energy of music into the notes.” I’m not really sure what we’ve learned from watching it so I’m genuinely asking people.
As someone who works with color intimately this made way more sense than 99% of all video on the subject.
Such a great way to explain this and break it down into an easy to understand way.
Btw. - there's a TYPO: at 7:44 in your circle of fifths above the fretboard there's a "Db" in the box between the "B" and "Db" circles instead of a "Gb"
Yes I spotted that too.
Also another typo in the circle of fifths @5:20, is it supposed to be A instead of F, in between G and D? Also how the circle of fifths is obtained could use a more detailed explanation.
@@akiram6609 Ditto.
Lucky for us, we know the Circle of Fifths. I like watching these UA-cam videos from time to time to stay on top Music Theory, etc.
@@akiram6609i saw that too! it was so confusing at first i didn’t understand why it went backwards from G to F 😅
Dude! I’ve never seen this explained so well. I will watch this video over and over again. Thank you! Amazing!
Most folks want to learn the top and bottom layers of theory and implementation, but this approach is kinda like the mortar between. I am really enjoying your approach. Keep it coming
Just wanted to say thank you, I’m learning the guitar at 30 years old. You’re videos are helping me on my journey.
6:42 editor went a little crazy there lol
This is the first time i understood what the circle of fifths implies and how its useful. Over a decade of guitar playing and this was maybe one of my biggest lightbulb moments
I watched the whole thing and have no idea what I was supposed to be learning here 😭
I'm a beginner player. I've tried learning the guitar many times throughout my life but always get overwhelmed. I just couldn't understand the patterns, they made sense audibly just in how they sound good together, but it just felt so random with no logic to why it worked. I'm a visual learner and visual art has always made more sense. This actually helped make music make some sense to me. Thank you!!!
Brilliant ! Love how you used Sacred Geomatry, Colors!
Very Well Explained. Thank You !
This is genius. I never knew colors and music: totally parallel. I'll have to watch about 100 times, and I look forward to it! Thanks, Mike!
Very interesting - I have never seen it explained this way - I think I actually understand this - time to pick up my beginner guitar again and start fresh - thank you
pick up that guitar and have to put stickers all over it first to use his method, you will have to remember this entire method using colors and stickers that are not found on a guitar.
so once you start playing without the stickers, you will be back to having to remember the method using the traditional dots found on the guitar, so why not just start with a traditional method first, trust me, you will have to relearn everything once you remove those little colored stickers, this is also making guitar even more sight oriented and you will find that learning by ear is better training your hand/EAR coordination is more important than your hand /eye coordination ( which is what this method is)
oh my god. thank you so much for making these kinds of videos for free in youtube. I cannot explain enough how much helpful this is. I gave up playing guitar because i could not stand anymore just memorising each chords and not really understanding them. Thanks to your video, i feel hopeful in playing guitar again
I think, given the right amount of time/study, this will prove very useful, so thank you. On another point, the artwork/animations are very impressive and clear. I’d be interested to know which app you use to demonstrate your vids, thanks.
i thought so too. i loved the animation!
Look up 8 steps to understanding music theory video and get that nailed and then come back to this you will immediately understand at least the basics of it. I’m so ecstatic rn I’ve been playing 9yrs
Visualizing the fret board and string as an axis between the chromatic scale and the circle of fifths (and fourths in the other direction)...brilliant and extremely helpful. Thanks x 1M.
I’ve just started learning guitar, coming from the gateway instrument, Ukulele! 😂
Just learning chords rote was clearly only going to get me so far and I was interested to get an understanding of music theory.
Your video is by far the best explanation I’ve seen! Thank you so much!
Do you realise if you put a capo on the fifth fret of a guitar the first 4 strings become a ukulele? ;)
I am a beginner in guitar and a visual artist so when you used color it really made a lot easier for me like it makes sense!!
If you go around the circle of fifths in the opposite direction, you get the circle of fourths. Since guitar strings are tuned a fourth apart, I find it easier to think in terms of the circle of fourths to go across the strings in the low to high direction.
That's an interesting comment and idea.
Going counterclockwise around the Circle of Fifths (i.e. in 4ths) gives you every ii-V-I progression by reading 3 letter names in order. For example: start on D and go counterclockwise you find G then C. That’s the ii-V-I in the key of C (Dm7, G7, CMaj7). Go to the Eb; you get: Eb-7, Ab7, DbMaj7.
@@SalimSivaad that’s a great example of how to apply the circle of fourths. If you go just two steps extra, you can extend to the also popular iii-vi-ii-V-I progression (for example, Em7-Am7-Dm7-G7-CMaj7)
I can see why you got a million views in one year! This is a very creative way of teaching keyboard theory - and practice! Very fresh approach. Much appreciated.
this is an exceptionally well made presentation. barvo
been self taught for years, finally eating up theory, thank you! i had a skilled friend of mine trying to say oh you dont need to know this or that just know octaves and blah blah. this helps
I'm a drummer what Am I doing here-
Probably waiting for your guitar player to tune so you can start practice 😅
Learning! I wish I could write a drum part
@@fluff9231 same
Dude, you are a Pokemon.
And that is coming from "I'm Batman"
Probably the best explanation of the circle of 5ths I have ever seen!🤯. I was taught it when I was learning the viola in high school but it never really stuck till I watched this video! Keep creating content!!!
Easily the clearest explanation of the circle of fifths I’ve ever watched! Keep doing your thing! Great work!
The circle of fifths explanation here was the best I’ve seen. Love the color coding. I’ve learned piano scales, chords, etc so this all makes much more sense but…I wish you’d pause on some of the heavier concepts. Sure I can, but I get left behind fast. You do a good job of explaining things, but your delivery is fast and there’s no chance for a learner to soak it in. Relying on pause isn’t a good UX. Just my 2 cents! I’ll be watching your vids though! Great stuff
I feel like the video fell off a cliff after he explained the circle of 5ths. I don’t really think the color coded system he put on his fretboard is any different/better than just memorizing keys and intervals and KNOWING what notes work in which keys (as all jazz musicians must).
There needs to be a UA-cam competition on who can create the best visualization/lesson on the circle of fifths.
It feels like every UA-cam video I’ve seen on this topic has comments like “wow I’ve never seen it explained in this way! You are so good at explaining this” and I learned a lot from this video too.
It is so interesting to see how everyone approaches this topic and how many allegories people can make about the same exact thing. But the topic itself is so important to musicians that I don’t think it’s harmful at all to have a lot of redundancies between creators.
Musicians are so cool 😎