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Use Static Chord Tracks to Take Your Solos to the Next Level · The Steve Stine Podcast

• 0:35
  Steve: Hey, steve, here, thanks for joining me.
• 0:36
  Steve: Today we're gonna be talking about the importance of practicing over a static chord track.
• 0:41
  Steve: Now, what is a static chord track?
• 0:43
  Steve: Well, it's a track that just has one chord, instead of having a bunch of different chord changes and things like that for you to focus on which is an important thing, no doubt about it.
• 0:51
  Steve: But the nice thing about a static track is that all you have to do is focus on the development of your fretboard and a particular scale that you might be working on and really explore, for instance, at the very minimal, is how the notes sound against this chord.
• 1:08
  Steve: As opposed to just playing, actually learning to listen, the next thing you could do is you could practice, for instance, movement across your fretboard, different ways of moving, and you're not tethered to a tempo and a groove and that sort of thing, which are very important to practice, no doubt about it.
• 1:23
  Steve: But at this stage, you're really just exploring on a creative level.
• 1:26
  Steve: And then, of course, you can practice licks and things like that.
• 1:29
  Steve: So what I want to do is just give you some examples of that.
• 1:31
  Steve: Today, I've got a track here that's a C chord and that's all it is.
• 1:35
  Steve: So, because it's just a C major chord.
• 1:38
  Steve: I could, for instance, practice something like C major or, you know, c Lydian or something like that, depending on what it is that I want to work on.
• 1:46
  Steve: So I'm gonna start at square one here and I'm just gonna work on pentatonic and show you how to expand this out, and then I'll move into the diatonic realm and show you the same thing.
• 1:55
  Steve: So what I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna take the C major scale, so what?
• 1:59
  Steve: I'm going to do here is.
• 2:01
  Steve: I'm going to take the C major scale and I'm going to play this track and I'm just going to listen to how those notes actually interact with the sound of this.
• 2:11
  Steve: It's technically a Csus2 chord, but let's check this out so so Okay, so just real basic things that you could practice Now.
• 2:43
  Steve: In that idea that I just did, the first step would be maybe just listening to those notes and how they interact with the sound of that chord that's being played.
• 2:51
  Steve: Then what you can do is you can start learning to move around and get more creative with the motion of the way you're approaching the fretboard, and this becomes really important as you learn how to improvise.
• 3:01
  Steve: More is not just playing a scale up and down, but learning how to kind of cross over and twist and turn all over the place to try and get some different sounds out of the notes that you're playing and the organization of those notes.
• 3:14
  Steve: So, for instance, instead of just doing this and playing straight up and down, maybe what I start trying to practice is jumping over things.
• 3:32
  Steve: Now, I've always called that meandering.
• 3:33
  Steve: I'm not going to go into a whole thing about meandering, because you can watch other videos on this, but meandering is basically trying to get used to being able to release your brain from thinking about things in a logical way and just allowing your hands to freely move through the scale and the fretboard, whatever positions it is that you're working on.
• 3:54
  Steve: We'll call these roadmaps, the way that you're moving around the fretboard, learning to get more creative with that motion itself, not just playing up and down the scale, which again is important, but really letting yourself go and learning how to explore on a more creative level by driving around the fretboard through these various maps, you see.
• 4:13
  Steve: So if I was playing C, major pentatonic, I might connect to the position below the first position and maybe the position above it, so I might start doing something.
• 4:23
  Steve: So I'm teaching myself, without the restraints of a tempo and a groove, just to simply move and meander.
• 4:39
  Steve: Now let me start this again.
• 4:40
  Steve: See, and the more freedom I get with learning how to play across a larger part of my fretboard, the more opportunity I have Now.
• 5:18
  Steve: Yes, eventually you want to start putting in phrasing and licks and chord targeting, note chasing, all that kind of stuff.
• 5:29
  Steve: But the point of this is that what you're really trying to do is not worry about all of those things right now.
• 5:33
  Steve: You're really trying to decide.
• 5:34
  Steve: What is it that I want to work on with this?
• 5:36
  Steve: Maybe I'm just working on a position of a scale and I'm just practicing moving up and down inside that position, trying to get more creative with the way I'm moving, you know, get more comfortable technically with being able to do the actual movement.
• 5:51
  Steve: Maybe I'm just getting used to the way the notes sound against that chord, maybe I'm getting used to playing more positionally.
• 5:58
  Steve: So I'm moving from one position to the next and I'm really exploring all of the different ways that I can connect from one position to the next.
• 6:05
  Steve: Not just the same way every time the music generally starts and I do the same thing over and over and over, which is what I'm trying to break out of, but finding new and unique ways to be able to move.
• 6:15
  Steve: Okay, so there's lots of really great things that you could do now.
• 6:18
  Steve: Maybe you're working on a lick or something right, so you've got some sort of a kind of thing that you're working on.
• 6:31
  Steve: Anything, whatever it might be.
• 6:37
  Steve: Again, you're not tethered to a tempo, you're just gonna explore that and you're gonna practice whatever that is.
• 6:44
  Steve: That's something else that you could do too.
• 6:45
  Steve: I don't do as much of that over this sort of thing as I do the creative space of moving around my fretboard, but you could practice all these sorts of things.
• 6:52
  Steve: So now, let's say, we move into the realm of diatonic, so I start playing C major.
• 6:58
  Steve: Okay, so now I've got so again, maybe I start with just how does it sound, how do those notes sound?
• 7:09
  Steve: Okay, I can start with something like that.
• 7:30
  Steve: And then maybe I start again moving into this meandering realm where I'm playing a position or multiple positions, and I really start trying to train myself to be confident and comfortable with the movement across the fretboard.
• 7:44
  Steve: See, as guitar players, it's easy for us to go, yes, I've practiced that, or yes, I can see that, and those are great things.
• 7:50
  Steve: But if we can't actually use it in the real world, we can't actually, yes, we can see it, but we can't technically execute the things that we're wanting to do with our fingers, then we're only halfway there by being able to visualize it.
• 8:02
  Steve: If we can't visualize it, maybe we see it when we're at home how positions might connect together.
• 8:07
  Steve: But once we actually start playing with other people, some of that visualization of our fretboard goes away, because we get nervous and maybe we didn't know it as well as we thought we would.
• 8:17
  Steve: So these are the reasons why it's really great to just sit for 10 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour just exploring your fretboard and exploring the ways that your fingers and your brain will connect around the fretboard.
• 8:32
  Steve: So this is where it gets interesting for me, as I might take this C major scale here and I just move around looking for Maybe there's some licks I want to work on.
• 9:30
  Steve: Right, whatever it might be.
• 9:38
  Steve: Maybe I work on a melody.
• 9:40
  Steve: All right there's a lot of different things that I could do.
• 9:56
  Steve: Just exploring my fretboard, taking time Now as I'm doing this, maybe I become aware of some issues that I'm having.
• 10:04
  Steve: Like, I can't see this very well, or the movement of this thing isn't working very well, or, you know, I tried to play this lick but I can see I need some work with something.
• 10:12
  Steve: Well, that's okay.
• 10:12
  Steve: What's happening then are all of these issues that you're having are coming to the surface and you can write them down, make note of them, and then those are things that you can practice.
• 10:21
  Steve: You could turn this off and go okay, so this is what I need to work on more, or need to spend more time visualizing this, or need to spend more time practicing this position.
• 10:29
  Steve: Well, that's great.
• 10:29
  Steve: We want to be aware of that stuff as it arises, but then we also want to come back and work with just this static idea in a creative space, not always a technical space, but really getting used to the ability of you being able to move around the fretboard in a very flowing and smooth way.
• 10:49
  Steve: I always call it greasy, like being able to move around really smooth and greasy in whatever way that that makes sense to you, in whatever way that you enjoy, but having the confidence and the ability to do that, as opposed to getting stuck because your fingers don't quite work or your visualization isn't quite there.
• 11:05
  Steve: Okay, then I could take the same idea and maybe I move into playing like C Lydian right, so I've got a sharp four.
• 11:13
  Steve: Because I want to practice some other mode thing, maybe right, so I've got a sharp four because, I want to practice some other mode thing maybe right, so I've
• 11:36
  Steve: got.
• 11:38
  Steve: Now, the same thing's going to happen.
• 11:40
  Steve: The only difference is now I'm in C Lydian right Technically, with that sharp four, which really means I'm in G major right.
• 11:48
  Steve: However, I want to visualize that on my fretboard, but now I could practice that, which brings up a whole new thing where you know, learning how to play in a particular key, like in this case in the key of C major, is very important.
• 12:01
  Steve: Okay, cause it gives us C major, but it also gives us all of the relative modes of C major, the relative minor, which is a minor.
• 12:08
  Steve: All of those things can be gained by practicing C major.
• 12:12
  Steve: And when you practice something like C Lydian, well, you're also practicing G major and E minor right.
• 12:19
  Steve: So you're getting all the benefits of that sort of thing as well on a visual movement basis.
• 12:26
  Steve: Maybe not on the theory basis, obviously, but from the technical perspective and the visual perspective you're learning how to do all these things, and for me, I always try and teach that.
• 12:36
  Steve: You know the, the sort of half truth that we talk about as guitar players as well.
• 12:41
  Steve: If I want to play in the key of C, I just move everything down.
• 12:44
  Steve: Or if I want to play in the key of A, I just move everything up or whatever it might be.
• 12:47
  Steve: And in theory, yeah, I suppose that makes sense and it is true.
• 12:51
  Steve: But the application on the fretboard it really is a different experience.
• 12:56
  Steve: When you play in G major versus C major, you're going to visualize things differently.
• 13:03
  Steve: Now, if there's stuff that you really love, of course you want to learn how to be able to move those things around in other keys.
• 13:09
  Steve: But if you just say to yourself, well, I'm going to learn all of this in the key of C and then, just if I want G, I'm just going to move it up, well, if you've never actually practiced it in that G, it might not turn out the way that you want.
• 13:22
  Steve: So that's why it's worth taking the time and really trying to practice something like this.
• 13:26
  Steve: Okay, so, meandering, just finding a track that you like, this one, I made it's C sus 2, and I made it that way because I really could play minor over the top as well, because it's just a sus2, so it doesn't have that that major tonality.
• 13:42
  Steve: But again, it wouldn't make any difference.
• 13:44
  Steve: The point is is what it's lacking are other chords and it's lacking a tempo and a groove.
• 13:50
  Steve: So I can just freely explore.
• 13:52
  Steve: As soon as they start bringing back in those chords, that's great.
• 13:55
  Steve: But now I've got to start focusing on well, I'm here, and then here comes this chord, so now I'm going to do this.
• 14:01
  Steve: That's a different thought process.
• 14:02
  Steve: It's important to learn how to do that, for sure, but it's a different thought process.
• 14:05
  Steve: So now I'm working on something else, and as soon as I bring in a tempo, when I bring back a groove, now I'm locked into that sort of thing, which is important, but it's a different kind of practice.
• 14:14
  Steve: So, all right, so take care, stay positive, and if you're interested in learning more about this kind of stuff from me and the other instructors over at Guitar Zoom, make sure you check out the Guitar Zoom Academy.
• 14:23
  Steve: All right, so take care, stay positive and I'll talk to you soon.