http://www.secretguitarteacher.com
The major Scale Sandwich Exercise — Part 2
Now a lot of guitarists settle for just that. Just as a lot of people are quite happy eating nothing but white bread sandwiches. But I think you’re missing out a great deal if you don’t at least try brown bread sandwiches as well, so let’s see if I can tempt you to work out the Backward Diagonals Sandwich Exercises..
We’ll work this one out at the eighth fret as it’s a bit stretchier.
With the pinky on the sixth string, reach back with the first finger to play the backward diagonal.
And the other slice of bread..
Move across remembering to shrink the shape.
Use the same fingering pattern for the filling except there’s no need for the shift of fingering this time — for once the second string anomaly actually helps us by bringing the note on the second string closer!
Then add the second slice of bread.
Finally the octave diagonal off the D string.
The filling with the little adjustment for the second string
And the second slice of bread.
OK that’s the whole drill. Here it is again straight through..
Seems a bit of a weird thing to do doesn’t it?! But let’s explain a bit about what it is doing.
It is a conditioning drill — it works on three levels physical — muscle memory, visual — pattern recognition and and Aural — Hearing level.
You will have to drill it a few times through before you can begin to use it with unerring success but, for a minute, imagine you have put in say half an hour on it and your fingers, ears and visual memory have all been nicely programmed by a huge plate load of white and brown bread sandwiches!
Let’s look at how you will then be able to apply this:
First pick a note at random
And a fret number
So we want a F# major scale at 6th fret
First I find a note F# that I am sure about somewhere low on the fretboard..
Then I use the CAGED system to take me up to fret 6
The conditioning from my Sandwich exercise kicks in…
And I have my Major scales.
Before you have done too many of these you will actually find yourself shortcutting the process and you will soon find you can grab these scales pretty quickly when you need them.
I am confident that, if you put a little bit of time into learning this trick, it will greatly speed your progress in learning many aspects of guitar playing, but for a minute let’s show you how I might use this trick directly to improvise over a tune that moves through several key centres.
Here’s a backing track to The Girl From Ipanema. Now most of this classic Latin Jazz Tune is in the key of F major, but it has a notoriously tricky bridge section that peels off into first Db then E major before returning back to F.
Watch how I negotiate these changes using application of the sandwich drill — for the sake of illustrating this point I am going to try and restrict my improvising to nothing but Major scale patterns..
Hope you could follow that Ok and that that has given you a glimpse of just one direct application of the drills we have just been over in the last couple of lessons.
Of course, mastering the CAGED System and Sandwich Exercise takes practice — but these are very powerful tools for the serious guitar player and I know you will enjoy the payoff if you do put the work in.
Hope you found that interesting — there are several more applications for these drills that we will touch on in more advanced lessons, but they all rely on a firm grounding in Major Scale Sandwiches first —
So stuff yourself with sandwiches!
In the next lesson we will introduce you to the Natural Minor Scale
Hi, this is a really great lesson, thankyou very much! You mentioned at the
end of the lesson about using the same method with other scales in the next
lesson eg. minor, pentatonics etc, is there a video with this next lesson,
showing these shapes and how to use them? thanks
Yes, playing the octave is part of unconsciously reinforcing the
orientation system. The octave is the common container of practically all
musical patterns (scales, arpeggios and modes). By ‘normal’ I mean
unaffected by the second string tuning anomaly. The backward diagonal shape
normally stretches back 3 frets and across 3 strings, but once you include
the second string, it gets ‘shrunk’ down to back 2 frets and across 3
strings. Hope that helps clarify things!
A very interesting approach indeed…. this could probably go hand in hand
with teaching various modal applications.
Indeed, the sandwich exercise is a great way to drill modes so that you can
play them in any position, any key, any direction. I will post a lesson
specifically on this at some future point.
It can, but really only in Jazz. To improvise over straight blues tunes, a
mix of minor and major pentatonic or blues and country scales works well.
Alternatively (but more advanced) work over the notes of each chord and
exploit the use of flat third, diminished fifth and flat seventh notes
(relative to the root of each chord) as passing notes or notes that can be
bent up to tune to the main notes of the chord.
Can the major scale work well within blues playing?
Thank you!!! Finnaly I understand the CAGED system and scale positions. Now
all make sense.
Thank youuuuu. Great exercice !!
Thank you very much.
should you always play the octave first? is that some kind of reinforcing
part? also im a little confused on the first “brown bread” shape you say
that it is a normal shape not stretced or shrunk but to me it looks
stretched out over 3 frets not 2 as a normal octave would be? so wouldnt it
be stretched, shrunk, shrunk?
Lesson 9.3 in the Advanced section of the Secret Guitar Teacher site covers
this. I haven’t put this lesson on YouTube yet though.
The lesson over the CAGED system and this lesson are extremely helpful and
you make them very easy to follow. I can see how putting this all together
will be extremely useful.Thank you!
I really do appreciate these lessons im really enjoying them!
Thankyou! :)
Thank you so much. Caged pt 1 and 2 and these sandwich lessons immediately
improved my knowledge of the fretboard. Your lessons are extremely lucid.
Best guitar teacher on YouTube, I’ve been a guitarist for 14 years, I’ve
always played by ear and bsed my way through a lot. I’ve played in many
bands and have made a lot of great music. I’ve never used the Caged System
and you explained it so well that it clicked instantly. I feel so much more
creative now, thank you so much!
+SecretGuitarTeacher That final rundown in the Scale sounded awesome, was
all that major scale only? or did you used any other scale too? One thing
is that i can do the scale pretty fast now and i have only been playing it
for like two days now, the only one that gives me a bit of trouble is doing
it to the sides, like doing some lets say in the 7th fret and then moving
to around 5th fret per say, its just that i do not know where to land.
u r an excellent teacher!!
i gotta know now what actual guitar is!!
thanx alot Sir! :)
You have a brilliant, pleasant and relaxed teaching manner Nick. I’ve just
taken up the guitar at 57 years of age, and hopefully will enjoy the
pastime/hobby well into my impending retirement years. All of your lessons
are so refreshing and informative, I am really enjoying my time on you
site!! Please continue the great work you do….
Regards, Phil from the Rhondda Valley.
This allows the blind to see. Thanks!!!
Hi are you gonna do a lesson on modal sandwiches? Would be interesting how
this cage system could be applied using the Dorian or Lydian mode in any
key. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the great lesson! I can see that this really a
valuable tool. I have a question. In your example, you indicated that
the backing track changes key several times. Are you referring to key
changes, or just chord changes? In other words, are you using (for
example) the F major scale to use over an F chord, or are you using the
major scale to solo over all the chords in the key of F? It appeared as
though you were changing the major scale with each chord change. Thanks
again for all of your help!
I’ll echo those sentiments. Your video lesson(s) throw light onto the CAGED
system by explaining it in a useful way, making it relevant and clear as
you so succinctly put it – visually, aurally, and tactilely. Thanks,
gratitude, and appreciation flowing your way! You are the new Earl of
Sandwich. Imma go make me some sandwiches now!
These sandwich videos along with your CAGED videos hit me like a ton of
bricks. I cannot thank you enough for finally making sense of all of the
chords and scales I have been mindlessly practicing for months.