This is excellent guitar playing my friend.The ligatos are so smooth and beautiful indeed.Your method of teaching makes you one of the best across you tube landscape. All your videos are worth watching and I am happy to be one of your followers. You're a great inspiration. God bless you for sharing your knowledge with the world. Thank you
I've always said I'm not here to take part, I'm here to occupy a tiny part of the internet and talk about guitar stuff like jazz and pedals to a small selection of people.
Applaud the rhythm exercise at ~18:00 or so. When I was hiring session guitarists, I found many struggled to go cleanly from quarter notes to triplets to sixteenths etc in the same passage without rushing (and not solely those shred masters who astonish yet not often in time especially at slower tempos). Can't recall having that experience with a bassist, but was common enough with guitarists that I got the sense they just didn't work on it as much as they worked on speed and tone. I suppose now people can just quantize it or something, but I liked how you taught rhythmic importance as part of this.
Flippin hell. I only discovered your channel recently, from a Line 6 link somewhere, possibly with Tom Q involved. 🤔 This vid is absolute gold. The missing link for legato! My playing has improved and the vid isn’t over yet! Thanks so much 🙏
John! Thanks for the email with this list of lessons (this is kalimar). This is EXACTLY what I was asking about. Clearly I haven't watched enough of your channel
I always wanted a lesson on this, which is why i'm on your patreon. Really enjoyed this lesson! ps. appreciate the bits of humour and the text on the video!
Thanks John. I’ve been playing on and off ( more off than on ) for almost 30 years and I’ve never been able to get legato. I’ve bought a couple of Toms legato comprehensive courses but they’ve obviously been more advanced than I can handle. You’ve distilled those concepts down. Really appreciate that.
Very useful, thank you! I find these legato licks can easily run away with my fingers and getting out of a pattern gracefully is harder than getting into it!
Ear training/transcribing helps a lot with this kinda thing. For legato, Satch recommends only using the amount of pressure you need to sound the note. You can really let your fingers fly when you realize you don't have to press down very hard.
Gambale's ChopBuilder is so challenging and inspirational. I really enjoyed your video and your explanations. Lots of helpful ideas here to reference. The smooth, but clear, tone in your B and E strings is amazing! New subscriber.
Thats hours worth of practice info right there. I notice people who do legato and fast picking well keep all their fingers close to the fret board at all times
I like the slide down into the note that you do in the outro jam at 22:18. I've seen you do that a few times, as well as some other little things here and there that really give your solos a lot of personality. It'd be neat to see a little video on it, and maybe if you have some more little tricks like that.
Super useful ..,gonna study these methods intensively..I’m a rock/thrash but legato runs sounds so great in the genre ..but since watching ur stuff and listening to holdsworth n satriani and other legato players over the years I always felt that type style was just out if my reach ..so I bought an American pro strat ..my first strat btw ..and I love it and it’s ease of play especially legato genre thanks very much for this lesson and all u do sir …your an inspiration ..and the Fender company thanks u 😂😂👍🏽🤘🏾
You know it's a good video when you have to quit watching it multiple times because you started practicing! I think an interesting concept I realised (kind of related to some of this stuff in the video) is that it's often a good idea to play patterns that are not the same as the subdivision you're playing. So if you are playing a pattern of 4 or 8 it will sound much cooler in triplets and patterns of 3 and 6 sound much better in 4. Same applies to playing quintuplets. 5 note pattern quintuplets are really "Square" but play a 4 or 3 note pattern and it's awesome. Is this something you've noticed as well?
Thank you! Tom is amazing (as are you) but his "lessons" are for people much more advanced than I am. I'm able to latch on to your concepts and apply them to my own style with practice rather than prayer :)
I remember when you were in Destiny's Child. I'm glad you're not bitter about how it ended. lovely guitar playing and pleasing deadpan delivery you only get from the UK
This is another useful video. I like it. While this kind of thing doesn't occupy a large space in my playing style (or rather intended playing style) It works very well as a rhythmic spice for any musical style. Also, I like the comment about Destiny's Child There was a video a couple of days ago where you played some more soulful stuff, which I found a bit surprising based on what I had heard previously from you. It was nicel I will make use of the ambient, legato, modal type of runs and effects that I hear so often from you , when I play atmospheric stuff in church.
Fabulous stuff .... I can see many months of practice ahea! Just a thought to remind myself when I come back here .... practice some of these patterns with spaces in them (e.g 1 3 2 3 then onto next string .... as adding rhythmic "holes" and/or double length notes can be very interesting too :)
I love to see your channel quickly growing. You’re currently my favorite channel to learn from on RUclips, right next to Music Is Win. Do you have any favorite strings? I normally just buy whatever chon or polyphia tell me to buy, but I’ve never given any thought to it esp for legato
You're actually dead good mate. 👍 ( Not many I haven't heard). Check out 'Turregenius'. He's gone into Allan Holdsworth big time. He does repeat himself, all the time. He plays the same patterns over different chords. He also has avoid notes, ie; the 4th/11th on major chords. Well worth checking out.
Great workout! Thanks!!!!!! Meanwhile, those Sire guitars are not easy to find. Apparently they sold out in most places. I wonder if the brand decided to promote itself with this overbuilt inexpensive guitars in limited quantities, but will change it's strategy after establishing the brand.
14:54 Thanks for your insight into Legato. Playing 3 notes per string is hard especially down low on the neck. I was wondering if you are playing the major scale for the majority of this video? Obviously when you start or stop on a particular note it changes the tone which is what makes modes right? Anyway I’ll be joining you’re patron channel and I’m loving your sound. I have a long way to go to get anywhere as good as you but I’m going to try my best. Thanks again in 14:54
Hi !...great lesson and beautiful playing !...your way of playing is very unique and original !! I'm also a proffesional guitarrist and have always been a fan of playing legato, as you say,it helps for the phrasing. What's the name of the preset ?...sounds very nice and with a lot of sustain... I bought the Helix LT second hand,and later discover that there are some presets of yourself.... The guy must have bought some of your sounds ! Best wishes !
Hi John. Can you help those of us who lack the ability to make long phrases with diatonic or pentatonic scales, without the typical effect of someone who just runs the scales up and down? In your videos, you have addressed this topic several times, but it would be great if you maybe could make two videos (one for diatonic and one for pentatonic) specific to the different patterns or ways to create sequences that do not resemble only practicing a scale. Thanks!
hey.. i hv been following your channel for some time now. definitely learned and improved a lot.and i have a question. sort of 😅 it might sound stupid but i have seen many players play slower resolved phrases and then burst into legatos. so can shed some light on that. specially the starting choice of note. if it makes any sense 😅😅
Hi John, I know you have a link for the patches you use for your demos, but would you mind doing a video talking about your live give versus your recording gear for demo videos, and how you go about creating or searching for your patches as well as the backing tracks you use? You have great taste in tone!
Two vids in a day! Is that backing track in the beginning available for DL / purchase? I’m real curious about the theory behind it. The tonal center isn’t quite clear to me. Still a blast to noodle over, though! 🔥🤘🏻
Hi. How do you get your modeller patches to sound good through your JBL monitors? My fm3 sounds bad through anything with tweeters. Cleans are fine but any gain is fizzy spikey treble. Sounds fine through catalyst power amp in. I assume you have spkr emulation on your patches when you monitor with your JBLs. What's the trick?
quote 7:44 "what you practice slowly and what you practice routinely is going to be what eventually comes out in your playing further down the line, when you can play it fast" ... This is probably true, and I think there's a hidden danger in practicing playing scales very much. If you play scales so that they become your _phrases_ , then that's going to make you play very monotonous stuff! To avoid this trap and counter the dumbing effect of scales as phrases, you should practice a lot of licks, melody snippets, rhythms taken from good solos and songs, maybe even _poetry_ or wherever you can find rhythmically interesting material. In the beginning of this video, there's an example solo, which IMO is a tiny bit on the monotonous side what comes to rhythmic content. A few syncopated notes across barlines would certainly do no harm! There's certain truth in the slogan "THE NOTES DON'T MATTER" in this recent Open Studio video ruclips.net/video/rEdtUOGCCnU/видео.html That's of course only a polemic statement that's required to get attention on RUclips, but there's a good point behind it.
@@johnnathancordy Of course. Just mumbling out my thoughts and discoveries about music. About the actual legato lines thing, it's great. I'm writing down these exercises for myself right now. I watch RUclips with Guitar Pro open next to the browser, and when I notice something interesting and within my technical reach, I write it down, and then I go through my notes in my daily practice. From this video, I picked the idea of systematically using three notes per string in order to maximize the percentage or hammer-ons and pull-offs, playing them in 1/16ths (which breaks the more trivial and tempting triplet rhythm), starting from all positions, and in the various skipping patterns. Thanks! I sent you coffee.
@@yzimsx oh that wasn't necessary!! On the other topic, though rhythm is super important it's definitely not one of those things that make for super sexy videos...I've tended to find watching a bit from drummers etc can kind of help on this sort of thing as thats their sole focus. Worth checking out some Allan Holdsworth stuff on the lines thing as he I think managed to make things the least predictable and repetitive!
Hey Mike! I use Hawk picks tonebird 3mm. If that's a bit expensive though, Black Ice D'add/Planet waves picks in size 1.5mm are pretty decent, and I don't have to dig them out of drains with tweezers
johnnathancordy Thanks man! I’m somewhat of a pick junky but I always seem to come back to the best budget option I can find, mostly because it’s literally sometimes all I can find... I’d never heard of Hawk Picks but their varieties look awesome, gonna check one out.
I watched closely - so you are just picking the first notes of each grouping of 4 and when changing strings. Some people play legato with just picking when changing strings or not picking at all - just like Steve Vai did when he broke his arm. Interesting to see and to make up rules.
I’m not a man easily impressed by musicians but I got to say, despite my initial hesitations, I do think that regardless of your background, the genocides in Uganda were not a good thing.
7:32 - In the future, everyone will be named Tom. 7:42-7:55 - A great nugget of truth!!!
This is excellent guitar playing my friend.The ligatos are so smooth and beautiful indeed.Your method of teaching makes you one of the best across you tube landscape. All your videos are worth watching and I am happy to be one of your followers.
You're a great inspiration.
God bless you for sharing your knowledge with the world.
Thank you
The king 🤴 Of Tasteful And Elegant Legato John.
Johns channel looks like its finally hitting some decent growth. One of my favorite players ive found on RUclips keep it up man!
Oh cheeeers!!!
I've always said I'm not here to take part, I'm here to occupy a tiny part of the internet and talk about guitar stuff like jazz and pedals to a small selection of people.
johnnathancordy you have always said that.
Fully agree! Have been wondering this already for awhile. John for president! :)
He deserves every bit of growth!
This is my first proper guitar lesson after 22 years of playing 😂 So very well explained John thanks buddy... I suppose it's better late than never 😂
What is in the water over there?!?! Every UK guitarist I stumble upon is BRILLIANT! Yourself included! So smooth and melodic!
Applaud the rhythm exercise at ~18:00 or so. When I was hiring session guitarists, I found many struggled to go cleanly from quarter notes to triplets to sixteenths etc in the same passage without rushing (and not solely those shred masters who astonish yet not often in time especially at slower tempos). Can't recall having that experience with a bassist, but was common enough with guitarists that I got the sense they just didn't work on it as much as they worked on speed and tone. I suppose now people can just quantize it or something, but I liked how you taught rhythmic importance as part of this.
Yeh to be fair you can see how horrible I am at it - it's really quite a mental shift isn't it!
You're one of the most fluent soloists hands down ! Dig your playing big time !
You’ve turned me on to melodic thoughtful legato. Very useful lesson, working on this is going to make me better for sure.
Flippin hell. I only discovered your channel recently, from a Line 6 link somewhere, possibly with Tom Q involved. 🤔 This vid is absolute gold. The missing link for legato! My playing has improved and the vid isn’t over yet!
Thanks so much 🙏
John! Thanks for the email with this list of lessons (this is kalimar). This is EXACTLY what I was asking about. Clearly I haven't watched enough of your channel
I always wanted a lesson on this, which is why i'm on your patreon.
Really enjoyed this lesson!
ps. appreciate the bits of humour and the text on the video!
Oh awesome - hope it is slightly useful!!!
johnnathancordy bits of humour
This is exactly how i want to be able to play
Awesome and tasteful playing...Thanks
This was an incredibly enlightening John, I learned quite a lot!
Absolutely. Who knew that he was in Destiny's Child!
Love it!! I just dropped here looking for "legato line" in singing and .. the intro of this video just flooded my ears and sole! What was that?!
This is the best and clear teaching ived watch in yt!very helpful and humble teaching…❤❤❤
Thanks for sharing!godbless
Thanks John. I’ve been playing on and off ( more off than on ) for almost 30 years and I’ve never been able to get legato. I’ve bought a couple of Toms legato comprehensive courses but they’ve obviously been more advanced than I can handle. You’ve distilled those concepts down. Really appreciate that.
Very useful, thank you! I find these legato licks can easily run away with my fingers and getting out of a pattern gracefully is harder than getting into it!
Thanks for some fresh insight. I'm going to take these ideas and work on them.
This is just the light bulb lesson for me as far as legato lesson goes...I've been stuck on running the same pattern for years lol
Looks simple and sounds killer, but very hard to execute.
I guess you're right, I need three notes per string patterns.
Ear training/transcribing helps a lot with this kinda thing. For legato, Satch recommends only using the amount of pressure you need to sound the note. You can really let your fingers fly when you realize you don't have to press down very hard.
Gambale's ChopBuilder is so challenging and inspirational. I really enjoyed your video and your explanations. Lots of helpful ideas here to reference. The smooth, but clear, tone in your B and E strings is amazing! New subscriber.
Thats hours worth of practice info right there. I notice people who do legato and fast picking well keep all their fingers close to the fret board at all times
LOL - I loved your early stuff in DC!
I like the slide down into the note that you do in the outro jam at 22:18. I've seen you do that a few times, as well as some other little things here and there that really give your solos a lot of personality. It'd be neat to see a little video on it, and maybe if you have some more little tricks like that.
Great lesson! Thanks for taking the time to make these types of videos.
Super useful ..,gonna study these methods intensively..I’m a rock/thrash but legato runs sounds so great in the genre ..but since watching ur stuff and listening to holdsworth n satriani and other legato players over the years I always felt that type style was just out if my reach ..so I bought an American pro strat ..my first strat btw ..and I love it and it’s ease of play especially legato genre thanks very much for this lesson and all u do sir …your an inspiration ..and the Fender company thanks u 😂😂👍🏽🤘🏾
You know it's a good video when you have to quit watching it multiple times because you started practicing!
I think an interesting concept I realised (kind of related to some of this stuff in the video) is that it's often a good idea to play patterns that are not the same as the subdivision you're playing.
So if you are playing a pattern of 4 or 8 it will sound much cooler in triplets and patterns of 3 and 6 sound much better in 4.
Same applies to playing quintuplets. 5 note pattern quintuplets are really "Square" but play a 4 or 3 note pattern and it's awesome.
Is this something you've noticed as well?
Absolutely!
Thank you! Tom is amazing (as are you) but his "lessons" are for people much more advanced than I am. I'm able to latch on to your concepts and apply them to my own style with practice rather than prayer :)
I remember when you were in Destiny's Child. I'm glad you're not bitter about how it ended. lovely guitar playing and pleasing deadpan delivery you only get from the UK
Thanks!
Thanks for this. Great exercises and ideas.
very usful practice ideas. Thank you very much!!
Excellent, useful tips here John. thank you!
Congratulation John! From Brazil.
Amazing that thanks John!
This is another useful video. I like it. While this kind of thing doesn't occupy a large space in my playing style (or rather intended playing style) It works very well as a rhythmic spice for any musical style. Also, I like the comment about Destiny's Child There was a video a couple of days ago where you played some more soulful stuff, which I found a bit surprising based on what I had heard previously from you. It was nicel I will make use of the ambient, legato, modal type of runs and effects that I hear so often from you , when I play atmospheric stuff in church.
Thank you, you are amazing!
Great tips and awesome tone by the way! Obviously.
Pure 🔥 from 11:00ish on !!
Fabulous stuff .... I can see many months of practice ahea!
Just a thought to remind myself when I come back here .... practice some of these patterns with spaces in them (e.g 1 3 2 3 then onto next string .... as adding rhythmic "holes" and/or double length notes can be very interesting too :)
Super thanks for the great video and for the useful pdf at Patreon :)
I love to see your channel quickly growing. You’re currently my favorite channel to learn from on RUclips, right next to Music Is Win.
Do you have any favorite strings? I normally just buy whatever chon or polyphia tell me to buy, but I’ve never given any thought to it esp for legato
You're actually dead good mate. 👍 ( Not many I haven't heard).
Check out 'Turregenius'. He's gone into Allan Holdsworth big time. He does repeat himself, all the time. He plays the same patterns over different chords. He also has avoid notes, ie; the 4th/11th on major chords. Well worth checking out.
I love how you play music
Great workout! Thanks!!!!!! Meanwhile, those Sire guitars are not easy to find. Apparently they sold out in most places. I wonder if the brand decided to promote itself with this overbuilt inexpensive guitars in limited quantities, but will change it's strategy after establishing the brand.
14:54 Thanks for your insight into Legato. Playing 3 notes per string is hard especially down low on the neck. I was wondering if you are playing the major scale for the majority of this video? Obviously when you start or stop on a particular note it changes the tone which is what makes modes right? Anyway I’ll be joining you’re patron channel and I’m loving your sound. I have a long way to go to get anywhere as good as you but I’m going to try my best. Thanks again in 14:54
Liquid finger mobility!
Excellent lesson, cheers!
Quick question; how close do you have your pickups to the strings on your Tele style guitar?
How about a video showing how you get "your sound" seemingly regardless of guitar used.
Hi !...great lesson and beautiful playing !...your way of playing is very unique and original !!
I'm also a proffesional guitarrist and have always been a fan of playing legato,
as you say,it helps for the phrasing.
What's the name of the preset ?...sounds very nice and with a lot of sustain...
I bought the Helix LT second hand,and later discover that there are some presets of yourself....
The guy must have bought some of your sounds !
Best wishes !
Beatiful purple es-335 on the wall! What model is that??
Hi John. Can you help those of us who lack the ability to make long phrases with diatonic or pentatonic scales, without the typical effect of someone who just runs the scales up and down? In your videos, you have addressed this topic several times, but it would be great if you maybe could make two videos (one for diatonic and one for pentatonic) specific to the different patterns or ways to create sequences that do not resemble only practicing a scale. Thanks!
Single String Improvisation Class on Musicians Institute
Destiny's Child would've been lucky to have you. Beyonce digs legato. She does it all the time.
hey.. i hv been following your channel for some time now. definitely learned and improved a lot.and i have a question. sort of 😅 it might sound stupid but i have seen many players play slower resolved phrases and then burst into legatos. so can shed some light on that. specially the starting choice of note. if it makes any sense 😅😅
Hi John, I know you have a link for the patches you use for your demos, but would you mind doing a video talking about your live give versus your recording gear for demo videos, and how you go about creating or searching for your patches as well as the backing tracks you use? You have great taste in tone!
Two vids in a day! Is that backing track in the beginning available for DL / purchase? I’m real curious about the theory behind it. The tonal center isn’t quite clear to me. Still a blast to noodle over, though! 🔥🤘🏻
Goes on my patreon for anyone who requests it! Tonal center is F#major for me!
Hi. How do you get your modeller patches to sound good through your JBL monitors? My fm3 sounds bad through anything with tweeters. Cleans are fine but any gain is fizzy spikey treble. Sounds fine through catalyst power amp in. I assume you have spkr emulation on your patches when you monitor with your JBLs. What's the trick?
quote 7:44 "what you practice slowly and what you practice routinely is going to be what eventually comes out in your playing further down the line, when you can play it fast" ... This is probably true, and I think there's a hidden danger in practicing playing scales very much. If you play scales so that they become your _phrases_ , then that's going to make you play very monotonous stuff! To avoid this trap and counter the dumbing effect of scales as phrases, you should practice a lot of licks, melody snippets, rhythms taken from good solos and songs, maybe even _poetry_ or wherever you can find rhythmically interesting material. In the beginning of this video, there's an example solo, which IMO is a tiny bit on the monotonous side what comes to rhythmic content. A few syncopated notes across barlines would certainly do no harm! There's certain truth in the slogan "THE NOTES DON'T MATTER" in this recent Open Studio video ruclips.net/video/rEdtUOGCCnU/видео.html That's of course only a polemic statement that's required to get attention on RUclips, but there's a good point behind it.
Sure, but a video about long legato lines is not really dealing with much other than the legato lines that people asked me to talk about?
@@johnnathancordy Of course. Just mumbling out my thoughts and discoveries about music. About the actual legato lines thing, it's great. I'm writing down these exercises for myself right now. I watch RUclips with Guitar Pro open next to the browser, and when I notice something interesting and within my technical reach, I write it down, and then I go through my notes in my daily practice. From this video, I picked the idea of systematically using three notes per string in order to maximize the percentage or hammer-ons and pull-offs, playing them in 1/16ths (which breaks the more trivial and tempting triplet rhythm), starting from all positions, and in the various skipping patterns. Thanks! I sent you coffee.
@@yzimsx oh that wasn't necessary!!
On the other topic, though rhythm is super important it's definitely not one of those things that make for super sexy videos...I've tended to find watching a bit from drummers etc can kind of help on this sort of thing as thats their sole focus.
Worth checking out some Allan Holdsworth stuff on the lines thing as he I think managed to make things the least predictable and repetitive!
Is there a synth that plays when u play …or is that you reverb
What do you think of the Mesa boogie mark 5?
Thanks for the great guide John. I know you’ve said it before, but what is that big pick you use?
Hey Mike! I use Hawk picks tonebird 3mm. If that's a bit expensive though, Black Ice D'add/Planet waves picks in size 1.5mm are pretty decent, and I don't have to dig them out of drains with tweezers
johnnathancordy Thanks man! I’m somewhat of a pick junky but I always seem to come back to the best budget option I can find, mostly because it’s literally sometimes all I can find... I’d never heard of Hawk Picks but their varieties look awesome, gonna check one out.
I watched closely - so you are just picking the first notes of each grouping of 4 and when changing strings. Some people play legato with just picking when changing strings or not picking at all - just like Steve Vai did when he broke his arm. Interesting to see and to make up rules.
Wat pedals??
Destiny's Child were never the same following your departure. A bit like Dave lee Roth leaving Van Halen.
We’re you the blonde or the redhead in Destiny’s Child? What was it like?
Destiny's Child's never been the same after they dropped you.
Ok ok so you’ve mastered legato... but can you play potato?
It's the same technique, slowly peel, and gradually bring to the boil with a metronome. Then simmer.
johnnathancordy Eye eye captain!! 👍🏽💚😂
johnnathancordy 😂
why isn't this guy prime minister?
HAHAHA.
I’m not a man easily impressed by musicians but I got to say, despite my initial hesitations, I do think that regardless of your background, the genocides in Uganda were not a good thing.
Destiny’s Child?🤣🤣🤣
Too fast