In this instructional video, Jaden Kim (as JoJo) expands on his previous lesson about half‑step intervals and teaches the concept and practical execution of whole‑step intervals on guitar. He defines a whole step as two half steps, explains two ways to play them (same‑string and across strings), and emphasizes the “one finger per fret” rule. The lesson demonstrates finger‑placement patterns, hand‑shifts, and “mobility jumps” between strings, highlighting the special spacing between the B and G strings that alters the usual four‑fret span to three. Throughout, JoJo provides step‑by‑step exercises, challenges the viewer to practice whole‑step patterns up and down the neck, and encourages charting multiple paths across the fretboard. He also notes the musical character of whole steps (bright, dreamy) and stresses the importance of mastering these fundamentals before moving to more advanced material.
Chapters
Hello and welcome back to the Dojo. My name is JoJo, and I will be leading you through this meditation. Let us begin. So before we get started, this is a continuation of my previous video, episode one, that talked about half steps. If you haven't checked out that video yet, go watch it and then come back here. We'll be on the same page. So today we're going to be talking about whole steps. If half steps are the atoms and these are the molecules. So if our half step was, you know, from one fret to the next, as the name implies, a whole step is worth two half steps. So this is a half step. This is a whole step. See that third to fourth half step? Third to fifth whole step. Just like the half step, there are two fundamental ways to play a whole step. Either on the same string that's up, this is down. And also on a different string, which we're going to talk about right now. Okay, so playing a whole step on a different string, how do we do that? So let's take a look at our whole step first. So I'm going to be on my seventh fret of my E string, right? And before, remember, all you have to do is do pinky. Make sure each finger gets its own fret. By the way, we're going to do pinky to index, and in the process, our whole hand is going to shift over one fret to the left if we're going upwards. So pinky on the seventh to index on my third, that's a half step, right? That's the same sound as pinky on my own seventh to eighth, seventh, eight on the same string, seventh to third on the next string, it's the same note, okay? So logically, if we want to do a whole step, we have to go up one more half step. So from third to fourth, right? If we look at where we came from, our seventh fret in our E string, it actually is great news because our whole step is easier to play than our half step. Watch this. All we have to do is go pinky on the seventh fret to index on our fourth fret, right? That's if every finger gets its own fret, then my hand does not have to move, right? I'm moving it to make it clear for you guys and that you're going to get the same sound if you go pinky on the 7th, pinky on the 9th, pinky on the 7th, Pinky on the 4th of the next string, Right? So here's gonna be our exercise. It's basically going to Be the exact same thing as last time. But instead of moving only by whole steps or only by half steps, we're now only going to move by whole steps. Right? So let's start by putting our middle finger on the fifth fret. You with me? I hope you have your guitar with you. You should. So, fifth fret, if I want to say. If I say go up a whole step, the easiest thing to do would just be to put down our pinky. Right? From index to pinky, that's two frets. And now we have two options, Right? If I want to keep going up by whole steps, the first option is just keep going the same string. Pinky slides up two frets to the ninth fret. That's one way. The other way is going to be. So my pinky's on the seventh fret is what's called the mobility jump, Right. We're going to play a half step up on a different string. Remember, you have to be on your pinky, which we are right now. So all you have to do is do pinky to index. It's really that simple. So that whole sequence is just middle on the fifth, then pinky on the seventh, and then ring or index on the third. Right. If we keep going, what's going to be next? If I want to play a half step up on the same string, the easiest thing for me to do is just go pinky or next finger to ring finger. Right? So the whole sequence is middle, pinky, pointer, ring. So now we are in a little bit of a spot. We're in a little bit of a situation here because we want to play a whole step up, right? But our pinky only gives us one fret, and we're not on our pinky to do the mobility jump. So what do we have to do? Well, it's the same as our half step. We're going to have to make a shift or switch. So here's our first option, right? Play it on the same string. So if my ring finger is on the sixth fret right now, I can count, you know, six, seven, eight is going to be where the next whole step is. Even though my pinky's on seven right now. So. So all you have to do is go from your ring on six to pinky on eight. And the whole hand is going to end up shifting over a fret. Right? Ring on six, pinky on eight. Very simple. Right? So now, sure. The obvious question is, how do you play a whole step up on a different string? Well, it's going to be the same thing as we did last time with the half steps. We're going to replace. We're going to replace our ring finger with our pinky. Why did we do that? Because our hand is our ruler, and every finger gets one fret, right? So now that our pinky is on our eighth fret, our pointer finger is in position on the third fret to play the half step up on the D string. So pinky on the sixth fret to index on the third fret of your D string. You guys, following this, I'll go through what we've done so far. So we have middle on the fifth fret, pinky on the seventh, pointer on the fourth ring on the sixth. Now we have our situation, right? So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna replace. I'm gonna replace my ring finger with my pinky. Pinky is now on the sixth fret, which puts me in position to do my mobility jump, which is pinky to index on the third. And now we just rinse and repeat right after index. What happens? You put your ring finger down on the fifth fret, right? We're in our situation again, right? So now that I'm on my ring finger, I have two options. I either replace with the pinky and play it on the next string, or I just scoot my hand over one fret. So what I'm doing is I'm going to play it on the same string. I'm going to scoot my hand over. So my pinky is currently on the fifth fret of my D string, and I'm gonna or my ring fingers on the fifth fret of my D string. And what I'm gonna do is end up on my pinky on the D string, right? Now that we're on our pinky, what are we in position to do? Our mobility jump, right? Pinky to index. And once again, index to, by the way, index on the fourth fret of the G string to 2 ring sixth fret of the G string. So now we're in a special situation. Remember what I told you about your special strings? Your second and third thinnest strings are tuned a little bit closer together. So that means that when you jump between those strings, it looks a little bit different than normal. So right now I'm on my ring finger on the sixth fret of my G string. Well, guess what? I'm actually already in position to do my whole step mobility jump. Watch this, because I can do ring to pointer. That's ring on the sixth fret to pointer on the fourth fret. So do you see how it's like a span of three frets when normally it's four frets. When we're going between our second and third thinnest string, it basically takes one of those away. So before our hand span four frets, it was pinky to index. But now between these ones, you only need to span at three frets. Right. Now it's going to be ring to index. If I were on my pinky on the sixth fret and I wanted to do the mobility jump, it would not be pinky to index. What would it be? Pinky to middle. Does that make sense? Only when you're between your second and third thinnest strings. And of course, the same thing applies going downwards. Right. If I'm on my middle finger on the fourth fret of my B string and I want to go down a whole step on the next string, all I have to do is go middle to pinky. It's a shorter distance than we're used to. And of course it applies if it was index to ring. Cool. Let's keep going. So let's say we have our index finger on the fourth fret of our B string. Then what we're going to do, the most obvious move is going to be from index to ring. I have two options here and that I'm on my ring finger. I either do it on the same string or I replace and do it on a different string. Let's replace. So I'm going to replace my pinky on the sixth fret. I'm going to replace my index on the sixth fret with my pinky. Right. Play it again just for good measure. And now my hand is put in position. As long as you're keeping one finger per fret to go pinky to index on the third fret of the E string. Right. And then after that, you would go index to ring. Cool. So now, just to make sure you got it. Let's go. Let's go back down. You got to be able to do it both ways. Right. So right where we left off, ring on the fifth fret. Easiest thing to do is just play it on the same string. You're just going to take off these two fingers and now reveal the index finger on the third fret. Right. Now we have to do a mobility jump downwards. Before, it was pinky to index to go upwards. Now it's going to be the exact opposite. It's going to be index to pinky going downwards to a third thicker string. So index on My third fret to pinky on my sixth fret, right? And then pinky on my sixth fret down to middle on my B string, right? On the fourth fret. Now, because we're between our two special strings, the special zone between our second and third thinnest strings, I'm actually already in position to do mobility jump, right? Because I only need to use three fingers. I only need three frets worth of space. So I can do middle to pinky. Pinky is now on my sixth fret of my G string. Now I can keep going from pinky down 2 fret, just reveal the middle. And here we're in like the reverse problem that we had before when we were on a ring finger, right? Right. We have two options here because our. We're on our middle finger and our index finger doesn't reach that far back, right? If we're keeping our one finger per fret. So our two options are this. One, play on the same string middle on the fourth down. Two, second fret, right? Middle on the fourth fret of your G string to index on the second fret. Alternatively, what we can do, I'm back to my middle on my fourth fret, and you replace the middle with the pointer finger. Right? Now we're in position with our hand to do the mobility jump easily, right? It's middle finger on the 4th to pinky on the 9th, or on the 7th, index on the 4th to Pinky on the 7th of our D string. One string thicker, right? Let's keep going. The pinky is going to reveal our middle finger. Now we're on our fifth fret. D string. We ran into our problem again, right? It's not really a problem, though, because we know exactly how to solve it. We either replace or we just shift the hand. In this case, I'm going to shift the hand. So I see my middle is on the fifth fret, right? I can count fifth. Okay. That's one half step. I see where I need to go. I need to go to the third fret of my D string. So I'm gonna go middle fifth fret to my index, third fret of my D string. Right? Now we're in position to do our mobility jump. Now I'm on my pinky on the sixth fret. Keep going. Pinky to middle. We're a grand or problem again. This time I'm gonna replace. I'm gonna replace my middle finger with my index. Now I'm on index finger, fourth fret of the A string. We're in perfect position to do our mobility jump. 7th fret of my low E string, pinky. And then I'm just gonna reveal my middle finger on my low E string. Right? So unlike the cloud, this one, unlike the half step cloud, that is, this one is not, like, as predictable because you have multiple options whenever you run into that situation. So just to give you guys the sound of it, because the sound of whole steps can throw people off. Little, like, fun thing to know is that when you hear, like, movie this, they'll often use whole steps to make this dreamy, spacey sound. It sounds like this. You guys ever heard anything like that? Very, like, bright spacey sound. Cool. So that's also a thing. So before we get too into it, I just want you to realize that just like the half steps, whole steps can be played all on the same string. So this is half steps. You're just going up one fret at a time, Right? This works infinitely in any direction. You can always move by half steps. By just going down each fret, whole steps are gonna be the exact same thing, but you just count two half steps. So here, skip this one here. Right, That works too. So my challenge to you to make sure that you really got this is first, do the same thing that we did with the half steps. You're gonna close your eyes, you're gonna pick a random note on your guitar. Okay? This one, you're going to play a half step up twice in a row, two different ways, first on the same string, then on a different string, Then you're going to play a whole step down, first on the same string, then on a different string. So let's do it. So right now I'm on my seventh fret of my G string. Let's play a whole step up on the same string. Okay, now let's go back to our note. So if I want to play my mobility jump, what do I have to do? Well, I have to replace, since in this case, I'm on my. My G string, my third thinnest string, and I want to go up to my B string. I actually have two options here. I can either replace it with my ring finger and then go up to my index on the fifth fret, Or I could replace with my pinky on the seventh fret and go to my ring finger on the fifth fret. You see that it's the same distance. So it's gonna look like this same string, not different string. I'm gonna replace, put my ring finger also works with pinky to middle. Got it. And then you Go downwards. So I'm gonna go. I'm on my pinky right now. Let's just stay there. So pinky to go down a whole step. I'm just gonna reveal middle finger on my fifth fret, and I'm gonna go back. Now I want to play a whole step down to the next thickest string. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna replace my pinky with my pointer finger. Now my hand is in position using the one finger per fret to go pointer to pinky on my 10th fret. And you're gonna do that all over the neck to make sure that you really got it. Let's choose this one. That's what it's gonna end up looking and sounding like again. Now I gotta replace with my pinky. Now I'm gonna. Now I have to replace my pinky with my ring or my pointer. I'm go downwards. Cool. Make sure you guys are able to do that. Finally, what I want you guys to be able to do is just, like, chart a path and then make it all the way up and then come all the way back down. So if you notice your dots are, like, separated by whole steps mostly. And everything translates, like, from. Because this low E string is the same as the high E string, right? So let's say I'm gonna start my path on the third fret of my low E string. I can see I'm gonna end. I want to end up on my ninth fret of my high E string. And so I want you guys to be able to chart a path. There's no wrong way to do it, right? I could even play a whole bunch of whole steps on the same string and then make my way up. Oops. See, I ended up on my ninth fret of my E string. Now I'm going to go back down. I'm going to take a different path. So before I, like, rode my low E string all the way to here, and then I did whole steps up. Now I'm going to do a little bit differently. Like, I'm going a little bit more diagonal this time. Back to my E string. So you guys should be able to do that, chart a path somewhere and be able to get there in multiple. So that's going to be about it for this episode. I hope everything was clear. I know this does not seem very musical, but I need you guys to understand that these are the fundamentals. Literally, the atoms and the molecules of our musical universe are these whole steps and half steps. This is everything. I'm telling you. This is everything. So make sure you got this down. Make sure you're able to do the challenge and just run over it. Right? This is something that you can learn how to do in a day, but it's something that you need to have practice with and repeat. And look, guys, it doesn't take long. I'm really talking, like 10 minutes. Just go through, pick up your guitar, review your whole steps and your half steps, and in the next episode, we're gonna make some magic. I promise you, your mind is gonna be blown. But spend the time with these first two episodes, and even if you move on to the third episode after that, I want you guys to not neglect these fundamentals. You talk to anybody, good. They never aren't thinking about the fundamentals, the basics. They never have not spent their time with those basic building blocks. So good luck. Leave me any questions in the comments and look out for next episode where the magic really starts to happen. Sayonara.
