JOJO'S DOJO EP 3 - THE MAGIC KEY TO MUSIC

Hello, my name is Jojo. Welcome to my dojo. This is the third episode in a series where my goal is to teach you. Can't teach you anything. To show you how to understand and express the music that is within you. Today, I'm going to share with you the most powerful tool I've ever encountered for understanding and expressing music. The magic key. First things first. If you haven't watched the first two videos in the segment and you don't know how to play your half steps and whole steps, go do that first. Those two skills are very essential to what we're going to be doing here today. Boom. This right here is your secret weapon. This is a diagram of our major scale, also known as what we're going to refer to our tonal map. You'll notice it has numbers 1 through 7, and this is extremely important. Okay, pay close attention and repeat after me. The only half steps in the major scale are. Are between 3 and 4 and 7 and 1. Now you say it. Got it? Okay. That is so important. Moving forward, I'm sure a lot of you guys are already familiar with your major scale, but in this lesson, I want to try to give you a little bit of a different perspective on it as we move beyond geometric shapes and patterns. Every sound that you've ever heard in a musical composition lies somewhere on this map. The little dots represent half steps, by the way. If that wasn't clear, seriously, it cannot be overstated how important this is for your understanding and just how music works. So let's start by building the scale together. Something that I want to encourage you guys to do is whenever you're working with these exercises, you throw yourself into the ocean, so to speak. So what we're going to do, you can even close your eyes, and we're just going to choose a random note, and in this situation, we're going to designate this Note as Note 1. Got it? I am on the 8th fret of my A string, by the way. So let's just go through the scale together. So if this is one, the next note is going to be two. Is it a whole step or a half step? Well, if it's not 3 and 4 or 7 and 1, the answer is always going to be whole step. So let's play a whole step to two. In this case, I'm going middle to pinky. Okay, so now to go to three, is it a whole step or a half step? I hope you said a whole step. Two is now going to go to three. I'm going to play what we refer to as a mobility jump to my G string or my D string. So so far we've had 1, 2, 3. 3 to 4. What is it, whole step or half step? Exactly. It's a half step. 3, 4. 4 to 5. Whole step or half step? We're back on the whole step grind. Four to five, five to six. Whole step or half step? Remember, if it's not three and four or seven and one, the answer is always whole step. Five to six. And now we're going to go six to seven. Six to seven is a whole step or half step. It's another whole step. Seven to one. Whole step or half step? It's a half step. One. Great. Now we're back at one. Let's just keep going. Let's. For the sake of us already being here in the ocean, let's get a little creative with it. We're going to stay on the same string for this next one, because remember, it doesn't matter where we are. It's all just whole steps and half steps. So on 1/10 fret of my G string, I'm going to go to 2. On the 12th fret of my G string. Right. If I wanted to go to three, I'm going to put my ring finger on that note. Now, you don't have to, but I'm preparing myself to play a whole step up to my B string, which is going to look like. If your ring finger is on your g string, that's 2, then 3 is going to be your index finger on the 10th fret. All right, 3. Now let's go to 4, which. The whole step or a half step? It's a half step. Four. Right. Four to five. Whole step or a half step? Whole step. Four to five. Five to six is going to be another whole step. I'm going to play a mobility jump up to my E string. Six to seven. Whole step or half step? Six to seven. Right. And then seven to one. Great. You just played your major scale. Two octaves. That was your F major scale. That's not that we started on. The great thing is it doesn't even matter what note we started on, because as long as you know what number you are on the scale, it doesn't matter what scale you're playing. Great. So just in the spirit of being thorough, let's just go back down. I'm gonna move a little bit faster now. So we're on note one. On the first or 13th fret of our E string. Right? One to seven. Whole step or half step? It's a half step. Seven to six. Whole step or half step? It's a whole step. Six to five. Whole step or half step? It's a whole step from six to five. I'm playing a mobility jump to my pinky. Five to four, Whole step or half step? Five to four is a whole step. Four to three, whole step or half step? Four to three is a half step. Then three to two is a whole step. Two to one is another whole step. And now we're gonna go one to seven. I'm just gonna play these next two notes on the same string. So we're gonna go one to seven, half step down on the same string. Seven to six is a whole step. So seven to six, six the whole step. Now six to five is going to be another whole step. I'm going to do a mobility jump here. I'm going to go jump from my index to pinky. Now we're on five on our D string, tenth fret. Five to four, whole step, Four to three, half step. Three to two, whole step and two to one. Now we're back. Great. Now let's see if you can play it all on the same string. So I'm gonna choose the second fret of my G string, Right? So now this is our new note one. Okay. So it's all the same whole steps and half steps, right? One to two, whole step for half step one. Two to whole step two, Whole set to three. Two to three, three to four is a half step. Three to four, Right. Four to five is a whole step. Exactly. Five to six is a whole step. Six to seven, that's a whole step. And seven to one. Great. Let's go back down. Why don't we go back down a different way? Right? Because it doesn't matter where we are as long as we know what number we are on. Right? So one down to seven is a half step. Seven down to six is a whole step. I'm currently on my 11th fret, G string on six. So I'm gonna. Now I'm doing mobility jump down to 5, whole step mobility jump, and then 5 to 4. Currently on my D string, 12th fret. 4 to 3 is a half step. Right? 3 to 2, whole step. I just did a mobility jump. And 2 to 1. Very cool. Right? Anytime that you're playing a song and they say, like, this is in the key of G, all that means G is note one. Something that we'll touch on later. If someone's ever like, oh, it's in the key of E minor or anything. Minor, it just means that that Note is Note 6. We'll learn about that later. But so, for example, if they said that a song is in the key of A minor, that just means that A is note six. So, yeah, we'll talk about it later. Don't worry. Great. So if you're following me up to this point, which I hope you are, we're going to be a little bit braver. We're now going to start on a point in the scale that's not even note one. But guess what, guys? It doesn't matter, right? All we have to know is where are we on the map? Right? So I'm going to choose a random note, and we're going to designate it as six. I'm going to choose this one. That is the 11th fret of my G string, and we're going to call this Note 6, right? So let's just go down and see if we can get to another six, right? So this is six going to do a whole step to five, another whole step to four, and then from four to three is a half step, right? I happen to play it down on the same string there, but really it doesn't matter if you play them the same way as me. All that matters is are you playing your whole steps and your half steps correctly. Right? So now three to two, whole step, two to one, one to seven, half step, seven to six, full step. You didn't even know it, but you just played a minor scale. You just played this basically in reverse. Isn't that interesting? Depending on what note you start on in the major scale, by far, following this map, you will get a completely different sound. For example, what if I did a scale starting on 2, so I have 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. That was all following the same map, but I just started on two. It gave a completely different vibe. Right? Especially compared to something like one, where if I start on one. All right, so my camera just died. This is now a different day. But to recap and conclude, know your half steps like the back of your hand. Know your whole steps like the back of your hand. Apply them to this map. Right? And so at the beginning of your practice sessions, what you're going to do is you're just going to choose a random note, right? Throw yourself into the ocean. It's not about just being able to start on the ocean. String to a string, whatever. It's all the same as long as you know where you are on the map. All right, so try picking a random fret one, and then you're gonna play until you reach the next one. Holds it to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I just started on my eighth fret, by the way. And then if you feel comfortable there, go another octave. That just means higher to the next one, right? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1. Go back down. 1, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You don't need to go that fast, obviously. And then once you feel like you really have a handle on it, choose a random fret and start on any of the notes of the scale. Right. I could even start on four here. Right. So this is. This is going to be four of my new key. Right? So I'm gonna go four. I'm gonna try to find 1, 3, 2, 1. Now I know where my one is. Now I can just go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. After that. And what we're going to start doing in our next lessons is exploring the different sound that you can get depending on where you start. Right? It's a completely different sound. If I'm going to go one, two is totally different. It's kind of darker. Right? Then you have three, which is totally different, Right. It's crazy to think that all these sounds are right there in front of us, housed within our major scale. And that's what we get to explore here. So we're going to, moving forward, do a couple more guided practice sessions and showing you guys how to explore this. But this is just to lay the groundwork that if you understand the idea, this concept of this map, the mysteries are just waiting for you to get. They're waiting for you to unravel them. Right? Because once we start moving into chords, and what a chord really is is just notes of this major scale stacked on top of each other. Right? So to make our, what we call our I chord, it would be stacking the notes 1, 3, and 5. You just. You skip every other note, right? So it'd be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Right? And then the two chord would be. Right, 2, 4, 6. Anyways, those are concepts for a different video, but it's all there for you guys to discover. If you have any questions, please let me know. And, yeah, I just got my new camera and my new lighting, so going to be making more videos. As always, feel free to leave song requests in the comments. And yeah, have fun.