Ivan's Video Chat Lesson Notes Options

[Ivan Milenkovic]

Hey guys, here's the topic for all the video chats I hold, you will find future video chat content here as well!

Sunday 26th of November

- Session 1 (of the 3-session Pentatonic Course): Pentatonic scale, boxes 4 & 5, connecting them with slides

We covered two pentatonic positions of the A minor pentatonic scale:

Position 4:


Position 5:


We went up and down on the position along side with the backing tracks. We also worked on two sliding licks that can help us connect these two positions together. You can also see the chords that were used on top of these licks, relative to the starting and ending note of the licks:

What is important is that we covered 5 chords with these patterns: Am, C, Dm, Em, G. While going up & down the pattern, we made stops on each chord's root note. So when practicing these patterns, play a backing track (i.e. C major), and while playing the pattern, stop on every C note along the way. This will get yourself familiar and comfortable of finding/using that note later on when playing.

Lick 1 (Am)


Lick 2 (Em)





Sunday 4th of December 2011

This is the Session 2 of the Pentatonic Course, and we worked on two more pentatonic scale positions with the backing tracks (on top of C, Dm, Em, G and Am chords).

Position 1:


Position 2:


Let's put these patterns into context, and tighten them up a bit as well. Here are some of the things we we will work on today:

- starting from low tempos
- starting and ending our sequences on a root note (of the chord in the backing) and making a stop on a root note of the chord along the way
- increasing speed gradually
- covering position connections with slides

Sunday 11th of December 2011

For today's (final) pentatonic session 3, we go through the last position that we have left - position 3 of the Am pentatonic scale. We will practice this position up and down following the root notes of the chords playing in the background.



For the second part of the chat, we will try to connect different positions together, but again with using the notes in context, not just playing randomly. These sliding connections are extremely important as they provide foundation for moving horizontally across the neck, and "breaking out of the box". Here are the essential 4 slide connections we will go through:

Example 1:


Example 2:



Example 3:



Example 4:



As with up & down sequences on the boxes themselves, here we will also start the sliding sequences on the root note (of a chord in the backing track), and end the sequence on the root note. Find the root notes in the patterns, and form the sequences according to backing track you are playing with.

(Backing Tracks in the attachment)

Topic will be updated briefly, stay tuned...

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This post has been edited by Ivan Milenkovic: Jan 12 2012, 06:48 PM

[Ivan Milenkovic]

Thanks a lot my friend, you're very kind I'll do my best to stand to that.

Next series is Blues Improvisation Course. Here are the lesson notes from this 4 - Session Course:


Here's the plan for Blues Improvising Course:

- Session 1: Playing the blues scale over I-IV-V progression
- Session 2: Mixing of major and minor pentatonics
- Session 3: Technique study: Vibrato and bending
- Session 4: Style study: Clapton's licks, SRV's raking/dynamics, BB King's vibrato/phrasing, Albert King's bending


Session 1 assignment: (18.12.2011)

In the last couple of weeks we went trough all boxes of the pentatonic scale (check out content above for that course), and here we will add one more note to that scale and get 5 positions of a blues scale. They are very similar to pentatonic ones, but should be rehearsed nonetheless, because we have to feel equally comfortable in every position in order to become proficient on the fretboard.

These are the positions that we will cover during this week:

Am blues scale position 4:


Am blues scale position 5:


Am blues scale position 1:


Am blues scale position 2:


Am blues scale position 3:


Blues is all about I - IV - V progression. These roman numerals ( I - IV - V) stand for chords. We have 3 chords in the blues progression, first, fourth and fifth chord. This means we will use first, fourth and fifth note of the major scale. This blues is in the Key of A, so first chord is A, fourth chord is D, and fifth chord is E. We will have to practice with these chords in order to fully understand how blues improvisation works. Don't worry if you aren't too familiar with the concepts of I - IV - V theory. Our main goal is to get to know the patterns and practice them with chords. Rest will come later during the course.

For the assignment, go up and down the patterns, and follow these guidelines:

1. Use the pattern, but start and end the sequence on the note, which corresponds to the root name of a chord (i.e. over A chord backing, start from A and end on A, over D chord backing start on D and end on D, over E chord backing start on E and end on E)
2. Use free player AIMP to speed up or slow down these tracks as you are practicing them
3. Once you feel comfortable with starting and ending on A, D and E notes, use the backing where you have them combined and try to match the notes of the chords as they come into play (trickier then it might seem, but you will love the results )
4. Record some of the patterns you went through, and how you followed the chords, and post them here for feedback.

Feel free to send your takes during the week, but also be aware that we will go through complete Session 1 material on Sunday's video chat (18th of December)!


Session 2 assignment: (25.12.2011)

For session 2, we have one important aspect of blues: mixing major and minor pentatonic. In order to to that, we have to learn to superimpose these two scales on top of each other on the fretboard. Let's start easy, with one position first. We need to superimpose A minor pentatonic box 1, with A major pentatonic box 1:

A minor pentatonic box 1:


A major pentatonic box 1:


In blues, the clash of these two scales over major harmony is creating the dissonance that we usually refer as "bluesy sounding" line. On the next chat we will go through some exercises of playing these two boxes, following roots inside them, and trying to use them together in our blues solo.

During this week, you can work on these patterns in this order:

- play around with these two patterns over single-chord backing tracks
- try to learn and follow the root notes within them over single-chord backing tracks
- try to play roots only with the 12 bar blues progression (3 chords combined)
- try to play lines within each scale separately, that follow the roots over 12 bar blues track
- try to combine two patterns together, and play lines that follow the roots over 12 bar blues track


Feel free to send your takes during the week, but also be aware that we will go through complete Session 2 material on Sunday's video chat (25th of December)! You can also find the Guitar Pro file of the blues solo that we did on the video chat in the attachment section.



Session 3 assignment: (01.01.2012)

For the Session 3 we have vibrato/bending study. This is very important technique in blues, and we will cover lots of different situations where you need to do bending/vibrato. Unfortunately, it's very hard to display this with tabs/backing tracks, so I will reserve this session for video chat, held on 1st of January. I hope you won't be tired from New Year's Eve, to make it on this chat!

OK, session 3 is finished, and on the 1st January video chat, we talked about several important bend & vibrato techniques in blues (and in general):

Bending is a technique where we fret the note, and (while fretting) pull the string upwards on downwards:

- When I'm bending with the index finger, I usually pull my string downwards on all strings but B and high E.
- When I'm bending with all other fingers, I'm usually bending my strings upwards on all situations, except when on strings A and low E.

Why? Because there simply isn't room for bending more, the string can go over the neck's edge.

Vibrato is a complex-motion technique, consisting out of multiple consecutive bigger or smaller bends. There are numerous ways you can do a vibrato:

- up & down nudging with the wrist fixed, and elbow going up and down (ala Eric Clapton, or more aggressive approach found at SRV)
- up & down nudging with small wrist movement and elbow rotating (ala BB King)
- Circular movement, combining left&right and up&down nudging of the note (ala Steve Vai)

All these techniques are good in their own respective way, and these players developed them to extreme levels. By practicing your vibrato and bending, you develop your expression, but your tone as well. You learn when to stop on the note to do a vibrato or bend, give your notes glissando quality, and improve your tone.

Vibrato and bending should be practiced slowly with the metronome or backing track, as demonstrated in the video chat! Here is one cool exercise that you can do, that will greatly help you achieve desired quality of the bends:

- Take Am blues scale as a reference and practice slowly bending with the backing track
- Bend each note out of a scale, to the next note in line (i.e. bend D to D# and release, and repeat that motion, then bend D to E and release etc..)
- Take it very slowly, using quarter notes, and then move one to faster consecutive bends
- Always make sure you are in correct pitch (that you reached the desired bended note)
- Repeat these steps for each of the fingers

If you take time to do this exercises system, your bending and vibrato techniques will be greatly improved. Even if you do it on several important notes (such as bends to root, or D-D#, and D-E), it will already be a major improvement.

Am blues scale:


Another important thing that we discussed are double stop bends/vibratos. These are very cool sounding, often emulating slide tone, and very popular in blues. Try to go through this cool example:

     |---3---|            |---3--|                         
     E   E   E   H        Q      E      W                  
E||----------------------------------|--------------------|
B||----------8~--L--------7br----5b--|--------------------|
G||--5s--9~---------------7br----5b--|--------------------|
D||----------------------------------|--7~----------------|
A||----------------------------------|--7~----------------|
E||----------------------------------|--------------------|


  |---3--|        |----------3---------|                         
  Q      E   Q    E   E    Q      E    E      W                  
------------------------------------------|--17~----------------|
--7br----5b---------------10~----10s--17--|---L-----------------|
--7br----5b-------5s--9~------------------|---------------------|
-------------7----------------------------|---------------------|
------------------------------------------|---------------------|
------------------------------------------|---------------------|

Guitar Pro Tab for this HERE

Session 4 assignment: (08.01.2012)

For the last session of the Blues Improvisation Course, we need to see how the legends did it This should be fun, so let's go through style studies a bit. For this session, there is one assignment to go through before the next video chat and that is, to watch all the examples bellow, and try to spot important characteristics of each of the players.

Clapton's licks (special attention at the beginning, you can hear lots of licks that make sense on their own without the band even)


SRV's raking/dynamics (watch the main verse riff, it's a rock'n'roll riff with reverse raked treb strings)


BB King's vibrato/phrasing (check out the opening lick, with famous vibrato on the "C", followed by an applause, master player)


Albert King's bending (check the intro solo, master player that can play a melody from bends only)



Guitar Tabs with famous licks from all 4 blues legends can be found in the attachment bellow!


Backing tracks for practice:

A chord
http://soundcloud.com/ivanmilenkovicmusic/a-backing-track

D chord
http://soundcloud.com/ivanmilenkovicmusic/d-backing-track

E chord
http://soundcloud.com/ivanmilenkovicmusic/e-backing-track

I - IV - V (combined A - D - E in a 12 bar blues progression)
http://soundcloud.com/ivanmilenkovicmusic/i-vi-v-backing-track-a-d-e


You can also download all 4 backings in archive, click on the link HERE

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Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

This post has been edited by Ivan Milenkovic: Jan 14 2012, 07:49 PM