Guitar Octaves Explained with 3 EASY Exercises - 485

Three easy octave exercises

0:00Lee here from Play Guitar Academy. An octave is the same note in a different register, higher or lower. Today I'm going to show you three easy exercises that can help you see those octaves across the guitar. Then we're going to dig into what knowing octaves can do for your playing in the podcast right after the exercises. So let's talk about exercise number one. This is going to use some common octave shapes. You probably have been using them now but this is going to get you using them all over the fretboard. Here it is on the first line.

We're going to start off with a regular F octave. So you play the first finger on the first fret and then the third finger on the third fret of the D string. Easy stuff, right? Now we're going to take that across the fretboard. So E string, D string, A string, G string, G string. But now we're going to go to the B string.

0:57Now this is going to go up to the fourth fret instead of the third fret. That's where things get different, right? So D string first, B on the fourth, and then G string first and the high E on the fourth. I'm going to try to do these in up-down picking. Let's get a closer look here. So we have now we're just going to move this up a fret and do the same thing. I've got it going up to the fourth fret but you can keep going all the way up.

1:40Now the goal with this is to get the technique down but also if you can't say the names of the notes as you're playing them it's going to help when you get up into these areas of the guitar that are hard to recognize. Okay exercise number two, octaves with licks. Here we go. Now in this one I take the octaves that we've already learned and I like to add a nice little lick in between the two notes. Something musical that I can use so I can know hey this is an idea that I can move around in between these two

2:16points at any time in any key. So I'm going to play those same shapes but I'm going to add a little minor blues lick in between the two notes. This one's going to start on the first fret on the low E on the A string. It's one two three. There's your blue note in the middle there and then on the D string first fret back to the third fret on A and then one three up to the octave on the D string. It makes practicing the octaves fun. You have a little cool little minor blues lick along with

2:54this as you go. I'm going to use my pick on the low strings and then I'm going to pluck everything that's on the D string.

3:40Now remember to say the notes as you are playing these. On something like this you might just want to say the first note, the octave note. Maybe not say all the notes in between but that's going to give you landmarks as you go through the fretboard. Exercise number three, uncommon octaves. Let's take a look at one here that you may not use a whole lot. It's got a lot of skipping in it. Notice that we're

4:11going to be skipping from the low E string all the way to the G string and then to the high E string. This one's going to be four in the low string, first fret on the G string and four on the high E string.

4:24Now we're going to move up a fret, play the same thing backwards, then move up a fret and then up a fret, backwards up a fret and on up the fretboard. Let's take a quick look here. I'm going to try to play all up down strokes as I play this and so on. This is going to help you see these notes. Remember this first one

5:00is an A flat, so I'll say A flat, A flat, A flat, A flat. If you keep saying the names over and over again as you play these, you're going to start to recognize some things. So those are the three

Why you should practice octaves

5:10simple ways to start practicing octaves, but the bigger question is why should you spend your time to do this? And that's what I'm going to dig into today in our podcast right now because octaves can do a lot more for your playing than simply help you find the same note twice. What's the first thing that they can do? They can help you travel to unfamiliar parts of the guitar. What's the most unfamiliar part? A lot of people play in open position at the fifth fret and then they will do the octave of that up here, right? But this between the seventh and the twelfth fret, this becomes pretty

5:46tricky here, especially knowing the names of the notes. Well, octaves can give you landmarks to venture into this unmarked territory. So these octaves, let's take the first shape that we did, which was two frets down and two strings over. It's going to allow you to start to move into this area in the middle of the fretboard. Now take a look here. If I play a B note and then play the octave two frets up and two strings over, this is a B as well. So is this. But this note right here on the D

6:20string at the seventh fret, being a B, most people don't know this. Most people, they hope that they can figure it out. They might work their way up in easy ways to work your way back from the twelfth fret. D, C sharp, C, B, right? If I will go to the A string and do the same thing, this is an E note. Most people know that. But knowing the octave, knowing this E note on the G string at the ninth fret, B, G. This is going to help you know your notes straight across every fret. It's very

6:53important. This is what's going to help you connect the fretboard. Instead of seeing separate shapes, you'll be able to know what the individual notes are and start to put things together that way. We don't have time to think during a song. We're usually going on autopilot from the practice that we did for the song before. But what if you venture off? What if you play your own lead? So let's say you're playing an E and you're playing a song. You've memorized a song, you're playing along, but all of a sudden you decide to take a solo. During the solo, you thought a wonderful thing

7:26would be to get a major third right here in the solo. How can I do that? Well, major third in E is G sharp. Where's my G sharp? So here's a G sharp here. So two frets up, two strings over. There's another G sharp there. But also three strings over and two frets back is another G sharp. If you know the notes on the frets, you're not going to have to go through the whole scale to find it. You can jump right to those using these octaves shapes. What's another great idea that you can use octaves for? Helping you get more mileage out of the ideas you already have. You don't always need to come up

7:58with another 10, 15 licks. You can take the licks that you already know and start to move them around a little bit. We spend a lot of time collecting them. So you might have a lick down here.

8:14I slid up in the beginning of this lick to the seventh fret. Well, two strings over and two frets up. The same note is in pattern two. I'm looking for the E to start this. So every E that I can find if I play my A minor pentatonic shape. That riff sounds different in every octave that I've played. Even higher up on the low strings,

8:59it had a more mellow sound. Lower on the high strings, give it a sharper sound. I can do that with all of my riffs, collecting new riffs, collecting licks and phrases. I'm going to get tons of mileage out of them. You can start thinking in musical phrases, play an idea, leave some space. You can answer it in another octave, experiment with moving back and forth between registers or constantly searching for something new to play. For number three, another way that we can use these is adding a new texture to your playing that you may not use yet.

9:31Playing in octaves, playing scales and shapes at the same time has a very distinct sound. You've heard a lot of these where you'll play with your thumb. What I'm doing is playing up scales, but instead of playing one note with my pick, I'm brushing across with my thumb and muting all the other strings. I'm only letting these notes come out, the octave. This is a B. So let's see here. Let's go back to A minor pentatonic.

10:16I'm working my way up the minor pentatonic scale. Let's take a look at this. So I'll start on my A octave. The next note is a C. Well, I'm going to play this C up here. It's just going to make it easier. Now I'm going to play my D at the fifth fret, my E at the seventh fret,

10:36my G. Now this is one of the two strings over but three frets up. This is a G off of the D string fifth fret and maybe slide it up too to finish it off.

10:53There's a little blues skip.

11:00Playing these two notes simultaneously gives you a sound of your own. It's a different texture. We can take these melodies, but by combining the two notes together, take a simple single note riff and make it extremely interesting. It has a different, it has almost a mellow type sound. It's very easy to listen to. Playing that same line using octave shapes, you can listen to how much the character changes, even though your basic music ideas stay the same. And you can throw

11:31that into your playing. You don't have to play the whole thing this way. Try octave lines inside of a rhythm part or try them as riffs or melodic fills. You can always compare these single notes and these octaves and start making a choice between the two sounds. You always have that choice. And that's why I think octaves deserve a place in your practice. This one simple relationship can help you explore more of the fretboard and develop the ideas you already have and give you another sound to pull from

Practice plan and guitar toolkits

12:00when you're making music. This week, what I'd like for you to do is pick one of the three octave exercises from the beginning of the video. The common octaves, octaves with licks or uncommon octaves. Spend a few minutes with them every day and start putting them to work instead of simply memorizing where they are. I love making videos like this. Something that's relatively easy that's going to really boost your playing a lot. But before we go, if you're frustrated with your playing, if you've been bouncing around between lessons without making any real progress, I have that all

12:31figured out for you. My Play Guitar Toolkits are the self-contained little practice systems and they're built around a specific task or specific area of your guitar. Each one of these gives you the lessons, exercise and practice plans that you need to know exactly how to practice, what to practice, what to work on next. And you have all the vault, everything you need and any key is right there at your fingertips. So you can check out my Play Guitar Toolkits over at PlayGuitarAcademy.com. And I had a lot of fun hanging out with you today and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.