The SECRET SCALE used by Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Slash & John Squire

Flippin' heck mate - that is the best guitar lesson I've ever had! So in terms of scale tones its: 1 2 b3 3 4 b5 5 6 b7 BUT you shift to match the current chord. [corrected - I missed out the 5] You absolute star! You have completely blown my mind. I've been playing guitar for years and never discovered it. Thank you so much! You know on the inside of the gatefold sleeve of Led Zep IV there is a mysterious figure holding a lantern? Thats you that is.

Dude its simple, if you burn a candle in front of any les paul at midnight the fret board glows with said scale

Jeff Beck has to be in there somewhere

I'm 38 years old. Been playing since around 5th grade. The best and easiest explanation I've ever come across. When you start playing in a band and meeting musicians out in the world and setting in with them and them setting in with you, you start to see how much talent is out their. Attitude will make or break you. Your gonna run into people not as good as you, people better than you, and people on another level. I am self taught. When I started getting out their I realized pretty quick I was lacking in some areas. What this man just gave us is where you need to go to (find yourself) so to speak. And some of the best advice I've ever gotten is play what you feel. And treat the other musicians with respect. Play rhythm just as good as you do lead. I've played with lots of good lead players. But when it came for my turn, the rhythm wasn't their like It was for them. And no matter how good your lead is if the rhythm isn't their your lead is not going to sound like it should no matter how good you know the scale. Support each other like you want to be supported. This took me awhile to figure out. It's really hard to find musicians that understand this is a team effort. Their are egos, and everything else you can think of out their on stage with you. Always respect each other, play what you feel, from your heart, and when you play with another guitar player and he is on another planet with his chops. Appreciate the time and effort he put in honing his craft. Instead of feeling some type of way about him shining more than you. Doing that got me alot of places that other wise I wouldn't have been able to go. Great video man, I feel like i owe you money.

I use a secret scale to weigh myself in the morning.

What about Mark Knopfler? I think his technique is so unique that he should be considered the greatest British guitarist of the 1980s!

You're playing a jazz blues scale (Dorian + b5) adding a M3 depending on if the chord you've playing over is major. Playing on the chord is called "vertical playing ". Wonderful theory lesson for an intermediate player.

The '60s: Peter Green, without a doubt.

This was featured in the mid 1980s by Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine. It was explained differently and had a couple different names, really quite simple. Take the pentatonic major scale and combine the notes with the pentatonic minor notes of the same root note, then add the blue note (b5): 1 2 b3 3 4 b5 5 6 b7 8 The pentatonic major/minor combo scale, aka the modified mixolydian scale. The b5 is optional of course, you don’t have to use it. But now let’s get really crazy: take the same combo scale and add the b6 and major 7 notes, and pick a few spots to play those 2 notes sparingly. Chromaticism galore! It works! Or try leaving out the 2nds and 6ths with more emphasis on the b3 and 3rd. B.B. King city!! Featured artists in the magazine lesson were Eric Clapton and Gary Rossington - major proponents of the pentatonic major/minor scale. Many slide players also use/used this scale: Dwayne Allman, Rod Price, Billy Gibbons, Ed King, Joe Walsh, and probably all of their blues predecessors.

Dude, i fuckin love your passion about finding/helping create the next oasis/nirvana, you are doing the lords work

This is a nice way to present “following the chords.” I actually learned this on my own before I figured out, “Hey wait, I can actually stay in the same box for all the chords!”

I've been banging on guitars for the last 45 years and this is the best explanation I've ever seen. Thank you!

*Throws my book in the air and walks out cursing my guitar teacher.

Brilliant lesson. I am almost 70 years old and have sort of figured this out on my own, but having your clear description validated everything I have worked for these many decades. Now all I need to do is to work on artful phrasing that conveys emotion. Part of that, I think, is to imagine your riff before you play it. I call that thoughtful phrasing. It is harder than you think. Maybe that is why Clapton has that pained, closed eyed look when he plays at his best. He is thinking about what he wants to say, rather than just riffing along with the chords in time. Thanks so much James.

I’m 74 and still playing, excersicing, discovering, developing, it never stops. Good guitar lesson, I must say!

Hendrix and SRV are missing. As Herbie Hancock once told me, "I want to hear your life and not just a bunch of notes" I learned from A list players that knowing when not to hit notes is just as important as playing notes--so they would play a painfully slow 12 bar blues and encourage me to play with my "soul" and let the guitar be my voice. I still love to shred over slow blues (who doesn't) but my teachers made me play slow and get in the groove of the song. That opened a whole new chapter in my playing discipline. Thanks for the excellent lesson.

Good job James. Clapton's playing got millions of young men on all continents loving the guitar.

As a teacher i called it the "majorminorpent"

One of the best guitar tutorials I've ever seen on the internet. Clear, succinct, and insightful. Excellent job. And I couldn't agree more about Clapton.

Jeff Beck all day