MASTER THE FRETBOARD WITH MY NEW APP | Solo - Fretboard Visualization | TOM QUAYLE

hi there guys tom quayle here hope everybody's doing very well as ever now this is without a doubt one of the most exciting videos i've ever put together for this youtube channel or my career generally

because today is the day i can announce to you guys that my debut app solo is available to download in the app store right now solo has been designed by myself and my good buddy david beebe

as the ultimate fretboard visualization practice tool but i want to explain to you why we created solo in the first place i've been teaching guitar and playing

guitar for around 25 years now and it's been my experience that traditional ways of teaching fretboard visualization are really as much of a burden for guitar players as they are

a help i've been thinking for many years now about this process this complex process of mapping out the fretboard for guitar players and i really believe that this system of utilizing

multi-octave six string shapes like three note per string the cage system pentatonic boxes really present a lot of problems and like a brick wall barrier for a lot of guitar players in

their ability to manipulate harmony in real time whilst improvising over chord changes or learning new scales and this is fundamentally because when

we learn these large shapes we don't pay enough attention to how each of the notes within these large shapes relate back to the root note of the chord or scale that we're utilizing or

playing over at the time this makes improvisation with these large shapes very difficult because it's very hard to manipulate large pieces of information as compared to very small

pieces of information now this is where solo comes in solo is designed to help you learn the fretboard in much more detail by always having you think about how each note that you play

relates to the chord or scale that you're utilizing at the time solo works by utilizing a system of visualization called intervallic functions now if you guys follow this channel you might remember i did a video a couple of months ago

called how i visualize the fretboard and essentially what i'm doing in that video is teaching people this system of visualizing using intervallic functions now don't worry if you've never heard of intervallic functions before

you can check out the video above here or down below in the description and in that video i go through the system of visualization which i believe fundamentally is the most powerful way of visualizing the fretboard

if you want to be able to play over changes kind of mask the harmony on the fretboard and really be able to play any scale anywhere on the fretboard it kind of sounds like snake oil but believe me guys it's not it's still

incredibly hard work but i believe that practicing in this way with intervallic functions really gives you the most powerful flexible and ultimately most rewarding

and satisfying way of visualizing this quite complex instrument it's our goal with solo to help solve some of these problems that guitar players have in their ability to

manipulate harmony on the fretboard and visualize harmony in a useful way that's not based on these large shapes also if any of you guys have bought my visualizing the fretboard tutorial from

my website which is also linked below solo acts as the ultimate companion practice tool for that tutorial so it's well worth getting if you guys have bought that tutorial

and have enjoyed it so with all of that said let's check out solo i'm going to show you how it works what it does and why it really could be if you're prepared to do the work with this

app be completely transformatory for so many guitarists out there in your ability to visualize the fretboard and improvise freely with scales and arpeggios around the instrument

so here we are guys let's launch solo let's tap on the app just here and this is what you're going to see when you first load up solo so here we've got four different sections

of the app we've got the changes playing trainer the scale trainer we've got the tutorials there's a bunch of different tutorials in here that david and i put together explaining how to utilize the app and

get the most from it what the best ways of practicing with it are all sorts of different things in there some general tips and tricks and then we've got the settings screen where you can customize different features of the app to your liking let's go back to the changes playing

trainer and i just want to show you what solo does and how it does it really really quickly so i'm just going to set up a changes playing workout i'm going to select root 3rd 5th and 7th here

then i'm going to select autumn leaves and hit start i'll go through all of this in more detail in a minute and this is where you will spend most of your time with solo we've got the name of the song up here we've got the chord that we want to be

playing over at this point it's the first chord of autumn leaves c minor seven then we've got a bunch of intervallic functions on the bottom now rather than making you play through some giant scale shape or some giant

arpeggio shape solo is asking you very specifically to find and play the 1 the flat 3 the 5 and the flat 7 of this particular chord all of these intervals are currently

blue and it's waiting for me to play them so if i play the root note or one c check that out it's basically recognized it's analyzed what i played

it's recognized that that's the root note and let's grade that out and moved on to the next note the flat 3.

now i'm going to find and locate on my guitar the flat 3 and the beauty here is i can take as long as i want to find this note there is no rush for me to find it because solo's not going to move

on there's no time based pressure so i know the flat 3 is here there we go i know the 5 is here and i know the flat 7 is here i got all those notes correct

and solo has moved on to the next chord in this case f 7 f dominant seventh and again because of the level i selected it's asking me to find the one the three the five and the flat seven of this chord

now the cool thing about solo is it's totally intelligent we have taught solo the entirety of jazz harmony so it can accurately map out this sequence one

three five seven this generic sequence onto every single chord in this tune you don't need to know you don't need the cognitive ability or to take the time to figure out what notes to play you just need to be able to find them on

the fretboard so it's a laser focus tool for visualizing in a super detailed way on the fretboard so i'm going to play the one f then the three

then the five then the flat seven now in this case we've got again b flat major seven one three five seven i'm gonna play the one then descend

to the three then the five and then in this case if i get the seven wrong i'm playing a flat seven here by mistake against the b flat solo is not going to

move on it knows this is the wrong note so i'm going to play the seven instead and then we get the next chord one three five seven one

flat three flat five flat seven one three five flat seven so on and so forth

[Music] and it will go as fast as you can go [Music] now there's a bunch of different ways

that you can customize not only the level that you choose but you can customize the level once you've chosen it so we could come in and say let's randomize these intervals so now it's going to randomize between root third fifth

seventh that means you can't just play up an existing pattern that you've learned which is a classic guitaristic thing to do when you're learning to visualize the

fretboard we just learn a shape and then we play that shape up and down and we can't manipulate it in this way when i come in here and start this changes work out now the intervals are in a different

order a randomized order and i really have to think hard about where these notes are because i can't just play up and down that shape i've learned so now let's find c

here i know the flat 3 in relation to this c is here the 5 is here the flat 7 and then the 1.

i'm not thinking about a giant shape here's the 5 of f7 related to this root note here there's five the flat seven i can play here i'm visualizing it from this f

here's the one then the three now i've got there's my b flat root note i'm gonna play three one five seven and then we have e flat major seven five

i'm visualizing from this e five three one seven so on and so forth if you're a more advanced player come in and select one of these melodic

structures and you can work through those instead so you could say okay well one two flat seven five okay well let's work through c minor seven one

two flat seven five solo intelligently maps these intervallic functions to the next chord so it selected a melodic sequence that's going to work for this particular chord

so flat seven two six five and then the same thing for b flat major seven is selected a melodic sequence that works well for this

so flat seven sorry seven two six five and this is all really good for your ears because you're constantly hearing harmony being played specifically on the guitar

and at any point you go wrong solo will know that you're not playing the right notes and won't move on until you find the right ones so it's a constant reinforcement of the visual and oral feedback of getting

this stuff right without relying on giant shapes as you play so i'm going to tap out of here and now go to the scale trainer okay i'll go through the interface in a second in more detail let's set up a scale workout now with

the scales i'm going to be working exclusively with scales as opposed to chord changes so in this case i get a bunch of different scales to select i've got my major and minor pentatonic i've got my major scale modes i've got

my melodic minor modes harmonic minor harmonic major modes and my symmetrical scales let's select the let's select the melodic minor scale here i've got the starting root of c again i

won't go through all the options now because i just want to show you what this does and how it works but trust me guys there are an almost infinite number of workouts that you can create using the upper options here and then

the workout options on both of these screens the change is playing and the scale trainer let's tap on the scale trainer here and it's presented me with a c melodic minor scale and the intervallic functions that make up that scale which

are one two flat three four five six seven one i'm going to play through them so here's i'm going to pick this c here as my root note and i'm gonna play one

then two flat three four five six seven and then the one it's then going to go back to the beginning and ask me to play

c melodic minor again now i could choose to play the same fingering and just run that or i could choose a different fingering the point here is that solo is making you hyper aware of how each note that you play relates

to the root note by its function we're not showing you large scale shapes we're not getting you playing across six strings we're not getting you playing these giant shapes just so you can run up and down them we're trying to make you super aware of

where each of these intervallic functions is within this scale so i could do this i could play one here and then two here

then flat three four five six seven one i'm manipulating the fretboard in real time and again the really cool thing here is

you can take as long as you need to find these notes and solo will not move on until you've got them correct so one if i play the wrong note here [Music]

solo's not going to move on until i play the correct note now another cool thing is that we can totally change the order of these notes and we can change the order that the scales occur in

so we could have a random let's say here i go random i'm going to get random melodic minor scales starting with a root note of c at the beginning and i'm going to get a random order of notes this is way harder for most guitar

players so now it wants me to play one six two and then five seven

four flat three and one now you cannot do this unless you have a really good grasp of the fretboard and being able to do this in real time is so so

powerful you can see now it's moved on to g melodic minor and it's given me another randomized set of functions within that scale things like this are so so useful to do they really are and again there's a bunch of different options here that we

can utilize if i go back to here i can have a c melodic minor scale going from the third note in the scale to the third note so we could do this

now let's play c melodic minor but from the flat three up to the flat three again flat three four five six

seven one two flat three but let's say that's too complicated for you you're a beginner at this kind of stuff you don't have a lot of fretboard knowledge you can't even find note names all over the fretboard

solo has you covered too even if you're an advanced player or a beginner there are tons of different options for you let's say you want to get really good at just finding root notes all over the fretboard i can come into the changes playing

trainer select the root note workout let's pick a different tune so let's go for all the things you are hit the start changes workout and we're only presented with ones or root notes

i can find one for f then i'm going to find the nearest b flat then i'm going to find the nearest e flat then a flat d flat and i can take as

long as i need solo's going to sit there and wait until i find the right note if i play the wrong notes get the right note eventually g

so on and so forth c so you can take as long as you need to find these things let's say you've done that now let's pick root and third you don't need to know which third is the correct one for each chord solo is

going to tell you so in this case i've got f minor 7 i've got to locate one and flat three now the way i visualize the fretboard the whole

principle of how this is so powerful is because you're you should do this all within one octave ascending or descending and what i've done through practicing in the way that solo helps you practice

is i've learned what every single possible intervallic function looks like on the guitar within one octave ascending or descending so i know that this one to flat three looks like this it's this

shape on the same string it could also be this shape onto adjacent strings it could be this shape descending okay i've learned what all of these intervallic functions look like this is

what my in the fretboard tutorial teaches you and we have all of these shapes written out within solo so if we go to the tutorials here go to the intervallic function shapes

we've written out all of the possible shapes that you would need to learn all of these intervallic functions all over the guitar ascending and descending so if i go back to my workout here

this route to flat 3 rather than thinking about a giant scale shape and getting lost within that scale shape i can be way more efficient by thinking okay 1 and flat 3 looks like this from f

okay here's my b flat it wants 1 and flat 3. i can use exactly the same

flat 3. i can use exactly the same shape here's my e flat okay now i just have to raise it to the major third solo's asking for a natural three

[Music] so on and so forth now if you're not good at this you can't find these intervallic functions we have tutorial material within solo that will help you to be able to find them

and again it's the ultimate practice tool companion for my visualizing the fretboard tutorial so if you've got that already this really is essential in terms of your practice setup so there's a ton of

different things you can do we can make this as complicated as we like or as simple as we like if we go to the chord scales let's select all the things you are chord scales let's reverse them and then start

changes work out solo is going to ask me for all the intervals of each of the chord scales and because it's intelligent it understands jazz harmony it's going to map each of these functions correctly for

each of the chords within the tune even if you transpose it it doesn't matter what you do we've always given you the correct intervallic functions for each chord dependent on what it is in the tune where it is in the key

or if it's a 2-5-1 or any harmonic scenario so in this case i'm going to find f i know my flat 7 is here i know my flat six is here i know my five

and i'm visualizing all of these from this f root note here's my four my flat three again from this f root note my two and then here's the lower root notes now we've got b flat

i'm going to visualize from this nearest b flat here flat 7 6 5 4. i'm now going to do i'm actually

5 4. i'm now going to do i'm actually going to play the flat 3 here which i'm visualizing from this b flat here and then i'm going to play two

and then one this is so so powerful and if you get really good at this solo can keep up with you so [Music] so on and so forth

so it's super accurate it always knows what you're playing and it really is the most efficient way to develop fantastic fretboard knowledge on the guitar so there we go guys that is

solo it's been a huge amount of work so rewarding and i can't wait to get it into your hands and see what you guys think of it we genuinely believe this could be transformatory for so many guitar players in terms of the way that they

think about the fretboard and are able to manipulate it in real time whilst improvising even over the most complex off chord changes we'll be updating solo regularly

releasing new features as we go along we'll also be adding more and more chord changes to the app they'll be updated regularly probably weekly as we go through and also as we get some different tunes

requested and adding multiple genres as well just generally adding more and more features it's available now on the app store for iphone and ipad for less than the price of a

takeaway pizza basically for a tool that could totally transform your playing now a quick note android users we have not forgotten about you i apologize it's not available on android devices

from the get-go but the realities of developing is a three-man team with just one developer means that we cannot focus on more than one platform at a time unfortunately

so we absolutely plan to get this out on android as soon as possible so keep your eyes and ears peeled for a release date for that as soon as we can get it done you'll find a link below to take you to

the app store to check out the app for your individual devices and we really really hope you guys have a lot of fun and find the work that is required to utilize this app properly and all the

lesson material so rewarding we absolutely find it rewarding ourselves and of course solo was made for us so we find it really great and hope you guys do too alright guys thank you so much for your time

thank you for watching i really hope everybody has a fantastic new year and of course that 2021 is better than the disaster that 2020 was hopefully solo is something good that came out of that for the guitar

community so thank you guys for watching and i will see you all in the next one bye-bye welcome to solo the ultimate app for learning the guitar fretboard

visualize the neck master scales and play through changes like a pro with intervallic functions solo is a highly focused practice tool for developing your note finding and

visualization skills using common progressions solo shows you one chord symbol or scale at a time and asks you to find and play a series of notes based on their

intervallic function solo listens to what you play and only moves on once you've correctly found each note by using the workout options you can build

and customize an almost limitless number of new and challenging ways to practice for beginners or advanced players alike solo gives you the most powerful and

efficient way to control the fretboard no matter how hard the chord changes or scales are download solo today and start transforming your playing and confidence on the guitar

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