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Using Open Strings: Switching Between Strings Pt.1

Robert Mussatti 91 lessons

Now that we have the basic motions and understanding of how this is done, I am now going to show you a way of using open strings on 2 or more strings, switching between them simultaneously.

This requires a bit of key signature understanding as well, so to start off, we will be going back to the key of E Minor/G Major. If we look, we can see that the only note that is sharped is the F, so on the guitar, any of the open strings are fair game, and with this also comes the focus of knowing how the E Minor Scale is formed on each of the strings. For this reason, we will only be using the high E and B strings, just to get you comfortable on those first.

Below, I have shown how the E Minor scale is formed on both the open E and B strings so you can see how both of them interact with each other.

To be able to switch effortlessly between the two strings and make the scale flow, play the scale in the way shown below:

When you have that down, we can now start using that scale with the open E and B strings. Shown at the bottom is an example of how you can use both the high E and B strings, along with some of the patterns we learned in the previous lesson to give us a nice long open string solo. It's a bit long so take your time with this one. Hopefully this will help spark some creativity for you!

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