Midari (lesson)

Music Lesson: Midari

Introduction

Alright, this next tune up is an old favorite of mine. It's called Midari and it was inspired by the Pennsylvania hills and some Japanese pentatonic scales.

• The introduction starts with some nice fifths:
  • The fingered E
  • An open B
  • A fingered B

I also do some slurs there with the pinky. I'll play it really slow. You can see that I'm slurring down onto the beat.

Then, the second figure of slurs I go through is a series of triads coming down. So, it's a combination of slurring and picking.

Let's hear the introduction with a click.

• Slow version: So you can really hear the time frame.
• Fast version: One time fast so we can hear more in speed.

Verse

That leads us to our verse. The verse starts with a nice E9 chord and then we're going to go all the way up the fretboard to this shape.

I don't even know what we should call that chord, but I guess we can call it a B chord with D sharp in the bass with an add nine, if you'd like to call it that.

Next, we're going to take that same shape and move it down two frets back down to the E chord, then to that shape:

• A G sharp minor seventh chord
• An F sharp minor seventh chord, using that same shape again
• Finally, going up to a C sharp minor seventh chord

Then, for an easy change, we just move our second finger down and that creates a C major seventh chord.

Let's hear that whole section slowly in time.

• C Major 7: Alright, now just a bit faster.

Pre-Chorus

That leads us to a little pre-chorus. The B11 chord sounds so good on the guitar.

We're going to play a melody on top of that there:

1. Chords:
   • B11
   • E major seventh chord with B in the bass
   • Back to the B11
   • G11 chord

Followed by a slur figure, then back up to the E major 7.

Let's hear that in time.

• Faster version: Now a bit faster from there.

Chorus

That leads us to our chorus. Basically, we're playing a B11 chord and a melody on top of that with some slurs.

So those chords after the B11 are:

• G11
• E minor 9

Hey, I think I used those a couple of times before. But hey, they sound good, don't they?

Let's hear that a little bit faster.

Outro

As we take out the tune, we have a chord progression that goes from:

• B11
• E major 7
• C sharp minor 7
• C major 7

All the while keeping a nice melody on top of that.

Let's hear that slowly.

We're going to take it out off the B11 to an E chord and a big stretch here. I just like the sound of that chord, hearing that G sharp against the A.