What Everybody Does But Nobody Named
During the most intense practice time of my life, when I was learning the modes properly, when I discovered the CAGED system and decided I was going to practice just like Charlie Parker did, in all twelve keys, I discovered her.
At first, I didn’t fully appreciate her power, then I did an experiment. I played over a jazz blues called Hard Times. A song that Eric Clapton recorded but did not write.
I was playing arpeggios and modes thinking, I must change scale whenever the chord changed. I sounded like a jazz guy, on a blues gig.
So then I just played the Minor Pentatonic that came with chord VI, as a blanket scale. Now, I sounded like a blues guy on a jazz gig. So I added the b5, but I still sounded like a blues guy at the wrong gig.
Then it just came to me, what about the maj7 as well? I had already “invented” the Minor Pentatonic Modes, meaning, I was practicing the Minor Pentatonic with the added notes.
I thought, why not add the b5 and maj7, instead of the 9 and b6 that make up Aeolian.
It worked, I now sounded like a jazz/blues guy, at a jazz/blues gig!
Five years later I wrote my first book, The Guitar Conspiracy, and felt I had to include this magical scale that no one had named, so I did and named her Conspirian.
Practice Conspirian
Start by playing all CAGED shapes individually, just like the videos demonstrate in Am. Then move that to all remaining keys, that’s Dm, Gm, Cm etc.
Once this is all good, connect the shapes in Am (video lesson available above). When you can do this, take it around all the keys!
Finally, play the CAGED shapes using the cycle of 4th moving to the closest possible shape. This is the final video in the playlist above.
When you can do all this, you have gained a secret weapon. Whenever you don’t know what mode to play, try Conspirian. Whenever you want a blanket scale but the blues scale isn’t enough, try Conspirian.
She’s magical, she always works, because she avoids the notes that define a minor mode.
Conspirian Improvisation
To get a feel for what this scale really sounds like, you must start making up little licks and melodies instead of practising the patterns up and down the fretboard.
Start doing this without any chords to support you, just like I do in the video above.
Once you feel comfortable with this and can do it in all shapes, see the intervals and genuinely don’t have a problem pulling out a Dm-shaped Conspirian in the key of, let’s say Abm, you must move on.
Instead of practising this scale, find a use for it in real music. For example, in Master Blaster by Stevie Wonder.
In the intermediate electric course, I tell you more about it as it pops up here and there.
Remember, you can use Conspirian over any minor chord as it doesn’t use modal notes (2’s and 6’s). What’s really magical however is how it also works over major chords…
Conspirian | Related Pages
Minor Scales | Step-by-step guitar course
Using the CAGED system and the Minor Pentatonic as our foundation, we can build all possible minor scales.
The minor scales course takes care of this in just 8 steps. All you have to do is put the time in, following the step-by-step format.
Intermediate Electric Course
When playing Motown & Soul tunes, we must know all CAGED barre chords and pentatonic scales to build rhythm parts, incorporate licks and play solos.
Complete the Intermediate Electric Course and you will map out the fretboard, as well as gain an understanding of how to create a guitar part that works in a band.
Guitar Chords | The CAGED System
With traditional music theory, the stave, and a piano, you’ll get easy-to-understand chords but they will not help if you want to play chords on the guitar.
Instead, on the guitar we use chord shapes derived from the five open-position chords, C, A, G, E, and D, hence CAGED.
Chordacus
Spytunes chords, scale, and arpeggio software, Chordacus is a refined version of the so-called CAGED system.
Now available as both a chromatic (original version) and “within a key”, developed with the help of a Spytunes student.
Master Blaster | Chors + Lyrics
You can learn how to play Master Blaster by Stevie Wonder using chords, lyrics, TAB, backing track, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
Everyone’s feeling pretty, it’s hotter than July…
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Conspirian, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.