NICK JOHNSTON Video Masterclass

In this exclusive feature, we welcome back Canadian virtuoso Nick Johnston. Nick treats us to a plethora of flowing rock phrases, all of which are played over Jason Sidwell’s specially written track, A Joy Fulfilled. Jon Bishop is your guide.

- Jon Bishop

ABILITY RATING

Hard

Key Various

Tempo 120bpm

Info https://bit.ly/3tFqonJ

Will improve your…

Tis month we welcome back Nick Johnston to play over an emotive track with plenty of instrumental rock and fusion vocabulary. As Nick explains, performing over A Joy Fulfilled was a creative challenge and the video captures a spontaneous approach without too much overthinking. The tempo is a cool 120bpm and several time signatures feature including 3/4, 4/4 and 7/4.

Nick breaks this track down to have four main tonal centres. The chorus uses A Mixolydian (A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G); the bridge uses A Major (A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#) and this contains the same notes as the relative Minor scale F# Minor so you can view this whichever way is the most convenient.

For the interlude section C Major is the main scale (C-D-E-F-G-A-B) and this pivots into C Minor (C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb) To simplify this you can view the chorus and bridge section as being parallel tonal centres - the only difference between A Mixolydian and A Major is one note; where A Mixolydian features a b7 interval (G), A Major features a Major 7th interval (G#). Similarly, to change C Major to C Minor requires a flattening of the 3rd, 6th and 7th degrees.