Learn the right way, the easy way, the first time.
In Beginning Chord Theory For Guitarists I showed you how to construct basic three note chords, get them on the fretboard, and understand their relationship to one another.
In this post we’ll talk about how to read extended chord symbols, meaning those 7’s, 9’s, 11’s, and 13’s you’ve probably run across. These chords add a lot more depth and complexity to your chord progressions than regular 3 note (triad) chords. Continue reading
We all have times when there’s no guitar close at hand, but we’d love to get some practicing done. But there are things you can do to improve your guitar skills without a guitar. Now, you and both know that to be great (even mediocre) you have wrap your digits around a fretboard regularly. These exercises aren’t meant to substitute for real practice. But they can help with some of the mental and physical agility you need to be a guitarist. Continue reading
When I was studying music as a kid, just the word “intervals” would make me groan. “Ah, crap… I get it. It’s the distance between two notes. Whooooo cares!?”
But the longer I played, the more I realized that my sight reading skills and ability to understand the construction of a song all thoroughly depended on what I’d learned about intervals. The longer you play, and especially on guitar, the more you’ll think in terms of intervals than note names.
By the way, if you’re not yet familiar with how to read all the notes on your fretboard, that will help to give you an even better understanding of the stuff we’re talking about here. Check out my easy fretboard reading trick here.
Maybe you’ve been playing for awhile. You’ve got some chords and scales under your fingers. You’ve been playing your exercises diligently. But then you realize that you’ve yet to learn a whole song! Something you know and love and can play for your friends!
Let’s dig into the process of how to learn a whole song on guitar. Some of these steps may be changed or altered depending on what kind of song you’re learning. There’s a big difference between Andres Segovia and Green Day. But the basics should work across the board.
A couple of caveats… Continue reading
As a guitarist you’ll spend 85% of your time playing chords. And you probably have a few chords under your fingers already. G, C, D anyone?
What you and I will accomplish with this article is helping you understand 3 things about chords.
Step 1 will be learning how they’re constructed.
Step 2, how they’re placed on the fretboard.
Step 3, some basic chord relationships.
To follow this article on beginning chord theory for guitarists, you’ll need to know how to find notes on your guitar fretboard. If you haven’t yet, be sure to read these two articles first:
Guitar Notes For Beginners – This teaches you all the open position notes.
Easy Guitar Fretboard Reading Tricks – How to read all the rest of the notes on the fretboard.
And be sure to read all the way to the end for a cool bonus item…
And away we go….
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