3:6 The Blues Scale

The Blues Scale, or Minor Pentatonic Scale is a fun and easy scale for playing along with blues or rock rhythms. Play this scale ascending, descending, mixing up pieces... any way that feels good to you. Once again, here's my backing track to jam along with.

Notice that in the key of G, it begins on the 3rd fret. Remember when I said to think of the 3rd fret as the "G" fret? Here's one reason why. So to play blues in the key of A, move the whole thing up two frets to start on the 5th fret (the A fret). For D, start it on the 10th fret... got it?

3:5 Twelve Bar Blues

Twelve Bar Blues is the most common, most recognizable, simplest and most fun way to get started making music. Based on the I-IV-V progression, the pattern goes like this:



Now to play it in the Key of G, let's substitute the I, IV and V chords:



Now you play it along with my cheesy midi backing track!

3:3 The Circle of 4ths & 5ths

If counting up and down frets is not your cup of tea, and you want to find the 4th, 5th and relative minors quickly, use this handy dandy chart.




Major chords are outside the circle in bold letters. Find the major chord for the 1 (the key in which you are playing) Move counter-clockwise one position to get the 4th, or clockwise for the 5th.

Minor chords are inside the circle. For each major chord, the relative minor is just inside the circle, connected by a line.

Cool, huh?

3:2 Common Chord Progressions

(note - in this lesson, I may interchange numerals and Roman numerals, depending on the flow of the sentence.)

As previously stated, a chord progression is a series of chords, played in a sequence that produces a song, or part of a song. We've already looked at the I-IV-V progression. This progression appears over and over in popular music. You just can't get away from it.

How can you find the 1, 4 and 5 chords for a given key? Well the 1 is always the key you're playing in. But how do you find the others? Well, find the note with the same name as the 1 chord. Since we're used to taking the key of G for examples, let's use it. So find the G note on the top string - at the 3rd fret.

To find the 4, count up the string 5 frets. This gives us a C. The C chord is the 4th for the key of G.

To find the 5, count up two more frets. You get a D at the 10th fret. The D chord is the 5th for the key of G.

So now we have the three main chords for the key. But most songs will use more than three chords. Our first song "Holy Is The Lord" uses six. How do we find other chords that are part of the key, chords that are likely to appear in a song in that key?

Relative Minor
Very often, songs will contain chords that relate to our I-IV-V chords, called their "relative minor" chords. To find the relative minor to a given major chord, just find the note of the major chord and count down the neck three frets. What's the relative minor for the G major chord? Counting down three frets tells us it's an E Minor (Em). In the same way we can determine that C has a relative minor of Am, and D has a relative minor of Bm.

So now we know that in the key of G, we very well may find the following chords: G, C, D, Em, Am, Bm... any others? Quite often, you will also find the major chord two frets below the 1 chord, in this case, an F Major.

One of the beautiful things about music and songwriting is that it flows in all sorts of directions, or moods, or colors, or whatever you want to call them, and the possibilities are endless. Given the above information, you can explore music and amaze yourself with what comes out of your guitar.

2:6 Basic Strum Patterns

Pattern 1 is a simple down-up pattern. Most of the movement will come from your wrist, but don't be afraid to swing your arm slightly at the elbow. Alternate down and up smoothly. Try to get the same volume on the upstroke as on the downstroke. Repeat the pattern in a loop to keep the rhythm going. Count it 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and...



Pattern 2 is slightly more difficult. Don't play the strings on the 3-downstroke, but keep your arm and wrist movement the same as in pattern 1.

2:4 Know Your Fretboard

Homework! Print this chart out and fill in the circles with the notes. To start, fill in the circles at the top with the notes of the open strings, E-A-D-G-B-E. Then move down (actually up) each string using the musical alphabet.

2:3 E Phrygian Scale

Here's a new scale to add to your practice routine. Basically, you're playing only the notes of the chromatic scale that are found on the white keys on a piano, the letter notes A-G. It sounds more like music, and it's easier than the chromatic. But don't quit practicing the other scale. This one doesn't work your pinky like that one does.

1:7 The Chromatic Scale

There are a total of 12 different notes, letters A-G and five additional notes that are described as sharps or flats. We'll look later at the musical alphabet, but for now lets say that the Chromatic Scale is a scale that includes all 12 notes. You would play the chromatic scale on a piano by playing all the keys, white and black. On this scale, each interval between notes is called a half step. Likewise, each fret on a guitar is a half step, so you could play the chromatic scale by simply moving up or down a single string, playing each fret as you go.

But the great thing is, there's no need to move all the way up the neck. Remember the 5th fret tuning method? Once you get to the 5th fret on the 6th string, you've got an A. Hey! There's an A on the 5th string too! So lets play it like this...

Play the 6th string open. This is an E. Now use finger 1 on the 1st fret for the next note. Then finger 2 on the 2nd fret, and on up to the 4th. Then skip down to the 5th string and repeat. Notice that on the 3rd string you won't play the 4th fret.

The scale chart and the tab version are just two ways of showing the same scale. On the tab, however, the numbers are to show which fret, not which finger.

I hope you find this scale useful. Don't get discouraged if you can't do it well. If you play it a little every day, you'll steadily improve.

1:5 The I - IV - V Chord Progression

This is really a teaser for a lesson we'll get to in Section 3, when we'll study chord progressions. A chord progression is simply a sequence of chords played to produce a song, or part of a song. The most basic of these is the I-IV-V (1-4-5) progression. The numbers are taken from a system called the Nashville Numbering System or the Nashville Notation System.

The numbers are taken from the scale named for the key in which you are playing. For example, the G major scale is as follows:

G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G

Seeing that this scale is made up of eight notes, what are the first, fourth and fifth notes of the scale? That's right... G, C and D. Whether we talk about rock music, folk music, country music, praise music or punk music, this progression, or a variation, occurs over and over and over again.

As I said, we'll get deeper into this later. But when we start working on songs, we'll first use the key of G, and the G-C-D (I-IV-V) progression. Later, we'll see how to find the I-IV-V for any key, but here are few examples:

Key of A: A - D - E

Key of C: C - F - G

Key of D: D - G - A

Key of E: E - A - B

1:3b Online Tuners

There are some really nifty online tuners. As with using a piano, you'll need a good ear (and a computer, but if you're reading this blog, you may very well have one).

Here are some links to a few:

get-tuned dot com

chordbook dot com

gieson dot com

1:3a Tune to a Piano

Tuning Method #1: Tune to a Piano

We will discover that there are a lot of similarities between the way notes work on a piano and on a guitar. Look at the piano keyboard below:

We'll find the E note for the 6th string below middle C on the piano. If you don't have access to a piano, don't know where middle C is, and can't make any sense of the illustration, then this may not be the method for you.

Locating the E below middle C, match that tone on your 6th string. Then work your way up to the high E on the 1st string.

The problems with this method are 1) you need a piano, and 2) you need a good ear for matching the notes. So good luck!

1:2 Holding a Guitar

Stop slouching! Sit up straight! Did I sound like your mother? Well, she was right about that. You can play (and sing) better if you sit up straight. So follow these simple suggestions:

1) Sit straight with your back against the back of your chair.
2) Bring the back of the guitar in contact with your stomach/chest.
3) Rest the guitar body on your right leg (if playing right-handed), perpendicular to the floor.
4) On your fretting hand, place the thumb behind the guitar neck and fingers should curl at the knuckles.

That said, do whatever feels right to you, within reason. It is for fun and relaxation after all.

1:1 Parts of a Guitar

Let's begin by getting familiar with the instrument:





Attached to the headstock are the tuners. Take a moment to look at the head of your guitar. Notice the direction in which the strings are wound on the peg. Turn the tuners a little and notice which direction makes the sound higher or lower. Notice where the heavier and lighter strings are. One day you'll break a string, or need to replace a set of strings, and you'll want to get it right.

The strings sit in grooves in the nut, which may be made of various materials. But generally on an acoustic guitar, it's the white strip at the end of the neck.

The frets are your friends. By "fret" we may refer either to the wire frets themselves, or to the spaces between them. Notice the fret markers. Many guitars have them at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and other key locations on the fretboard. You may have a double marker at the 12th fret. There's a good reason for that. The 12th fret is a magic fret... more on that later.

Examine your guitar and notice differences and similarities between it and others you have seen. Pay close attention to the bridge, and to how the strings are attached to it, and how they interact with the saddle. The saddle is a strip of material similar to that of the nut, which functions as part of the bridge.