Here’s another lesson for you riff-hungry rocksters out there! One cool way that you can start looking for new chords to use is to examine the top few strings of the bar chords. Here’s a tip – if the notes are used in a chord, then they’re going to sound great together in a solo! […]
Understanding root notes is one of the most important fundamentals in guitar theory. Once you grasp this concept, everything else—chord construction, scales, and even soloing—starts to make a lot more sense. It’s one of the most fundamental pieces of chord theory you can learn. In this lesson, I’ll explain exactly what root notes are, show […]
If you’ve watched my Guitar Scale Patterns lesson, you’ll know that one of the things that I mention in there is the octave pattern. I think I’ve mentioned this in previous lessons as well. It’s a super handy little tool to find notes on the fretboard, without having to memorize the whole neck right off […]
If you look at your scales, and actually dissect them to see what notes are in each scale, you’ll see that in many keys, some of the notes you’re playing are also available to you as open notes. This lesson is more to open you up to the idea than it is to show you […]
Drop D tuning explained: tune your 6th string down to D, then use these chord shapes. Simple power chords, rich bass notes, perfect for D/G/A keys.
Once you’ve got the minor pentatonic under your fingers, the A major diatonic scale is a great addition to your toolkit. In the video above, we’ll look at the pattern, where it sits on the neck, and — more importantly — how it connects to scales you already know. The major scale has a brighter, […]
Most of us learn scales the wrong way around. A pentatonic box here, a major scale there, a list of modes that never get used. This is a short free guide on the three or four scales that actually do real work on the guitar, and the order to learn them in.