Many of my guitar students often ask me “what is the circle of fifths.” I took me a while to figure out how I could explain my understanding of it and also make the circle useful to their musical studies. Apologies to music theory purists who might read this; I tend to simplify [...]
Do not bother getting all the notes right if the rhythm is wrong. In fact the wrong notes played in the right rhythm will sound better than the right notes played out of rhythm. This is fact. Read that again!
Counting is not part of music
Many people are taught to count the beats [...]
The seventh chord is formed by using the first, third, fifth and seventh scale degrees. You have probably already seen them even as a notice guitarist written as D7 or G7. There are also major seventh, minor sevent, half-diminished seventh and diminished seventh chords. The half-diminished seventh chord is also known as [...]
Barre chords are a pain to learn, literally. The barre is what you index finger makes as it tries to hold down 6 strings at once—OUCH! Good luck. There
are some tricks, like try pressing with the side of your finger rather than the fleshly flabby bit in the middle.
The first step to making [...]
Jump too…
reading music
intermediate and advanced books
jazz guitar books
Beginning Guitar Books
Fast Track guitar method is nice in that you get some rock music to learn and has a CD of examples you can jam with. COOL.
FastTrack Guitar Method - Book 1 Written by Blake Neely, Jeff Schroedl. Instructional book and examples CD for guitar (electric [...]
After you have some of the basic skills down, like chords and know how to read TAB, the best thing you can do is get a copy of your favorite bands music written out so you can learn to play it. It is best if you have both the CD of the song you [...]
How is it that some people can simply “play by ear”? What does that really mean? Well, just as an electrician can look at a circuit diagram and understand what it means, when you have a certain amount of “music” inside your being you can literally hear the structure of the music, just [...]
Here is a simple solo guitar arrangement for a blues in E that uses chords with a simple moving melody and riffs in a call-and-response fashion which is a trademark of the blues style.
Jamming along with a recording is a time-honored approach to learning to play. Here are some simple mp3 play-alongs for practicing over blues changes in a few popular guitar keys. Each song has a slightly different feel.
Here is a collection of basic blues licks that are simple enough for the beginner yet steeped in the tradition of authentic blues guitar playing. Shown in TAB.
