One thing that seems pretty straightforward but many times burns out a lot of beginner guitarists is playing barre chords. Since the barre chord shape doesn't ever change as you move up and down the neck, it seems like an easy alternative to playing standard chord shapes. In fact, it is an easy alternative and once you train your fingers to hold this position, you can easily slide up and down the neck to produce different chords.
This video will show you how to set the barre chord shape on your guitar fretboard and then use it to play different chords. The key is to learn the shape and then put in lots of practice time so that your index finger is strengthened enough to barre over all six strings.
Keep practicing and don't forget to leave a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
Showing posts with label guitar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guitar. Show all posts
Learn to Play Country Bluegrass Lead Guitar
We like to touch upon many different musical styles when learning guitar. This will help you to have a more rounded understanding of the instrument and have more under your belt.
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Here is a great lesson on playing country bluegrass lead. Learn a great bluegrass-style lick and see the similarities to playing blues lead guitar.
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How to Play Blues Lead on the Guitar Using the Major Pentatonic Scale
With this lesson, we introduce how to play blues lead on the electric guitar by simply using the Major Pentatonic scale.
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The G Major Pentatonic scale is used (G A B D E) in each of the examples.
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How to Play Slide Guitar for Beginners
Here's a video lesson that's great for any beginner guitarist or just anyone new to playing guitar with a slide. Slide guitar is great because it has a very cool sound, you can also play all kinds of different blues, bluegrass and surf music without worrying about complex fingerings!
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This lesson covers the basics of slide guitar, to follow along and learn, simply tune your guitar to drop D tuning (D - A - D - G - B - E), or drop your lower E string to D from standard tuning. This tuning is the basis for many slide guitar songs because the slide needs to bar across different strings and create chords. This is possible with drop D tuning because it leaves your lowest three strings in a root-fifth-root configuration so that you can play power chords with a bar over the strings.
Enjoy one of the easiest guitar methods that any novice can pick up quickly and sound great right away!
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How to Change Chords on the Guitar
One of the greatest challenges that a beginner Guitarist faces is learning to change chords. The best way to learn to do this is by starting out with chords that have very similar fingerings. You'll find that when learning to play chords this way, you actually rewire your brain to think of chords as shapes rather than fingerings. You can then begin to play more and more complex chords and easily move between them.
To see what I mean, view the video lesson and practice along with the different chords that are demonstrated. Once you've been able to play two chords in sequence, you can begin to put more together to form different songs!
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To see what I mean, view the video lesson and practice along with the different chords that are demonstrated. Once you've been able to play two chords in sequence, you can begin to put more together to form different songs!
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How to Keep Your Guitar in Tune!
Did you know that there was a proper way of tightening your strings when tuning your guitar so that it stays in tune better? A lot of experienced guitarists aren't even aware of this simple method to keeping your guitar IN TUNE!
View the video below to see how:
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View the video below to see how:
Don't forget to leave a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
Palm Muting on the Guitar
If you've ever wanted to learn palm muting on the guitar, here's a quick video to show you how it's done. Remember to lightly rest your palm near the bridge of the guitar across the strings that you wish to mute.
It may take a little practice to find the right feel for palm muting if you are a beginner. Just keep in mind that you want to slightly dampen the strings to where they don't fully ring out.
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It may take a little practice to find the right feel for palm muting if you are a beginner. Just keep in mind that you want to slightly dampen the strings to where they don't fully ring out.
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How to Play Major Scale on the Guitar
One of the first things that serious guitarists learn when just beginning on the Guitar is how to play the Major scale. The Major scale can be seen as an important building block of music, as he mentions. Once you learn the Major scale, you can expand upon it and apply it toward many other related concepts on the Guitar.
With this lesson, you will see the Major scale demonstrated along with an outline of the fundamentals.
Try it with G, C, D and so on.
Just remember the pattern: Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half
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With this lesson, you will see the Major scale demonstrated along with an outline of the fundamentals.
Try it with G, C, D and so on.
Just remember the pattern: Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half
Keep practicing and don't forget to leave a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
How to Play Beginner Guitar Chords
If you're new to the guitar, learning chords and be a difficult task. With this short video lesson, you can learn to play a handful of common chords without having to figure it out for yourself. Just watch how the demonstrator places his fingers on the individual notes to make up the different chords. Then, try it yourself.
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Continue practicing each chord individually until you feel comfortable with them and are able to land each the notes which make up the chords accurately. Once you have the chords memorized and are able to properly form them with your fingers, you can begin to combine chords to make up songs!
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Learn to Build Guitar Chords with Simple Music Theory
Learn all about chords and how they are built using simple music theory guidelines. This is a great way to step into a whole new realm and league with your guitar playing! By understanding chords and how they are built, you can begin to piece together all kinds of music theory fundamentals to play other chords, scales and musical compositions.
With this video tutorial you'll learn about scales, intervals and chord qualities such as sixth, ninth, diminished and so on. By understanding how each of these concepts work together, you'll have a much firmer grasp on not only guitar chord theory, but also music theory as a whole!
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With this video tutorial you'll learn about scales, intervals and chord qualities such as sixth, ninth, diminished and so on. By understanding how each of these concepts work together, you'll have a much firmer grasp on not only guitar chord theory, but also music theory as a whole!
Keep practicing and don't forget to leave a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
Barre Chord Basics
Learn all about barre chords and how they are played with this video tutorial. What exactly are barre chords and what makes them so interesting? They are simplistic chords that can be shifted anywhere up and down the neck while retaining the same shape. This allows you to hold the same shape with your hand while moving up and down the neck to play different chords. No need to change finger positions!
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Jimi Hendrix "Hey Joe" Guitar Solo Slowed Down
Listen to the classic solo for "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix. It sounds like it's all over the place, right? Now watch the video demonstration below and pay close attention to where his hand moves around on the fretboard...it's actually staying in almost the same place between the 13th and 15th frets the entire time!
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The solo for "Hey Joe" is no doubt musically brilliant, but it's also actually quite simple. This video slows it way down for you and shows you the exact fingering positions for the entire solo including hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, etc. This is a great way to learn the correct notes before you begin to speed it up. Take the time to hit all of the notes and then continue to add in more of the vibrato and slides.
I'm sharing this video not only because it can teach you how to play "Hey Joe" with complete accuracy but also because it can teach you the fundamentals of soloing on the electric guitar. Although you can make it sound like there's a lot going on, you don't always have to be all over the neck. Keep it simple at first, learn to really work a solo between just a few frets and soon enough you'll be shredding like one of the greats!
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How to Play Lead Electric Blues Guitar
How to the lead blues guitarists do it, they make it look so easy!? -- Here's how.
This is an excellent video tutorial on soloing the blues in the style of BB King on the electric guitar. Blues soloing is comprised of various blues chords (which he demonstrates) and rhythms along with fills and solo licks made over those chords.
What I mean by "solo licks made over those chords" is positioning your hand as if you were to play a chord and then hitting notes which are a part of the pentatonic scale which makes up the chord. Put more simply, you just hit notes which sound appropriate to the chord (typically one or two frets up from the fret you are basing the bar of the chord on). This will take some practice to learn which notes sound right for the chord and which do not if you are unfamiliar with music theory.
Practice the different chord shapes and blues licks that he employs and then begin adding in some vibrato, hammer-ons, pull-offs and exaggerated bending. After you begin to feel more comfortable, start creating your own licks over chord patterns and see what you can come up with. This will help you to develop a more "improvisational" ear which is key to blues soloing.
Keep practicing and don't forget to leave a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
Keep practicing and don't forget to leave a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
Guitar Fingerpicking for Beginners
This video tutorial jumps right into fingerpicking for the beginning guitarist. It teaches you the terminology, notation and proper technique which first and foremost must be understood before you begin learning how to fingerpick.
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Remember to start out keeping your hand steadily hovered over the strings and then naturally pluck each string with the finger directly above it without moving your right hand. After it begins to feel more natural, try speeding it up a bit while concentrating on keeping your right hand steady and making your fingers do the work.
Keep practicing and enjoy and don't forget to leave a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
The Holy Grail of Memorizing Guitar Chords-Part 2
Part 2 of the highly effective and helpful technique to memorize guitar chords. Remember not to "walk" the chords one at a time but "land" them all at once. It takes some practice but once you begin to utilize this technique regularly, you will begin to really see better results in memorizing and "grabbing" guitar chords however difficult they may be.
Let me know how it works for you, leave me a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
Let me know how it works for you, leave me a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
The Holy Grail of Memorizing Guitar Chords-Part 1
The following video tutorial is not only good for beginner Guitarists, but for ANYONE wanting to quickly learn a new chord and remember it for good. I even tried this method for some of the more difficult chords that I don't really use that often and to my amazement, it works!
Who knew that memorizing Guitar chords could be so easy! By simply drawing a picture of the chord shape in your mind after forming the chord with your fingers, then a few repetitions and it's burnt into your memory.
Let me know how it works for you, leave me a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
Give it a shot, I hope that you find this useful, I did!
Let me know how it works for you, leave me a comment by clicking on the comment link or entering them in the form below!
Guitar and Piano Chords for iPhone and BlackBerry!
String Theory Chords is pleased to announce the latest addition to the String Theory Chords family - a mobile e-Book for the iPhone and BlackBerry!
Enjoy all of the features of the original "String Theory: Guitar and Piano Chords in Parallel" e-Book on your mobile device! With our mobile e-Book you can take your Guitar and Piano chords with you wherever you are, even easier.
Convenient for:
- Looking up chords while away from your home computer or reference materials
- Calling up chords while playing your instrument
- Cuing up chords for lessons and songs
Chord Inversions on the Guitar
When discussing chord translation between the Guitar and Piano, one key concept is the difference in inversions typically played on each instrument. An inversion is simply the arrangement of notes in a chord. To help smooth this out, and look at the Guitar from the perspective of a pianist, we'll discuss how chord inversions can be easily understood (and played) on the Guitar:
First, the Piano is a lot more "loose" when it comes to standardizing simple chord inversions. There is no real de facto way to arrange the notes when playing chords on the Piano. Using the C Major chord as a simple example, a pianist can play it in the form of (first note-second note - third note) as C-E-G, C-G-E, G-C-E, and so on. Depending on the song and arrangement, a pianist may use many differing inversions when playing chords.
Guitar tends to be a lot more straightforward with chords usually being played in "root position". First, let's understand what a chord tonic is -- a tonic is the first note of a musical scale. Using C Major as our example, we have C-D-E-F-G-A-B, so C is the tonic. Root position is when the tonic of the chord is the lowest (bass) note. Again, for C Major the tonic is C. If we play a C Major chord that does not begin with C, then it is not in root position and thus is called an inversion.
How to create an inversion:
There are three common inversions called first inversion, second inversion and third inversion. Notes following the tonic of the chord are labeled as 3rd, 5th and 7th in each of these inversions. For C Major (C-E-G), C is the tonic, E is the 3rd because it is the first note after the tonic and G is the 5th because it is the second note after the tonic.
As such, every Major triad chord (Major chord with only three tones) has a tonic, 3rd and 5th of a Major scale. Every Major Seventh chord is made up of a tonic, 3rd, 5th and 7th of a Major scale. See the table below for other common of chord structures beyond this.
Common Inversions Summary:
First inversion: The 3rd of the chord is the bass note.
Second inversion: The 5th of the chord is the bass note.
Third inversion: The 7th of the chord is the bass note.
Using these chord constructions, you can mimic an inversion played on the Piano, on the Guitar! Practice breaking down the chord, finding the tonic, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th and then piecing it back together to form whatever inversion is desirable. Depending on the inversion and the tones making up the chord, it may be difficult to position all of your fingers around the chord, but keep practicing and you may even discover some unique more piano-esque chordal arrangements to use in place of the same old root position chords.
First, the Piano is a lot more "loose" when it comes to standardizing simple chord inversions. There is no real de facto way to arrange the notes when playing chords on the Piano. Using the C Major chord as a simple example, a pianist can play it in the form of (first note-second note - third note) as C-E-G, C-G-E, G-C-E, and so on. Depending on the song and arrangement, a pianist may use many differing inversions when playing chords.
Guitar tends to be a lot more straightforward with chords usually being played in "root position". First, let's understand what a chord tonic is -- a tonic is the first note of a musical scale. Using C Major as our example, we have C-D-E-F-G-A-B, so C is the tonic. Root position is when the tonic of the chord is the lowest (bass) note. Again, for C Major the tonic is C. If we play a C Major chord that does not begin with C, then it is not in root position and thus is called an inversion.
How to create an inversion:
There are three common inversions called first inversion, second inversion and third inversion. Notes following the tonic of the chord are labeled as 3rd, 5th and 7th in each of these inversions. For C Major (C-E-G), C is the tonic, E is the 3rd because it is the first note after the tonic and G is the 5th because it is the second note after the tonic.
As such, every Major triad chord (Major chord with only three tones) has a tonic, 3rd and 5th of a Major scale. Every Major Seventh chord is made up of a tonic, 3rd, 5th and 7th of a Major scale. See the table below for other common of chord structures beyond this.
Common Inversions Summary:
First inversion: The 3rd of the chord is the bass note.
Second inversion: The 5th of the chord is the bass note.
Third inversion: The 7th of the chord is the bass note.
Using these chord constructions, you can mimic an inversion played on the Piano, on the Guitar! Practice breaking down the chord, finding the tonic, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th and then piecing it back together to form whatever inversion is desirable. Depending on the inversion and the tones making up the chord, it may be difficult to position all of your fingers around the chord, but keep practicing and you may even discover some unique more piano-esque chordal arrangements to use in place of the same old root position chords.
| Guide to Forming Chords | |
| Type of Chord | Chord Structure |
| Major Triad | 1st (root) + 3rd + 5th notes of a major scale |
| Minor Triad | 1st (root) + 3rd + 5th notes of a minor scale |
| Diminished Triads | 1st (root) + flatted 3rd (b3) + flatted 5th (b5) notes of a major scale |
| Augmented Triads | 1st (root) + 3rd + sharped 5th (#5th) notes of a major scale. |
| Major 7th Chord | 1st (root) + 3rd + 5th + 7th notes of a major scale |
| Minor 7th Chord | 1st (root) + flatted 3rd (b3) + 5th + flatted 7th (b7) notes (derived from a major scale) |
| Dominant 7th Chord | 1st (root) + 3rd + 5th + flatted 7th (b7) notes of a major scale |
| Sixth Chord | 1st (root) + 3rd + 5th + 6th notes of a major or minor scale. |
| Dominant 9th Chord | add a ninth to a dominant 7th chord (1st + 3rd + 5th + flatted 7th + 9th) |
| Major 9th Chord | add a ninth to a major 7th chord (1st + 3rd + 5th + 7th + 9th) |
| Minor 9th Chord | add a ninth to a minor 7th chord (1st + 3rd + 5th + flatted 7th + 9th) |
| sus2 Chord | 1st (root) + 2nd + 5th notes of either a major or minor scale |
| sus4 Chord | 1st (root) + 4th + 5th notes of either a major or minor scale |
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