Music Theory for Beginners 1: Introduction to scales
An introduction to intervals, major and minor scales, and box shapes.
Beginner Music Theory: Fretboard patterns and shortcuts
Once you understand how patterns on the fretboard work, you can use them as shortcuts to find other notes and new ways to play your favorite riffs.
Beginner Music Theory: Finding your way across the fretboard
Learning how to identify the notes on a guitar is like having a map of a city you’re visiting—you shouldn’t do without one.
Beginner Music Theory: Learn the five essential chord shapes
Once you pick up the shapes of the famous five—C, A, G, E and D—you’ll be able to play almost any chord.
Chord Clinic: Chord Sequences
This month, we look at ways to get creative with just a guitar and chord sequences. Rod Fogg steers the ship of harmony through the dark waters of dissonance.
Chord Clinic: Powerchords – Two note tricks
Remove the third from your chords and you get the appropriately named powerchord, a staple of rock, punk and pop music. Here's how to beef up your playing using only two notes.
Chord Clinic: Slash Chords – Descending Basslines
Introducing a few new progressions with descending basslines that will bring a Motown feel to your chord sequences.
Chord Clinic Part Four – Root Manoeuvres & Slash Chords
So far, we’ve looked at adding interesting notes to chords – suspended seconds and fourths, sevenths and added ninths. Here, we move on to altering the bass note of a chord to something other than the root.
Chord Clinic Part Three: Seventh chords
Seventh chords can evoke dreamy or unsettling emotions, as exemplified on George Harrison’s Something or David Bowie’s Life On Mars. We unravel the real value of the seventh…
Chord Clinic Part Two: Sus Chords
Suspended chords can create an ethereal, hypnotic feel, and are a valuable addition to your chord vocabulary. In the second instalment of this series, we delve into the world of the ‘sus’ shapes…