As the famous saying goes, practice makes perfect. This holds true for any skill, including playing the guitar. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced player, consistent practice is essential in improving your guitar playing abilities.  Develop muscle memory faster Repeating patterns, scales, and guitar solos on a regular basis is crucial in developing muscle memory. As you learn new chords, scales, and techniques, your fingers need to get used to the movements and positions on the fretboard. Through consistent practice, these movements become second nature, making it easier for y ..read more

In part b of this lesson on fifth intervals, I'm going to tell you about power chords. You may already be familiar with this as it’s an extremely popular technique in western pop and rock songs.  A power chord is simply the one note, a fifth interval note, and (optionally) an octave note played together.  There is no major third interval note to make the chord either major or minor.  Playing power chords is really common, in western pop and rock music. Let’s look a well known example: Eye of the Tiger, by Survivor: Play the intro to Eye of the Tiger We’re going to start by pic ..read more

In lesson 10, we looked at the G shape on the fretboard, which can be used to play any major chord. In this lesson, you are going to build on this knowledge and learn how: the A shape is connected to the G shape(s) to solo with the G shape if your root note is on the 6th string to solo with the G shape if your root note is on the 3rd string to find the other interval notes within the major scale You should remember from our previous lesson on the G shape, that for practical application purposes, we split the G shape into two more manageable smaller shapes. Here’s a reminder: Version ..read more

In lesson 9, we looked at the A shape on the fretboard, which can be used to play any major chord. In this lesson, you are going to build on this knowledge and learn how: the A shape pattern is linked to the C shape to solo with the A shape if your root note is on the 5th string to find the other interval notes within the major scale when using the A shape When we play the C shape, we use our little finger (or ring finger) on the root note. This frees up the fingers to the left to play the other notes we need.  In this A shape pattern, we're going to play the same root note ..read more

In lesson 8, we looked at the C shape on the fretboard, which can be used to play any major chord. In this lesson, you are going to build on this knowledge and learn how to: solo with the C shape if your root note is on the 5th string identify the C chord and the D chord within the C shape find the other interval notes within the major scale This is called the C shape pattern because if played in the first position, our root note (in the major scale) would be on the note C. But, remember, our root note could be any note on this fifth string. Because the root is on the fifth string, you're ..read more

The fourth shape we’ll be looking at in this lesson series, is the E shape. Arguably, this is one of the most useful, and commonly used shapes, especially in pop music. Just like the other shapes, the E shape is fully moveable up and down the fretboard to make other chords.  In this lesson, you’ll learn how to: join the G shape and the E shape on the fretboard create and move chords using the E shape play major chords with the E shape change major chords into minor chords with the E shape The G shape is connected to the E shape by the notes we play with our anular and little fingers. T ..read more

The third shape we’ll be looking at in this lesson series is the G shape. The full range of notes in the G shape are almost impossible to play because of the stretching involved, so we need to break it down into two smaller parts to make it practical to play. In this lesson you'll learn how to: create and move chords using the G shape(s) join the A shape and the G shape on the fretboard play major chords with the G shape(s) change major chords into minor chords with the G shape(s) If you have some knowledge of guitar as a beginner, and I asked you to play a G chord, you would probably play t ..read more

  In this lesson, we’ll be looking at the A shape.   You’ll learn how to: create and move the A shape join the C shape and the A shape on the fretboard play major chords with the A shape change major chords played with the A shape, into minor chords Spelling the A chord If we want to play an A chord, using an A shape, we’ll play the notes A, C#, and E (the one note, the third interval and the fifth interval note in the A scale) - that’s how you spell the A chord. 1. A 2. B 3. C# 4. D 5. E 6. F# 7. G You're probably already familiar with this form of the A chord  played a ..read more

We’re going to start looking at chord shapes in this lesson.  You'll learn how to: create and move the C shape play major chords with the C shape change major chords into minor chords with the C shape I explained in a previous lesson, that you should assign a shape name to particular patterns, rather than chord names. So think of this as the C shape, rather than the C chord. This is because a lot of guitarists get stuck on the idea that a specific shape is fixed to one particular chord. So for example, a lot of guitar players might see this shape, and think that’s how you play a C.&n ..read more

In this lesson, you'll learn how to spell each of the major chords.  What do I mean by that? Well, when you learn any new chord, you need to know the three core notes that make up that chord (the tonic, the major third interval, and the fifth interval). If you do this, regardless of how you play the chord, you’ll always be able to identify which notes you’re playing, anywhere on the fretboard. I’ve included a print out for you below, so you can start to learn how to spell each of the major chords. Each time you say a chord name, just spell it out too. For example, you’d say C chord, C ..read more