OK, enough frightening words. Let us see some examples below:

Why does one guitar fretboard chart have four different names? To answer this question we first have to understand the concept of the natural chords or major chords:

C Major Scale: C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C
F# Major Scale: F# – G# – Bb – B – C# – D# – F – F#
A Major Scale: A – B – C# – D – E – F# – G# – A
Eb Major Scale: Eb – F – G – Ab(= G#) – Bb – C – D – Eb

The major chord normally consists of triad notes which are the first or root note, the third and the fifth notes. C major chord for example has a triad of C, E and G.

C Major Chord: C – E – G
F# Major Chord: F# – Bb – C#
A Major Chord: A – C# – E
Eb Major Chord: Eb – G – Bb

If you don’t understand why some of them have #(sharp) and b(flat) signs don’t worry. You can find how they work in the links below:

Guitar Chord Progression
Guitar Chords Progression with Minor Chords
Guitar Chord Progression with Dominant 7

A true diminished chord (hence different from diminished 7 chord) has only three notes like the triad of the major chords above, however the third and fifth notes are flat notes (lowered by a half step or one fret on your guitar fretboard). See this picture for better idea:

dim vs maj chords

Based on the formula above here are the triad of diminished chords above:

C Dim Chord: C – Eb – Gb(F#)
F# Dim Chord: F# – A – C
A Dim Chord: A – C – Eb(D#)
Eb Dim: Eb – Gb(F#) – A

To form a diminished 7 chord the 6th note is added so there will be 4 notes in the chord now. Go find out the 6th note of each chord in the major chord section again:

C Major Scale: C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C
F# Major Scale: F# – G# – Bb – B – C# – D#(Eb) – F – F#
A Major Scale: A – B – C# – D – E – F#(Gb) – G# – A
Eb Major Scale: Eb – F – G – Ab(G#) – Bb – C – D – Eb

Now we can add these notes to make dim7 chords from dim chords we made earlier:

C Dim7 Chord: C – Eb – Gb(F#) – A
F# Dim7 Chord: F# – A – C – D#(Eb)
A Dim7 Chord: A – C – Eb(D#) – F#(Gb)
Eb Dim7 Chord: Eb – Gb(F#) – A – C

Can you see that actually all these 4 different Dim7 chords share the same notes? Let’s go back to the guitar chords chart above:

Let’s say I name it Adim7. We know that we can transpose a chord to another one by shifting the shape across the fretboard. If for example I want to make a Cdim7 chord and I don’t believe all the theories above I can just shift it by 3 frets higher because A to C distance is one and a half steps which is 3 frets on my fretboard. This is the result:

As you can see from the chart above the chord is still representing the same notes but in different voicing. Move up again another 3 frets and you will have another new voicing from the same notes.

Diminished chords are not played as often as the basic guitar chords but if you know how to use them they can really enhance your guitar playing. If you just start learning basic guitar scales like the pentatonic scales boxes – commonly used for blues guitar chords – you probably don’t need these dim chords, unless you are interested in other genre like jazz.

Related posts:

1. Easy Guitar Chords Chart – A Major
2. Basic Guitar Chords
3. Minor Chords

Guitar lessons are still the number one way that guitarists pick up new information. In-person guitar lessons with a local guitar teacher are probably the most effective way to learn new things about the guitar. The world is full of part-time and full-time guitar teachers, who put their heart and soul into teaching their students how to be an ever-improving guitar learning machine. Guitar teachers are expensive, however, and not everyone has the money or the time to commit to in-person lessons. So while this is a truly effective method, it is not for everyone.

Over the last 5 years, online guitar lessons have become an outstanding resource for guitarists wanting to learn guitar at a convenient pace and at very low cost. In my opinion, online guitar lessons have come of age, and are now the best tool for learning guitar available to anyone anywhere. I don’t propose that online guitar lessons should supplant books, sheet music, DVDs, and in-person guitar lessons. What I would like to suggest is that online guitar lessons are more convenient, cheaper, more useable, and provide more breadth of information than any other method available.

Convenience: Tablature books are OK, as long as they come with some audio examples. DVDs are OK, as long as they come with a book. The problem is that keeping your place in the book and your place on the CD/DVD in synch is difficult. Every time you take a break (every day basically) you lose your place and have to synch up all over again. Online guitar lessons, on the other hand, solve the problem of synching the tab, explanation, and audio/video samples. A web page is the ultimate guitar lesson format: audio, video, and text all together in one document.

Price: Books and DVDs have to be manufactured, shipped, and inventoried. If you have ever burned a CD or made some copies at a copy shop, you know that manufacturing a product costs real money. Imagine if you had to turn around and sell your product at a profit? Shipping a book or DVD to the retailer is another expense in traditional publishing that occurs before the product is even ready to be sold. Inventory, the hidden expense, can be the largest: every month the book sits in the store, it costs the owner a percent of the price to pay for it to be kept out of the rain, and if the inventory is bought on credit, there is interest on the loan as well. All told, it is no wonder there are few places that sell guitar lesson products even in a large city.

Breadth: Guitar books generally can only have a few hundred pages; DVDs can only hold a couple of hours of video. A web site can expand to the size of a whole library full of books and DVDs. This is one aspect of the size advantage of online guitar lessons, but the more important aspect is this: getting a book published is so difficult, that many great guitarists simply never try it. Publishing a web site is so easy that many fantastic guitarists who would never previously have published their knowledge can now publish their guitar lessons online where you can find them.

As you can see, online guitar lessons have significant advantages that should make them an important part of any guitarist’s learning strategy. As the internet continues to grow, and the use of video on the internet spreads, look for online guitar lessons to one day be the recognized leader in helping guitarists improve their skills in a convenient, inexpensive way.

Related posts:

1. Guitar Lessons DVD – Better Than Free Online Lessons?
2. Learn to Play the Guitar by Ear
3. Learn To Play Lead Guitar

What is guitar strumming?

Strumming is a technique that allows you to play the notes of a guitar chord simultaneously by stroking the strings either with your fingernail(s) or by using a plectrum or pick. I myself prefer to strum the strings using my fingernails because the sound they produced is warmer. If you need more treble or clearer sound you can use the plectrum. Please note that plectrum comes in different sizes, the most common ones are thin, medium and thick. In my experience medium plectrum gives the best result for both strumming and picking the guitar strings.

In my own words, strumming is striking almost all of the guitar strings (depends on the chords you are playing) by sweeping your fingernails or pick up and down the strings in a unique pattern, for example a rhythm or strumming pattern of a bluegrass song will sound bad when you try to apply it to a slow rock song.

Guitar Picking

By picking the guitar strings you can give more attention to a particular string, something that normally people won’t do with strumming technique. Just like in strumming technique you can use either your fingers or plectrum to pick the strings, however finger picking technique here actually may involve both of your fingertips and fingernails, where in finger strumming technique only fingernail(s) is used.

Finger Picking

Fingerpicking is used extensively in folk guitar and classical guitar, but it is also common in other genres. Most of guitar players use thumb and the other three fingers to fingerpick the strings and use their pinkie finger as a brace on the guitar.

While some people claimed that plectrum picking can deliver light speed notes compared to fingerpicking actually each style has its own benefit, and country guitar players take the full benefit of both techniques. They hold the pick with the thumb and index finger and at the same time they can do fast fingerpicking with the other fingers.

Fingerpicking example, no plectrum used: justforfun

The sound file above is an example of a song (well, actually there were 2 songs) played using fingerpicking technique. I recorded it using my laptop and a cheap microphone so the sound quality is far from perfect. To remove the noise I use a software called Audacity. Only 4 chords were played on the budget classical guitar. It really stung my fingers (Ouch!)

Happy Picking!

-TJ-
Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin

Related posts:

1. Guitar Arpeggios with Sweep Picking
2. Finger Picking Lessons
3. Guitar Tapping Technique

Also known as ‘broken chords’, arpeggios can be played using your thumb, index finger, mid finger and ring finger in succession and different picking orders. You can create a lot of arpeggios combination with your picking fingers.

Another way to play guitar arpeggios is by using your plectrum. This picking technique is called sweep picking. Combine this right hand guitar technique with the left hand arpeggios and you will have a new guitar arsenal to show off.

Sweep picking is also known as “economy picking” because of its naturally efficient use of playing notes. Like the violinist, a guitarist sweep picks each string in a smooth downward and upward motion. As the down or up motion progresses with the picking hand, the fingering hand plays the proper notes at the proper time. The common shapes you can find are one or two-octave triad stacked together. If you look at A minor chord for example you have three notes (triad) in the chord which are A (first or tonic), C (third or median) and E (fifth or dominant).

One-stack triad of A minor arpeggio will be A – C – E – a (downward sweep picking)

Two-stack triad of A minor arpeggio will be A – C – E – a – c – e – a’ (downward sweep picking)

Full downward and upward sweep picking of Am arpeggio can be seen here:

If you are playing acoustic or classical guitar you may find that reaching the fret #17 is not easy. Just subtract all of the numbers above by 7 so your highest note will be D on the fret #10. Now you are playing in Dm.

The key to play sweep picking is to attack one string at a time only while sweeping. Because on some strings you have to play 2 notes you have to use hammer on and pull off technique, for example you will need to do hammer on at string #5. When you attack string #1 both of hammer on and pull off techniques are required to finish all notes on that string in one sweep.

To Your Guitar Success

-TJ-
Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin

Related posts:

1. Guitar Picking
2. Guitar Tapping Technique
3. Guitar Lessons DVD – Better Than Free Online Lessons?

While this technique looks easy many people don’t realize they tap badly. One may think that this technique is easier to do with a lot of distortion however it is not that simple. Cranking up your guitar through distortion will also generate audible extra noises which unfortunately come out if the tapping technique done by the player is not clean. The best way to do this is to start the tapping at the speed you are comfortable with which gives you clean notes. It is very important to get the right notes at slower speed rather than playing the notes in a fast lightning speed but all the notes you play sound terrible.
This technique should involve string muting technique as well to prevent unnecessary noise created during tapping the strings.

Two handed tapping technique

Two handed tapping technique is another way to perform tapping on your guitar. Also known as ‘touch style’ this technique normally requires no plucking, striking, strumming or plucking. Both your hands will be busy tapping the guitar fretboard, making this style similar to what a piano player play his instrument. To make the notes you play sound more audible you need to amplify your guitar.

With this technique you can mimic the style of piano players who play the chords with the left hand fingers and at the same time play the melody with the right hand fingers. Or maybe you prefer doing it the ‘jazz’ way? Let your left hand fingers play the walking bass while your right hand fingers play the chords or melody. Again, this technique needs practice and a lot of patience.

The gear setting

To play two handed tapping you need guitar with very low action. Attacking the strings at normal guitar action will create the sound of your finger hitting the string first before you hear the notes you want to play. With low action you can get rid of this forerunner noise because the strings will response to your finger immediately at a very light attack. Now when we are talking about low action you are probably thinking how low we should set the action. The answer is you have to set it extremely low until you have only a tiny gap between the top of the 12th fret and the strings. Once you master this technique you can raise the action a bit higher.

You will also need to dampen your strings at the nut to prevent them ringing at open position.

-TJ-
Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin

Related posts:

1. Guitar Picking
2. String Bending for Beginners
3. Left Handed Guitars

Beginners With Electric Guitars

Doing string bending on electric guitar is easier compared to the acoustic guitars, however you may still find it difficult to do. Try to change the electric guitar strings with the lightest gauge available, i.e. the 0.008″ gauge set. Thinner strings are much easier to bend but it gives less volume. Once you can do the string bending technique properly you can switch to thicker strings such as the 0.009″ or higher gauge sets. Note that changing guitar string gauge may need some adjustment on the guitar saddle as well, which part is located at the electric guitar bridge section. If you don’t know what to do with this adjustment please get help from a guitar technician.

Beginners With Acoustic Guitars

First of all don’t try to bend the strings of a classical guitar because you can hardly do it. Nylon strings are more flexible than steel strings and string bending technique may not work here.

For acoustic guitars with steel strings there are some tips I can give you to perform this technique easier:

- Find guitar with low action. Cheap guitars sometimes have high action that make them uncomfortable to play. If your guitar have a string action higher than 4mm (distance from the top of the 12th fret to the bottom of the 6th string) you may need to do some modification on the guitar saddle.
- Replace the acoustic guitar strings with the lowest possible string gauge. I even did a weird set up during my first time practicing this string bending technique. Here is my set up: I used 0.009″ electric guitar string on my first string (E). The second and third strings which are B and G were replaced by acoustic guitar strings E and B but tuned to B and G notes. By doing this I can play the guitar on standard tuning but with less guitar strings tension that will enable me to bend the strings easier. The rest strings used the standard strings which were D, A and E because we mostly bend the first three strings only. The other reason is bass strings are easier to bend so I did not replace them.

String Bending Problem

Sometimes it will be very difficult for you to bend the string up to the note you want, you may not reach the new pitch exactly. To overcome this you need to memorize the note, i.e if you want to bend a C note full step to D note you have to firstly know the pitch of the D note and memorize it otherwise you won’t get the pitch right.

Many beginners made mistake with their bending fingers including myself. You can use one finger only to bend a string but believe me it can hurt your finger easily. Always back up your bending finger with other finger(s) whenever possible. See this picture:

I bent the string using my ring finger but it was also supported with my other two fingers. By doing this way I can bend the string much easier. Try this and you will find that string bending is not as hard as it looks provided you know how to do it correctly.

To Your Guitar Success
-TJ-
Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin

Related posts:

1. Guitar String Notes
2. Acoustic Guitar Strings – What You Need to Know
3. Blues Guitar Lesson – 4 Notes Improvisation

The main riff guitar tab below is showing your fingers position on the guitar fretboard for the first three strings, each number represents the fret number of the corresponding string.

In My Life

This song is written in A major. Can you find the pattern or the chords progression used here?
If you remember previously we had talked about the chords family in the guitar chord progression post. The chords belong to the A major family are A, Bm, C#m, D, E and F#m. This is a pretty generic formula but as you can see we use them all except the C#m. In addition to these chords we also add G major and D minor. Adding ‘unusual’ chords like this is very common and if you practice a lot using different songs you will have enough experience to read the variation of the guitar chord progression. To learn the guitar chord progression faster you have to be able to remember the pattern in numbers instead of keys. For example, the generic chords used in this song is I, IIm, IV, V, VIm plus 2 additional chords IVm and VI#. This method will help especially if you can’t sing this song in the original chords and have to shift them higher or lower to meet your vocal’s range.

Should you need other songs from the Beatles please drop me a comment. I’ll be glad to share the chords if I have them in my collection.

To Your Guitar Success,
-TJ-
Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin

Related posts:

1. Guitar Chord Progression – Adding Minor Chords
2. Guitar Chord Progression
3. Guitar Chord Progression – Adding the Dominant 7th

Pentatonic scale consists of 5 notes only instead of 7 notes. If you are playing in major scale just remove the 4th and 7th notes from the list. If you are playing in minor scale you have to remove the 2nd and 6th notes from the list.

Let us take C major scale for example:

C – D – E – F – G – A – B

Remove the 4th note (F) and 7th note (B) so you have to play C,D,E,G and A only.

Now let us take A minor scale for another good example:

A – B – C – D – E – F – G

Remove the 2nd note (B) and 6th note (F) so you have to play A,C,D,E and G only.

It is not a coincidence that C major and A minor are sharing the same notes because A minor is the relative minor chord of C major.

The minor chords can perfectly fit into your major guitar chord progression if you know the relationship between them. Once you study and understand the relationship you will need to memorize the pentatonic scale shapes only which represent both of the minor and major chords.

Here are the complete shapes or boxes of the pentatonic scale:

Box #1

Box #2

Box #3

Box #4

Box #5

If you follow me correctly you will see two different root notes on each box. The orange colored notes are A and the blue colored notes are C. If you start your scale from the C note you are playing a C major pentatonic scale but when you start the scale from A you are now playing A minor pentatonic scale. The most common shape is box #3 but you have to learn the other shapes as well if you want to explore your guitar fretboard better.

Let your fingers memorize the boxes by practicing them every day. Try to make some lead improvisation using these patterns using one box at a time. Once you are familiar with each box you can start connecting them to enrich your guitar solo playing.

To Your Guitar Success
-TJ-
Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin

Related posts:

1. The Pentatonic Scale
2. Minor Chords
3. Guitar Chord Progression – Adding Minor Chords

Consisting of only 5 notes instead of 7 notes, the pentatonic scale removes some notes that may sound wrong in both major and minor scales giving you the freedom to explore the guitar fretboard without fear. Learning the pentatonic scale is a must for beginners who want to play lead guitar. Yes, I repeat it again: it’s a must! While it is true that there are major and minor scales you will find that both of them share the same shape in the pentatonic scale and differ only in the root notes.

Major Pentatonic Scale

Let’s have a look at the C major scale in the Ionian Mode:

From the famous do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do scale above we drop the fourth and seventh notes which are F and B. Now you have only five notes instead of seven notes.

Let’s have a look at this major pentatonic scale for C:

The root note from the chart above is C. You have to memorize the pattern and practice it. Note that your index finger is assigned to the second fret while your mid finger and pinkie are assigned to the notes on the third and fifth frets. Play each note consecutively from the sixth string to the first string and backwards. We call this pattern as the first box of the C major pentatonic.

After you are familiar with the pattern you can start playing those notes with your own style. Be creative, there are only 5 notes available and you can’t be picking the wrong notes so use your imagination to create a melody. You can ask your friend to play a simple guitar chord progression such as C – Am – F – G – C  or  C – Am – Dm – G – C. This pentatonic scale will sound good in any chords belong to the family of the C major.

Minor Pentatonic Scale

All major chords have relative minor chords. If you are not sure about the major chords you can always visit the basic guitar chords section. From the previous lesson we understood that Am is the relative minor chord of C major so let us look at the major pentatonic chart again:

Am and C share the same pentatonic box (es). The only different thing is the root notes: C major pentatonic started with C and A minor pentatonic started with A. From this point we can say that the pentatonic box is not really meant for minor or major chords only. How you play it – in this case choosing the root note -  will determine whether it is the major pentatonic or minor pentatonic scales.

Are you getting confused now? Don’t be please. We will discuss about the other pentatonic boxes in the future post. Remember, today we just learn the first box only. As you are exploring the guitar fretboard further you will meet other patterns of the pentatonic scale. See ya!

-TJ- Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin

Related posts:

1. The Pentatonic Scale Boxes
2. Blues Guitar Lesson – 4 Notes Improvisation
3. Minor Chords

OK, what is a scale anyway?

A scale is a set of musical notes played consecutively in either an ascending or descending order. While you may find many types of scales in my opinion you’d better start with some of the basic ones.  The most common one found in Western music is the major scale so let us focus on this scale first.

I believe you still remember the W – W – H – W – W – W – H concept explained in the basic guitar chords earlier post:

From the seven notes above we can ‘read’ the major scale differently. The ways we play this scale from each individual note are called modes. Below are the modes derived from the C Major Scale:

I – C IONIAN MODE:
C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C    (W – W – H – W – W – W – H)

(C Major Chord = C – E – G.  CMaj7 Chord = C – E – G – B)

II – D DORIAN MODE:
D – E – F – G – A – B – C – D       (W – H – W – W – W – H – W)

(D Minor Chord = D – F – A.  DMin7 Chord = D – F – A – C)

III – E PHYRGIAN MODE:

E – F – G – A – B – C – D – E     (H – W – W – W – H – W – W)

(E Minor Chord = E – G – B.  EMin7 Chord = E – G – B – D)

IV – F LYDIAN MODE:
F – G – A – B – C – D – E – F     (W – W – W – H – W – W – H)

(F Major Chord = F – A – C.  FMaj7 Chord = F – A – C – E)

V – G MIXOLYDIAN MODE:
G – A – B – C – D – E – F – G    (W – W – H – W – W – H – W)

(G7 Chord = G – B – D – F)

VI – A AEOLIAN MODE:
A – B – C – D – E – F – G – A  (W – H – W – W – H – W – W)

(A Minor Chord = A – C – E.  AMin7 = A – C – E – G)

VII – B LOCRIAN MODE:
B – C – D – E – F – G – A – B (H – W – W – H – W – W – W)

(BMin7b5 Chord = B – D – F – A)

Most of us are familiar with the first mode (Ionian) because this was the first mode taught when we learned music. To be a good guitar player however you have to be able to play the other modes especially if you want to play lead guitar.

Learning and studying guitar scales and modes can be boring but you can’t skip it.

Can we use one mode only – say Ionian mode – to play lead over a song with C – Dm – F – G progression chord? Yes we can but you limit yourself by playing only one mode. For Dm you can use D Dorian mode or F Lydian mode but make sure both of them ended with D note.

You can learn to play some famous guitar licks and riffs but without understanding the guitar scales and modes you will never know how to create your own licks and riffs.

To Your Guitar Success,

-TJ-

Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin

Related posts:

1. The Pentatonic Scale
2. Minor Chords
3. Guitar Chords Chart – Diminished 7 Chords