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Learn “Ticket to Ride” for Guitar – (Beatles Cover Lesson)

August 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In this lesson, we’re going to learn “Ticket to Ride” by the Beatles (That’s the YouTube link incase you want to watch it there).  This is a super easy song to play and not only that, but it’s got great melody.  I don’t actually think I know a Beatles’ song that doesn’t have great melody, but anyhow…

Watch the video below and under it we’ll dig down into the theory behind it.

Ticket to Ride is tonally in the key of A Major, but it does break out of key a bit.  If you’re not familiar with musical keys, then use that link there to check out a lesson here on the site to catch you up to speed.  For those of you familiar with keys then you know we first build the A Major Scale before we harmonize out to get our 7 chords (or triads) in the key of A Major.

So, after we do that we have the notes A – B – C# – D – E – F# – G# and back to A.  When we look at the chords used in Ticket to Ride, we see several notes that don’t fall in key.  What about that D7 chord (dominant 7th)?  Its notes are D – F# – A – C…so we can see that C (the 3rd scale degree) is off by a half-step or semi-tone.  The other chord that doesn’t fit in key is the use of G Major here.  Its notes are G – B – D…so we can see that G (the 7th scale degree) is also off by a half-step.  What’s happened here?  We have a flattened 3rd and 7th.  This is a really common thing to do in the Blues and something the Beatles did a ton.

By these two “out of key” chords only being off by one note each, the other notes are in fact in key and contain notes that the melody is using, so it works.  This is the real power of harmonization.  When you understand that every song is really melody being supported by chords, then the flood doors open to make your choice of chords open increasingly.

The most common thing to note is that the melody note I happen to sing at any point in my song should be contained in the chord I choose to play over it (to create tonally pleasing music at least).  The most common and consonant harmonization is to have the melody be either the 1 (root), 3rd, 5th or 7th scale degree of the chord you choose.  6ths and 4ths are okay too…4ths are probably the least common.

Just know that roots, 3rds and 5ths are the most common, while 7ths create tension and 6ths flow pretty smooth…like 3rds.  If that’s at all confusing then follow this example.

If I’m singing a melody and hit an ‘A’ note at one point and think, ‘hmmm…what chord would sound good over that?’  If my song was in A Major, an A Major chord would work, F# minor chord, and D Major chord in key based on root, 3rd and 5th harmony.  Our ‘A’ note is the root of A Major (A – C# – E), the 3rd of F# minor (F# – A – C#), and the 5th of D Major (D – F# – A).

Additionally, in key we could ask what other chords could contain an ‘A’ note?  We could use Bmin7 (B – D – F# – A) where are ‘A’ note takes the 7th degree.  We could use C#min6 (C# – E – G# – A), where ‘A’ takes the 6th scale degree, or we could use E Major 11 (E – G# – A – B), where ‘A’ takes the 4th or 11th scale degree (11 just means an octave higher, like how 1 is also 8 when our scale repeats).

Those could all be choices and you could test it out to see how it would sound to sing an ‘A’ note and play each of those chords.  You’ll find the sound appears to change, even though you continue singing the same note!  Fascinating (to me at least).  That’s the power of harmonization, and it’s easy to see how one could play a chord ‘out of key’ over that ‘A’ note, like D7, because the chord still contains an ‘A’ note.  That’s what the Beatles have done.

This is a ton of information, but I hope it has been helpful and opened your eyes a bit as to the incredible power of understanding music theory.  If you’re wanting to really take your theory understanding further, then I’d definitely recommend you check out my guitar course here on the site called “Music Made Easy“.  It’s a comprehensive course that teaches you the fundamentals of theory and how to apply that to guitar to truly free up your playing and creativity to play chords anywhere.

Feel free to ask any questions or leave feedback in the comments below, and I look forward to hearing from you.

 

To Your Music Success,

Andrew

Filed Under: Beatles Covers, Cover Songs for Guitar, Guitar Lessons, Keys in Music, Learn to Play Guitar, Music Theory Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash Cover) – Learn to Play for Guitar

July 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In this lesson, we’re going to look at Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” (that’s the YouTube link if you want to view there).  It’s a great song and also a pretty easy one to learn.

The neat thing about Ring of Fire is that it only uses three chords, and those chords happen to be the most popular chord progressions known to man.  That progression is called the 1-4-5 chord progression, and it is a staple of Rock n’ Roll, the Blues, Country, and just about every genre.  So let’s jump in and get started.  Further explanation is below the video…

Okay, so “Ring of Fire” was originally written and recorded by Johnny Cash in the Key of G Major, and it uses the 1st, 4th, and 5th chords of that key.  If you want to know more about understanding keys in music, visit the link.  Basically, what you need to understand is this:

Every Key will only have 7 letters.  It will start on the Root, or 1st tone, which is the name of the Key (i.e. the Key G Major starts on the note G).  Every key will then go thru 7 notes until it returns to the 1, or 8th tone called the octave.  Octaves are just groups of 8 notes that repeat the same pattern for as many spaces as our instrument can match.  On guitar we have at most 4 octaves, more on piano.

Anyhow…G Major starts on G and returns to G using our musical alphabet notes (A-G).  So this yields, G – A – B – C – D – E – F# – G.  That’s it!  Every key would follow the same pattern of starting on its key root note and using successive and unique alphabet letters (sometimes needing a sharp #, or flat b), but always going from 1 to 8.  Make sense?

As an example let’s just look at two other keys so you see the pattern.  A Major yields, A – B – C# – D – E – F# – G# – A.  C Major yields, C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C.  Hopefully that shows the pattern.  To understand this see the graphics below, or go through more of the lessons here.  You can always send me an email or leave a comment with questions.

Learn the C Major and A Major Scales

As you can see, a key is formed by first spelling out the 1 position or scale root, then we harmonize the 3rd position below it all the way thru, and lastly, the 5th position of the scale is then harmonized below the 1st and 3rd positions, until it repeats again back under our octave.  These stacks are known as guitar triads or chords.

Since we have 7 tones, and now 7 stacks of 3 notes (triads, which are the minimum 3 notes we must have to make a chord), we have 7 chords.  That’s our key.  Every key only has 7 chords, and the qualities of those chords relative to their positions are always the same.  So the 1-4-5 chords will always be Major chords.  The 2nd, 3rd, and 6th chords will always be minor chords, and the 7th chord is always a minor chord, with a flattened 5th note.

That might be a bit confusing, but understanding guitar chords doesn’t take too much time.  Hopefully this lesson has added a little clarity and we learned a great song in the key of G Major by Johnny Cash.  I love “Ring of Fire” and glad I finally got around to covering it and teaching it to your for guitar!

If you’re not already a member here at LearnToPlayGuitarTV.com, then be sure to sign up for more FREE lessons.

 

Wishing you the best in your learning,

Andrew

Filed Under: 1-4-5 Chord Progression, Cover Songs for Guitar, Guitar Chords, Guitar Lessons, Guitar Triads, Johnny Cash Covers, Keys in Music, Learn to Play Guitar, Music Theory Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Come Together (Beatles Cover) – Learn How to Play It for Guitar

July 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This Video Lesson is on How to Play “Come Together” by the Beatles for Guitar

Come Together by the Beatles is a great tune that I hope you’ll like.  I used the arrangement out of a Beatles songbook and it is a pretty straight forward, easy to learn way to play the tune.  Watch the video below, and if you like it, be sure to sign up for more FREE lessons here at LearnToPlayGuitarTV.com

Of all the Beatles songs, I think “Come Together” is one of my favorites.  It’s got such a funky vibe going in the verse sections, and then when the chorus comes in, it’s kinda like a slam, but with real melodic flow.

The reason for this flow is due to going from a D chord to a B chord.  That movement is a 6th away, and 6th intervals are just very harmonically pleasing and smooth.  Hence the popularity of the 1-6-4-5 chord progression.

This song breaks out of key a bit, but it is in the key of D minor from a tonal standpoint.  You don’t even really have to worry with what keys are if you don’t know.  You can learn all of these things through being a member here on the site.  The important thing is to keep playing guitar, practicing, learning as you go…and most of all…having fun!

The Beatles have been a huge influence to me in my music and in many other ways.  So I hope this guitar lesson is helpful, inspires you, and teaches you something.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  You can always send me an email or reach me on one of my social presences.  Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Andrew

Filed Under: Beatles Covers, Cover Songs for Guitar, Guitar Lessons Tagged With: ,

Guitar Triads – Understanding Them and Using Them Effectively

April 13, 2011 By 1 Comment

Often when it comes to learning guitar, there comes a point where we get stuck between being able to play and know chord shapes and actually understanding what they’re made up of, enter guitar triads.

Guitar triads are the 3 (that’s the ‘tri’ of triad) notes that make up a chord.  These common three note chords are known as a triad.  When we actually play most chords on a guitar we are adding additional notes in beyond just playing 3 unique tones.  This is due to the fact that the guitar has 6 strings and to get the most resonance out of it, we add on more notes.

Once you begin to understand each chords triad, then it becomes a matter of you choosing to add or subtract whatever notes you want to create the sound you hear in your head.  So, what is the triad?

As I mentioned above, it’s 3 notes and beyond that, we have to jump down the rabbit hole of music theory a bit.  If we want to understand chords, we have to go to the basic level of the notes.  So let’s go!

In Western Music, we have 12 notes, known as the Chromatic Scale.  If you take any open string on your guitar, play it, and then successively play each fretted note down to the 12th fret, you would have played 12 notes and repeated where you started at 13 notes on the 12th fret.  This would be traveling one Octave (that’s the same note value, just higher pitch frequency).

It’s good to note that on guitar we get 4 octaves at the max.  So for example, a ‘C’ note on the 5th string at the 3rd fret is our lowest ‘C’ note, a ‘C’ note on the 3rd string at the 5th fret would be the 2nd octave, a 3rd octave of ‘C’ could be played on the 2nd string at the 13th fret, and lastly, the 4th octave could be played on the 1st string at the 20th fret.

Although there are other instances of ‘C’ on your fretboard, those are 4 unique octave spots, and the other ‘C’ notes would be duplicates or ‘unisons’ of those 4 ‘C’ notes.

So back to understanding a triad.  Triads have a root note, or 1st degree, a 3rd, and a 5th tone to them.  The reason that these tones are called 1, 3, and 5 is because that represents the number order of their parent scale.  Just as the Chromatic Scale covers every note we have, there are other scales that take a series of notes out of that Chromatic Scale to form their own scales.  The most common of these are the Major Scale and Natural Minor Scale.  You’ve probably heard the Major Scale a zillion times…Do-Rae-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do, with Do being the root note repeating, one octave higher.

So what that means is that we took 7 notes out of the 12 to form the Major Scale.  How we did that is by choosing a root note, or starting point, then following a series of steps.  Let’s take a look.

Forming the Major Scale from the Chromatic Scale

In this example, we chose to start from the ‘A’ note, but we could start anywhere.  Doing so from ‘C’ would yield, C-D-E-F-G-A-B and repeating at C, one octave higher.  Not too hard right?

So now that we have a scale that is Diatonic and will be in key when we start building chords off each tone, what do we do?  Well, we can start with ‘C’.  Remember above I said that a triad has a 1 (or root), 3rd and 5th.  So if ‘C’ is our 1, counting down, ‘E’ would be the 3rd, and ‘G’ would be the 5th.  We would therefore have formed a ‘C’ Triad or ‘C’ Chord.  Now because the scale above is the C Major Scale, this triad is a C Major Chord.  By continuing this same pattern for each of our scale degrees of C Major, we would build 7 triads or chords.  Let’s take a look.

Learn the 7 Guitar Triads of C Major

By harmonizing the rest of the C Major scale, we get 3 Major Chords or Triads, 3 minor Chords or Triads, and 1 ugly duckling that is minor, but has a flattened 5th in relation to its Major Scale (that would be the B Major Scale).  If you were to go ahead and spell out each of C’s scale degrees as their own Major Scale, you would see how those harmonized triads differ from C Major’s triads.  This alone is a powerful way to see and learn to spell triads, build scales and understand their relation to each other.

So if we spelled the D Major Scale, E Major Scale, F Major Scale, G Major Scale, A Major Scale, and finally the B Major Scale, we would see that the D Major triad is different from our D triad in the C Major Scale by one note.  The 3rd is a half step higher in D Major.  This tells us that the difference between a Major Triad and a minor Triad is a flattened 3rd.  Both the 1 (root), and 5th remain the same.  The only other type of chord, as we said above, is the 7th scale degree.  Everytime it is harmonized, it will differ from its Major chord version by a flattened 3rd and a flattened 5th.

Now let’s look at a popular open chord and see what else is added to the triad…

The Guitar Triad of C Major is C - E - G

By looking at the chord diagram above, you can see that we start with the 1 (C), then have E (our 3rd), and G is played as an open string, which is our 5th.  So right there we have a triad, but you can see we’re playing additional notes.  These notes are part of the triad, but note that the next ‘C’ is a different octave, which adds fullness to the chord and re-enforces, C as the root.  We also repeat the 3rd, which again is a different octave, higher up.  So instead of just playing a triad, we’re playing 1-3-5 and 1-3 higher up, which could be continued as 8, 10 if we didn’t start our numbering over at 7.

Adding these additional notes to chords is what fills them out and changes their character.  Another key part of this would be that of re-arranging the order of the triad.  What if I put the 3 (E) as the lowest note?  Then I’d have 3-5-1.  This would be a first inversion.  That’s really for another lesson.  But just know that you can stack triads around on guitar however you like to get just the right sound you’re going for.

Hopefully this lesson has been helpful and given greater clarity into what a guitar triad is.  You can always get more free lessons and keep up with what we’re doing here by subscribing over on the right…And of course, any questions or comments, please leave them below and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.

To your success!

-Andrew

Filed Under: Guitar Triads, Music Theory Tagged With: , ,

Lower the 3rd 6th and 7th to Create the Natural Minor Scale

November 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Lower the 3rd 6th and 7th degrees of any Maj Scale and you create the natural minor scale.  This is known as thew relative minor to whatever Major Scale you’ve formed.  Let’s take a look at the example of G Major.  Spelling out G Major yields, G-A-B-C-D-E-F#, and if we lower the 3rd, 6th and 7th, we see, G-A-Bb-C-D-Eb-F, which is the G natural minor.  If we spell out the Eb Major we get, Eb-F-G-A-Bb-C-D, which as you can also see is the same as the G natural minor.  This is what the relative minor is.  Same notes, different scale.

In all Major Scales, the 6th degree represents the relative minor’s root note, or starting point, and when spelled from this root, you will always lower the 3rd 6th and 7th tones.  Therefore, the Major Scale and it’s relative minor will always share the same 7 notes, but starting on different roots.  This is what creates the 7 modes we have in music.  Because all our diatonic scales have 7 tones in them, if we merely take any particular Major Scale and spell it out with each 7 notes acting as their own scale root, we get 7 corresponding modes.  Let’s look at the C Major Scale for example.

C Major from C (or the Ionian Scale degree) = C-D-E-F-G-A-B  (interval pattern W-W-H-W-W-W-H)

C Major from D (or the Dorian, 2nd degree) = D-E-F-G-A-B-C  (interval pattern W-H-W-W-W-H-W)

C Major from E (or the Phrygian, 3rd degree) = E-F-G-A-B-C-D  (interval pattern H-W-W-W-H-W-W)

C Major from F (or the Lydian, 4th degree) = F-G-A-B-C-D-E  (interval pattern W-W-W-H-W-W-H)

C Major from G (or the Mixolydian, 5th degree) = G-A-B-C-D-E-F  (interval pattern W-W-H-W-W-H-W)

C Major from A (or the Aeolian, 6th degree) = A-B-C-D-E-F-G  (interval pattern W-H-W-W-H-W-W)

C Major from B (or the Locrian, 7th degree) = B-C-D-E-F-G-A  (interval pattern H-W-W-H-W-W-W)

Now to truly understand that modes are in fact their own scales, we should look at them in relation to their own parent Major scales and see how they differ.  This helps us really hear what each of these particular modes brings to the table and distinguishes their character from their Major counter parts.

D Maj yields, D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#, which differs from D Dorian by a lowered 3rd and 7th.  This is a min mode.

E Maj yields, E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D#, which differs from E Phrygian by a lowered 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th.  Also min.

F Maj yields, F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E, which differs from F Lydian by a raised or augmented 4th.  This is a Maj mode.

G Maj yields, G-A-B-C-D-E-F#, which differs from G Mixolydian by a lowered 7th.  Also a Maj mode.

A Maj yields, A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#, which differs from A Aeolian by a lowered 3rd, 6th and 7th.  This is a min mode.

B Maj yields, B-C#-D#-E-F#-G#-A#, which differs from B Locrian as we lower the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th.  Also min.

From these examples, we can see that just as in our harmonized chords, that the 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th scale degrees yield minor modes, to equate to the minor chords formed from those scale degrees, and the 1st, 4th and 5th scale degrees yield Major modes.

Filed Under: Guitar Lessons, Guitar Scales, Music Theory

Understanding Keys In Music

November 22, 2010 By 1 Comment

Understanding Keys in music is often a source of great confusion and frustration for those who have just begun to learn the language of music.  Although our site is about learning guitar, the language of music is the same for all instruments.  All of us are given the same 12 notes to work with (known as the Chromatic Scale).

What Exactly Is A Key?

I’m glad you asked! :-)  A musical key is defined by its scale.  If the scale is Major, then the key will be Major, and if the scale is minor, then the key will be minor.  Simple right?!  If you’re unfamiliar with what a scale is, you might want to see this lesson: Learning to Play Guitar Scales, which is relevant regardless of your instrument.  As a brief explanation though, we have our 12 chromatic notes in music, we pull out 7 of them to create the Major Scale and we then create chords from that scale by harmonizing each of the 7 tones, using a 1, 3, and 5 of the scale (this means with each separate scale degree as a root, we just pick every other note in the scale for 5 notes, thus leaving us a root, 3rd, and 5th).  If that has you confused at all, then see this lesson on Triads: Learning Triads for Guitar.

If we look at this example for the key of ‘A Major’, that key is built off of the ‘A Major’ scale (A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#).  What this means is that all of the chords, melody and harmonies will use these 7 notes, and only these 7 notes.  Sticking within the scale’s note range is known as Diatonic harmony.  As you advance, you’ll learn that it’s possible to add in notes outside the Diatonic scale, but for beginning it’s best to get very comfortable with just staying in the Diatonic Key.

A song in the ‘Key of C Major’ uses the notes of the C major scale  (C-D-E-F-G-A-B) and a song in the ‘Key of C minor’ would use its 7 notes (C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb) and so on for every 24 of our scales (12 Major and 12 minor, one for each chromatic note).

Any major scale or natural minor scale can serve as a key for a piece of music.

Understanding the Center of Keys – The Tonic

The Tonic note is the same as the root note of a key or scale and serves as the center of the key.  It’s the same with chords, as we briefly touched upon above.  An ‘A Major chord‘ has a tonic, or root of A, a third of C#, and a 5th of E.  The same applies to the ‘A Major Scale’ and ‘Key of A Major’.  The tonic is the starting and ending point, as the notes create a tension that wants to resolve back to the start.  The tonic is pronounced (TAWN-ik).

A good way to think of the tonic and keys/scales, is that as you play through the notes or chords of that scale or key, a distance is being created that gets farther and farther, until your ear just has to hear the circle come back around.  The reason this happens is due to the intervals or steps between each of the 7 tones.  More on that later.

When playing our keys and scales, the music constantly is being drawn back toward the tonic, or root of the key.  The tonic is the most resolved note in a key and thus the key’s center.

So what’s the big deal about this tension and pulling?  This aspect of music is partly what makes it so enjoyable to listen to.  The music can stretch us and take us on a journey, creating excitement for our ears and body.  Rhythm is another key aspect of music being pleasing to listen to, but that is for another lesson and also a bit more subjective.

Understanding Tonality and the Role It Plays

We’ve talked about music being centered, having a root, or beginning, and cycling back to the end, which is also the beginning…the resolution.  This sort of music is called tonal music because it possesses tonality, consonance and tempered movement.  Basically all the music that we listen to today is tonal.  When music is missing a tonal center it is called atonal.  Although there is atonal music out there, the majority of people would find it actually painful to listen to.

Training Yourself to Know the Tonic

One great way to become more aware of the tonality in the music you listen to is to just actually listen…really pay attention to the movement of the music and where you hear/feel it resolving.  Most songs will end on the tonic, it is very common practice and not doing so can leave you with an odd feeling, or lack of resolution.  Analyzing music will greatly help in your understanding of it and its movement.

When Can I Get Outside the Key?

In due time grasshopper…in due time.  As I stated earlier, it’s really a good idea to become very familiar with Diatonic harmony and be able to spell out any key signature (all 30 keys) and be sure to know your note names and interval relationships.  Doing this assures you will have a command of musical movement and you’ll be ready to start mixing it up by adding in notes outside the key, as well as changing keys.  One genre of music that a lot of beginners start with, and then fail to get out of is the Blues.  Now I don’t want to knock on the Blues, ’cause it’s a foundation to rock music and just has some great things going on, but it breaks the Diatonic world and a lot of musicians find the blues and never get out of it or bother to learn why it works from a tonal and theoretical point of view.

There definitely will come a point when you are ready to move outside of Diatonic harmony, but until you master it, I recommend waiting.  It WILL pay off in the long run to get your head wrapped around this world, I guarantee it.

Just How Many Keys Are In Music and Do I Have to Learn Them All?

Okay, well we touched on this earlier, but let’s revisit it.  There are 12 notes in the chromatic scale (that’s all we’ve got in the Western World) and hence, there is a key for each of the 12 notes, and each key has a minor and Major variety.  This gives us the sum of 24 keys, but really only accounts for 12 unique keys since every Major key has a relative minor key (the relative minor shares the exact same notes as its Major cousin, just starting on a different note).  As an example: ‘C Major’ (C-D-E-F-G-A-B) has a relative minor of A.  The A minor scale or key uses the notes A-B-C-D-E-F-G, which as you can see are the same notes.  All we did was begin the scale on the sixth degree of our parent Major scale.  This always holds true…the sixth scale degree of any Major scale is the relative minor.

In addition to our 24 keys (really 12 unique ones), there are three of the Major keys that can be named in different ways.  The reason this happens is due to the usage of sharps and flats.  Sometimes it becomes more convenient to write the keys in flats rather than sharps.  So this gives us a total of 15 different spellings.

If we look at the Keys of C# and Db as an example, we see they contain the same notes.  Db is spelled (Db-Eb-F-Gb-Ab-Bb-C) and C# is spelled with the same notes, but using sharps instead (C#-D#-E#-F#-G#-A#-B#).  It really just comes down to a matter of what other keys you’re transposing to and your personal preference.  If you were starting a song in a sharp key and wanted to modulate to another of our multiple spelled keys, you would want to pick its sharp variety so as to maintain congruence in your notation and brain.  It can get confusing jumping between the two!

The 12 Became 24, the 12 Became 15, and the 15 Become 30 (Yikes)!

Okay, really don’t worry though…it’s not anything to freak out about.  If you get the 12 key idea and understand that each of the 12 keys has a relative minor key, with the same notes, just starting from a different root (the 6th of the parent Major) and that there are three different spellings for each of the Major and minor keys based on the notating of either sharps or flats, then you’re set.  As with all things, practice makes perfect and the more you practice writing different keys out, the more comfortable you become.  So don’t be afraid of jumping into sharps and flats.  It can be tempting to stay in the safe ‘C Major’ but really that’s just no fun at all.

To really begin understanding key movement and the ability to break out of keys, you need to understand the Circle of 5ths (Also known as the Circle of 4ths), but that is for another lesson.  Until then, practice and have fun!!!

Wishing for your greatest success,

Andrew

P.S. Be sure to leave a comment below with any questions or thoughts you have, it really helps me keep helping you in your musical journey.

Filed Under: Guitar Chords, Guitar Lessons, Guitar Scales, Keys in Music, Learn to Play Guitar, Music Theory Tagged With: , , , , ,

Guitar Triads and the Music Theory Behind Them

November 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Guitar Triads: What They Mean and How to Form Them

If you want to understand guitar triads, then you must understand the music theory behind them.  To get to triads, we have to start with scales, and to start with scales we have to look at our master canvas.  That canvas is the Chromatic Scale.  The Chromatic Scale represents every note that we can play in Western Music.  On our guitar this is represented by our 1st 12 frets and on a piano, these are represented by any group of 12 successive keys.  Let’s look at a picture of all 12 notes and their relationship to each other below.

Forming the Major Scale from the Chromatic Scale

From the image above, you can see that when starting on A (you can start anywhere), we travel 12 notes or semi-tones and repeat again at the 13th, known as the octave.  A semi-tone is the same thing as a half-step, just another name for it and on guitar, each fret is a half-step apart (on piano a half step is each successive key).  So what do we do with these 12 notes?

The aim of music is to create consonance, that is melody and harmony that is pleasing.  Melody means a single string of notes played in succession, while harmony means playing more than one note at a time.  When we stack 3 or more notes together, we form a chord, and the fundamental base of a chord is called a Triad.  This is represented by a 1 (root note), a 3rd, and a 5th from it’s scale.  But first let’s go back to getting a scale from the Chromatic 12 notes.

The father of all scales we can create is the Major Scale.  It has been around since Aristotle, and it is the building block that we re-arrange to create our other scales in music.  The way that we create it, as you can see above, is to pick some starting point in the Chromatic Scale and pick out 7 notes using the interval or step series of Whole Step, Whole Step, Half Step, Whole Step, Whole Step, Whole Step, Half Step.  You can see above that doing this (starting on A) gives us A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#, and thus we’ve spelled the ‘A Major Scale’.  All you have to do to form any other of the 11 Major Scales, is follow the same step series through all 12 notes.  Pretty easy right?

How do we get from a scale to a chord?

Remember that I just told you how melody is single notes, played in succession and harmony is more than one note played at the same time?  Well to get a chord we harmonize our scale.  So to harmonize the ‘A Major Scale’ we need to spell out the ‘A Major Scale’ from the 3rd and 5th degrees (remember this gives us our Triad or chord).  Let’s see that in a diagram…

Creating Triads from the Major Scale

By so spelling our Major Scale from C# and E, we see that there are now 7 triads or chords that have been formed, and these chords create the key of A Major.  Harmonizing a scale works for all 12 scales and thus gives us 12 keys.  For more info on understanding keys, you’ll want to see this post:  Understanding Keys In Music

What Do Our 7 Chords Mean?

We now have 7 chords or triads formed, but what is the quality of them?  Are they Major, minor or beyond?  You can see above that I’ve gone ahead and labeled what the chord quality is and have the scale degrees listed with upper and lower cased roman numerals, but what does it mean?  Well let’s start with the roman numerals.  Roman numerals are used in place of and along with the traditional numbers 1-7 to represent our scale degrees.  The power behind using roman numerals for your chord writing is that is identifies whether the chord is Major or minor.  We see that ( I ) is in place of the 1 and this is our root or tonic, also called the Ionian scale degree.  Next we have ( ii ) for 2, indicating a minor chord (lowercase=minor, uppercase=Major).  The ( ii ) is called the Dorian scale degree.  Following we have ( iii ), ( IV ), ( V ), ( vi ), and ( viib5 ), representing the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th scale degrees and named Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian accordingly.  Also in accordance, the 3rd is minor, 4th Major, 5th Major, 6th minor and 7th is minor with a flattened 5th (this means from it’s parent Major Scale).

To determine why these chords are major, minor and diminished (that’s the 7th degree with the flat 5), we have to look to each scale degree’s Major Scale counterpart.  B Major is B-C#-D#-E-F#-G#-A#, and we see that its’ triad is B-D#-F#, which in relation to our B triad in the key of A Major, has the 3rd flattened, or lowered in pitch one semi-tone.  This is what makes a chord minor.  If the triad has a flattened third in relation to its parent Major Scale, then the chord is minor.  Raise the third back up a half-step and you have a Major chord again.  The flattened 3rd is the only difference between a Major and minor chord.  If you went and spelled out each of ‘A Major’s scale degrees using their Major Scales, you’d see that the ii, iii, and vi all only differ by the 3rd being lowered.  This brings us to the only odd duck, which is the 7th scale degree.

If you spell out the 7th degree’s Major Scale, you get G#-A#-B#-C#-D#-E#-F##, which you can see would give the G Major triad of G#-B#-D#.  If we look back to A Major, we see our G triad to be G#-B-D.  What has been lowered is the 3rd (making it minor) and the 5th (thus making it diminished).  To diminish means to lower in pitch one semi-tone (only applies to the 4th and 5th scale degrees).  The 7th scale degree will always be a minorb5 chord or a diminished chord as it’s also called.  No matter what key you’re in, these are the scale degrees for any and all Major Keys.

Scales to Triads, Triads to Keys, Now What?

If you’ve managed to follow along thus far, then you understand what creates a scale, how scales are turned into chords and how chords create a key.  The next thing to understand is that a Key will always contain these set chords and interval patterns.  The Major keys all are the same and the minor keys all are the same.  Staying within a key is called Diatonic harmony and this is a great place to practice before you’re ready to start moving out of keys and between keys.

The bottom line is, practice these chords, learn the triads, and work in a lot of different keys to get comfortable.  This not only will help your guitar playing and understanding, but it will help in songwriting and composition on guitar.

I hope this lesson has been helpful to you and be sure to leave me a comment below telling me what you’ve thought or any questions you might have.  I’m here to help you learn.

See you in the next lesson,

Andrew

Filed Under: Guitar Chords, Guitar Lessons, Guitar Scales, Keys in Music, Music Theory Tagged With: , , , , ,

Learn to Play Guitar Chords by Knowing the Basics

November 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I recently was thinking, ‘How was it that I was able to learn to play guitar?’  The way that I started was by learning the open, or first position chords, as they’re sometimes called.  We call them first position chords, because you play them on the first fret and they involve the use of open strings.  One reason that these guitar chords are so important as you learn to play guitar is that they provide a full sound, are easy to finger and allow you to play in several keys without having to leave the home base of the first fret.

Now I don’t encourage that you only stick with open chords, but once you begin to get them down and understand the notes you’re playing, then you’re able to be free to take chords and play them all over the guitar neck.  Below you can see the first open chord we’re going to look at, A Major:

Learning the A Major Open Chord for GuitarWe can see here that for the A Maj chord, we don’t play our low E, or six string, and we let our A string (5th string) ring open, as well as our high E string (the 1st string).  Now to be clear, we could let the low E string ring out, since the note E is part of the A triad (that is the fundamental three notes that make up a chord), but then that would be an A Maj/E chord, or an A Maj chord with an E in the Bass, as it’s verbally called.

Notice that the A Maj triad (chord) must contain an A note, C# note and an E note, and you can see by the diagram that all those notes are indeed being played, whether fretted or open.  One important thing to note, is that the notes aren’t being played in the exact order of their triad, and that’s fine.  This is what allows chords to have different colors to them.  We can move around the order of the notes and even the pitch values, by adding in higher pitched notes.  As an example, if we did play that low E string, we’d have two occurrences of that note now being in our A Maj chord…one value (the high E or 1st string) being played an octave higher (up 12 semi-tones or half steps) from the other.  This just adds a different layer of sound to the chord.  There are many ways we can shift notes around, but for now, let’s stick to the basics.

We can see that to play the A Maj chord we fret the 4, 3 and 2 strings at the 2nd fret, and we leave the 5th and 1st strings open.  Here’s the great thing about open chords…If we just move one finger we can be playing the A minor chord.  I love that by just moving one finger we can have a totally different sound.  In fact, as you advance in your guitar playing, you’ll find that most chords are changed from Major to minor quite easily, and especially the movable chord forms (that means you can switch to different chords while maintaing the same finger position).  Now let’s look at the A minor chord.

Learn the A minor chord for guitarIn looking at A min, we see that everything is the same from A Maj, except we’ve taken the 2nd string note of C# and lowered it down to C.  This is what’s known as flattening the third, because C is the third tone of the A scale (both the A Major and A minor scales).  The A Major Scale is made of the notes A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G# and then repeats at A.  So we see, A is the first note or root, C# is the third note and E is the 5th note…again there’s our A Maj triad (A-C#-E).  The A min scale is A-B-C-D-E-F-G and repeats at A.

You can see by looking at the two A scales that the 3rd, 6th and 7th notes are lowered a half step from their Major scale counter parts.  By taking any Major scale and lowering the 3rd, 6th and 7th degrees, we create the natural minor scale of that same root note, or beginning scale tone.  We’ll look at scales a lot more down the road, but for now let’s summarize and end our look at open chords.

Here are the take-away’s:

  • Open chords, like all chords, contain a root, third and fifth of their parent scale.  This is called a Triad
  • We can alter the quality of the chord from Maj to min by lowering the third tone of the Triad and vice versa
  • With open chords, we have fretted notes and notes that we play ‘open’ or un-fretted and sometimes we mute or don’t play certain strings

I hope that little lesson was helpful for you, and remember that if you’d like more free guitar lessons from Learn to Play Guitar TV, be sure to sign up by entering your name and email on the upper-right side.  Please leave me a comment below and tell me your thoughts or any questions you have.  I look forward to hearing from you and wish you the best.

Andrew

Filed Under: Guitar Chords, Guitar Lessons, Learn to Play Guitar, Music Theory Tagged With: , , , ,

Learn to Play Guitar With These Great Courses

November 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Disclosure: We are compensated for purchase of these courses. Click here for details.

You Don’t Just Want to LEARN to Play Guitar, You

Want to Master It, Right?

You’ve probably come to this site because you want to learn to play guitar or improve on your existing foundations.  You’re finding music to be a really valuable part of your life and the expression it brings is really valuable to you.  Feeling the creative rush as you learn a new chord, song or lead line is really great isn’t it?  We are guitarists, maybe each of us at a different point in our journey…when just starting out we have no real idea what to do with this hunk of wood, but we’re intrigued…as intermediate players, we know the basics, know how to play chords, maybe understand key signatures a little and maybe can rock a little lead guitar, but we want to improve…as advanced players, we know our foundations of music theory.  We know chords, keys, scales and maybe even modulations, but we still want to improve…refine our technique, our composition.  One question we all have as guitarists is who should we learn from? Who is going to really make a connection and help us get better at guitar?  Are private lessons the way to go, they can be quite expensive and scheduling can become problematic.  What if you could learn guitar from the comfort of your home and at your own pace, plus have that same level of attention you get from a personal teacher?

There are so many guitar courses and lessons on the web that it can be pretty overwhelming trying to find something that’s actually going to be useful.  One thing that helps us sort through the crap and find something useful is research, and more specifically the research of others.  That way we don’t have to do all the hard work.  I thought it would be helpful to take some of the top selling guitar courses that are available online and give you the rundown on features, pros, cons and price points to help you in your decision making process.

Below is a list of 4 of the best guitar courses available on the web with a breakdown of what you get.

1) Learn And Master Guitar

Learn to Play Guitar with the Learn and Master Guitar Course

Rating: ★★★★★

Learn And Master Guitar Review:

The Learn and Master Guitar program is owned by Gibson and being that is’s a big dog product, the value and content provided are pretty high.  Just like a Gibson guitar, it’s pretty expensive, but it’s like the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for”.  The lessons come on DVD and are really well laid out, whether you’re just a beginner or advanced, they have you covered.  With these lessons you get all the standard and modern techniques that we need to use as guitarists.

Another thing that Learn and Master Guitar comes with is printed materials, which adds a lot to its value when you don’t want to be glued to a screen watching videos.  Their workbooks have the songs from the videos as well as typed out lessons.  One other REALLY strong point is that you get a set of Jam-Along CDs included (5 of them), which helps out a ton when practicing.  Being able to play along is probably one of, if not the, strongest learning tools you can have.  When we see, hear and repeat something back we actually are able to retain it over 80% more than if we had one of those modalities alone.

With all this already in the bag, the addition of online content just adds to why this product is so good. You have access to the forums, can ask questions, and get answers pretty quickly.  Steve Krenz is the course teacher and he is online quite a bit, so you can ask him questions directly.  If you’re really serious about getting better at guitar fast then Learn and Master Guitar is a really good course to try. Visit the Learn and Master Guitar Website

2) Guitar Tricks

Learn to Play Guitar with Guitar Tricks Online Video Lessons

Rating: ★★★★½

Quick Guitar Tricks Review:

Guitar Tricks is an online membership program and great if you don’t want to deal with the hassle of having a bunch of books and DVD’s crowding up your room.  The site that contains more than 3,500 guitar lessons, and they have around 45 guitar instructors, so you are able to find a teacher who’s style resonates with you.  Their lessons range from beginner to advanced and also cover a lot of different musical styles.  Another cool thing is that the lessons are available in mp3 format, so you can throw them on a digital player and take it and your guitar anywhere you want.

The online content and community at Guitar Tricks is really a good one and the freedom and fluency you’ll find with the site are top-notch.  They are one of the very best online guitar courses you’ll come across.  With so many lessons, teachers, styles and updates available on the site, there really is enough content to stay with you as you progress through your guitar playing journey.  Oh and BTW, they have a FREE Membership option which lets you try it out without being locked in.  With the Freebie option you get 24 lessons to try out and have access to the forums.  Try before you buy is ALWAYS a good thing.  Visit GuitarTricks website

3) JamPlay

Learn to Play Guitar with JamPlay Online Lessons

Rating: ★★★★½

JamPlay Review:

JamPlay is pretty similar to Guitar Tricks, in that they’re both online courses, have a ton of lessons, and a both have a lot of instructors to choose from.  The production quality and content is really stellar and one neat thing JamPlay has is multiple camera angles, so you can see just what’s going on.  Another pretty neat thing they have to offer is webcam sessions, where you get to learn in front of an instuctor in real-time (basically like an in-person, private lesson).

JamPlay is an excellent guitar site that will really help you as you learn to play guitar.  Although it’s a bit more expensive than Guitar Tricks (JamPlay runs $19.95/month), it’s still much cheaper than if you took private lessons, which at minimum cost you $300-$400/month.  Clearly the value is there and the education is there, so it’s definitely worth checking out and you can trust that it WILL help you improve in your guitar playing, no doubt. Visit the JamPlay website

4) Jamorama

Learn to Play Guitar Online with Jamorama

Rating: ★★★★☆

Jamorama Review:

We’ve already looked at two other guitar learning courses online and Jamorama is our third and final of the Top 4 courses to help you learn to play guitar.  Why’d I leave them for last?  Well, as they say “Save the best for last.” Now let me qualify that.

First, Jamorama is the cheapest of all the courses and that is a HUGE factor for many of us, as we don’t just have a ton of extra cash floating around and as human beings we want the best value, so when something is great quality and the most affordable, we gravitate to it.  That’s probably one reason Jamorama’s been so successful (Plus the guys who work there are really good people and believe in helping you as much as they can).

Personality, trust and Authenticity are really big factors to consider in products.  These guys deliver on all those fronts.  The lessons are easy to follow, provide great content, and are especially geared toward the beginner guitarist, who, let’s face it, needs the most attention and explanation.  Why?…Because we’re just learning, there’s a ton of things to know, and so we want it simple and easy to follow.

Some additional content you get on top of the lessons are their GuitearIt software (helps train your ear to recognize guitar chords) and Jayde Musica Pro, which will help you in learning to read music (truly an invaluable skill if you want to become a composer or session musician one day).

Jamorama is an insane value and probably the BEST course under $100 you could ever find or create for that matter.  Visit the Jamorama website

Filed Under: Guitar Lessons, Guitar Products Tagged With: , , , ,

Learning the Minor Pentatonic Scale for Guitar – Lesson 2

November 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Minor Pentatonic Scale for Guitar (Click to watch on YouTube if Video Doesn’t Load)

In learning the minor pentatonic scale for guitar, it is important to remember a few things.  The minor pentatonic scale only has five notes, versus the 7 notes of the diatonic scales (Maj, min and all Modes derived from the Major Scale).  The other important thing to note is that the minor pentatonic scale is used to substitute for either the relative minor scale of your key and can also be used in conjunction with the major scale of your key (won’t sound good over all chords).

An example of this would be if I am playing in C Major, then the A minor pentatonic scale would be a perfect fit for your guitar solo over the chord progression of this key, since the A minor pentatonic scale is derived from the relative min scale (A min) of C Major.  The other place that the minor pentatonic works quite well is in the Key of A Major and more specifically when we play the Blues in A.  To refresh for you, the Blues uses the 1-4-5 chord progression and alters those chords to all be dominant 7 chords, meaning we build the triad with the 1st, 3rd, 5th and b7th scale degrees of each chord’s parent scale.

So the A Major Triad (A, C#, E) becomes the A Dominant 7 chord, or A7 (A, C#, E, G), the D Major Triad (D, F#, A) becomes the D Dominant 7 chord, or D7 (D, F#, A, C), and lastly the E Major Triad (E, G#, B) becomes the E Dominant 7 chord, or E7 (E, G#, B, D).  An interesting thing to look at here is how our new D7 chord has ‘C’ in it, which is the flattened third of our A Major chord and hence the min 3rd.  This is one reason that an A min scale works so well here.  The last two reasons being that we are also playing a lead guitar scale that is flattening the 6th and 7th scales degrees of A Major, which creates A min (the min scale is created by flattening the 3, 6 and 7 of its parent major scale).  So if A Major is A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#, then A min is A-B-C-D-E-F-G, which as you can see, all we’ve done is take the 3, 6 and 7 and move them down in pitch one half step or semi-tone each.

Hopefully that theory makes sense and isn’t overwhelming to you.  If you enjoy the lesson, then be sure to join our guitar community if you haven’t already.  Just use the form to the right of this page to begin and get started with our FREE guitar lessons.

Filed Under: Guitar Lessons, How to Play Guitar, Learn to Play Guitar, Learn to Play Lead Guitar, Music Theory Tagged With: , , ,
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