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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: , , , , , , , , ,