One of the best pieces of advice I received from a former instructor during my developing years was, "You need to know every note on the fingerboard." This seemed like a daunting task to say the least. But this instructor was right on! It's incredibly helpful to know the names of every fret on every string. So let's look at what it takes to accomplish this task. Open Strings To start, you must know the open strings of the guitar. From strings 6 (lowest) to 1 (highest) the notes are as follows: E, A, D, G, B, E. By memorizing these notes you now have a home base to work from for figuring out the remaining notes. Musical Alphabet and Natural Half-Steps The musical alphabet is made up of 7 notes: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. When you reach G you wrap back around to A. The distance between each pair of adjacent notes is fixed. For example the distance between A and B is a whole-step and on the guitar a whole-step is 2 frets. There are two pairs of notes that are a h
Learning triads and their inversions is a must for all guitarists, regardless of stylistic interests. In our rush to play our favorite songs we often skip directly to larger chord forms and harmonic structures instead of gaining a solid foundation in basic chord structure and harmony. It's not until later, however, we get a sense that a piece of the harmonic puzzle is missing from our chord vocabulary. If any or all of this sounds familiar read on! In this post we'll look at the major triad and inversions in closed position. The Major Triad The major triad is a three note chord built by taking the first, third, and fifth notes of the major scale and stacking them on top of each other. (If you are unsure as to how to create the major scale view this post on major scale construction.) I will refer to the notes of the chord by number. Therefore, the major triad has the formula [1 3 5]. By looking at the chord tones as numbers the triad is no longer root specific. The formu
One of the tunes we've covered in the Swing Jam at All 12 Notes has been the classic Sweet Georgia Brown . This tune is a great vehicle for some hot pickin'. Soloing Tip The tune is primarily made up of Dominant 7th chords. A common chord scale for the Dom. 7th chord is the Mixolydian scale. The Mixolydian scale is nothing more than a major scale with a lowered 7th. The formulas is: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, b7 8. Take a D7 and record yourself playing the chord. Now that you have a practice track try playing the D Mixolydian scale over the D7 you just recorded. Listen to how the notes of the scale fit with the chord. Reference Recordings Below you'll find 10 different recordings of Sweet Georgia Brown. Taking ideas from recordings is great ear training and it will help you develop vocabulary that you can use to create your own solos. Amazon.com Widgets You can also find many of these tracks on Emusic...
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