Mike Cramer's Blog

Pentatonic scales are 5 note scales that should be in every guitar player's vocabulary. The two most common pentatonic scales are the major and minor variety. However, any combination of 5 notes could be considered a pentatonic scale. Pentatonic Box Shapes Guitar players often learn pentatonic box shapes. These shapes are incredibly useful and easy to learn, but one problem many guitarists face is getting stuck in these boxes. Because they are stuck viewing the neck through boxes, they have a difficult time connecting these shapes, thus creating a complete picture of the fingerboard. One String Pentatonic Scales To break out of the box I'm going to suggest another way to learn/practice your pentatonic scales. Play these scales on one string . That's right, one string, this is great way to start moving up the neck. You also benefit from seeing, and feeling, the intervals in the scale. Download the Handout The handout provided with this post presents the G minor penta...

If you've ever found yourself searching for a way to harmonically spice up your folk and pop based tunes then check out Sus2 and Sus4 chords. They are versatile, easy to play, and harmonically satisfying. What are Sus2 and Sus4 Chords? The sus stands for a suspension. The formula for a sus2 is [1 2 5] and the formula for the sus4 is [1 4 5]. Notice that neither chord contains the 3rd, that's because it's replaced by the 2nd (sus2) or the 4th (sus4). Playing Sus Chords on the Guitar The easiest way to learn sus voicings is by altering your triad voicings. For a usesful reference sheet on triads visit my post on triads . All you need to do is find the 3rd of your chord voicing and replace it with either the 2nd or the 4th, depending on which sus voicing you are creating. That's all there is to it! Sus Voicings Handout -click to download

Here's a handout I created for students that explains how to create all of the major scales. Click here to download. I hope you find it helpful.

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...

My new book, Get a Grip: Drop 2 Voicings for Guitar , is out and I've had people ask me "What is a Drop 2 Voicing?" Fair question. I hope the following video lesson will give you a basic understanding of Drop 2 voicings. Please visit www.all12notes.com/drop2lesson.html and you can print out a handout that accompanies the video.

Here's a free lesson on playing the blues shuffle. If you've never played the blues before, you'll want to check this out. It's a great place to get started! Click here to go to the All 12 Notes site and view the lesson. To view it you'll need the Scorch plug-in, available from Sibelius (click here for the plug-in) . If you would like to spend a week with me learning the blues, I'll be teaching at the Chicago campus of the National Guitar Workshop , from July 12-17. The workshop has great teachers, great students, and awesome guest artists. Pamper yourself and sign up for a week of nothing but guitar!

At the last All 12 Notes Swing Jam , the topic of Digital Patterns came up as technique for navigating chord changes. Digital patterns are easy to implement and are great for getting the sound of individual chords and chord progressions in your ear. They're also good technical studies. What's a Digital Pattern? Simply put, a digital pattern is a specific sequence of notes. The major scale could be considered a digital pattern: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Here's the first digital pattern I was introduced to as I began my journey into jazz improvisation: 1, 2, 3, 5. This four note sequence is created by taking the 1, 2, 3, and 5th notes of the major scale. Application If I were in the key of C the notes of the 1, 2, 3, 5 pattern would be C, D, E, and G-notice the pattern has a C triad in it. It can be applied to the major family of chords, for example: C, C6, C7, Cmaj7. What if I'm confronted with chords of the minor family? To adjust the pattern to fit the minor chord...

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...