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3rds Intervals over 5 Major Scale Shapes/Positions

I hope you are doing okay with everything that is going on now. These are crazy times, but we have to make the best of it. We have to help each other out while keeping a safe distance, be considerate of others, smile to people to relieve a bit of their burden, but with all that don’t forget yourself along the way. Being kind to yourself too. Have a bit of fun. Try to enjoy the present moment.

For those of you who stay at home, you might have some more time on your hands now to enjoy the guitar, develop a nice practice routine, and make some good progress. Well, here’s a great guitar workout for you…

Practicing melodic intervals really developed my skills to solo and improvise over major chord progressions. Just by going through the scale intervals on a regular basis you are training the muscle memory for your fingers and acquiring the vocabulary for your creative mind to help you shape your musical brain and come up with melodic ideas. It’s an exercise that is not to be underestimated.

In this lesson we are going to learn “melodic intervals in 3rds” following the major scale. We’ll practice these 3rd intervals over 5 different scale shapes/positions across the neck, so we’ve got a great workout for you! Don’t worry we’ll take it step by step.

Make sure you know the major scale in 5 shapes/positions before you start this lesson, but on the other hand you can also skip that for now if you just became excited to dive into this lesson. You can always come back to that later. I can imagine you want to try at least the first exercise to know what we’re talking about here. I totally understand.

Another upside is that the exercises will train your ear to recognize 3rd intervals. This will improve your aural skills, which is a important part of becoming an accomplished musician (Try to sing along the notes as you play the exercises). The practice of playing the intervals will also increase your dexterity. A win-win situation in many ways.

Top 10 Guitar Practice Hacks

By Klaus Crow 6 Comments

Sure you know it, practice is key to becoming a better guitar player, but the tricky part is that practice is often associated in our brains with hard work, difficulty, and struggle. Understand that it’s just the programming of your mind talking. It doesn’t have to be like that. Practice can just as easily be associated with fun, flow and fruitfulness. So let’s take a look at these 10 Guitar hacks to make practice a delight and easy to tackle.

1. Fun and process

First, allow yourself a few minutes to think about what piece of music ( a song, solo, progression, chords or exercise) you would like to practice. Choose something that will really excite you. Write it down.

Now get into the childlike (creative) mindset that you are going to enjoy the process, and not think like an adult who is too often result and goal oriented. The latter might be the very obstacle that will keep you from starting in the first place.

Know that you don’t have to practice for anybody, anything, or any other reason than the incredible joy that guitar playing will bring. Just be in in it for the process!

2. Sacred space

Find a space where you won’t be bothered and disturbed. You need quietness and uninterrupted time to focus and enjoy the pleasant process of practice. Tell your family or friends at home not to disturb you in the next 45 minutes.

3. Prepare to follow through

Print out your favorite song, exercises, scales, solos and lay them out on the table or put them on your music stand. You might want to restring your guitar for a better feel and sound. Get everything ready like picks, tuner, metronome, capo or an amp and pedals. Don’t forget to put the kettle on for a hot cup of tea or make yourself a nice cappuccino to enhance your mood. If everything is all set and ready you make things easier to start practicing right away.

4. Lower the action

A quick word on the technical side. A lot of guitars have poor or high action which makes playing more difficult and challenging to make your notes sound good. Go to your local guitar shop and see if they can adjust the action of your guitar to improve the comfort and playability of the guitar. It makes all the difference and will inspire and motivate you to practice more.

5. Resistance

If you feel any resistance toward practicing, know that it’s just your mind playing tricks and trying to distract you. Your mind is designed to play the devil’s advocate, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Your resistance doesn’t care if practicing is good for you, or that it will make you grow as a musician and make you deeply happy and fulfilled. Resistance doesn’t care less. It doesn’t give a crap about you. So don’t listen!

Mastering The Fretboard Through The Cycle of Fourths

By Klaus Crow 9 Comments

In becoming an adept guitar player it is important to master the fretboard, learn all the notes on the guitar, and be able to move freely around the neck and play all your scales, riffs, licks, chops and solos in every key.

You can cultivate this by using and practicing your musical ideas through the cycle of fourths. For in depth explanation of the cycle of fourths check out How to Benefit from The Circle of Fifths and Fourths. In this post we are going into the practical side of things.

Let’s say you play a cool lick in the key of A (See example below). Now the next thing you do is move the lick up a fourth (up 5 frets) and play it in the key of D (A to D is a fourth), then play it in the key of G (D to G is a fourth), next in the key of C (G to C is a fourth), then the key of F (C to F is a fourth), next key of Bb (F to Bb is a fourth), key of Eb (Bb to Eb is a fourth), key of Ab (Eb to Ab is a fourth), key of Db (Ab to Db is a fourth), key of Gb (Db to Gb is a fourth), key of B (Gb to B is a fourth), key of E (B to E is a fourth), and back to the key of A (E to A is a fourth).

Below an example of how to move the lick through the cycle of fourths from A to D to G. You try to figure out the other keys. If you want to learn this lick in a videolesson check out Cool Acoustic Electric Blues Guitar Lick

Now you’ve passed through every key via the cycle of fourths. Practice this with your chords, triads, licks, arpeggios, scales, etc and you’ll discover it’s purpose and benefits. You will feel it’s different, akward and challenging to play the same lick, scale or exercise in other keys. You have to relearn that lick or scale a bit in various positions, because you have moved it up or down the neck.

Cool Acoustic Electric Blues Guitar Lick

By Klaus Crow 5 Comments

Today we’re going to learn a nice and smooth acoustic/electric blues guitar lick that you can add to your guitar licks vocabulary and use freely in your soloing and improvisation.

Blues licks are small soloing ideas that you can use and learn from. They are designed to expand and upscale your soloing skills. The licks are used in blues music but also in rock, country, jazz and other styles of music. The licks and styles are all intertwined.

I used to collect licks from every where and anyone. I always bought all the guitar magazines and videos there were available at the time and learn all the licks I could find. It was all about the cool licks. It was the fast way to learn and incorporate all the cool chops and techniques into my playing. Even now, I’m still looking.

You can play the blues lick in the video over an A7 chord, over an A7 Blues progression or blues shuffle. You can also transpose the lick to any key you like by moving the entire lick up or down the fretboard.

Enjoy!

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