Practice Archives - GUITARHABITS

Improve Your Guitar Skills Anywhere and Anytime

June 18, 2020 By Klaus Crow 6 Comments

We all have tons of excuses to justify the times we don’t practice. We need to work, maintain our relationships, play with our kids, finish up tasks, exercise, eat and sleep. How in the world is there any time left?

How can you improve your skills amidst all of this, stay motivated and keep learning and growing when there are times when you can’t pick up the guitar?

Well, there are many places and times throughout the day where you can do some really valuable exercises to make huge changes in your guitar playing. I’ll first show you WHAT you can do, and then HOW and WHEN can you get better at playing guitar everyday, anywhere and anytime! Let’s check it out.

Learning to Know the Notes on The Guitar

You can start by learning the notes on the guitar. Memorize where every note (all 12) are located on the guitar neck on every string. Start by memorizing all the “F” notes on all strings. Say out loud: The F note is located on the Low E-string, 1st fret | F on the A-string, 8th fret | F on the D-string, 3rd fret | F on the G-string, 10th fret | F on the B-string, 6th fret | F on the high e-string, 1st fret. Try to visualize where the note is located on the neck while you’re naming the fret and string. Then pick another random note and repeat the exercise. Keep doing that until you know all 12 notes from the top of your head.

Next, learn to name all the scale notes of each key out loud. Start with the C major scale: C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C, then the G major scale: G – A – B – C – D – E – F# – G, next the F major scale: F – G – A – Bb – C – D – E – F and so on. Just pick any key in random order, until you’ve gone through all 12 keys. You can also do this with the natural minor scale, and every other scale. Just like the first exercise try to visualize where the notes of each scale are located on the strings.

You can also memorize all the chords you can derive from each major scale in every key. C major scale chords = C – Dm – Em – F – G – Am – Bdim , F major scale chords are: F – Gm – Am – Bb – C – Dm – Edim, G major scale chords: G – Am – Bm – C – D – Em – F#dim, and so on.

10 Essentials to Learn Rock Guitar

May 29, 2020 By Klaus Crow 12 Comments

Rock guitar has an irresistible attractive force to guitar players . The dopamine that releases from strumming power chords that are heavily distorted or conquering a great rock solo while playing it along with the original song, a jam track or with a real band gives you that primal, powerful, and godlike blissful feeling all at the same time.

There is an abundance of creativity in rock music and there are so many different styles, genres and techniques, you can dedicate your whole life time learning rock guitar, but if you know two power chords you’re in the game.

It’s an endless source of fun and inspiration you can indulge in. So what do you need to know to learn rock guitar? What is essential to study and master to become a real rock guitar player?

Here are the keys:

1 – Power chords
Power chords are rock chords that you need in order to play rock songs. They are your basic building tools for rhythm rock guitar and super useful when it comes to playing with distortion. Power chords give you control over your distorted sound without turning it into noise and going all over the place. You do this by playing only the root and fifth note of the major scale. Power chords are fairly easy to play and are great motivator for beginner rock guitar players.

2 – Learn one rock song at a time
This is a no brainer, but by learning to play rock songs you learn to play rock guitar. It’s the songs that make you learn the skill. Learn to listen to the overal song, then just the guitars, the drums, the bass, and the keys. Listen and learn to play it piece by piece. First the intro, then the verse, the chorus, the bridge, etc. Start with easy rock songs and work your way up. Here are some of the best tools to figure out guitar songs and solos. Songs are the key to learning the craft.

3 – Learn rock guitar solos
Rock guitar solos are the best. Just like songs, soloing skills are learned by learning solos and transcribing solos. You start with the easy ones and gradually build your way up to the more challenging ones. You’ve got to take it step by step.

4 – Guitars, amps and pedals
The sound is an important aspect of rock guitar. The use of distortion and overdrive through amps, rock pedals and guitars is the way for rock musicians to create that dirty explosive sound and express their musical creativity. It’s a vital part of rock music. There are many different kinds of distortions and overdrives and depending on your style of music and personal taste you will find through experimenting what sound suits your needs.

5 – Rock licks.
Licks are short melodic ideas, which can seen as the words, phrases and lines that make up part of the story and the style, to bring tension and release, and can be used for your solo. You can string them together or use them as short fills throughout the song. Licks are also used to learn new techniques and soloing approaches. Collect as much cool licks as you can and learn how to express yourself in unlimited musical ways.

Bar Chord Songs for Beginners and Intermediate

May 6, 2020 By Klaus Crow 8 Comments

Today I have a great list of songs for learning and improving your bar chords. I’ll also show you how to apply bar chords to a song.

Once you have practiced open chords and spent some fair amount of time learning beginner songs you are ready to learn bar chords. While you can apply bar chords to any song you like, there are typical bar chord songs that are a perfectly suited for the bar chord practitioner.

For your first bar chord song it’s a good idea to use a combination of open chords and bar chords. Bar chords are a bit tricky in the beginning so start with a song and implement bar chords as well as the easier open chords. You can turn any chord into a bar chord, so pick one or two to start with. With practice you can gradually build up the amount of bar chords you put in a song. When you feel comfortable enough you can play your songs using solely bar chords.

There are four main bar chord shapes you can use in your songs: E-shape, A-shape, Em-shape and Am shape (see diagrams below).

The A-shape bar chord can be played in two ways: The A-shape (second diagram on the left) that uses the standard fingering and the A-shape (first diagram on the right) with the alternative fingering which is also a very popular one. Eventually you want to learn both of them.

You can move each bar chord shape up and down the neck which changes the name of the chord. This way you can play the bar chord shape in every key. A full explanation of this can be found in How to Play, Locate, Memorize and Practice Bar Chords

SETTING UP BAR CHORD PROGRESSIONS

By using the E-shape and A-shape you can play each bar chord in two ways. For example: The “C” chord can be played as an E-shape bar chord on the 8th fret or as an A-shape chord on the 3rd fret. They are both C chords only on a different position on the neck. (See Major and Minor Bar Chord Shapes lists below).

How to Play The Many Graceful Minor 7 Chords

April 17, 2020 By Klaus Crow 7 Comments

The Min7 chord is a beautiful way to enhance the minor chord. It gives it some extra colour and depth. It sounds kind of contemplative and a bit more sophisticated than your standard minor chord. It’s a graceful chord.

The minor 7th chord is used widely in every style of music and today we’re going to learn how to play it in a different set of varieties and build it from the ground up.

We’re going to look at “open” Minor 7th chords (open strings involved), moveable Min7 chords (no open strings involved) with the root note starting at the Low E (6th string), A-string (5th string) and the D-string (4th string), and finally some more beautiful sounding min7 chords you might not have played before, but are an asset to your chord vocabulary.

MIN7 CHORD CONSTRUCTION – MUSIC THEORY

A minor chord consist of the root (1), flatted third (b3) and fifth (5) notes (1 b3 5) of the major scale. The minor 7th chord (min7) consists of the root (1), flatted third, fifth and flatted seventh notes (1 b3 5 b7) of the major scale. That means only the b7 is added to the minor chord.

For example, if you take the notes of the C major scale = C D E F G A B C
The C minor chord (Cm) consists of the notes: C Eb G (1 b3 5)
The C minor 7 chord (Cm7) consists of the notes: C eb G Bb (1 b3 5 b7)

Another example: A major scale = A B C# D E F# G# A
The Amin chord consists of the notes: A C E (1 b3 5)
The Amin7 chord consists of the notes: A C E G (1 b3 5 b7)

This way you can build or analyze any Min7 chord:

Note: In the chord diagrams above: the black dots above the nut are open strings, and the letters in the dots indicate the note names.