chord progressions Archives

How to Quickly Transpose A Song Without Capo

There are many ways to transpose a song in different keys. You can use a capo, play a song in bar chords and then move all the chords up or down, or write down all the chords of the song in the appropriate key.

Those are good solid ways, but sometimes it’s just nice to transpose without capo, bar chords or too much hassle of writing things down.

You want to switch between keys instantly using mainly open chords, because they sound nice and are easy to play. We’re not going for any sharp or flat keys in this post. We keep things simple.

So how do you go about that?

First, you want to know how to build chords of the major scale. If you don’t know how to do that, you can check out this post. If you don’t want to get into the theory behind it, no worries, you can also read on and just memorize the chord sequences that follow. You can always read more about it after this post.

Now we start with deriving the 7 chords from the C Major scale:
C – Dm – Em – F – G – Am – Bdim
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5 Easy Jazz Chord Exercises

By Klaus Crow 3 Comments

Guest post by Matt Warnock (jazz guitarist and educator)

Learning how to play jazz guitar chords can seem like a tough hill to climb. There always seems to be new chords that you need to learn, and each of these chords has myriad variations and fingerings to work out on the guitar. But, while there are a lot of options when learning jazz guitar chords, you don’t have to learn every shape before you can begin making music.

By starting with a few easy jazz chord shapes, one popular jazz rhythm, and five classic jazz progressions, you’ll build your confidence with jazz chords in no time. This lesson will help you do just that, build your confidence, have fun learning jazz chords, and expand your jazz chord knowledge all at the same time.

Easy Jazz Chord Shapes

To begin your study of these easy jazz chord exercises, you’ll need to get a few chord shapes under your fingers. Each of these chords uses three notes, only the most essential notes, to make them easy to finger on the guitar.

Take a few minutes to become familiar with these chords, and then move on to the next section where you’ll add rhythm and harmonic movement to these shapes. If you aren’t 100% comfortable with any of these shapes, not to worry, as you’ll be working them throughout this lesson, so you’ll become more comfortable with each shape over time.

A Beginners Path to Learning Guitar

By Klaus Crow 13 Comments

Photo by Bigstock photo
You want to learn to play guitar but you’re having trouble finding which way to go next. Well, don’t worry, today we have a roadmap or beginners path to learning guitar that will show you where to start and how to continue on your journey.

The learning path to guitar playing will not be the same for everyone. It depends on what style or genre you want to learn and your ultimate goal.

Do you want to become a shredding guitar virtuoso or are you more a singer songwriter type? Do you want to become a solid blues guitar lead player or work your way to an acoustic fingerstyle wizz or a hybrid picking country cowboy?

Whatever your choice is, if you want to start learning popular music, folk music and work your way towards blues, rock, alternative, metal, country or jazz this beginners path is a good starting point.

You don’t necessarily have to stick to the order of this list, there is more than one way to skin a cat. There are always side roads and other things you can learn besides this list. But this beginners path is a good indication to create the solid building blocks you need to becoming a pretty decent guitar player.

Somewhere down to road you got to choose which way to go next, but you’ll figure out when the time is right.

Notes:
– If you want to learn to play classical guitar this is probably not the beginners path you want to follow.
– Take your time. Learn each aspect thoroughly. Even though learning basic chords and an easy song can be mastered in days, this path is not a plan for days or weeks but more for months, years and even a lifetime.

Don’t forget: “It’s about the journey, not about the destination.”

Building Chords and Progressions of The Minor Scale

By Klaus Crow 24 Comments

Photo by Bigstockphoto
Once I learned how to build chords of a major or minor scale, the logic of chord progressions made much more sense.

I became more efficient in analyzing and memorizing chord progressions and it was also a helpful tool for song writing and understanding how to improvise over these chords.

As a young kid I underestimated the knowledge of music theory.

It don’t matter how musically gifted you are as a person, music theory makes the life of a musician a lot easier. So benefit and enjoy!

In this post you’ll learn how to build chords of the minor scale, create your own chord progressions and analyze the chord progressions of famous songs in a minor key.

For building chords of the natural minor scale we can use the same approach as building chords of the major scale

Like the major scale we can also build 7 chords of the minor scale. In fact the minor scale is relative to the major scale. When you play the major scale starting on the 6th degree and play seven notes ascending (going up) in the scale you are actually playing a minor scale.