chords Archives - Page 9 of 11

A Beginners Path to Learning Guitar

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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

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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.

Building Chords and Progressions of The Major Scale

By Klaus Crow 22 Comments

Photo by Bigstockphoto
Knowing how to build chords and chord progressions is a really great tool for writing your own songs and communicating with your fellow musicians on how to play a certain piece of music, “Let’s play a 1 4 5 progression in the key of…”

You can create the most beautiful chord progressions and songs by ear and you don’t necessarily need to know music theory for that, but it makes the life of a musician a lot easier if you do know some music theory on this part.

It’s nice to know what other musicians are talking about and how you can create chord progressions in a more effective and efficient way.

Adding music theory knowledge will reveal a lot of secrets you wish you had known before, so don’t wait for later or you’ll miss out on all the good stuff. Music theory will definitely make you a better musician!

Now let’s dive in:

From the major scale you can build 7 diatonic chords. The major scale consists of 7 notes, so that’s one chord of each note.

Let’s take the C major scale for example.

5 Beautiful Ways to Play a II-V-I Jazz Chord Progression

By Klaus Crow 24 Comments

I just love figuring out different ways to play a jazz chord progression or just mixing up jazz chords with other styles of music.

It can add nice flavors to a song and give it some extra magic. It’s really fun to experiment with that.

Learning jazz expands your guitar vocabulary to a whole new level if you are ready for it.

In the meantime it’s just fun to play some beautiful jazz chord progressions and it will certainly contribute to your playing skills and creativity as well.

There are also more advanced II-V-I’s than the ones I show here but these are really nice to start out with and get your feet in the dirt. It can be a little bit overwhelming if you learn to play jazz chords and progressions for the first time, but after a few runs you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll be amazed!

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