Want to learn guitar but not sure where to begin? One of the most effective places to start is with a small set of basic chords. By focusing on just a few core shapes, you can start playing real songs much sooner than you might expect. In this lesson, we’ll focus on a small group … Read more
The blues is one of the music styles that many guitarists love because it’s a simple yet fun chord progression that allows for improvisation and an exchange of musical ideas amongst musicians. A standard blues is also commonly referred to as a 12 bar blues, meaning it has 12 measures to make up the entire … Read more
If you’re just starting your guitar journey, you might be wondering whether guitar tabs are a good way to learn. The short answer? Yes, tabs are an excellent starting point for beginners. They make it easy to start playing songs without having to read standard music notation. That being said, learning traditional notation later on … Read more
Drop 2 chords rearrange the notes of a 7th chord to create wider, more playable voicings on guitar. In the previous lesson, you used spread triads to open up three-note chords. Here, you’ll apply a similar idea to four-note 7th chords and use different inversions to move more smoothly through chord progressions. In this lesson, … Read more
Jazz phrasing comes from more than choosing the right scale. Rhythm, chord tones, chromatic movement, articulation, and the way a phrase crosses the beat can all change how a line sounds. In this lesson, we’ll look at nine concepts you can use to develop stronger melodic lines, with notation and audio examples to help you … Read more
One way to develop a melody is to add a second note above or below it. On guitar, 3rds and 6ths are especially useful because they can make a melody sound fuller while still keeping the original line clear. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to find 3rds and 6ths from a scale, apply them … Read more
Do you want to make progress on your guitar skills but keep putting it off because you don’t know where to start or simply feel overwhelmed? We all have things we want to get better at but let’s face it, we simply have a limited time to invest each day. In this post, we are … Read more
If you’ve started learning barre chords on guitar, you might have found them to be much tougher to play than you expected. Learning these chords can be a frustrating and uncomfortable process but there are ways approach them more ease which we’ll look at. After you learn your open chords on guitar, which are the ones you … Read more
It’s easy to spend most of your practice time thinking about what your hands are doing: scales, chords, reading, technique, and exercises. But musicianship also grows by listening closely to music and noticing what is actually happening. In this lesson, we’ll look at active listening, what to listen for, and a few simple ways to … Read more
Playing by ear means listening to a piece of music and finding the notes, rhythm, or chords on your instrument without relying on tabs or sheet music. In this lesson, we’ll break that process into smaller steps: listen for one clear part, sing or hum it back, find it on your guitar, then compare what … Read more