How Guitars Work

As the famous saying goes, practice makes perfect. This holds true for any skill, including playing the guitar. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced player, consistent practice is essential in improving your guitar playing abilities.  Develop muscle memory faster Repeating patterns, scales, and guitar solos on a regular basis is crucial in developing muscle memory. As you learn new chords, scales, and techniques, your fingers need to get used to the movements and positions on the fretboard. Through consistent practice, these movements become second nature, making it easier for you to play guitar without having to think. This muscle memory is essential in playing complex pieces and allows you to focus on your musical expression rather than the technical aspects of playing. Improve hand coordination and dexterity Regular and meaningful guitar practice helps improve your hand coordination and dexterity. As you progress in your guitar journey, you will come across more challengi

In part b of this lesson on fifth intervals, I'm going to tell you about power chords. You may already be familiar with this as it’s an extremely popular technique in western pop and rock songs.  A power chord is simply the one note, a fifth interval note, and (optionally) an octave note played together.  There is no major third interval note to make the chord either major or minor.  Playing power chords is really common, in western pop and rock music. Let’s look a well known example: Eye of the Tiger, by Survivor: Play the intro to Eye of the Tiger We’re going to start by picking out the bass notes. Starting on the fifth string, find the C note and the B note. And I want you to play:  C, C, A#, C. C, A#, C I want you to do that by yourself, using the knowledge you already have from these lessons (a demo video will be posted here in October 2023 so please check back then for an update if you need to).  Find those notes on the fifth string of your guitar: C, C, A#, C C, A#, C When

In lesson 10, we looked at the G shape on the fretboard, which can be used to play any major chord. In this lesson, you are going to build on this knowledge and learn how: the A shape is connected to the G shape(s) to solo with the G shape if your root note is on the 6th string to solo with the G shape if your root note is on the 3rd string to find the other interval notes within the major scale You should remember from our previous lesson on the G shape, that for practical application purposes, we split the G shape into two more manageable smaller shapes. Here’s a reminder: Version one We take the root note of our A shape (which is played with our middle finger) and we replace it with our index finger. Our ring finger, then plays the fifth string on the fourth fret. The 3rd interval note on the second string shown in the diagram below is optional: Version two The second way to play a G shape chord is to keep our index finger on the A shape notes, and add our little finger to the fir

In lesson 9, we looked at   the A shape   on the fretboard, which can be used to play any major chord. In this lesson, you are going to build on this knowledge and learn how: the A shape pattern is linked to the C shape to solo with the A shape if your root note is on the 5th string to find the other interval notes within the major scale when using the A shape When we play the C shape , we use our little finger (or ring finger) on the root note. This frees up the fingers to the left to play the other notes we need.  In this A shape pattern, we're going to play the same root note, but we're going to use our index finger. This frees up the fingers to play on the right hand side of it. Now we can find a 3rd interval note and a 5th interval note to build this into any major chord, using the A shape. We have a fifth interval note on the fourth string. It's two frets down, and two frets across from our root note. We looked at this interval pattern in lesson 6, finding fifth inter

In lesson 8, we looked at the C shape on the fretboard, which can be used to play any major chord. In this lesson, you are going to build on this knowledge and learn how to: solo with the C shape if your root note is on the 5th string identify the C chord and the D chord within the C shape find the other interval notes within the major scale This is called the C shape pattern because if played in the first position, our root note (in the major scale) would be on the note C. But, remember, our root note could be any note on this fifth string. Because the root is on the fifth string, you're going to play it with our little finger. It's important that you do that when using this shape because the other notes you'll play are going to be to the left of it. So you need the other fingers on the left of our little finger available for play. At first, these full scale shapes can seem a bit intimidating, so let’s just take a moment to look at the C shape and review what we already k

The next chord shape we’re going to look at in this lesson series is the D shape.  Just like the other chord shapes, you can use this to play any chord on the fretboard.  In this lesson, you’re going to learn how to: join the E shape and the D shape on the fretboard create and move chords using the D shape play major chords with the D shape change major chords into minor chords with the D shape Just like the other shapes, the D chord is linked to the shape that comes before it, the E shape.  To move from the E shape to the D shape, you replace your annular finger in the E shape, with your index finger in the D shape. This effectively then becomes the nut of your guitar, and leaves the rest of your fingers to play the D shape. There are a couple of ways to use the D shape to play major chords. The first way is to simply play the top three strings, using the D shape, anywhere on the fretboard. Your root note is in the middle of this triad. So whichever note that index finger is on, is g

The fourth shape we’ll be looking at in this lesson series, is the E shape. Arguably, this is one of the most useful, and commonly used shapes, especially in pop music. Just like the other shapes, the E shape is fully moveable up and down the fretboard to make other chords.  In this lesson, you’ll learn how to: join the G shape and the E shape on the fretboard create and move chords using the E shape play major chords with the E shape change major chords into minor chords with the E shape The G shape is connected to the E shape by the notes we play with our anular and little fingers. Those notes become the barre, or our new nut of the guitar, and from there we play an E shape. One thing to note with the E shape is that when we play an E chord, in the first position, the root note (E) is actually just played as the open E string. Therefore, if you are playing any other major chord using the E shape, and you want to include the sixth string, you have to use your index finger to bar the f