Lessons

In this lesson we’re going to take a deeper look at the D major scale, which is another commonly used scale in popular music. We’ll take a look at the notes, intervals, scale positions and chords that make up the key of D major.

With so much attention given to the left hand when playing guitar, right hand technique is a frequently overlooked. With little or no dedicated attention, the right hand seems to be dragged along for the ride with the progression of left hand technique. What can happen over time is the development of left hand technique becomes limited by the slower developing right hand, and progress as a whole slows to a crawl.

In a previous lesson, we looked at how to build chords from the major scale, which is an important concept when it comes to understanding diatonic harmony. In this lesson we’re going to go through the process of building minor scale chords, which follows the same process as the major scale.

In previous lessons we’ve explored both major triads and minor triads, which are two of the most commonly used triads. In this lesson we round out the triads of the major scale with a look at diminished triads.

Seventh chords are chords that include the root plus the 3rd, 5th, and 7th intervals above the root. Another way to think about it is a seventh chord is a triad plus a 7th interval.

Slash chords are chords in which a note other than the root note is in the bass position. You might think this sounds very similar to chord inversions and you’d be right.

In this lesson we’re going to dive into the Let It Be guitar solo by The Beatles. Let It Be is on the 1970 album of the same name. Performed by George Harrison, this is a great solo for the beginner-intermediate guitar player to learn.

When first starting out on guitar, simply fingering guitar chords is quite the challenge. Some fingerings are super awkward, making smooth chord transitions on guitar feel like an insurmountable task.

The circle of fifths is an invaluable tool that reveals important relationships between pitches and organizes them in a way that’s very useful to understanding diatonic harmony.

If you’ve been exposed to at least a bit of guitar theory, you’ve most likely heard of the CAGED system. It’s a system that allows you to visualize the guitar fretboard by using common major chord shapes.