Tag Archives: chord progressions

In the last lesson, we harmonized the G major scale in first position to understand the chords and intervals contained within the scale. This type of exercise is great because it reinforces four essential skills at once: scale position identity, interval recognition, root note awareness, and diatonic harmony. In this lesson, we’re going to do the same with the G minor scale.

I always enjoy exercises that are more encompassing than just learning a single skill. In this lesson, we’re going to harmonize the G major scale in first position to understand the chords and intervals of the key as a single system. This reinforces four essential skills at once: scale position identity, interval recognition, root note awareness, and diatonic harmony.

As its name suggests, the 12-bar blues is a chord progression that spans twelve bars. It consists of a signature structure, but also features several common variations. In this lesson we’ll cover the basics of the 12 bar blues, how it’s structured, and some variations to get you strumming the blues.

Mixolydian, along with Dorian, is one of my favorite modes to improvise over. It’s rather straightforward and gives you room to experiment and intermix several approaches. In this lesson we’re going to take a look at a three simple options for improvising a guitar solo in the Mixolydian mode.

If you’ve been a reader of this site for any length of time, you know I’m a huge advocate of the CAGED system. It’s so valuable for learning guitar and it makes navigating the fretboard so much easier. For that reason, I’ve put a lot of time into putting all of the pieces of the CAGED system together. In this lesson, we’re going to go through one of my favorite CAGED system soloing exercises that helps you map the CAGED system to the fretboard in a fun and musical way.

In this lesson we’re going to dive into the E minor chord scale, which is simply the chords that are found in the key of E minor. We’ll take a look at how they’re formed, methods for practicing the chord scale, and some sample chord progressions.

Chord voicings open up a whole new world when it comes to guitar chords. The individual notes of the chord, although played together, play a big role in how chords sound and flow from one to the next in a progression. In this lesson we’ll explore chord voicings on the guitar to understand what they are, how voicings are created, and how they influence a chord progression.

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room is one of John Mayer’s best songs, both lyrically and musically. Musically, it’s rather simple. But the simplicity is what makes it so great. In this lesson we’ll break down the intro to the song and take a look at the chord progression and the riff he’s playing over top of the progression.

There are many ways to go about soloing over chord changes, but it essentially comes down to outlining the chords in the progression to highlight the changes. In this lesson we’ll take a look at some simple options for playing over chord changes that work in a writing setting as well as for improvisation.