In these lessons we will see how to make use of chord inversions to change the shape of our bass lines and make our chrod progressions sound less vanilla or predictable.

This is the close up of the left hand view. Follow the video and use the notation to grasp the concepts. Be careful for the stretch on the E/G# chord. At first it seems awkward...but then again every new chord we learn seems awkward. Enjoy the lesson!

This is the close view of the right hand for the lesson. There are 3 different ways to play this progession and each technique will take time to master. This is a sample of how you can articulate a progression

This is a scale phrase that has open strings included to make it sound richer and chime more.

I am bored....I've learned all the chords....I can make the changes and have a few strums going...but "How do I make music??" Unless you are learning licks and riffs, and somehow can absorb the lessons within them into your playing, making your guitar playing go places can be elusive....and boring and frustrating. Hopefully these next lesson will give you some tools to take basic chords and expand them into Chord Riffs and in the process of learning these examples you will be able to find your own unique voice and start creating your own memorable chord riffs. This...

"Freshen Up Your Guitar Playing" is a lesson that hopefully will show you how to see a new way of thinking about the guitar. We are so locked into playing chord shapes covering 6 or 5 strings that we don't realize how many options we have within those chords. I always try and subdivide any chord I have learned into smaller chords that cover 3 strings. When you use this approach, and add notes of the scale either above or below the chord tones, you have so many ways to add colors to your chords.

This lesson is a close up view of the LH.

Please note - the title for this video incorrectly shows strings 6 and 4 instead of 6 and 3 - the rest of the video and lesson are correct PLEASE NOTE: My tuning for lessons 1-4 of this tutorial is A=445. My tuner was accidentally set to A=445 and I realized this after videoing 4 of the 9 lessons. So please re-tune for the first 4 to play along, thanks. Lessons 5-9 are standard tuning A=440 Knowledge of the guitar fingerboard is one of the most important skills to have in order to develop a range in your playing. Without this know-how you are limited to pl...

This is the intro to the Dobro slide tutorial You will learn to use Drop D tuning and learn chord voicings suitable for playing slide guitar. You will learn musical phrases and then see how those are constructed out of pentatonic, blues scales and chord tones. We will discuss amp settings to get a great tone.

This is a chord phrase outlining a Fmaj7 arpeggio in the Key of F. Measure 1 - begins with a Fmaj7 voicing for the first note of the arpeggio. The next notes of the arpeggio are outlined by A/C# which functions as a passing chord to Dmi7, the vi chord of F. Measure 2 - the last note of the Fmaj7 arpeggio, E, is the top note of the fist chord of measure 2. The rest of measure 2 are notes diatonic to the Fmaj scale and harmonized with diatonic chords, secondary dominant chords and flat five sub chords. Measure 3 is similar to the 2nd half of measure 2.

This is the continuation of the D chord riff but a closer view of the left hand.

This is a chord progression using open C and the F and G chords are played using the E barre. The E barre chord covers 6 strings but I like to sub divide the chord in groups of 2 strings - so that will be the 1/2 2/3 3/4 4/5 5/6 - now we have a six string chord and 5 2 string chords of the same chord. This enables you to visualize the fingerboard in more of a deconstructed way. The smaller 2 string chords can be used in a more musical way than just holding a full six string chord. I hope this lesson gets you thinking more about how to use smaller fragmented parts ...

You may be asking; Are we playing chords or scales? The basis of these exercises are both. When you take 2 different notes of a scale and play them together they are called an interval. Beginner guitarists first memorize chords and don't realize there is a relationship between chords and scales. A musical scale is like the alphabet. As a kid you learned your ABC's, you learned to spell words, you learned how to write sentences and that is how you learned the English language. Similarly we need to learn the musical scale, then how to create chords from t...

This is the close up view of the left hand. There are a lot of chords in this phrase and most of them cover 4 , 5 or 6 strings. That means your left hand will be working overtime in the beginning to get so many voicings under your fingers. Patience everyone! Please take 1 or 2 chords at a time and learn to connect them and then move on.

Close view of the right hand and picking pattern. I don't teach picking patterns since we all have different ways of using our fingers when we play guitar. You may prefer to use the 2nd finger instead of the 3rd, so I leave this to your interpretation. When you develop your own style of playing you develop your own unique voice on the guitar....that's the goal, to sound like you.

This is the close view of the right hand for the D chord riff

This example is in 2 parts. Part 1 is creating a Riff in G and Part 2 is creating a Lick out of the Riff. The first chord is on the top 3 strings [1, 2 and 3] and is a G then to a Gsus. After playing this 3 times, add the note F with your little finger to the Gsus and you have a Csus. Now lower the little finger to E and we have a C chord. That's the riff. Now we need to find the same chord on the low 3 strings, [strings 4, 5 and 6] Here is what you do; find the lower octave of each note of the G, Gsus, Csus and C on the low strings and now you have a new p...

We are using a major 10 interval for these exercises. Previously I explained that 2 notes of a scale played together are called an interval. A major 10 interval is a compound interval. This means the 2 notes are in different octaves. The low note or root note is in the first octave, the 10 is in the 2nd octave. A 2 octave G major scale would be GABCDEF#G and then GABCDEF#G again. It is hard to tell looking at that to see the major 10 so lets number the scale instead of letters. G-1 A-2 B-3 C-4 D-5 E-6 F#-7 G-8 A-9 B-10 C-11 D-12 E-13 F#-14...

Please note that the video incorrectly show strings 6/4 instead of 6/3 - the rest of the video and lesson are correct. Now that you have memorized and played the horizontal harmonized G major scale with a major 10 interval on strings 6/3, 5/2 and 4/1 it is time to play this vertically. To play the harmonized scale vertically you'll be crossing strings. It is very important to carefully visualize and memorize the overlapping of the string sets. Starting with G on the 6th string you'll play the G major scale steps in the following sequence: G on 6/3, A on 6/3, B...

This is a chord phrase in Dma using an open string to add some texture and color to the chords.

The chord riff creates the framework for our lick. Instead of playing a scale or a lick crafted from a scale we use the notes of the chord riff and create our own lick. When creating a lick there are numerous techniques to apply; I start the lick with a reverse slide to Bb and then bend Bb up a half step to B the 3rd of G, followed by playing the C note which is the sus of G. Then you play the B and G notes and land on E the 3rd of C, bend that up a half step to F and then end the lick by bending the Bb to B and end on a G. Repeat that process then down an octave...

This is the close view of the left hand. I am breaking te full G barre chord down into 4 smaller chords. Even though they are smaller they are still G major. I also use them in a musical way so you can get an idea of how to do the same. Leran these examples, they are fairly easy to get under your fingers and then whnever you play a G chord you can use any of these instead of just playing the full chord.

Similar to other lessons this one uses a C major chord progression with open strings. The chord shapes are fairly easy to play and your sound is so much fuller with the open strings. The open strings seems to make the guitar resonate much more and chords sound richer than standard vanilla voicings we play

In this first example I am using a iii VI7 ii V7 I progression in the Key of F. If I was playing a diatonic (all unmodified chords from the Key Center) progression I would write the chords like this: iii vi ii V I In a diatonic key I IV V are major, ii iii and vi are minor vii is either a diminished triad or 1/2 diminished quartad (minor7 b5) Since I wrote it as iii VI7 ii V I, the vi is a secondary dominant (VI7). Measure 1 - begin with Ami7#5, the #5 is diatonic to the Key of F - it is the note F Measure 2 - D7 is the vi chord played as a secondary domina...

This is another approach to using open strings to make chord progressions sound lush, chime and beautiful. Drop the high E down a whole step to D, raise the 2nd string B up a step and a half to D - So you have EADGdd Learn this progression and as you experiment more you will find ways to use the 2 high dd's in your music.

Often we play chord progressions that are predictable and boring. Inversions are a way to break up the old sound of over used chord progressions and to add a new interesting dimension to your chord progression.

Once we know how to play some chords and chord progressions we tend to run out of ideas to make the chords sound interesting or to even create new riffs. By the end of the tutorial you will be able take some of the chords you know and turn them into interesting riffs.

This tutorial is in the key of G and is a blues based turnaround. You will earn that a blues turnaround is made of dominant 7th chords and you will learn how to connect each chord with a walking bass line.

Learning about modes is a concept that is at best hard to understand and ambiguous when explained in the context of scales. I will try and make the understanding of modes a bit easier by teaching you musical examples of modal chord progressions. So instead of having an explanation that uses scale upon scale patterns, I will filter the concept of modes through chords. I will also show you how to use these mini chord progressions and fragments of the chords to make your music much bigger.

You will learn how to use a slide and we will look at what the left and right hand is doing. You will learn to use Drop D tuning and learn chord voicings suitable for playing slide guitar. You will learn musical phrases and then see how those are constructed out of pentatonic, blues scales and chord tones

Strumming styles in a variety of idioms, and applying the use of effects.

These four lessons demonstrate how to employ palm muting in your rock rhythm playing.

Learn a few neat ways to make cool sounds from your six-stringer. Great!, finally a tutorial that has zero theory!! or chords, or scales or music but will make you famous!!

There is a logical and systematic approach to understanding how chords are constructed SPECIFIC to the guitar and its tuning. Chord construction theory has to be applied differently to guitar than keyboard or piano. The reason for this is in the design and construction of the instrument. We will see how the design and tuning of the guitar has evolved to give us one of the most challenging, diverse and interesting instruments to play.

Digital delay has been used to create some of the coolest textures and rhythms in music. You can create chorus type effects with digital delays that will give you lush sounding chords or you can play off the feedback from a delay setting to get interesting rhythms. I have some examples using power chords and single line runs to illustrate how diverse digital delay can make your playing sound.

An arpeggio is a phrase of single notes outlining a chord type. This tutorial includes some examples of arpeggios played as short chord phrases. The melody notes or top notes of each chord outlines an arpeggio. In some of the examples it starts with an arpeggio and resolves by using notes of the scale. I would recommend you pick out the top notes of each chord and learn that as a single line. Then use that line as your map for memorizing the rest of the chords.

Intros and endings are interchangeable. In fact, you may use an intro and an ending as a turnaround. Simply put, an intro ending or turnaround is a musical phrase using a ii V I chord progression(s). It is more important to understand the musical value rather than the technical name given to it. All the examples I demonstrate function as an ending, why? If you said it is because the progression resolves to the I Chord (major or minor) you would be correct. How could you use my examples to create an intro or turnaround? If you said play till the V7 or bV7 ...

Knowledge of the guitar fingerboard is one of the most important skills to have in order to develop a range in your playing. Without this know-how you are limited to playing only the chords and licks you have learned. You can't visualize where to go next or how to improvise and if you make a mistake you are lost. Understanding the fingerboard or organizing the fretboard is a what this tutorial is about.

This tutorial is a full 12 bar blues and each lesson has a demonstration of 2 bars of the piece. It will show you how to play an effective walking bass blues.

In the following tutorial I will show you how to take jazz chords and make them sound interesting. Each lesson has a detailed description for you to follow. However, before you attempt Lesson 2, I would encourage you to review some basics about jazz chords and chord construction. There are many other instructors on this site who have already done a great job of explaining chords and chord construction. Please visit: Tim Dutton's Chord Construction Made Easy and Scott Evans' Basic Jazz Chords and Jazz Chords Part II Feel free to mail me with questions too. Enjoy the tutorial...

"Freshen Up Your Guitar Playing" is a lesson that hopefully will show you how to see a new way of thinking about the guitar. We are so locked into playing chord shapes covering 6 or 5 strings that we don't realize how many options we have within those chords. I always try and subdivide any chord I have learned into smaller chords that cover 3 strings. When you use this approach, and add notes of the scale either above or below the chord tones, you have so many ways to add colors to your chords.

Here are some more comping ideas to include in your playing. This can be used as an intro or a way to connect the I maj7 to the iii mi7 and using the ii mi7 as a passing chord. Another way to look at it is simply walking up the scale degrees with chords. I will add more to expand this line further with the next idea. guitargavin.

This is the same 12 bars blues played at a higher tempo. Thanks for watching - email me any questions related to this tutorial and I'll answer you the best I can! Gavin Audagnotti