An easy guitar riff is a riff that is typically made up of just a few notes that create a very recognizable pattern. It can also be based around a set pattern of chords that form the foundation of a song. A riff is a building block. Many songs, such as the Stones’ (I Can’t… Click to continue »
There are two main ways to read notes for guitar songs: tablature and sheet music. For those of you who are able to play completely by ear, this post is negligible – move on. For the rest of us, here’s the good news: Tablature doesn’t require a great deal of music-reading ability, and it shows… Click to continue »
Welcome back! Today I wanna show you a new way of playing with your blues guitar strings. So you bought a slide and you are really digging it but you still can’t get that blues sound. Well I got great new for you buddy! It is your lucky day. I am going to show you… Click to continue »
Printed music for the guitar can be notated in several ways. One way is standard notation, which looks like printed music for any other instrument. The guitar actually sounds an octave lower than it’s written, which avoids having to use two clefs to notate. See the example below for the range of the notes on… Click to continue »
Extensive knowledge of music theory isn’t required for most guitar players, but this isn’t true for jazz guitar players. Playing jazz, regardless of the instrument you play, almost requires a thorough understanding of melodic and harmonic theory. Jazz, by and large, is an improvised art form. A guitarist wishing to play jazz will find himself… Click to continue »
Guitar theory is nothing more than the study of music theory as it applies to the guitar. The same principles of music theory that apply to any other instrumentalist apply to guitar players as well. Melodic and harmonic progression, chord structure, scales, and note reading are examples of music theory study any musician will need… Click to continue »
How’s it going, guys? This is John McClennan and I’m here with guitarcontrol.com, bringing you this video lesson. Here we’re looking at a little riff between an A minor 7 and a D9 or D7, which is one of the most common chord progressions, especially in jazz. It’s called a II V. We’re starting on… Click to continue »
How’s it going, guys? This is John McClennan and I’m here again with guitarcontrol.com, excited to bring you this lesson. This is a lick that utilizes 4ths. A 4th is when I go up — basically an easy way of thinking about it is just four letter names. So if I start on a C… Click to continue »
Hi. This is John McClennan and here with guitarcontrol.com, bringing you this video lesson. As a second part to our previous lesson we discussed harmonizing a major scale in 6ths. So we have this, which is a great sound and can be really effective. What we’re going to do now is instead of playing it… Click to continue »
Hi. This is John McClennan and with guitarcontrol.com, bringing you this lesson. Again, we’re expanding on our triad voicings and we’re going to take the same fingerings that we did in the previous lesson, but we’re going to transfer them to another string and get a whole new set of sounds. Here’s our A chord… Click to continue »
