What are Guitar Modes?

Now, I’ve been putting off doing this subject for a long time- mostly because there is so much confusion about modes, and many false teachings surrounding them. The problem for you guys (as learners) is that you’ll get one person claiming that theirs is the only way to understand modes, and then you’ll have someone [...]

February 22, 2013 at 8:31 am | Guitar Scales, Music Theory | No comments

Making Chords from Scales- your free Guide!

Have you ever wondered how to tell if something is in a particular key? How do you go about making chords from scales? Why would you do such a thing? I’m going to create this post as a reference point (to refer back to in future) where I’ll answer all these commonly asked questions. Have [...]

February 20, 2013 at 12:35 pm | Guitar Scales, Music Theory | 2 comments

Using Borrowed Chords

Here’s another little gem of theory information that you can use to spice up your songwriting or composing skills. What is it? Borrowed chords. So, what are “borrowed chords”? Well, these chords are not borrowed in the sense that they have to be given back! Rather, borrowed chords in music theory are kinda stolen from [...]

June 13, 2012 at 12:50 pm | Music Theory | No comments

Changing Key with the Guitar Transposer!

Here’s a little chart that I developed that will help you when changing key into any key you wish…provided you know the one you’re currently in… Basically, the numbers of the chords are written across the top in Roman numerals, with the root note in the left column. A few important things to note from [...]

June 7, 2012 at 10:00 am | Guitar Chords, Music Theory | No comments

Understanding Key Signatures in Music

How do you know if a singer is at the door? Because they can’t find the key and don’t know when to come in… OK, seriously, we have it pretty easy on guitar when it comes to playing in different keys- just use a “moveable shape” (such as a barre chord, or scale pattern) and [...]

May 29, 2012 at 1:57 pm | Music Theory | No comments

Free Blank Sheet Music and Tab Paper to Download

Here I’m going to provide some blank sheet music and tab paper for you to download to your own computer and print off whenever you need it. As with all the resources on this website, I’ve also added these links to the sidebar. This first one is completely blank, and it’s meant for you to [...]

May 21, 2012 at 3:00 pm | Music Theory | 2 comments

Using Sus Chords

So there are two types of “sus” chords, the sus2 and sus4 (follow those links to the chord diagrams to find out how they sound, but they generally create a feeling of suspense…). Wait a minute! What on earth’s a sus chord?! Right, I should probably start this from the beginning, rather than just giving [...]

March 19, 2012 at 8:36 pm | Music Theory | No comments

Functioning 7th Chords

So, what is a 7th chord, and how does it function? The first of these two questions can be answered by reading the post on dominant 7th chords, but the basic idea is that you’re adding a note to a chord that is 7 letters above the root note. OK…but how does it function? Well, [...]

March 9, 2012 at 4:42 pm | Music Theory | No comments

Hearing Multiple Voices

Picture the scene: you’re tuning your guitar, but you don’t have an electronic tuner, or a reference point. What do you do? Well, as I discuss in the page linked above, there is something called “relative tuning”, where you tune one of the strings so that it’s fairly close (obviously, as I said, you have [...]

February 22, 2012 at 3:18 pm | Music Theory | No comments

Staccato and Legato

This video was requested a while ago, a demonstration and explanation of the difference between the terms “staccato” and “legato” in music. Most of the confusion is causes by people thinking about these two things as specific guitar techniques…and they’re not! The words only relate to the type of sound produced, regardless of the technique. [...]

January 30, 2012 at 11:39 pm | Music Theory | No comments

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