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Tag: music theory

  • Learn Basic Music Theory and Take Your Playing to New Levels

    Learn Basic Music Theory and Take Your Playing to New Levels

    I’ve been playing guitar for a long time.

    Yet in the past 3–5 years, I’ve been able to level up my playing abilities by working on the things I should have learned 20 years ago.

    Learning the minor pentatonic scale

    Okay, that’s not quite true.

    Way back when I first started playing guitar, a friend showed me how to play a basic blues shuffle in A. If you don’t know, this is just about the easiest thing you can play that sounds like you know what you’re doing. It’s one simple, repeated pattern, and there are no barre chords or technical finger movements.

    And obviously, it’s foundational for any blues playing.

    How to play a blues shuffle in A

    My friend also showed me how to play very basic solos over the blues in A by teaching me the minor pentatonic scale (first position, for you music nerds out there). This, coincidentally, is the scale used by a ton of blues and rock songs, which means once you learn it, you can at least play solos and riffs that, while not sounding great, at least don’t have any wrong notes.

    And this is where I stayed for a very long time. (In my defense, there was no such thing as YouTube in those days; learning required much more effort IMHO.)

    The minor pentatonic scale in A

    Learning the major scale

    A few years ago, I finally decided that, after 20-some-odd years of playing, I needed to up my game.

    I learned how to play major scales.

    I know, I know — it seems pretty basic, and possibly even useless, to spend your practicing playing do-me-ri-fa-so-la-ti-do. After all, nobody wants to hear a “major scale” solo in a rock song, right?

    Wrong.

    Learning the major scale has been tremendously helpful for me as an electric guitar player. So many riffs are based on it, and a surprising number of them are quite literally portions of the major scale.

    How to play the C major scale — possibly the most useful thing I know

    Additionally, learning the scale up and down the neck is super useful when you’re trying to figure out song keys or learn notes in a riff or part. It gives you an existing matrix in your brain and fingers that helps you orient yourself more quickly to any song you’re trying to learn.

    And again, just like the minor pentatonic scale, the major scale at least gives you the notes to play at any point in a song that won’t clash or provide unwanted dissonance, and it definitely helps in creating more intricate and musically interesting solos than the minor pentatonic alone.

    Learning triads

    Another major progression in my playing came when I started learning triads.

    Triads, as I’ve written about before, are simply the three (main) notes that make up a chord. Typically, but not always, it’s the root, the third, and the fifth.

    The reason they are so great is they allow you to play up and down the neck to find alternate voicings for any chord. This is especially important if you’re playing in a band that has an acoustic guitar because you can avoid doubling up parts, which often sounds muddy and uninteresting.

    Triads make you look cool and sound cool

    Once I had the power of triads literally at my fingertips, my playing immediately got better. No more cowboy chords — now I could find a chord anywhere I wanted on the fretboard, and more importantly, provide much more sonic texture and movement for a song.

    The current challenge: learning modes

    The next step in my musical journey has been working on learning the modes of the major scale.

    A mode is simply a scale that starts on a note other than the root. Yes, they have fancy Greek names, but don’t let that scare you off.

    Is there anything Rick Beato doesn’t know?

    As a basic example, if you play a C major scale, but start and end with D, you will play the notes D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D. Congrats — you’ve just played a D Dorian scale! If you do the same exercise but instead start and end with E, you’ve now played an E Phrygian scale. Each starting note has its own corresponding scale — or mode — with its own funny name.

    This becomes super helpful because a lot of rock songs are in Dorian or Mixolydian modes. (To play a Mixolydian scale, go back to the above example and this time start with G.) Modes have given me even more sonic options and tools to use to craft even better-sounding guitar parts, not to mention a much better understanding of what the song is doing as a whole.

    An artist’s progression

    You can think of the above using an example of an artist.

    When an artist first learns to paint, they work on basic shapes and lines. This is equivalent to learning the blues shuffle, a very basic pentatonic scale, or riffs and solos by rote.

    Then the artist progresses to learning basic brush strokes and color theory. Likewise, the budding guitarist learns major scale patterns and common triad shapes.

    Eventually, the artist progresses to being able to dial in their technique and use her skills to tell a particular story and convey particular emotions. As a musician begins to work on more advanced music theory such as modes, his ability to be creative on his instrument likewise begins to grow.

    The journey continues

    I’ve still got a long way to go in my own musical journey.

    I’m excited about how far I’ve come while not kidding myself about how much there still is to learn. But this is where I’m at right now, and my hope is my story can help motivate you to learn something new.

    If you want to learn or get better at any of these things, there are tons of extremely affordable resources online — literally too many to mention here — and almost all of them are great. Your best bet is to just pick one and start practicing!

  • Triads Are the Ultimate Cheat Code for Guitar

    Triads Are the Ultimate Cheat Code for Guitar

    A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who is just starting her guitar journey asked me a question.

    She was having trouble playing an F chord cleanly. And if you know anything about guitar, you know that an F chord requires barring — either partial or full. This isn’t the easiest technique for a beginner, and it usually takes a while before it “clicks.” I told her as much but suggested that until then, she could just use a triad. I showed her how easy it was and sent her on her way.

    Triads: the ultimate cheat code

    If there is anything that I feel took my playing from beginner to intermediate level (whatever those concepts might mean to you), it has to be triads.

    If you aren’t familiar with them, the very concept might seem daunting. What the heck is a triad? you might ask. I could never play something that sounds so…terrifying!

    In actuality, they are easy to learn and incorporate into your playing, and they open up a myriad of fresh, new ways to play chord progressions.

    Cowboy chords: the basics of guitar

    Everyone learns the basic open chords when they first start playing the guitar. You know the ones: G, C, D, Em. They are played on just the first few frets to allow you to have open strings form part of the chord, which makes them easy to play. They are often called “cowboy chords,” presumably because cowboys are known more for their singing than their guitar prowess.

    But what if I told you that if you know your basic chords, you have all you need to start using triads? Well, I am telling you that, because it’s true.

    Understanding triads

    Triads might sound complicated, but in reality, they are very simple. “Tri-“ just means three, after all.

    Triads, therefore, are nothing more than three-note chords. That’s it.

    They usually comprise the root, third, and fifth of a chord, since those are the three notes that define (most) chords. A triad, essentially, is the most basic chord you can possibly play. And that’s part of what makes them so easy to learn.

    The other reason they are so easy to incorporate into your playing is they are embedded in the open chords you already know.

    Take, for example, the aforementioned F chord, which we can represent as:

    x-x-3-2-1-1

    This notation means you press the top four strings on the third, second, first, and first fret respectively and strum them (the x’s represent the two bottom strings, which you don’t play). So how can we make this into a triad shape?

    Easy: by choosing the root, third, and fifth. In this case, that becomes:

    x-x-3-2-1-x

    You can easily make this shape by using your first, second, and third fingers. But you’ll notice we’re only playing the strings we have fretted — the rest are not played (the x’s). This makes the triad shape moveable, which is why it’s so handy.

    How to move triad shapes

    You can move this F triad shape anywhere up and down the fretboard, and it will make a major chord. Move the whole shape up two frets:

    x-x-5-4-3-x

    and you’ve discovered a G triad. Play it starting at the eighth fret:

    x-x-10-9-8-x

    and you’ve got yourself a C triad. And on it goes.

    This holds true with every triad shape, of which there are a number. One shape, however, you are almost guaranteed to already know is the D triad. This is because the regular D chord is played like this:

    x-x-0-3-2-3

    Forming the triad shape is as simple as not playing the fourth string:

    x-x-x-3-2-3

    This triad can be moved up the neck exactly like the F triad. For instance:

    x-x-x-7-8-7

    makes a G triad, while the following:

    x-x-x-4-5-4

    is an E triad.

    I’ve included a simple list of the main triad shapes below, and you should be able to see 1) how simple they are, and 2) how they are mostly formed from parts of chords you probably already know.

    Various major and minor triad shapes.
    Various triad shapes at their (typically) lowest fretted positions. Any of these can be moved up and down the neck to play any chord.

    Using triads in chord progressions and songs

    Imagine you are playing a song that has a long crescendo, or buildup, to the most intense part. Let’s say for the purposes of demonstration that you, the guitar player, need to keep strumming a D chord during the buildup. You could just strum the regular, open D chord and just gradually get louder. Or you could use triads to increase in pitch as the song builds. For example, you could start with:

    x-x-7-7-7-x (which you can make by just putting your index finger down in a straight line across those strings — see the picture below)

    and then move up to:

    x-x-12-11-10-x

    and then finally reach your peak at:

    x-x-x-14-15-14.

    Each of these is a D chord, but each one is higher in voicing than the last, which helps add to the anticipation building in the song.

    A D triad on guitar.
    The author forming a D triad using one finger to press down the second, third, and fourth strings at the seventh fret.

    You will also often find if you start using triads that they can make for very easy chord changes. Let’s take a song in C this time. If you play:

    x-x-5-5-5-x

    that’s one option for a C triad. But if the chord changes to an F (which is very likely at some point), you can play:

    x-x-7-5-6-x

    which is an F triad, without moving your position on the neck at all. Am — another oft-played chord in the key of C — is just as easy:

    x-x-7-5-5-x

    To round out the song, a G triad is just two frets away, at:

    x-x-9-7-8-x

    While all of this may look like a jumbled mess of x’s and letters, once you begin experimenting with a guitar in your hands you should be able to see how it all fits together.

    Beauty in simplicity

    The beauty of triads is in their simplicity. You can find triad shapes and move them all around the fretboard, because again — you’re only playing the fretted strings; there are no open notes to ring out and foul things up. You can choose to focus on different voicings depending on the song or even your mood. And you can incorporate new sonic elements to any song beyond strumming basic chords.

    I hope this was a helpful tutorial for you if you’ve never encountered triads before. They are among the most useful guitar techniques to learn, and they are very simple to understand and apply if you have even a modest amount of guitar knowledge.

    I’d love to hear your “guitar hacks” — the simple things that make a big difference. Let us know in the comments!

  • Learn These 4 Roman Numerals to Unlock Rock and Pop Music Forever

    Learn These 4 Roman Numerals to Unlock Rock and Pop Music Forever

    I — IV — V — vi.

    That’s it.

    These four Roman numerals represent 75 percent of the music we listen to today. Learn how to apply them and you can almost instantly play thousands of songs.

    And it’s simpler than you think.

    The Way-Too-Short Explanation of Western Music

    Western music is based on a 12-note scale. If you ever took piano lessons or played in a junior-high band, you might remember that each note is assigned a letter between A and G and sometimes includes symbols like # or b. Furthermore, each note is one half-step from the next.

    The full 12-note scale is called a chromatic scale, but a majority of the music we listen to actually narrows it down to just seven of those notes: the major scale. If we started at the note “G,” for example, we can write out the major scale as:

    G — A — B — C — D — E — F#

    These are the notes of the G major scale, but they also represent the chords that can be played in the key of G major. It’s simply a matter of remembering that the first, fourth, and fifth chords in the progression are major chords; the second, third, and sixth are minor chords; and the seventh is a diminished chord (which we can safely ignore almost all of the time!). This gives us the following chords:

    G — Am — Bm — C — D — Em — F#dim

    So now we can talk about Roman numerals. To make it easier for musicians to play songs in different keys, sometimes Roman numerals are used. All they do is indicate the relationships between chords in a song. You simply start at I and work your way up chord by chord to VII. And to indicate a minor (as opposed to major) chord, just use lowercase numerals.

    In our example key of G major, then, you can write out all of the chords like so:

    I — ii — iii — IV — V — vi — vii°

    So let’s go back to the beginning of the article: I — IV — V — vi. We can now determine that this sequence refers to the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth chords of a key, with the sixth chord being a minor. So if you stick with our example key, G major, I — IV — V — vi lines up with G — C — D — Em.

    And it just so happens that much of rock and pop music is based on using these four chords — and only these four chords.

    How to Use I — IV — V — vi to Make Music

    That means learning just four chords on a guitar — G, C, D, and Em — opens up a vast library of tunes you can quickly and easily learn to play. And if you want to learn a song in a different key, then all you have to do is repeat the exercise. So if you wanted to play songs in C major, then I — IV — V — vi becomes C — F — G — Am. Or for the key of E major, it’s E — A — B — C#m. And this approach works for any major key.

    The list of songs you can play using some combination of I, IV, V, and vi chords is long and varied. And the great thing is, these chords work together in any progression, meaning you can play them in any order and they still sound good together.

    For example, here are just a few examples of songs that use some or all of these chords in varying orders:

    • “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry: I — IV — V
    • “Sweet Home Chicago” by Robert Johnson: I — IV — V
    • “With or Without You” by U2: I — V — vi — IV
    • “Demons” by Imagine Dragons: I — V — vi — IV
    • “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver: I — V — vi — IV
    • “Save Tonight” by Eagle Eye Cherry: vi — IV — I — V
    • “Glycerine” by Bush: I — V — vi — IV

    Even though these songs are not all in the same key, they have the same basic chord progressions, and using the Roman numeral system makes them easy to learn and transpose to any key you want quickly.

    How Music Theory Helps You Become Better at Guitar

    Even learning a little bit of music theory — like I — IV — V — vi chords — can unlock all kinds of musical possibilities. If you’ve never seen this before, I’d encourage you to play around with these chords and see what songs you can figure out by ear. You might be surprised at just how many you’ll be able to play with very little effort.

    And if you still doubt me, then allow me to remind you of one of the earliest viral YouTube videos that proves the point:

    Every song in this video uses just the I — IV — V — vi chords.