Doin' Some Chords Around The House [Intermediate] [Theory]

Ok, who is ready for some modes?
Only kidding, but what we learn today will be instrumental in our building blocks for getting to the big, scary modes. Ready to build some chords? Let's jump in.

Through All The Ups and Downs [Intermediate]

Ok, I'm not a salesman or one to usually try to persuade people towards a certain product one way or another, but there is a tool out that would be very beneficial to us learning on this path together. This tool is called TuxGuitar. Some of you may have heard of GuitarPro, or even TuxGuitar; but whether you have or not, they both are tab input/reading software that plays back what is put in to the program. I highly recommend you go download this program here.

Before we jump into the lesson, let's talk about how this program will help us.

The Space In-Between Us [Intermediate] [Theory]

Now that your hands are throbbing from all of the clapping that surely ensued once we figured out our first time signature, I guess it's time to pick the ole axe back up. (Tangent: How many times in the English language do you have back-to-back words that end in 'e'?) We will get a chance to strum our hearts away at the end of the lesson, but we need to take the details of the notes a bit further. So, more clapping...

Time Marches On...[Intermediate][Theory]

Well...Ok...That week of inactivity was a downer, right? Had to spend a whole week playing chords and a scale without any structure, and we all know that can get pretty boring. So let's get a little rhythm under our belt.

A Major Scale To Climb [Intermediate] [Theory]

Have we got all of those major scales figured out yet? "Yeh Mike, now let's get back to playing something!" Ok, ok. We'll jump back into playing today and learn how to play the major scale in any key. That's right, in one lesson we will learn how to play the major scale in any key. Grab your guitar and let's go.

Our Major Leap Into The Unkown [Intermediate] [Theory]

Did you see that new word in the title? That's right, we've graduated from Guitar 101 and it's time to move into the next level. Excited? I hope so. I know I am. It's time to get into the meat of music and really figure out what's going on. This will separate you from the average person who knows how to strum a few tunes to where you will really understand -why- things work, not just how. Today we will be focusing on the Major Scale.  So are you readyyyyyuuuugghghhhh? (Sorry, the Scott Stapp in me came out...) Let's get to it.

Raising The Barre pt. 2 [Beginner]

There's nothing like a weekend at the woodshed right? I hope you were able to jump headlong into all of the chords we've learned so far and get some serious practice in. If you're ready, I think it's time to push on to the next lesson. If you need some more time, that's no problem at all. It would be far more beneficial to go at your own pace in each lesson until you feel like you have mastered that particular lesson.

Today we are going to take a look at some other barre chords and how to implement them into our chord vocabulary.

Our First Barre Gig [Beginner]

I'm assuming that you've made it out of the saloon safely if you were able to join us again. You cut it pretty close by only knowing half of your chords and it's a good thing the guy didn't challenge you to a song in the key of F or Bb. If you'll notice, we didn't really mention these chords in the past two lessons. No, these bad boys have their own personalities and it's gonna take some fancy fingerwork. Let's get to it and jump right in to Barre Chords.

A Few Minor Adjustments, pt. 2 [Beginner]

Fingers hurting yet? You should be building a few nice callouses at this point in the game. Those callouses will build up rather quickly if you practice and play every day. I hope you've been having fun implementing your first chords into your vocabulary. I bet you've even stumbled accross a Bob Dylan tune or two along the way.

All of the chords that we looked at in the last lesson were the Major Chords in the open position. Today, we're going to look at the other side of the spectrum and focus on Minor Chords in the open position.

Hang 'Em High, Leave 'Em Open [Beginner]

You walk into the saloon, dust off your boots and sit down at the table where the daily poker game is going on. Winning a hand or two you start to feel lucky. You throw down the ultimate bet, all or nothing plus $100. Laying it all on the line you wait with anticipation as the dealer flips out the card that is to be the river. A seven...well that doesn't help at all. Looks like you owe the fella who beat you all your chips and $100, but you don't have the extra $100. Your chance at the flush was foiled. So what do you do?

12 Things I Love About You (Music, That Is...) [Beginner]

Alright, now that we've got our gear plugged in and no one has been electrocuted, burned, or otherwise injured, it's time to start playing right? Eh, not so fast. I know, I know...I said in the last post we would get to playing. But I jumped the gun. You're gonna forgive me right? Just this one time, I promise. No more mistakes.

How Do I Hold This Thing? [Beginner]

OK, this is about as basic as it gets. This will be either the most boring post I ever post, or I'm gonna have a real bomb down the road and this will be the second lamest post I'll have to put on here. But with that being said, let's get this over with...

The Beginning: I Completely Understand

I get it. No one has time. You want to play guitar, you want to get better, you need a little guidance. But who in the world has time to schedule a lesson with everything else we got going on? Like I said, I understand. So hopefully you'll find something interesting here that will get you on the right track, and you can do it on your own time. Maybe this blog will help build up some steam and then you would want to take private lessons, I can do that too. I want to use this first post to give an outline of how I plan to use this site. Some of these ideas aren't feasible at the moment, but I plan to implement them as soon as I can. Mainly, I want to know what you want from this site. You can e-mail me here or leave a comment on this post and tell me what would keep you coming back. But let's jump into some of the plans I've already thought about. 1) I will tag each post by skill level and content. If you've been playing a while, you might want to skip over how to tune your guitar. But surely someone out there could use the information. Posts will be tagged with one of the following; Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. We will also cover Recording, Gear, and Theory. Don't be afraid of the Theory posts! It's not too hard, I promise. If we get into some really out there theory, I'll put Advanced Theory on the tag. 2) For the moment, I will only be posting text lessons with pictures and diagrams or tabs. Soon enough, I will be posting vlogs which leads me to my next point of interest. 3) The vlogs will be me answering direct questions that you send me. Don't be afraid to ask anything, if I don't know the answer, I will respond to you that I don't but hopefully will be able to direct you to a source with knowledge about your question. 4) I will also be posting videos of some really cool things that are guitar related as I get the chance, more to come on that! So, as I've said, start pouring in the questions. Who knows, your question may get blown up into a full blown lesson! Keep checking back often, first lesson is going up soon. "The Basics of The Guitar".