Blogs

Every guitar player knows that they should be using a metronome to practice… and chances are, they (by which I mean you!) are not using them enough.

Metronome’s are a vital tool to improving your playing, especially if you are wanting to play more technically advanced pieces of music. 

However, quite often, even if guitar players are practising with a metronome, they are not using them as effectively as they could be.

Modern life is better than any other time in existence, by almost every possible measure. Income, life expectancy, access to information, infant mortality, cost per calorie of food… and of course, access to guitar lessons. 

As long as you have an internet connection, or live in a town, you are going to have access to some form of guitar lessons.

But with so many choices available, how should you go about choosing how to learn guitar? 

Minor key chord progressions are any chord progressions that come from the minor scale.

In this article, we’ll look at some common minor chord progressions and also look at a lot of examples on how to play these chord progressions on guitar in the keys of A minor, C minor, D minor and E minor (these keys are quite common!).

Let’s quickly recap the chords in the natural minor key:

Scale Degree	1	2	b3	4	5	b6	b7
Chord	i	ii˚	bIII	iv	v	bVI	bVII

Common Minor Chord Progressions

Here are some chord progression, all in minor key, that are commonly seen in music:

When we talk about chords in minor scales, we are usually thinking about chords from the natural minor scale (sometimes called the Aeolian mode).

If we harmonise the natural minor scale, we get the following chords: i (minor), ii˚ (diminished), bIII (major), iv (minor), v (minor), bVI (major) and bVII (major):

In this article, we’ll look at how to harmonise the minor scale to get these chords, different minor scale chord progressions and some examples in different minor keys on guitar.

Here’s the fast answer: A minor scale is any scale containing the b3 scale degree. If you’re looking into minor scales for the guitar, you are probably looking for the natural minor scale, sometimes called the Aeolian mode. The natural minor scale has the following intervals:

1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7

And can be played on guitar using the following 3 note per string scale (example in E minor):

In this article, we’re going to look at how to write lead guitar harmonies, just like Iron Maiden play. Part of Iron Maiden’s iconic sound is the use of lead guitar harmonies, and we are going to completely unlock how they work, so that you can use them in your own music.

In this lesson we will cover:

1. How to understand the basic theory required to write lead guitar harmonies.
2. Examples for writing lead guitar harmonies.
3. Shortcuts you can use to write lead guitar harmonies really, really fast.
4. Two simple ideas for writing the rhythm guitar backing for a lead guitar harmony.

After working through this lesson, you will find yourself with a powerful new tool in your songwriting tool box and you will be able to easilly incorporate lead guitar harmonies into your songwriting.

There is a short answer and a long answer to this question. Let’s deal with the quick answer first.

There are five ways you can play middle C on guitar:

• String 2, fret 1.
• String 3, fret 5.
• String 4, fret 10.
• String 5, fret 15.
• String 6, fret 20.

This is the 5 ways you can play middle C on guitar.

Double stops are a great way to introduce some interesting sounds in your songwriting and your lead playing. In this article we’ll dive into what they are and how you can use them.

What Are Double Stops on Guitar?

“Open strings” are strings that are not held down.

A “stopped string” on a stringed instrument is when a string is held down.

A double stop is when two strings are held down simultaneously.

Let’s talk about 7 different areas of neoclassical guitar playing, that you can study to improve your skill, musicianship and creativity.

Neoclassical guitar is great fun to play. When most people think of neoclassical style, they’re probably thinking of guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Romeo or others. For a lot of people, neoclassical guitar playing is all about having blazing fast technique. While that is cool, there is a lot more to the genre than just how many notes you can play.

We are human beings. What distinguishes us from animals, is our ability to think. That fact that we have language, and thoughts, are a unique feature to the human race, which empowers our mind to accomplish great things - such as learning guitar! However, we are not taught how to use our mind -we also have the power to spectacularly sabotage ourselves.

We have to train our mind to work in a way that helps us, rather than works against us. Part of that training involves some introspection, questioning our thoughts, and seeing if they are an accurate reflection of reality, or not.