Theory

Symmetrical chords have a unique place in music theory, which results in a unique application to the guitar (and fretted instruments in general). This article is the first in a series, that is will take a look at symmetrical chords, where they come from and how we can apply them to guitar.

To start with, we will look at a little bit of theory. In the next few parts we will look at some practical applications - i.e. playing!

A key skill for making your scales and arpeggios sound musical, rather than sound like playing a scale and an arpeggio, is to learn how to integrate scales and arpeggios on guitar.

When I first started learning modes and scales, I had this idea that I had to know everything, in all positions, all over the neck. That’s cool. But when it came to arpeggio integration… well it was just too much for my brain to handle. 

It’s been said that you can’t be a great lead player, without first being a great rhythm player. And if you are writing your own material, part of being a great rhythm player involves having great riffs. Today, we’ll look at how we can write riffs using the harmonic minor scale. 

Let’s look at a little bit of theory

The Harmonic Minor Scale

The harmonic minor scale has the following intervals:

Key changes. When I was learning guitar, no one really explained how these work to me. There are some basic approaches I figured out, such as modulating between keys with shared chords… or just abruptly changing key. But I always liked knowing why something worked, or having a set of rules I could follow. I didn’t have any such rules for writing key changes.

Then my guitar teacher introduced me to a classical pianist called Chopin. He wrote some killer music. One such piece is Prelude No20, from Opus 28.

There are a tonne of lessons we can learn as composers from this, it’s relevant for guitar players and classical pianists alike

First, give the piece a listen. It’s barely 2 minutes long:

https://www.youtube.com/EsKwtXgFo24

How does this piece work?

The first bar gives us the main theme for the prelude, and each following bar gives us variations on that theme. It’s quite beautiful. Chopin shows us different uses of a few different music theory concepts for: