THE Guitar Ultimate... · 2020. 1. 16. · THE ULTIMATE GUITAR COURSE 4 CD01 Ex 1 The open strings and tuning notes. CD02 Ex 2 Open-string picking. CD03 Ex 2 Open-string picking,

THEULTIMATE

Rod FoggCOURSE

ZERO TOHERO IN A

LESSON ADAY

Guitar

Guitar Course Prelims 27/11/13 12:46 Page 1

On the CD 4Introduction 5

Section One: Getting Started 6Getting in tune; sitting and standing; which hand goes where 6Ex 1 The open strings; notation; tablature; barlines; pulse;

time signatures; 4/4 time 7Ex 2 Open-string picking; half notes, quarter notes, and

eighth notes; upstrokes and downstrokes; tempo andbeats per minute 8

Ex 3 Notes on top two strings; numbering fret hand fingersand left-hand technique; introducing sharps 10

Ex 4 Picking strings one and two; introducing dotted halfnotes; sharps last for the whole bar 12

Ex 5 Blues on the E and B-strings; ties; double stops; the 12-bar blues, three choruses on the backing track;downstrokes on downbeats, upstrokes on upbeats 14

Ex 6 String crossing, top three strings; “Let ring…” and“…sim” 16

Ex 7 Notes on the G-string; sharps and flats; whole stepsand half steps 18

Ex 8 Note values and rests 19Ex 9 Blues on the top three strings with rests 20Ex 10 G chromatic scale 22Ex 11 Octaves; playing two strings simultaneously 23Ex 12 Melody for first position notes, top three strings; playing

“in position” 24Ex 13 ‘Shadow Walk’ and all the notes so far 26

Section Two: The Lower Strings 28Ex 14 The D, A, and E-strings; staccato signs; muting open

strings 28Ex 15 Notes on the D-string; working out notes beyond the

fourth fret 30Ex 16 Swamp-rock on the D, G, and B-strings; lead-in bars;

repeat signs and first- and second-time bars; thetremolo effect 30

Ex 17 Double stops on D and G-strings; downbeats, upbeats,and syncopation 32

Ex 18 A-string notes 34Ex 19 Surfing on the A-string; riffs, music in a key, playing in

the second position 34 Ex 20 Notes on the E-string; double octaves 36Ex 21 ‘E-string Boogie’; sharps and naturals; ties; alternate

picking 36 Ex 22 ‘Rock’n’roll Rifferama’; key signatures 38

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CONTENTS


Digital edition: 978-1-62788-199-9Softcover edition: 978-1-93799-433-4

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Section Three: Two Essential Scales 40Ex 23 E minor pentatonic 40Ex 24 E blues scale 41Ex 25 Notes to the fifth fret and fifth-fret tuning 42Ex 26 E blues scale solo; phrasing 44Ex 27 Blues on the bass strings 46Ex 28 E blues scale solo version two; motifs 47Ex 29 ‘John Lee,’ E minor pentatonic Q & A; the

metronome 48

Section Four: Blues Rhythm 50Ex 30 Vamp on E5 and E6 50Ex 31 E vamp with muting; E major key signature 52Ex 32 Vamp on A with muting; A major key signature 53Ex 33 Blues rhythm in E; the 12-bar sequence 54Ex 34 Vamp on D with muting 56Ex 35 12-bar vamp on A, straight feel 56Ex 36 12-bar vamp on A, swing/shuffle feel 58

Section Five: The Theory Pages 601. Major scales 60Ex 37 C major scale 60Ex 38 G major scale 61Ex 39 Key signatures and major scales for sharp keys 62Ex 40 Key signatures and major scales for flat keys 632. Intervals 64Ex 41 Intervals in the major scale 64Ex 42 Intervals outside the major scale 643. Chord building 1, triads 66

Major, minor, augmented, and diminished triads 664. Chord building 2, chords in a key 68Ex 43 C major in triads 68

Section Six: Chords 70Ex 44 E major chord; strumming 70Ex 45 E and A majors moving; chord grids 71Ex 46 A, D, and E; naming chords 72Ex 47 A, D, and E strumming; accent symbol 74Ex 48 C and G strumming; shifting between chords 76Ex 49 ‘Minor Mishap’; Am, Dm, and Em 78Ex 50 ‘Low Strum, High Strum’; G, Em, C, D, Dsus 80Ex 51 ‘Low Strum, High Strum’ with bassline 82Ex 52 All the major chords plus Dsus4 84Ex 53 Adding a bassline and dynamics; crescendo and

decrescendo marks 86Ex 54 C and G with root and fifth bassline; finding root and

fifth 88Ex 55 C and G bassline with hammer-ons; using a capo 90

Section Seven: Seventh Chords 92Ex 56 Eight open-string seventh chords 92Ex 57 Rhythm part to Exercise 2; Em, G, C, B7 94Ex 58 ‘Groovin’ Sevenths’; counting 16th notes 96Ex 59 Surf-style rhythm; using most of the chords 98Ex 60 Four minor seventh chords and Am7-D7 groove 100Ex 61 Major seventh chords: Gmaj7 and Cmaj7 102Ex 62 A, Amaj7, D, Dmaj7 rock style 104

Section Eight: Arpeggios And Chords With Added Notes 106Ex 63 Sweep or alternate picking arpeggios 106Ex 64 Arpeggios and pedal notes 108Ex 65 Slash chord arpeggios; pull-offs and slides 110Ex 66 Slash chords, rhythm part 112Ex 67 Low arpeggios 114Ex 68 Extended chords and added-note chord sequences;

noting down chords 117

Section Nine: Bar Chords And Movable Chords 118Ex 69 Two-note and three-note five chords 118Ex 70 Bar chords and added notes; dynamic signs 120Ex 71 G blues with movable chords 122Ex 72 ‘Jimmy or Jimi?’ rhythm track; learning the lower two

strings 124

Section Ten: Back To Soloing 126Ex 73 G minor pentatonic, shape one, two octave 126Ex 74 G blues scale, shape one, two octave 127 Ex 75 Solo on shape one with vibrato 128Ex 76 G minor pentatonic, shapes two and three 130Ex 77 G blues scale, shapes two and three 131Ex 78 G blues solo, shapes one, two, and three; bends 132Ex 79 G minor pentatonic, shapes four and five 134Ex 80 G blues scale, shapes four and five 135Ex 81 G blues scale solo, using all five shapes 136Ex 82 Major pentatonic scale explained 136Ex 83 G major pentatonic solo 138Ex 84 ‘Jimmy or Jimi?’, rock guitar solo 140Ex 85 Am-D7 groove with solo 142

Complete notes of the guitar 144Spellings of common chords 144


THE ULTIMATE GUITAR COURSE

4

CD01 Ex 1 The open strings and tuning notes.

CD02 Ex 2 Open-string picking.

CD03 Ex 2 Open-string picking, backing track. (Also backing track

for Ex 6, and Ex 12: see Ex 57 for the notation and tab.)

CD04 Ex 4 Picking strings one and two, E and B-strings, lead.

CD05 Ex 4 Picking strings one and two, backing track.

CD06 Ex 5 Blues on the E and B-strings.

CD07 Ex 5 E blues backing track, three choruses. (Also backing

track for Exercises 9, 28, 29, 30 ; see Ex 33 for the

notation and tab.)

CD08 Ex 6 String crossing, top three strings. (Backing track CD03.)

CD09 Ex 9 Blues tune on top three strings. (Backing track CD07.)

CD10 Ex 10 G chromatic scale.

CD11 Ex 11 Octaves G – D – A.

CD12 Ex 12 Melody for first position notes, top three strings.

(Backing track CD03.)

CD13 Ex 13 ‘Shadow Walk’: all the notes so far.

CD14 Ex 13 ‘Shadow Walk’: backing track.

CD15 Ex 14 The lowest three strings, D, A, and E,

CD16 Ex 14 The lowest three strings, backing track: also Ex 46.

CD17 Ex 16 Swamp-rock on the D-string.

CD18 Ex 16 Swamp-rock on the D-string, backing track.

CD19 Ex 17 Double stops on the G and D-strings

CD20 Ex 17 Double stops on the G and D-strings, backing track.

CD21 Ex 19 Surfing on the A-string.

CD22 Ex 19 Surfing on the A-string, backing track.

CD23 Ex 21 E-string boogie.

CD24 Ex 21 E-string boogie, backing track.

CD25 Ex 22 ‘Rock’n’roll Rifferama’ on A.

CD26 Ex 23 E minor pentatonic.

CD27 Ex 24 E blues scale, shape one.

CD28 Ex 26 E blues scale, solo. (Backing track CD07.)

CD29 Ex 27 E blues scale, solo on bass strings.


CD30 Ex 28 E blues scale solo, version two. (Backing track CD07.)

CD31 Ex 29 ‘John Lee,’ E minor pentatonic, question and answer.

CD32 Ex 30 Blues vamp on E.

CD33 Ex 31 Blues vamp on E, with muting.

CD34 Ex 32 Blues vamp on A, with muting. (For Ex 33 see CD07.)

CD35 Ex 34 Blues vamp on D, with muting.

CD36 Ex 35 Straight 12-bar in A, muted.

CD37 Ex 36 Swing 12-bar in A, muted.

CD38 Ex 37 C major scale.

CD39 Ex 38 G major scale.

CD40 Ex 41 Intervals in the C major scale.

CD41 Ex 42 Intervals outside the C major scale.

CD42 Ex 43 C major in triads.

CD43 Ex 44 E major chord, strumming.

CD44 Ex 45 E and A majors, moving.

CD45 Ex 47 A, D, and E, with accents.

CD46 Ex 48 C and G, strumming.

CD47 Ex 49 Am, Dm, Em: ‘Minor Mishap.’

CD48 Ex 50 ‘Low Strum, High Strum.’

CD49 Ex 51 ‘Low Strum, High Strum,’ with bassline.

CD50 Ex 52 All the majors, plus Dsus4.

CD51 Ex 53 Major chords with bassline and dynamics.

CD52 Ex 54 C and G with root and fifth bassline.

CD53 Ex 55 C and G with hammer-on bassline.

CD54 Ex 58 ‘Groovin’ Sevenths.’

CD55 Ex 60 Am7 D7 groove.

CD56 Ex 61 Gmaj7, Cmaj7, Am7, D7.

CD57 Ex 62 A, Amaj7, D, Dmaj7, rock style.

CD58 Ex 63 Sweep or alternate picking arpeggios.

CD59 Ex 64 Arpeggios and pedal notes.

CD60 Ex 65 Slash chord arpeggios: pull-offs and slides.


CD61 Ex 66 Slash chords, rhythm part

CD62 Ex 68 Added-note chord sequences.

CD63 Ex 69 Two-note and three-note 5 chords.

CD64 Ex 70 Bar chords and added notes.

CD65 Ex 71 G blues with movable chords: three choruses.

(Backing track for Ex 75, Ex 78, Ex 81.)

CD66 Ex 72 ‘Jimmy or Jimi?’ rhythm track.

CD67 Ex 73 G minor pentatonic, shape one.

CD68 Ex 74 Blues scale, shape one in G.

CD69 Ex 75 Solo on shape one in G, including slides and vibrato.

CD70 Ex 76 G minor pentatonic, shapes two and three.

CD71 Ex 77 G blues scale, shapes two and three.

CD72 Ex 78 Solo with shapes one, two, and three:

introducing bends.

CD73 Ex 79 G minor pentatonic, shapes four and five.

CD74 Ex 80 G blues scale, shapes four and five.

CD75 Ex 81 G blues solo, all five shapes. (Backing track CD65.)

CD76 Ex 83 G major pentatonic solo. (Backing track CD48.)

CD77 Ex 84 ‘Jimmy or Jimi?’ solo. (Backing track CD66.)

CD78 Ex 85 Am-D7 groove, with solo (Backing track CD55.)

ON THE CD


5

INTRODUCTIONThe Ultimate Guitar Course gets you playing in your very first lesson and takes

you on a step-by-step journey through to advanced soloing techniques. We

begin at the very beginning, assuming no prior knowledge. The exercises

progress smoothly so that both beginners and more experienced players can

soon find their level and start to make satisfying progress. Each exercise builds

on what has gone before, presenting new material in a sensible and

systematic way and including all the necessary information for complete

understanding. Also, the music is fun and sounds like the real thing—the sort

of music a guitar player would actually want to play.

Some guitar books begin with pages and pages of music theory before you

get to play a note. That is not what happens here. Music theory is important,

but in this book it is introduced step-by-step, where it is needed and where it is

most useful. Explanations are detailed and thorough and, most of all, the

course is extremely practical. Advice is included on left- and right-hand

technique and there are also explanations of how to achieve the sounds you

hear on the CD. With chord and scale diagrams, notation, tablature, and

pictures, you will find the book visually stimulating and musically inspiring.

Now let’s get playing!

Rod Fogg

London 2013


SECTION ONE


GETTING STARTEDGetting in tune

Before playing any music, the most important thing is to get your guitar in tune. Track 1 on the CD willgive you notes you can tune to, but it is far easier to use a modern electronic tuner. Some you plugyour electric guitar into, or you can use the sort that clips to the headstock of the instrument and picksup its vibrations. Or, if you have a smartphone, you can probably download a free guitar tuner app; Ihave one on my Android phone and I use it all the time.

With the guitar plugged in, turn your tuner on and play each string, one at a time. Makeadjustments at the tuning peg (follow the string back to the peg to make sure you are turning the rightone) until the tuner indicates that the pitch is correct, usually with a needle pointing to the centre orwith a display that changes color. Check that the tuner displays the letter name of the string you aretuning; if the guitar is new the strings may well be below their correct pitch and need several turnsbefore they are in tune. If you begin to get erratic readings from your tuner, it may be that the batteryneeds changing.

Sitting, standing, and which hand goes whereMost performing on the electric guitar is done standing up, but to put in the hours necessary toachieve guitar-god status it will probably be best to practice sitting down. In either case it is best foryour hands if you keep the guitar neck pointing upwards; somewhere around 45 degrees is best.Whatever you do, don’t let it drop below horizontal. You will need a guitar strap that can be adjustedto the correct length. Imagine that the weight of the guitar is being carried by the whole of your back,rather than just your shoulder.

For most guitarists, the left hand holds down the strings on the fingerboard and the right handplays the strings down near the bridge with a pick. Left-handed people often opt to do this theopposite way around, using a purpose-built or converted left-handed guitar. But there is no reasonwhy any one hand should be better at fretting than picking, so if you are a left-handed beginner youmight as well learn to play right-handed. The advantage is that when you go to your local guitar storeyou will find plenty of right-handed guitars, but very few left-handed instruments. Also, if you need toborrow a guitar at a friend’s house or a jam session, and you’ve learned to play left-handed, you’llprobably find all the guitars are right-handed.

6

On the left is a tunerwith a jack for you toplug your guitar into. Italso has a built-inmicrophone. The stringis recognizedautomatically, and theguitar is in tune whenthe green light in thecenter is lit, or whenthe electronic needlepoints directlyupwards.

On the right is a clip-ontuner that senses thevibration of the guitarstrings. The displaychanges color whenthe guitar is in tune.Follow the string youare picking back upthe neck and acrossthe nut (the block ofbone or plastic thatkeeps the strings inposition) to make sureyou are turning theright tuning peg.

Guitar Course Section 1 JM 27/11/13 14:53 Page 6

SECTION ONE GETTING STARTED

To avoid confusion, throughout this book we willrefer to the hand holding down the strings as the “frethand,” and the hand doing the strumming andpicking as the “pick hand.” As you’ve probablygathered, the exercises are intended for electricguitar played with a pick, but most of them willconvert quite readily to a steel-string acoustic ormaybe even to a nylon-string guitar. If you don’t wantto use a pick, you can try using the thumb and fingersof the picking hand to pluck the strings: this is knownas “fingerstyle.” Some of the exercises, particularly inthe later stages of the book, are intended to beplayed this way. Study the two pictures below and getused to holding the pick in this way, balanced lightlybetween thumb and index finger. Then listen to CDtrack 01 and take a look at Exercise 1.

Exercise 1: The open strings, staves, tablature, and pulse

We write music on a stave. The top stave in Exercise 1 has five lines and is for standard musicalnotation, which is not unique to guitar, but can be read and played by other musicians such asviolinists or pianists. The bottom stave has six lines and is for a system unique to fretted instruments,known as tablature or “tab.” Each line represents a string and numbers are used to indicatewhich frets to play. The lowest line is your lowest sounding string and the top line is your highestsounding string. In this case the zeros represent the open strings: the sounds the guitarproduces without any help from the fret hand. So the object of the exercise is to play all theopen strings starting with the lowest sounding and ending with the highest sounding. Just letthe pick fall gently from one string to the next with a relaxed downward movement of yourpicking hand. We call this a downstroke—not difficult, but we’ve got to start somewhere.

If you take a closer look at the notation stave, you will see that notes can be written on thelines or in the spaces, and that we add extra lines, called ledger lines, to accommodate lownotes that do not fit on the stave. We have also added the names of the open strings of theguitar: E A D G B E. Try playing along with the CD track. It begins with four clicks: count 1 – 2– 3 – 4 and then begin. You can hear the click carrying on in the background. Keep countingthe clicks so that you play the next note at the right time. Each one of the notes last for fourclicks and is known as a “whole note.” That makes each click a “quarter note.” We’ll see what theylook like in the next exercise.

7

Above left: A goodstrap is essential. Onethat doesn’t slidearound is best.

Above right: A strapcan still be useful tokeep the guitar up atthe best angle evenwhen sitting down toplay.

Below left: The pick is held against the thumb by the indexfinger and points directly at the strings.

Below right: If you get it right, the thumb will be pointingalong the strings and the index finger pointing at the guitar.

T H E O R YMusical sounds arenamed after the firstseven letters of thealphabet: A B C D E F G.There are more thanseven notes on the guitar,so after G we begin againon A. We will return tothis in more detail later.


The music is divided up by vertical lines every four beats; these are known as bar lines. There aresix bars in this piece of music and, as in most rock music, there are four beats to a bar. (Sometimesa bar is also called a “measure” but we’re sticking to bar in this book.) At the start of the piece thereis this sign: 4/4. We call that a time signature. The top number tells us how many beats there are inthe bar, and the bottom number tells us they are quarter notes; so that means four quarter notes to abar in this exercise.

The clicks in the background introduce the idea of “pulse,” the steady background beats thatunderlie virtually all music.

Exercise 2: Half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes

In Exercise 2 we are working on developing some faster movements with the pick. Listen to CD track02 and check out the music on the page opposite.In the notation stave the first four bars introduce anew kind of note—the half note. Each one of theselasts for two beats, so counting four beats to a barwe would play on beats one and three. Can youfigure out which note you have to play? The zeroson the top line of the tab stave and the notes in thetop space of the notation stave tell you to play theopen high E-string.

Now let’s take a look at the next four bars. Thesealso introduce another new kind of note, the quarter note. There are four of these in every bar, one oneach beat. This time we are starting to move across the guitar, using the B-string and the G-string. Allthese notes should be played with the pick, using downstrokes. You can see the sign we use for adownstroke in between the staves in the first bar of the exercise.

8


44&E A D G B E

⁄w w w w w w

00

00

00

PRO TIP Low and high: In music, terms like low and high always refer to

the pitch of the music, so the “low” end of the guitar is near the nut on

the first few frets, where the lowest notes are found. If you read “go up

one fret” it means go one fret higher in pitch. This would mean moving

your hand one fret nearer the bridge and therefore nearer the floor. You

might have noticed that we have two E-strings. The high E-string is the

highest sounding one, nearest the floor, and the low E-string is the lowest

sounding one, nearest the ceiling. Just remember that low and high

always refer to the pitch of the note.

T H E O R YAt the start of the exercise you will see

q =85. This “tempo marker” sets the overallspeed of the piece of music at 85 beats perminute or bpm. “Rock” gives you an idea ofthe style of the piece.

CD

1

EXERCISE 1 CD TRACK 01

≥≤œJ

œ œ

Downstroke sign

Single eighth note

Beamed eighth notes

Upstroke sign



q=85 Rock

5

9

44&

⁄&

⁄&

⁄

˙≥

˙≥

˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ0 0 0 0

0 0 0 00 0 0 0

0 0 0 0

œ≥œ≥œ≥œ≤œ≥œ≤

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ w

0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0

0

EXERCISE 2 CD TRACK 02 / BACKING TRACK 03

S O U N D SBoth the rhythm and lead parts on this track wereplayed using the middle pick-up on a Strat through aFender Deluxe Reverb amp.

Moving on to bars nine through 12, each bar contains two quarter notes followed by four of anothernew kind of note; these are known as eighth notes.

When more than one appears together, they are grouped (“beamed”) by joining their tails together.There are two eighth notes to a beat (that would be eight to a bar), so we tend to count them by

saying “and” in between each beat, like this:

“One-and two-and three-and four-and”

So the count for these four bars would go:

“One two three-and four-and”

Once we start playing eighth notes we usually start using “alternate picking.” This is where everydownstroke is followed by an upstroke. In bar nine you can see the signs for both downstrokes andupstrokes. Some guitarists call alternate picking “economy picking.”

9

CD

02/0

3



Exercise 3: Notes on the E-string and B-string

In Exercise 3 we start using the fingers of the fret hand. There is no CD track with this exercise,because the idea is simply to get comfortable using the fret-hand fingers to hold down the notes onthe E-string, and then the B-string, at the first four frets.

On the guitar, the fret-hand fingers are numbered from 1 to 4,starting with the index finger as 1 and ending with the pinky asnumber 4. Place your fingers, one at each fret, copying the picturebelow. If you have particularly small hands, you could try using fingers1, 2, and 4 on the first three frets, and not worry too much about thenote at the fourth fret just now. This will avoid the stretch and help tokeep your hand parallel to the edge of the fingerboard, something allguitarists should aim for. Each finger should be as close to the fret aspossible without being on top of it. If your fingers are close to the fretsyou won’t have to squeeze so tightly and you will be less likely to get

fret buzz, where the string rattles against the fret instead of sounding cleanly. Aim to use the tips ofyour fingers.

The thumb goes at the back of the neck, opposing the fingers in a relaxed position opposite thefirst finger or between the first and second fingers. Check out the picture above. Don’t get into thehabit of hooking the thumb over the top edge of the neck, and don’t press any harder than you need to.

10

T H E O R YThe sharp sign (#) simply means “go one fret higher,”so F-sharp is one fret higher than F, and C-sharp isone fret higher than C. There is no sharp between Band C or between E and F, as you will see if you lookat a piano keyboard (p19).

T E C H N I Q U EThere is no need to lift your first finger off the first fret when you add your second finger at the secondfret. In fact, it is generally recognized as good technique to keep your fingers down when playingsuccessive notes on the same string, so you should end up with all four fingers down on the E-stringbefore releasing them to place them one at a time on the B-string. With your pick hand you should beplaying downstrokes, smoothly and in a steady rhythm.

The fingers should be close to the frets. Squeeze gently with your thumb on the back of the neck.



11

°

¢°

¢

&E

open stringF

first fretG

third fret

⁄F-sharpsecond fret

G-sharpfourth fret

&B

open stringC

first fretC-sharp second fret

D third fret

⁄D-sharpfourth fret

w w w# w w#

0 1 2 3 4

w w w# w w#

0 1 2 3 4

EBGDAE

3 5 7 9 12 15

F GF# G#

C DC# D#

EXERCISE 3 NOTES ON THE E-STRING AND B-STRING

A fingerboard diagram showing the notes on the first four frets ofthe E-string and B-string.



Exercise 4: Picking on strings one and two

Exercise 4 is a straightforward study in coordinating the placing of the fret-hand fingers withdownstrokes from the pick, this time with a backing track. Remember that when the music is movingslowly, and the quarter note is the fastest note, we tend to stick to using downstrokes. The fret handplays the notes we learnt in Exercise 3, but keeping to the first three frets to avoid any problems withstretching at this early stage.

In bars three, seven, and 15 we have the note F-sharp played twice. Notice that in the notationstave we only need to put a sharp sign in front of the first F. The sharp affects any notes of that pitchfor the entire bar.

There is one new rhythmic value: the dotted half note. Putting a dot after any note adds half itsvalue. So if we put a dot after a half note, which is worth two beats, it will now be worth three beats.Most of the bars of this exercise use this note value—there is a quarter note on beat one followed bya dotted half note on beat two, which rings on through beats three and four. Check out the CD trackand when you’re ready play along with the backing track.

With the new dotted half note we now have rhythm signs for four beats, three beats, two beats,one beat, and half a beat.

12

T H E O R YNotice that there is no rhythmic information in the tab stave. It is possible to write rhythms on the tabstave, but when there is a notation stave (often referred to as “dots” by musicians) tab rhythms arenormally omitted to avoid unnecessary duplication. So you can read your rhythms from the “dots” andread your notes from the tab—or better still read the whole thing just using the notation stave. Acommon approach for guitar players who cannot learn to read music, or do not want to, is to learn themusic “by ear” from the CD track and then use the tablature to guide their fingers to the correct notes.

S O U N D SThe lead part on this track was played on a Fender Telecaster using the bridge pickup through a RolandJazz Chorus amp. This amp has a built in chorus effect which is used to provide movement to theotherwise static long notes in the exercise.

CD

04/0

5



13

q=80 Spooky rock

5

9

13

44&

⁄&

⁄&

⁄&

⁄

œ ˙ ™ œ ˙ ™ œ# ˙ ™ œ ˙ ™0

≥0

≥1 1 2 2 3 3

œ ˙ ™ œ ˙ ™ œ# ˙ ™ œ ˙ ™0 0 1 1 2 2 0 0

œ ˙ ™ œ ˙ ™ œ# ˙ ™ œ ˙ ™0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3

œ ˙ ™ œ ˙ ™ œ# ˙ ™ œ ˙ ™ w

0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 0


CD

04/0

5



Exercise 5: Blues on the E-string and B-string

Exercise 5 uses the same set of notes as Exercise 4, but gets things moving a little more quickly witha faster tempo and lots of consecutive notes on each of the top two strings. Don’t be tempted to playall the notes with finger 1, or to use only fingers 1 and 2. It is best to stick to one finger per fret; so useyour first finger at the first fret, second finger at the second fret and so on. Keep the fingers close tothe guitar and make small movements. If the fingers feel stiff at first it is simply that they are not usedto moving on their own. Work on it, and they’ll get better.

Remember, in bars five and six the fourth note is F-sharp, because the sharp sign in front of thesecond note affects every F in the bar.

The exercise is 12 bars long, after which there is a double bar line; these are often used to markout sections in a piece of music. Then there is one more bar to bring the music to a close, in whichyou have to play two notes at once. Just use a downstroke. Two notes played at once are sometimescalled a “double stop”—a term we have borrowed from classical instruments like the violin. We alsosometimes call them a “diad.”

This exercise uses a form known as a 12-bar blues; it’s blues in style, and it’s 12 bars long. Theform is commonly found in blues, rhythm and blues, rock’n’roll, and classic rock. When guitarists jamtogether they often use a 12-bar blues, taking it in turns to solo or play rhythm. Each time through the12-bar is known as a chorus. We’ll be learning some ways to play the rhythm track in Section Four.On the backing track (CD track 07), there are three choruses, so you can play the piece three timesif you wish. We’ll come back to this track in the future and use it to practice blues and rock soloing.

14

T H E O R YThere’s one new element in the notation stave—the curved line that joins together two notes of thesame pitch in bars four, eight, and twelve. It’s called a tie, and makes the two notes into one long note.It is a way of writing a note longer than one bar or, as in this example, lengthening a note beyond thebar line.

T E C H N I Q U EIn bars three and nine there are pick directions. Notes on the downbeats are played with downstrokes,notes on the upbeats—the “and” that falls between the four beats of the bar—are played with anupstroke. We’ve already met this basic principle for guitar picking and we will stick to it for most ofthe book.C

D 0

6/0

7



15

q= 110 Medium blues

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CD

06/0

7



Exercise 6: String crossing, top three strings

Playing repeated notes on the same string, as in Exercises 4 and 5, is easier than moving backwardsand forwards from one string to another. Exercise 6—string crossing—is intended to get you workingon moving the pick back and forth between adjacent strings while also adding fretted notes with thefingers. We will be using the open G-string and the note A on its second fret, as well as the top twostrings from Exercises 4 and 5. The backing track is CD track 03, the same as for Exercise 2.

At the beginning you can see the instruction “Let ring…” It is easy to let the notes ring on whenyou are playing open strings, but once you begin to use your fingers to fret the notes it is importantto get them on their tips so that you don’t accidentally touch a string that’s meant to be still sounding.You have to hold the string down through the whole bar as well. The sign …sim means “in the sameway”—so carry on letting notes ring over each other for the whole piece. Aim for the same effect thatyou hear on the CD track.

16

Keep your fingers on their tips so you don’t touch the openstrings when they’re meant to be ringing on.C

D 0

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3



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08/0

3




Exercise 7: Notes on the G-string

Exercise 6 is about learning the names of the notes on the first four frets of the G-string. We have seenthat that a sharp sign (#) means “go one fret higher.” In music we also have a flat sign (b), which means“go one fret lower.” So G-sharp is the same note as A-flat, and A-sharp is the same note as B-flat. Inthis exercise we’ve used both names side by side. When they appear during the course of a piece ofmusic, sharps and flats are known as “accidentals.”

We have seen that a sharp or flat last for the whole bar, so wealso need a natural sign (§), which cancels a sharp or flat. One ofthese will crop up in a later exercise, but you can see some here,before the second-fret A and the fourth-fret B.

If we take a look back at Exercise 3, the F-sharp on the secondfret of the E-string could have been written as G-flat and the C-sharp on the second fret of the B-string could have been called D-flat. When we start learning about keys and key signatures we willdiscover that there are certain times when it is correct to use asharp and certain times when it is correct to use a flat. In themeantime get used to the idea that some notes have two names.

One other thing to get used to is that almost every note on theguitar is available in more than one place. In this exercise we cansee that the note B on the fourth fret of the G-string is the samenote as the open second string we have been using in Exercises4, 5, and 6.

18

°

¢

&G

open stringA

second fret

⁄G-sharp or A-flat first fret

A-sharp or B-flat third fret

Bfourth fret

w w# wb wn w# wb wn

0 1 2 3 4

Keep the fret-hand fingers curved, close to the frets and on their tips.

EXERCISE 7 NOTES ON THE G STRING



Exercise 8: Notes and rests

Some of the funkiest rhythms and grooves work because of the silences that separate the notes. Sowhen it comes to rhythm, a silence is as important as a note and in music we need a way to write asilence. In Exercise 8 we have all the note values we have come across so far, from eighth noteslasting half a beat to whole notes lasting four beats, with the sign for their equivalent rest writtenunderneath. A rest is the technical name for a silence in music.

On the guitar, it is important to play the rests—that means making sure you have released a frettednote or silenced an open string so that we hear a silence and not an unwanted note ringing on. Moreon this in the next exercise.

19

&Eighth note:half beat

Quarter note:one beat

Half note:two beats

Dotted half note:three beats

Whole note:four beats

&Equivalent rests:

œJ œ ˙ ˙ ™ w

‰ Œ Ó Ó™ ∑

Sharps and flats and the keyboard

For historical reasons we think of the musical alphabet asstarting on the note C. The distance from C in this diagramof a keyboard to the next appearance of the note C is knownas an octave. The black notes on a keyboard are the sharpsand flats. As we mentioned before, there is no black note(sharp or flat) between B and C or E and F. The distancefrom C to C-sharp (or D-flat) is known as a half step and isthe same as one fret on the guitar. The distance from C to Dis known as a whole step and is two frets on the guitar.

D # F # G # A #

B bA bG bE b

F G A B CC D E

C #

D b

T H E O R Yif we play all the white notes from C to C we get a C major scale; we will cover major scales later in the book. If we played allthe notes, both white and black, we would produce a chromatic scale. There is a chromatic scale starting on G coming up inExercise 10.

EXERCISE 8 NOTES AND RESTS



Exercise 9: Blues in E, top three strings

Exercise 9 is a blues-based tune using most of the notes we have learntso far on the top three strings, so you will be working on fretting notesaccurately with the fret hand while also picking the correct string with thepick. In most music, melody notes are played fluently and joinedtogether. In this exercise many of the notes are separated by rests. Listento the CD track to hear the strongly rhythmic effect of this style of playing.

To silence a fretted note, release the pressure from the fret-handfinger so that the string is no longer making contact with the fret, butdon’t take the finger off the string.That should silence the noteimmediately. Silence open stringsby touching them lightly with thefret-hand fingers or with the pick.Experiment to see which oneworks best for you. At the end ofthe exercise there is a chord—three notes played at once—with adownstroke of the pick.

20

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T E C H N I Q U EThe pick directions may seem random but in fact they’re based on the idea that your hand is movingrhythmically back and forth in an eighth-note rhythm. As before, downstrokes are on downbeats andupstrokes are on upbeats.

S O U N D SThis one was played with a Telecaster guitar on the bridge pickup. The warm, fuzzy guitartone comes from a small tube-amp turned up loud—an effect sometimes known asoverdrive.


T H E O R YWhen the notes of a piece ofmusic are played smoothly orjoined up we say it is“legato.” The opposite—cutoff or separated notes—is“staccato.” Many words weuse in music come from theItalian language, althoughperhaps more in classicalmusic than in rock’n’roll. Youoften see the word legato inguitar books and magazinesdescribing a particularly fluidstyle of guitar solo.

PRO TIP Try not to get caught up in looking at

your hands. If you know the music,

you can play looking at your fret

hand. If not you’ll need to look at the

music and play the guitar by feel.

It’s best not to look at your pick

hand—you’ll soon learn to find the

strings accurately if you persevere.

When you’re confident with a piece

of music, practice without looking at

either hand; this will let you make

eye contact with your fellow band

members or your audience on a gig.

CD

09/0

7



21

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EXERCISE 9 CD TRACK 09 / BACKING TRACK 07 continued

CD

09/0

7

Exercise 10: G chromatic scale

As a way of revising all the notes we have learned so far, and of introducing scales, we are going to learna chromatic scale—that’s the name for a scale that has all the notes including all the sharps and flats.

There are many different types of scale in music, some of which can be very useful to the guitarplayer as they are used for making up riffs and solos—we have some coming up later. Chromatic scalesare useful as finger exercises and as a way of showing the logic of where notes are on the guitar.

This one begins on the open G-string and goes up one octave to the G on the top string.Chromatic scales can start on any note, and it’s normal to play scales up an octave or two and backagain. In the notation stave we go up in pitch using sharps, and down using flats, which helps to makeclear that “black notes”—the sharps and flats—have two names. There’s no backing track for thisexercise so practice it and bring it up to the speed of CD track 10. The small numbers beneath thenotes on the notation stave are fingerings—they tell you which fret-hand finger to use. (Youremember? 1=index finger, 4=pinky).

T E C H N I Q U EThere is a technique that we use on guitar whenever we are playing scales or single-note lines. Theidea is not to remove fingers from a string if the music is rising in pitch until it’s time to start playing adifferent string. This is how it works, starting with the first note of the scale. Play the open G-string andthen hold down G-sharp with your first finger; leave that finger in place when you play the A with finger2, and leave both fingers in place when you play A-sharp or B-flat with finger 3. Then release all threefingers at once as you play the open B-string. Keep them close to the guitar so you can continue up theB-string adding and holding the fingers one at a time and releasing all four as you play the E-string.When you reach the top note of the scale you should have three fingers on the E-string; release themone by one to descend again.

This may seem complicated, but it’s not so hard, and in fact reduces your workload—instead ofthinking about taking a finger off as you put another one down, you just leave the fingers that arealready there in place. Then you think “release fingers” as you move onto the next string.



22

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10

Here are the notes of the first four fretson the top three strings.

EBGDAE

3 5 7 9 12 15

F G

G#Ab

F#Gb

G#Ab

C DC#Db

D#Eb

A BA#Bb

PRO TIP As you play all the notes from your open G-string to the third fret

on the E-string see if you can say aloud the note names. Say them in full:

G, G-sharp or A-flat, A, A-sharp or B-flat, and so on. This is a great way to

memorize the guitar note names.



Exercise 11: Octaves

In Exercise 10 we played a one-octave scale, so this could be agood time to explore what an octave is. “The same letter nameat a different pitch” is one way of putting it. If you play Exercise11 you will hear the gap (or “interval” as it is known in music),between two occurrences of the notes G, D, and A. The first noteis an open string and the second note is a fretted note, and thetwo notes are then played simultaneously. Notice how, whenthey are played together, the two notes seem to merge into one,even though they are clearly of different pitches. It is thissimilarity that allows them to have the same letter name.

23

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3

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0

3

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2

T E C H N I Q U EWhen using a pick it is not easy to play two notes simultaneously if they are not on adjacent strings.You could use a big downstroke and mute the string in the middle with a spare fret-hand finger. Youcould also put the pick down and use your thumb of your pick hand to pick the low note and your indexfinger to pick the high note. The method we use on the CD track is to use the pick on the low note andthe middle finger of the pick hand on the high note. Using the pick and fingers at the same time issometimes known as “hybrid picking” and is often used by country guitar players.

T H E O R YMusical sounds are waveforms, and waveforms havefrequency. Each time the music goes up an octave, thefrequency of the note doubles. Frequency is measured inHertz (or Hz), and is the number of complete cycles of thewaveform per second. The frequency of your open A stringis 110 Hz, the octave up (on the G-string) is 220 Hz. Theoctave above that note, which would be on the fifth fret ofthe top E-string, is 440 Hz. This is the note that anorchestra tunes to at the beginning of a concert and isknown as “concert pitch.”


CD

11



Exercise 12: Rocking the first position notes; top three strings

If you are playing notes with the first finger at the first fret, the second finger at the second fret, andso on, we would say you were playing in the first position. If your first finger was at the second fret,with the other fingers occupying the succeeding frets, we would say you were in the second position.On a typical modern guitar with 22 frets you can potentially have 19 positions. Guitar positions can bevery useful for describing where on the guitar to play a piece or a sequence of notes.

As a general rule it is best to play the guitar “in position” and to avoid sliding the hand around asmuch as possible. A common rookie error is to move the hand around so you can use fingers 1 and2 when you should keep the hand still and use the weaker fingers, fingers 3 and 4. If you use them,they’ll get stronger.

Exercise 12 is a legato solo tune for the top three strings in the first position. Together withExercises 5, 6, 9, and 10 it works to build dexterity for the fret hand and coordination between the pickand fret-hand fingers. In bars four, eight, and 12 it will be tempting to use finger 1 at the second fretand finger 3 at the fourth fret (in other words, to use second position fingerings) but unless your handsare really small you should stay in the first position and use fingers 2 and 4 at the second and fourthfrets. Gradually, your hand will get better at stretching.

24

T H E O R YThis exercise introduces the dotted quarter note, one and a half beats long. (The quarter note is onebeat, and the dot adds half its value.) Looking at bar one, we would count: one two and three four,playing the dotted quarter note on “one” and the following eighth note on “and.”

T E C H N I Q U EPick directions are given only wherenecessary in this exercise as you’veprobably got the idea of alternatepicking by now.

With practice you can get used to opening out your hand andusing one finger per fret.

CD

12/0

3



25

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CD

12/0

3



Exercise 13: ‘Shadow Walk’ and all the notes so far

Exercise 13 is the last exercise in Section One, so congratulations on coming this far. It’s a long one,featuring groups of legato eighth notes, quarter notes, and some quarter note rests. It includes everysingle note you can play in the first position on the top three strings. That means you will need to useall four fingers of your fret hand, making smooth, fluid movements and keeping the fingers close to

the guitar. Pencil your own pick directions in if you need to, keeping to the idea ofalternate picking. You could also write in fingerings for the fret hand if it would help.

If you find the piece a challenge—which it’s meant to be—slow things downa little and keep working on it. Remember you don’t have to finish an exercisebefore moving onto the next one, but you should always keep returning to workon anything you found difficult.

During the course of this opening section we have learned holding the pick,the numbers of the fret-hand fingers and the names of the open strings. Welearned about tab, bars, bar lines, time signatures, and the names of all the notesin the first position on the top three strings, including sharps and flats. We havecovered the note values from eighth notes to whole notes and learnt the functionof dotted notes and ties. Most of all, we have learned to pick and finger notesaccurately on the guitar and to coordinate the two hands. The next section builds

on this and covers the notes on the lower three strings.

26

q=120 Shadows/surf style

5

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23 0

0 0

PRO TIP Always break a long

piece down into shorter

sections for learning purposes.

As music very often uses four-

bar phrases it can be a good

idea to try learning a piece

four bars at a time.

S O U N D SWe’re in surf guitar territory, inspired by the twangy guitar music of the early 1960s. This piece alsomixes in some of the melodic style of The Shadows’ Hank Marvin (listen to their ‘Apache’ for thistrack’s inspiration). On the CD we used the bridge pickup on a Strat and added some reverb and afluttering delay effect. Hank would have used a mechanical delay unit like a Meazzi Echomatic.


CD

13/1

4



27

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CD

13/1

4


SECTION TWO


THE LOWER STRINGSExercise 14: The D, A, and E-strings

Exercise 14 is about learning to recognize, name,and play the three lowest-sounding open strings onthe guitar. Sometimes these strings are referred to

as the bass strings, with the top threestrings being called the treble strings.We introduced all of the open stringsback in Exercise 1, but to save youhaving to flick back to remind yourself,the first note in this piece is the open A(or fifth) string. In the second bar, youhave two notes on the open D (orfourth) string and the third bar uses theopen E (or sixth) string.

We have seen the quarternote/dotted half note rhythm before, inExercise 4, and the same rhythm ismaintained for seven bars. In bar ninea new rhythm is introduced and playedfor six bars.

In Exercises 8 and 9 we introducedrests and mentioned that silences areas important as notes when playing a rhythm. We also introduced the terms “legato,”meaning joined up, and “staccato,” meaning separated. When playing staccato it issometimes easier to read a rhythm if the note values are left long and a staccato sign,which is a dot placed above or below the note, is used instead of a short note and a rest.Check out the first two bars of Exercise 14 and you can see that the first note in each baris to be played staccato. We then have the sign ...sim, which we first saw in Exercise 6,and which means “carry on in the same way.” So the first note of each bar should bestaccato until the rhythm changes in bar eight.

In bar nine the staccato first note returns and is again carried on until the rhythmchanges in bar 15.

28

Laying the fingers flat across all six strings (toppicture) is one way to quickly mute the guitar or toplay an open string staccato.

The outside of the pick hand can also be used tosilence the strings between pick strokes.

PRO TIP The best way

to play a staccato open

string is to touch it with

your fret-hand fingers

just after it has been

played; but you should

experiment with using

your pick hand to damp

all the strings instead.

T E C H N I Q U EWhen you come to the second bar and play the open D-string it is important that only the open D issounding. If you don’t do anything to stop it the open A from bar one will ring on. So as well as playingthe first D staccato you should mute the open A. Being able to mute strings is an important part ofcontrolling the guitar—especially the electric guitar, which, when turned up loud, can interact with theamp to create feedback.

CD

15/1

6

A Marshall Guv’nor distortion pedal is usedbetween guitar and amp to provide apowerful lead sound for Exercise 14.


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29


S O U N D SThe lead track was played using a Telecaster on the bridge pickup. A distortion pedal (an old MarshallGuv’nor) was placed between the guitar and the amp to provide some grit.

SECTION TWO THE LOWER STRINGSC

D 1

5/1

6


Exercise 15: Notes on the D-string

In the rest of Part One, Section Two we will be learning all the notes on the lower three strings, startingin Exercise 15 with the D-string. Notice that we go straight from E at the second fret to F at the thirdfret: as we’ve seen before, there is no sharp between E and F. Play these notes one by one, startingwith the open string, saying the letter names and using one finger per fret.

Exercise 16: Swamp-rock for D, G, and B-strings

Exercise 16 makes use of the notes on the D-string from Exercise 15together with notes we already know from the G- and B-strings to create aswamp-rock lead guitar part.

Swamp-rock mixes Louisiana blues, Cajun, and zydeco with rhythmand blues, rock, and country. Bands like The Band and CreedenceClearwater Revival have been associated with the style, which features apowerful rhythm and blues backbeat.

You may be worried to see that there are only three eighth notes in thefirst bar. Not all music starts on the first beat of the bar. You have to count

one, two, three beats and then play the last three eighth notes of the bar on “and four and.” On theCD there are seven clicks at the start of the track; four of which are the usual one bar count in, withthree more giving you the missing beats from this incomplete bar.

Exercise 16 also introduces repeat signs, which tell us to repeat the music between the twosigns shown left.

It also uses first- and second-time bars, which are common when there are repeats.Bar 13, with the number 1 written inside a bracket, is called the first time bar. After playing

this bar we go back to the repeat sign at the beginning. Second time through, you’ve alreadyplayed the first-time bar so you go straight to the second-time bar, which has the number 2written above it.

This lets us have two differentendings: the first leads to a repeat,and the second leads to the end.

30


°

¢

&D

open stringE

second fretF

third fretF-sharp or G-flat fourth fret

⁄D-sharp or E-flat first fret

w w# wb w w w# wb

0 1 2 3 4

PRO TIP This is a great place to

practice your alternate picking:

down strokes on downbeat and

upstrokes on upbeats. Grab a pencil

and write them in for yourself.

T H E O R YGuitarists mostly call an incomplete bar at the startof a piece of music an “upbeat” or “lead-in.” Thetechnical name for it is an “anacrusis.”

T H E O R YAs we are learning notes in the first position the exercise only involves the first four frets. What about the fifth fret? You may beable to figure out that the note above F-sharp (or G-flat) is G. This G is the same note as your open G-string, and you could keepgoing up, fret by fret, to G-sharp, A, A-sharp, and so on up the D-string. Eventually, at the 12th fret, you will have gone up anoctave and be back on D again.

™™ ™™Start repeat End repeat

First time Second timebar bar

1. 2.


SECTION TWO THE LOWER STRINGS

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S O U N D SWe used a Stratocaster on the bridge pickup, a little overdrive from the amp, and a tremolo effect pedal. Tremolo is a rhythmicfluctuation in volume that was often built into classic valve amplifiers in the 1950s and ’60s. Controls are usually provided to alterspeed and depth; it is most effective when the speed control is adjusted so that the fluctuation pulses in time with the music.

31

EXERCISE 16 CD TRACK17 / BACKING TRACK 18

CD

17/1

8



Exercise 17: Double stops on the D and G-strings

Exercise 17 introduces some new techniquesand also sneaks in some of those notes abovethe fifth fret that we mentioned in Exercise 15.In bar one, you play two open strings with adownstroke, followed by two notes at the thirdfret. Most guitarists would do this by laying the

tip joint of their first finger flatacross those two strings, as inthe picture (right). All the doublestops in this piece are playedusing the first finger in that way.

The first three notes in barone are on the downbeats. Thenext three notes, crossing intobar two, are on the upbeats. Inmusic we have a word to

describe the placing of rhythmic accents where they wouldn’t normally occur: syncopation. Rock andpop music, like the jazz and blues they emerged from, tend to have a great deal of syncopation. Thiscan make the music hard to read, but if you listen to the CD track, you will hear rhythms that areroutine to anyone who is familiar with rock music. Check out ‘Smoke On The Water,’ by 60s/70s rockband Deep Purple, to hear the music that inspired this track.

32

Finger one tip joint flat on D and G-strings at the third fret.

T E C H N I Q U EOne of the most fun things about this exercise is that itcontradicts almost everything we’ve done so far. Firstly, youcan lay your finger down flat instead of on its tip; secondly,you can play the whole piece just by sliding your first fingeraround, whereas we usually aim to play “in position.”

When it comes to the pick hand, you can also forget aboutalternate picking in this one: just use downstrokes. It may takesome practice to hit only the two strings we need and to movethe pick quickly enough for the eighth notes that start in barnine.

S O U N D SA modern high-gain amplifier such as a Mesa Boogie, Soldano, or Marshall can usually make this kindof intense overdrive simply by turning up the gain. Otherwise a distortion effect in front of the ampwill help. We also used an EQ [Equalization] pedal (below) to remove the high frequencies and boostthe middle range.

T H E O R YCheck out the notes at the fifthfret: C on the G-string and G onthe D-string. On the sixth fret wehave D-flat and A-flat, whichcould have been written as C-sharp and G-sharp.

CD

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0



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Exercise 18: Notes on the A-string

Exercise 18 introduces the notes on the A-string up to the fourth fret. Say the letter names as you playthe notes, using one finger on each fret.

Exercise 19: Surfing on the A-string

We’ve seen that surf rock is a twangy guitar-based music that goes back to the 1960s. Surf tunes, likethe rock’n’roll styles they emerged from, often use riffs. A riff is a pattern of notes that isusually repeated and sometimes moved around, up, down and to other strings. Beaware, though, that sometimes the word riff is used to mean “a musical idea” that is notnecessarily repeated. Riffs are found in most kinds of rock music.

In Exercise 19 the opening one-bar riff is played twice and then moved across to theD-string. It then comes back to the A-string in bars five and six. The music heads off ina different direction for bars seven and eight, before returning to the riff on the A-stringin bar nine. Bar 12 has a chromatic three-note sequence bringing the music home to theopen A-string.

Notice that, as in Exercise 17, there is a lead-in bar, this time containing just oneeighth note which is tied across the bar line to the first beat of the first bar. This meansplaying on “and” and holding the note across the first beat “one.” Normally the first beat

is accented (played more strongly) but in this case the accent falls in front of the first beat. Moresyncopation! As the anacrusis is so short, the CD track begins with only the usual four beat count-in.

34

°

¢

&A

open stringB

second fretC

third fret

⁄A-sharp or B-flat first fret

C-sharp or D-flat fourth fret

w w# wb w w w# wb

0 1 2 3 4

T E C H N I Q U EIf you have small hands and are finding it hard to open the fingers out over fourfrets, use your first finger at the second fret for most of the piece. We would callthis playing in the second position, and your fingers would open out over frets twoto five. Go back to the first position in bars seven and 12 when you need to usefinger 1 at the first fret. When you move up and back, take your thumb with you onthe back of the neck.

S O U N D SUse a clean, bright tone from yourbridge pickup, starting with anupstroke and following the pickpattern that is given in bar one. TheCD track was recorded using a Stratthrough a Fender Deluxe Reverb.

T H E O R YThe “home note” for this piece ofmusic is the note A; it is the finalnote, and the note that gives themusic a satisfying ending.Musicians would say the musicwas in the key of A. We willexplore the subject of keys laterin the book.



35

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CD

21/2

2



Exercise 20: Notes on the E-string

Exercise 20 introduces the notes on the E or sixth string. We have now played all of the notes on theguitar in the first position. You know the drill—play them and say them.

Exercise 21: ‘E-string Boogie’

Exercise 21 makes use of the notes we have just learned on the sixth string, together with those onthe A-string from Exercises 18 and 19. You might notice that it is a riff-based solo, built on a two-barriff which is repeated in bars three and four, moved across to the A-string (with a variation) in bars fiveand six, and taken back to the E-string in bars seven and eight.

In the first bar, the third and fourth notes are G followed by G-sharp. As a sharp sign lasts for the whole bar the seventh note of thebar needs a natural sign to produce a G (we would call it G-natural).We then have another sharp on the last note of the bar to make thatnote a G-sharp. This may seem complicated, but it is the way writtenmusic has evolved. It is unusual to have a natural note and its sharpseveral times in the same bar as we have here.

36

°

¢

&E

open stringG

third fret

⁄F

first fretF-sharp or G-flat second fret

G-sharp or A-flat fourth fret

w w w# wb w w# wb

0 1 02 3 4

All four fingers on the lowE-string first position

T E C H N I Q U EThis is an exercise for you to do, looking at your fret hand: one by one,play the notes on the first four frets of your high E-string (your top stringor first string). Then repeat the exercise on your low E-string (your bottomstring or sixth string). Compare the hand position in the picture above withthe one from Exercise 3, noticing that as you move across the guitar youmust allow your wrist to come forward.

T H E O R YWe have two E-strings, the first string and the sixth string. These strings are two octaves apart. Playboth these open strings at once (or one quickly after another) and listen to the sound of a doubleoctave. Notice that the notes on the frets on these two strings have the same letter names.

T H E O R YIn several bars there are ties in the middle of the bar.Using a tie in this way gives us a note two and a halfbeats long and helps with counting the rhythm, as itallows us to see the middle of the bar where the thirdbeat begins. Give these tied notes their full valuewhen you play the piece.



37

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T E C H N I Q U EThe steady eighth-note movement of this exercise is anotheropportunity to work on your alternate picking, which can be trickyon the thicker lower strings. Start each phrase with a downstrokeand carry on using alternate downstrokes and upstrokes.Alternate picking is the most dependable and versatile way ofplaying single notes on the guitar, and an essential part ofbuilding speed and fluency.

S O U N D SFor this CD track westayed with the Strat, butthis time we switched tothe neck pickup. Onceagain there is a touch ofgrit from an overdrivepedal.

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4



Exercise 22: ‘Rock’n’roll Rifferama’

Exercise 22 is the last exercise in Section Two and is a riff-based rock’n’roll 12-bar blues that uses allthe bass strings and sometimes goes across as far as the G-string. It’s a long one, and being the lastexercise in the section it might represent something of a challenge.

Each time you go through a 12-bar it’s called a chorus, so here we have two choruses. The secondchorus is built on a riff that grows out of the riff in the first bar. We simply added a few notes. There isno backing track, so when you are ready to join in, play along with CD track 25.

38

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0 42

0 42


0 42

0 42

0 42

0 42

T H E O R YAt the beginning of each line of the notation there are three sharps, F-sharp, C-sharp and G-sharp,reading left to right. Any sharps or flats at the beginning of the stave make up what is known as a keysignature. The function of a key signature is to tell you the sharps and flats that are in a given scale. Inthis case, the three sharps would make an A major scale. It’s like a code you have to learn; but there’sno need to worry too much about it just yet. Simply remember that every F, C, and G in this piece hasto be played sharp—that’s F-sharp, C-sharp, and G-sharp—and that this puts you in the key of A major.The key signature makes no difference to the tab, which continues to show you the correct frets to play.

T E C H N I Q U EThe easiest way to play this exercise is to use your third finger at the fourth fret and your first finger atthe second fret; in other words, to play it in the second position.


CD

25



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CD

25


SECTION THREE


TWO ESSENTIAL SCALESExercise 23: E minor pentatonic scale

Exercise 23 introduces our first essential scale on the guitar. It’s called a minorpentatonic and starts and ends on the note E. We will explain what “minor” means in thenext section, when we start working on chords. But “pentatonic” is straightforward: itmeans “five note.”

Scales can be useful as a technical exercise, but the scales we use on guitar go waybeyond that. We can use the notes of a scale to make up riffs or solos, as demonstrated

in Exercises 26, 27, and 28. But first we are going to learn another scale. It is very similar to the minorpentatonic, simply adding one note in each octave. This scale is the blues scale.

40

CD

26

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2 02 0

3 0

T E C H N I Q U EWith two notes per string, the minor pentatonic is straightforward to play with alternate picking. Theblues scale occasionally has three notes per string, so you will have to pay close attention to your pickhand to keep the picking even. Beginners very often make the mistake of starting each new string witha downstroke. This should be avoided, unless the downstroke follows an upstroke.

T H E O R YThe minor pentatonic scale in Econtains just five notes: E-G-A-B-D

b3b3b3b3

EBGDAE

3 5 7 9 12 15

3

3

3

2

2

2

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3 5 7 9 12 15

4

5

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b7b3


Fingering: the circles tell you to play the open strings Scale degrees: the scale step each note represents

Guitar Course Section 3 NEW JM 27/11/13 13:12 Page 40

Exercise 24: E blues scale

The names “minor pentatonic” and “blues scale” are often used interchangeably, but theoreticallythere is a difference, with minor pentatonic referring to the simple five-note scale and the blues scalebeing the same five notes plus the sharpened version of the fourth note above the root: in this caseA-sharp. This note is sometimes referred to as a “blue note,” but that description can also be appliedto the G in this scale, which is the third note above the root. Both these notes clash with the underlyingharmony of the blues and account for much of the distinctive flavor of blues and rock solos.

41

CD

27

SECTION THREE TWO ESSENTIAL SCALES

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Exercise 25: Notes to the fifth fret and “fifth-fret tuning”

Before we get into exercises that use the minor pentatonic and blues scales, Exercise 25 shows allthe notes available in the first position (from the open strings up to the fourth fret), plus the notes atthe fifth fret. The fifth fret is the point at which most of the notes of the guitar begin to overlap. Forexample, at the fifth fret on the low E-string we have the note A, which is the same pitch as the nextopen string (the fifth string). At the fifth fret on the A-string, we have the note D, the next open string,and so on. The odd one out is the G-string, which has the note B at the fourth fret.

Fifth-fret tuningUp to now, you have used either the tuning notes on CD track 01 or an electronic tuner to get yourguitar in tune. There is another way, which could be useful if you don’t have the CD with you or thebattery in your tuner has run flat. Play the note on the fifth fret of the E-string (the note A) and tune theopen A the same pitch. Then play the fifth fret on the A-string (the note D) and tune the open D tomatch. Continue in the same way using the fifth fret on the D-string to produce the pitch of the openG, the fourth fret on the G to produce the open B and finally the fifth fret on the B-string to producethe open E. This method is usually called “fifth-fret tuning.”

42

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3 5 7 9 12 15

B

G

E

A

D

G

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F

C

C

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D#E b

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F#G b

F#G b

A

D

G

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A

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C#D b

G#A b

F



43

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˙ œ# œb ˙ ˙ œ# œb ˙

˙ ˙ œ# œb ˙ œ# œb ˙



Exercise 26: E blues scale solo

Exercise 25 demonstrates a simple approach to making up phrases, using the blues scale, to playover a blues backing track. We first came across this backing track in Exercise 5, and then again inExercise 9. Those two exercises did not really make use of the blues scale; in Exercise 25, every note

comes from the blues scale. There are three choruses on the backing track, soyou can have three goes at trying to get Exercise 25 right. Or, you can play it oncein the first chorus and then play over the last two choruses making up your ownphrases, maybe by stealing some of the ideas in this exercise. The 12-bar bluesis a great format for learning to improvise your own solos.

The most important thing to notice about Exercise 25 is the way it is structured.We begin with a two-bar phrase, which is repeated in bars three and four. In barsfive and six there is a new “answering” phrase, which is then followed by a return

to the opening phrase in bars seven and eight. Finally, bars nine and ten contain short phrases, witha longer answering phrase in bars 11 and 12.

Beneath the tab stave you can see capital letters E, A, and B here and there. These are the majorchords that are implied by the backing track: E major, A major, and B major. We haven’t studiedchords yet, but when we have you will be able to come back to this exercise and understand whatthese symbols mean.

44

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7

T E C H N I Q U EAll the notes in this solo come from theblues scale, so use the same fingers toplay these notes as you did when youplayed the blues scale in Exercise 24.

T H E O R YPhrasing is essential to improvisation. If you listen to some of your favorite guitar solos you will findthat they are made up of phrases of varying lengths that seem to complement and build on each other.If you need some names to check out, start with vintage guys like Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page (LedZeppelin) but also listen to contemporary players like Jack White (The White Stripes/Raconteurs) orJohn Mayer. In time, you will also start to recognize when a solo is using the blues scale.



45

CD

28/0

7

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Exercise 27: Blues on the bass strings

Exercise 27 might look different but it should sound familiar. It uses the same notes as Exercise 26,shifted down an octave. The arrangement of the notes across the strings is different on the bassstrings, so there is a new technical challenge in coordinating and picking the right notes. The mainpurpose of the exercise is to get you exploring phrasing on the low end of the guitar, but you mightnotice that played over the backing track it can sound very murky sometimes. Generally speaking, youwould be unlikely to want to play an entire solo using this kind of low-note phrasing, partly becausethe low E-string is down at the same pitch as much of the backing track. Just occasionally, though, alow riff might be exactly what the music requires.

46

CD

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7

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20

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Exercise 28: E blues scale solo version two

Exercise 28 shows a different way around the phrasing on a 12-bar blues. This time, bars one and tworepresent a question, with an answer in bars three and four. These four bars are then repeated in barsfive to nine. In bars five and six the underlying chord has moved to A, whereas in bars one and two itwas E; this adds interest to the repeated pattern. The last four bars follow similar phrasing to Exercise26.

47

CD

30/0

7

q=110 Steady blues

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9

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30

0 30

3 2 02

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2 02

0 20

22 2 3

0 00

EXERCISE 28 CD TRACK 30 / BACKING TRACK07

T H E O R YThis exercise also adds one other useful element in building a good solo: the use of a recognizable andrepeatable short riff, which can then be developed to create phrases that work well together. Bars one,three, five, seven, and nine all contain the same rising three-note pattern. Technically this would becalled a “motif,” and you could say that these phrases began with a recurring “motivic” idea.



Exercise 29: ‘John Lee’: E minor pentatonic question and answer

Exercise 28 is dedicated to blues legend John Lee Hooker. Check out his classic tracks, ‘BoomBoom’ or ‘Dimples,’ to hear the music that inspired this piece. We are using a “call and response”structure in which the high notes ask a question, and the low notes give the answer. All the notescome from the minor pentatonic scale.

The trickiest part of this exercise will be dealing with the pick technique, which involves crossingthe strings in bigger leaps then we have seen before. Take it slowly, playing the guitar by feel andaiming not to look at your pick hand.

Single note soloing is an important part of modern guitar technique, and blues and minorpentatonic scales are found all over rock music. In Section Three we have introduced these scalesand shown how it is possible to create phrases that build into guitar solos. We will return to bluesscales later in the book, and other scale shapes can be found on the wallchart; but in the meantime,keep returning to the backing track and making up your own solos.

48

CD

31

T H E O R YNotice that there is a rest on the first beat of the bar, and the music begins on the second beat. Eachphrase then crosses the bar line ending on the first beat of the next bar. This creates a sense of“heading for the first beat,” and gives the music a strong forward motion. If you are practicingimprovising your own blues over CD track 07, see if you can cross over bar lines in the same wayinstead of sitting your phrases squarely on top of each bar—your music will be rhythmically strongerfor it.

Scales and the metronome: the metronome is your friend.We will be coming across more scales later in the book, and practicing scales is an importantpart of developing speed and fluency on the guitar. Most serious guitar players have at somepoint worked on scales with a metronome to keep their playing even and to develop theirspeed.

There is an online metronome, and apps are available for smart phones, or you can buya standalone electronic or mechanical metronome. They are calibrated in beats per minuteand give a regular click for you to play along with. Aim to get started at around 80 bpm,playing eighth notes: that’s two notes to each click. In time you could progress to 100 or 120bpm. Serious technique begins to appear when you can play four notes to a click at 100 bpm(these would be 16th notes). The world’s top guitarists can comfortably play 16th notes at150 bpm. No, I’m not joking!



49

CD

31

q=105 Blues

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SECTION FOUR


BLUES RHYTHMExercise 30: Vamp on E5 and E6

In Section Four we are going to learn to play rhythmparts in the style that you can hear on CD track 07. Thismeans introducing the chord diagrams that you cansee here. We will be coming across more and more ofthese as the book progresses.

The vertical lines represent the guitar strings; thethickest one is your low E-stringand the thinnest is your high E-string. The horizontal lines are thefrets, with a double line at the top,which is the nut. An X above thenut means you don’t play thatstring, an O means you play thatstring open. The black circlesrepresent your fingers, with the

number in the middle telling you which finger to use.Beneath the diagram are the letter names of the

notes that you are playing, together with numbers thatdescribe the structure of the chord. With E5 we havejust the root note, E, and the note five letter-names up,B, so there is a 1 and a 5. (You can see why the chordis called E5.) In E6 we have the root note and the note 6 letter names up, C-sharp, so there is a 1 anda 6.

In Exercise 39 these two chords are played as a blues vamp. Each chord is played twice in aneighth note rhythm. As you can see, you do the whole thing with downstrokes

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T E C H N I Q U EYou can use the underside of finger 1 tomute the D-string. You are trying to justhit two strings with the pick, but if youmute the D string, it won’t matter if yousometimes catch it.

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T H E O R YIn theory a two-note chord is a diad, and a three-note chord is a triad. Some people argue that youneed at least three notes to make a chord, so a diad is not really a chord at all. These chords areusually called “E five” and “E six,” though musicians sometimes say “E sixth.” I have never heard theterm “E fifth” being used.




Exercise 31: E vamp with muting

Exercise 31 looks almost identical to Exercise 30, but with the addition of three important words:“palmmuting throughout.” Listen to the chunky sound ofCD track 33 and compare it to the open, ringingsound of track 32. Palm muting is where you restthe heel of your pick hand on the lowest stringsjust in front of the bridge. You will need toexperiment with the position of your hand; thesound has more “click” as you move away from

the bridge and more “thud” as you move nearer the bridge. Get too close to the bridge and you willjust get the normal guitar sound.

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T H E O R YExercises 30 and 31 are both in the key of E major. The key signature for Emajor has four sharps: F-sharp, C-sharp, G-sharp, and D-sharp.

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Place the heel of the hand in the right place to get a chunky tone when palm muting.




Exercise 32: Vamp on A with muting

In Exercise 32 the chords from Exercises 30 and 31 have been moved across the guitar one string,so that we now have A5 and A6. Once again, we are palm muting, and it is quite common to notatepalm muting with the initials P.M. and a dotted line showing how long the muting lasts, sometimestogether with …sim. Later in the book some exercises might need you to mute just one or two notesin a riff.

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T H E O R YAs this is a vamp on A, the notation stave has the A major key signature of three sharps: F-sharp, C-sharp, and G-sharp. Notice that the sharps always come in the same order. We will get to know keysignatures more thoroughly in Section Five.


1

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A F#1 6

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A E1 5

T E C H N I Q U EPosition the pick hand so it mutes both the A-and D-strings, and use the underside offinger one (fret hand) to silence the open G-string in case you catch it with the pick.



Exercise 33: Blues rhythm in E

Most of Exercise 33 will be familiar, as it is made up of the vamps on E and A from Exercises 31 and32, and it is the backing track we’ve been using for blues scale soloing. Notice the palm mutingthroughout. In bars nine and 12 we have a new chord: B5. In these two bars we do not alternate thefive chord with the six chord, partly because it sounds good just as it is, and partly because B6 is abig stretch and tricky at this stage.

At the end of bar 12 there is a repeat sign, and above that the sign “Play x3,” which tells you toplay the whole thing three times before moving on to the last bar. If you can get together with anotherguitar player, you can now play a 12-bar blues backing while they solo using the E blues scale (or playone of the solos from Exercises 26 to 28). Then switch around, taking your turn to solo while they playrhythm.

The 12-bar blues is so famous that bars and music stores are named after it. It is, of course, 12bars long, and follows a particular chord sequence. The 12-bar blues can be played in any key. It usesthe chords built on the first, fourth, and fifth steps of that key. This one is in the key of E, and uses thechords E (chord one), A (chord four), and B (chord five). These chords are usually described usingRoman numerals: I, IV, and V.

To get those Roman numerals, we just count up letter names. In E major, for instance, it works likethis:

E F# G# A B etc. I II III IV V

We have used F-sharp and G-sharp here because those are the notes in the E major scale (check outthe key signature). You will get a more detailed explanation of major scales in Section Five. Here ishow the chords are laid out one chord per bar, using Roman numerals:

I I I IIV IV I IV IV I V

Here is how the chords are laid out using chord symbols:

E E E EA A E EB A E B

As you can see, for the sake of this exercise we are treating the E5 and E6 chords as if they arebroadly E major, and the A5 and A6 chords as if they are broadly A major.

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T H E O R YUnderneath the tab stave you can see the names of the chords we are playing. Sometimes they are theactual chords you are playing (which they are here), and sometimes they reflect the underlyingharmony. It all depends on what the writer thinks you most need to know.



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Exercise 35: 12-bar vamp on A, straight feel

In the key of A major, chord I is A major, chord IV is D major and chord V is E major. So now that wehave a vamp on D (from Exercise 34), we can adapt it to play a 12-bar blues in the key of A. Welcometo Exercise 35!

At the start of the exercise—after the tempo marking—you can see the words “straight 8s.” In fact,all of the eighth notes we have played so far in the book have been “straight,” meaning that theyplaced evenly throughout the bar. There is another kind, which is called a “swing 8” or “shuffle feel”and we will be taking a closer look at these in Exercise 36.

Do you remember the format for a 12-bar blues from Exercise 33? Using Roman numerals, we had: In A major this would give the following layout of chords:

I I I I A A A AIV IV I I D D A AV IV I V E D A E


Exercise 34: Vamp on D

The cool thing about the blues vamp is that you canpick it up and move across the strings again, this

time on to the D and G-strings, giving you avamp on D. Once again, you are palm mutingthe whole exercise, and you will need toexperiment with your pick hand to get themuting just right. We have eased the tempoback a little so that you can really concentrateon tidying up your downstrokes, just hitting twostrings at a time, starting with the D-string andfollowing through to the G-string.

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T H E O R YAs this exercise is in Dmajor, it has the D majorkey signature, which hastwo sharps, F-sharp andC-sharp.




The chord symbols written underneath the tab stave in this exercise show the underlying harmony, asabove. Play it using the A5 and A6, D5 and D6, and E5 and E6 vamp shapes you have learned in thelast few pages.

In Exercise 35 we go through the 12-bar sequence once only, palm muting everything except thelast note.

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Exercise 36: 12 bar vamp in A, swing feel

Swing and shuffleUp to now all of our eighth notes have been what we call “straight feel.” In other words, the timebetween all of the eighth notes has been completely even. Now we are going to learn to shuffle. In the“shuffle feel” the four main beats of the bar stay where they are, but the eighth notes which fall inbetween are played later than usual, so that they seem to lean towards the next downbeat. What’sreally happening is that we are counting three eighth notes to each beat, and then playing only on thefirst and third eighth note. These three diagrams should make things clearer:

When it comes to writing music with shuffle feel (also known as swing feel) it actually looks thesame as straight feel. At the beginning of the piece, it will say “shuffle” or “swing” or will have a signthat looks like this:

Exercise 36 is the same music as Exercise 35, but this time with a shuffle feel. Have a listen to theCD track and you will probably realize that you’ve heard this rhythmic effect before, as it is verycommon in jazz and blues.

58

T H E O R YSometimes we play three notes in the time of two, such as three eighth notes in one quarter-note beat.These “three to a beat” eighth notes are called “triplets” and usually beamed together like this:

Many modern editions leave out the small “3” because it’s usually easy to tell when themusic is in triplets. Any type of note can be a triplet. You could have three quarter notesin the time of one half note. Or even three half notes in the time of a whole note.

Tap four beats in the bar withyour foot while counting aloudand clapping on “one and twoand three and four and” evenly.

Keeping the beat going withyour foot, now count and clap“one two three, one two three,one two three, so that the “one”coincides with the downbeatyou are tapping with your foot.

This time, keep the beat goingwith your foot but only clap on“one” and “three.”

CD

37

ClapTap

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123 123 123

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2 & 3 & 4 &Straight feel

Triplets

Shuffle feel

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<<Insert threequaver triplet signfrom page 85EGH>>


SECTION FIVE


THE THEORY PAGESTheory 1: Major scales

In the last few exercises we have been dropping hints about major scales, and showing how wenumber notes and chords based on where they come in a major scale. The time has come for thedetailed explanation.

Exercise 37: C major scale

The major scale is the most important scale in music. Not only do we derive many other scales fromthe major, but it is also essential to the understanding of keys, chords, and intervals. In this exercise(opposite page, top) we have a one-octave C major scale, played in the first position and using openstrings whenever possible. The C major scale uses all of the “white notes.” There are no sharps orflats, and this gives it a structure that is common to all major scales, which is a sequence of wholesteps and half steps (tones and semitones) as follows:

It is conventional to number the steps (or degrees) of a scale using Roman numerals.

If we were to repeat this pattern of whole steps and half steps starting on any other note we would stillhear a major scale, but we would be in a different key. Here, for example is G major:

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T H E O R YA whole step (tone) is the equivalent to two frets; a half step (semitone) is the distance between onefret and the next. There is a half step between the notes B and C, and another between E and F. Allother notes have a sharp or flat in between and so are a whole step apart.

W W W W WH H

C D G A B CE FI II III IV V VI VII

W H H

G A B C D E F # GI II III IV V VI VII

W W W W


Exercise 38: G major scale

Exercise 38 is a G major scale, in first position once again and using open strings where possible. Topreserve the pattern of whole steps and half steps that make a major scale we need to add F-sharp.When we write a piece of music in the key of G major, we put the F-sharp at the beginning of the pieceas a key signature and it saves us having to write a sharp sign in front of every F in the piece. That iswhy there is an F-sharp in the key signature at the start of this scale.

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SECTION FIVE THE THEORY PAGES

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Exercise 39: Major scales, sharp keys

It is possible to start a major scale on every single letter name, including all of the sharp and flat notes.Each letter name or “key” would have its own signature of sharps or flats at the beginning of the stave.

Exercise 39 shows the key signatures and notes for the commonsharp keys. Tab is also provided so you can play these on theguitar, along with the actual letter names involved. Each letter nameoccurs once in each major scale. From this chart you can see thatD major is D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D, A major is A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A, andso on.

Each time we move on to the next key we add one sharp tothose we have already, and the new sharp is always on the seventhstep of the new scale. Sharps come in a set order; the first sharp is

always F-sharp, followed by C-sharp, G-sharp, and so on. So if a piece of music has three sharps atthe beginning, they will always be F-sharp, C-sharp and G-sharp.

The key system is something that every musician should know from memory. It would be a goodidea to keep returning to these pages to memorize the notes in each major scale..

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D E F G A B C

#G A

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T H E O R YIn the key of F-sharp major we have the note E-sharp.Since “sharp” means “go one fret higher” E-sharp is thesame as F. We use E-sharp because each letter namecan only occur once in every scale and we already haveF-sharp as the keynote.

EXERCISE 39



Exercise 40: Major scales, flat keys

Starting again with C major, Exercise 40 shows the key signatures and notes for all the common flatkeys; in other words, keys that use flats in their key signatures.

F Major is F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F. The addition of B-flat maintains the pattern of whole steps and halfsteps that make a major scale. B-flat major has two flats and is Bb-C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb. With flat keys,the new flat is always on the fourth step of the new scale. Just like sharps, they always come in a setorder. Here are two sentences to help you remember; the first letter of each word tells you the orderof the sharps and flats. Order of sharps: Father Christmas Gave Dad An Electric Blanket. Orderof flats: Blanket Exploded And Dad Got Cold Feet.

In addition to numbering the steps of a major scale, we also have names for them. Since some ofthese names are used for describing chords, it is important to be aware of them:

I II III IV V VI VII

Tonic supertonic mediant subdominant dominant submediant leading note

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EXERCISE 40



Theory 2: Intervals

Exercise 41: C major in intervals

In Exercises 37 to 40 we introduced major scales, and we saw that it is normal to number the stepsof the scale. There is a system in music that allows us to use numbers to describe the pitch distancebetween any two notes; this is known as the interval. An interval is made up of two elements. In thefirst, a number describes how far it is from one note to the next. If C is the lowest note of an interval,the gap to D would be called a second, to E a third, to F a fourth, and so on. It’s quite easy to workout the number part of an interval; treat the lowest note as “one” and then count up letter names untilyou arrive on the highest note. This illustration shows all of the intervals above C. Notice that you cancarry on beyond the eighth note, or octave, to include ninths, tenths, and so on.

The second element in an interval is a word that describes its character. These words are major,minor, perfect, augmented, and diminished. Exercise 41 shows the intervals that occur in a two-octavemajor scale and includes how big the intervals are in half steps; you can hear how these intervalssound on CD track 40.

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Exercise 42: Intervals outside the major scale CD 41

Exercise 42 shows the most important intervals that are not in the major scale. From Exercise 41 wecan see that all of the intervals in a major scale are either major or perfect. Exercise 42 shows theintervals made with notes not in the major scale, which are all minor, augmented, or diminished.

They say rules are made to be broken, but in the case of intervals, here are some rules that are neverbroken:

• Fourths, fifths, and octaves can only be perfect, augmented, or diminished; they arenever major or minor.

• Seconds, thirds, sixths, and sevenths are usually major or minor, but occasionally canbe augmented or diminished; they are never perfect.

The reason intervals are useful is that they give us a way of describing how two notes actually soundwhen they are played together. A major third sounds different to a minor third; an augmented fourthsounds different to a perfect fourth. Every melody, riff, or chord is made up of a series of intervals, andeach interval has its own distinctive sound. With practice you can begin to tell them apart by ear. Aknowledge of intervals is also important for understanding chords and how they are constructed.

65

CD

41

°

¢

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fourth

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seventh

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C-Bb

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86

89

89

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T H E O R YEverything we say about one major scale can be applied to all the others, because all major scaleshave the same structure. For example, the third note in any major scale is always major, and the fifthnote is always perfect.

Historical note: the names of intervals go back to the ninth century when monks were formulatingmusic theory in the Christian church. Fourths, fifths, and octaves were called “perfect” because oftheir neutral, uncolored quality, which was heard as the sound of heaven. Those earthly, emotional,happy/sad intervals like major and minor thirds were only worthy of being described in terms of theirsize: major third = big third (two whole steps); minor third = small third (one and a half steps).



Theory 3: Chord building 1, triads

We begin playing chords in the next section. Without wishing to get too far ahead of ourselves, andhaving covered major scales and intervals, this is a good time to start looking at what makes a chord.

Triads

Technically, a chord is any group of notes played at the same time, and yes, that really does meanany notes. However, the chords that we use in the sort of music that you hear every day (excludingmusic that belongs to the avant-garde or contemporary classical tradition) follow a structure that hasbeen established for several hundred years. The most basic chord is a triad, which consists of a root,a third, and a fifth.

One of the reasons major scales are so useful is that they help us to work out the letter names thatare in any triad.

D major consists of the root, third, and fifth notes from the D major scale: D, F-sharp, and A.

To create D minor, flatten the third to produce a minor third: D, F, and A.

To create D diminished, also flatten the fifth: D, F, and A-flat.

To create D augmented, return to the major triad and sharpen the fifth: D, F-sharp, and A-sharp.

Triads are the most basic kind of chord, with major and minor triads being by far the most common.The four, five, and six-note chords coming up at the start of Section Six may not seem like three-notetriads; but if you look closely at the notes being played you will see that there are only three differentnotes in each chord. Also check the numbers beneath the diagrams and you will see that each noteis either a root (1), third (3), or fifth (5).

Bookmark this page so you can keep returning to it and gradually start learning how to “spell” all themajor and minor triads.

66

There are only four kinds of triad:

A major triad consists of a root, major third, and perfect fifth: C major = C E G Usually written: C

A minor triad consists of a root, minor third, and perfect fifth: C minor = C Eb GUsually written: Cm

A diminished triad consists of a root, minor third, and diminished fifth: C diminished = C Eb GbUsually written: Cdim

An augmented triad consists of a root, major third, and augmented fifth: C augmented = C E G#Usually written: Caug



67

Notes for the common major chords

MAJOR CHORDS

Chord Root Third Fifth

C C E G

Db Db F AbD D F# A

Eb Eb G BbE E G# B

F F A C

F# F# A# C#Gb Gb Bb DbG G B D

Ab Ab C EbA A C# E

Bb Bb D F

B B D# F#

Notes for the common minor chords

MINOR CHORDS

Chord Root Third Fifth

Cm C Eb G

C#m C# E G#Dm D F A

D#m D# F# A#Ebm Eb Gb BbEm E G B

Fm F Ab C

F#m F# A C#Gm G Bb D

G#m G# B D#Abm Ab Cb EbAm A C E

Bbm Bb Db F

Bm B D F#



Theory 4: Chord building 2, chords in a key

Chords and keys are very closely related. Each major scale creates a unique sequence of chords,and since we now know about major scales, intervals, and triads, it is time to study chords in a key.

We are going to begin with a C major scale, and let each note of the scale be the root note of a chord.Then, using the notes of that scale, we add the third and fifth above each root to create a series oftriads.The result is a sequence of seven chords, all made from notes in the C major scale (oppositepage).

Exercise 43: C major in triads

Exercise 43 shows two possible fingerings for this sequence of chords; one that uses open stringswhenever possible, and one that works its way up the neck keeping to the same three strings. Wenumber the chords in the same way that we number the steps of the scale, using Roman numerals.Chords I, IV, and V are major chords and are normally capitalized. Chords ii, iii, and vi are normallylower-case, to indicate that they are minor. Chord vii is diminished and is also usually lower case.

Since every major scale has the same structure of whole steps and half steps, this pattern of major,minor, and diminished chords is the same for every major key. If we take G major, for example, wewould say the chords in G major are:

G major, A minor, B minor, C major, D major, E minor, and F-sharp diminished.

Chords in F major would be:

F major, G minor, A minor, B-flat major, C major, D minor, and E diminished.

If you know what notes are in the major keys (see Exercises 39 and 40) you should be able to workout the chords in every key. As we have seen, in addition to a number, each step of the scale also hasa name, also shown in Exercise 43. So we could say the dominant chord in C major is G major, or thesub-dominant chord in C major is F major. You will sometimes hear musicians using these technicalterms when describing chord sequences. We might say, for example, that a piece of music “starts onchord I (one) and then goes to chord V (five).” Or we could also say it “starts on the tonic and then

goes to the dominant.” While these terms are not necessarilycommonplace in the world of rock music, some familiarity withthem could make the difference between looking clued-up andlooking ill-informed.

68

CD

42

T H E O R YRemember, a major chord has a root, major third, andperfect fifth. A minor chord has a root, minor third, andperfect fifth. A diminished chord has a root, minor third,and diminished fifth.



69

CD

42

&I ii iii IV V vi vii

⁄Tonic

C majorSupertonic

D minorMediantE minor

Sub-dominantF major

DominantG major

Sub-mediantA minor

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⁄Tonic

C majorSupertonic

D minorMediantE minor

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SECTION SIX


CHORDSExercise 44: E major chord

In Section Four we saw chord diagrams for two-note chords or diads.In this section we will look at chords with four, five, and six notes. Startby holding down the full six-string E major shape (pictured above) andplaying a downstroke on each string in turn, listening closely to makesure that all six notes are sounding and that you’re not accidentallysilencing the open B-string with the underside of your first finger.

If you listen to CD track 43 you will hear the E major chord playedonce, then twice, then four times, and finally eight times in a bar. Grab

your guitar, hold down the chord and play along. Use downstrokes until youget to bars seven and eight, where you should start using alternatedownstrokes and upstrokes for the eighth notes. Pick directions are written inthe music for you. Make sure you hit all six strings with every stroke. This styleof guitar playing is known as“strumming.”

70

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43

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T H E O R YCheck out the numbersand letter names at thebottom of the chorddiagram. All the notes inthis chord are E (the root),G-sharp (the third), or B(the fifth).

T E C H N I Q U EIt is important to use your fingers ontheir tips when playing chords.


Exercise 45: E and A majors moving

Exercise 45 is all about shifting between two chordshapes. It’s one thing to be able to hold down a chord,but can you move to another one and arrive at theright time? E and A (left) are not too hard to holddown; the trick to moving between them is to keepyour fingers close to the guitar and move each finger

as smoothly and directly as possible to where it’s meant to be going. This may seem obvious, butyou’d be surprised how often a beginner rips all three fingers way off the guitar and tries to slam themdown on the next chord. Practice more slowly than the CD track if you have to, and go for accuracyrather than speed. We start with downstrokes, but after the first four bars we add an upstroke beforeeach downstroke chord. The last bar has a quicker change—you’ll get it with some practice!

71

CD

44

SECTION SIX CHORDS

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T H E O R YAbove the music stave in this exercise there areminiature chord diagrams or “chord grids” as they aresometimes called. Not all guitar music has these;sometimes you get the shapes at the beginning of thepiece and sometimes you’re left to figure them out foryourself. In this book you’ll always know what shapesto use, but there won’t always be these mini-grids.

S O U N D SFor this track we used the bridge pickup on a Strat and crankedup the gain on the amp to the point where it was just on the edgeof distortion. Most amps have a master volume that you turndown to control the overall output. Keep the treble control low sothe sound is fat and warm rather than bright and crunchy. Thereare just guitar and drums on this track; this kind of stripped-down rock is inspired by bands like the White Stripes.


1

x o oA

2 31

A E A C# E1 5 1 3 5



Exercise 46: A, D, and E

Exercise 46 is the rhythm track to Exercise 14 inSection Two, back when we were learning the

names of the open strings. Thisexercise adds one more chord to yourrepertoire: D major. Begin by holdingdown the D shape, with the fingers asclose to the frets as possible, andmake sure all the required notes aresounding. Getting the fingers close tothe frets means fewer buzzes. It canalso save the fret hand the effort ofsqueezing too tightly.

D major is a four-note chord, so do not play the fifth and sixth strings. Each chord is heldfor one entire bar, and you are aiming to let the notes ring on rather than rushing to get to the nextchord. Practice moving methodically back and forth between A and D, A and E, and D and E to getthese chord shapes into your muscle memory.

72

CD

46 1

x x oD

3

21

D A D F#

1 5 1 3

T H E O R YWhen we speak about a major chord we usually just say its letter name, soD major would be called just D. With minor chords we always use the fullname: D minor. When writing minor chords, it’s normal to use theabbreviation “m”, as in Am for A minor or Dm for D minor.

S O U N D SThis track was recorded usinga Fender Deluxe Reverb amp.We turned the bass, treble,and volume controls up to geta crunchy tone. The onlyadded effect is reverb.


SECTION SIX CHORDS

73

CD

16

q=100 Rock

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Exercise 47: A, D, and E with strumming

Now that we have learned the A major, D major, and E major chord shapes, it is time to add astrumming pattern for the pick hand. Strumming is usually made up of a mixture of downstrokes and

upstrokes, playing a mixture of quarter and eighth notes, as you will find when youlook at the music for Exercise 47.

This exercise also introduces accents. In music, an accented note or chord is onethat is played louder than those surrounding it. In other words, it is a way ofemphasizing the rhythm at that point. This is the accent symbol:

>Listen to CD track 45 to hear the accents on the E major chord in this exercise. Becareful not to mix up the accent sign with the upstroke sign:

vIn bars seven and eight, the accents fall on upstrokes, and in the final bar the accented chord requiresa downstroke. Dig in a little harder with the pick to move the strings further and produce a loudersound on these accented strokes.

74

CD

45

1

o o oE

32

1

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1

x o oA

2 31

A E A C# E1 5 1 3 5

1

x x oD

3

21

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1 5 1 3

T H E O R YDid you notice the three sharps at the beginning of the stave? Even though the music begins on a Dmajor chord, it ends on an A major chord and is in the key of A major. There is also a first-time barwith a repeat, and a second-time bar leading to a gradual build up on the dominant E chord before wearrive home, or “resolve,” on to the key chord (or “tonic”) A major.

S O U N D SThe guitar tone is clean and bright:we were shooting for a 1960s popstyle. Use the bridge pickup on yourguitar. On the amplifier, switch offany distortion and keep the gain lowto avoid introducing too much gritinto the tone. Bring up the treblecontrol for added sparkle.


SECTION SIX CHORDS

75

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45

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Exercise 48: C and G strumming

Exercise 48 introduces some syncopated strumming, in which the accents fall on the weak beats, byusing tied notes in the middle of the bar. You can copy this rhythmic pattern by listening to CD track46, but it might also help if you count the rhythm, saying “one, two-and (three), and-four-and.”

Strum with every count except when you say “three,” and be aware of the distinctive down down-up, up down-up strumming pattern. As withpicking single notes there is an underlyingprinciple: the downbeats are all downstrokesand the upbeats are all upstrokes. Your pickhand moves smoothly to and fro across theguitar but only strikes the strings when needed.

We are also using two new major chords: Cand G. This means you now have played the five

basic major chords from the wallchart; they are probably the most important chords that mostguitarists ever learn. We will be learning the threemost important minor chords in the next exercise.

76

CD

46

T H E O R YAs this exercise is in C major there are no sharps or flats at the beginning ofthe piece. Once again though, we have a first-time bar with a repeat signand then a second time bar to bring the music to a close.

T E C H N I Q U EC and G are very common keys for guitar music, so being able to shift between these two chordshapes is important. Use fingers 2, 3, and 4 for the G chord; it will be easier in the long run, as itplaces fingers 2 and 3 very close to their destination when moving to a C major chord. Practice movingthe fingers by the shortest route and keep them close to the guitar. If you practice slowly (which youshould), always imagine an underlying beat so that you are still playing in time.

4

1

o o oG

2

43

G B D G B G1 3 5 1 3 1

1

x o oC

3

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SECTION SIX CHORDS

77

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46

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Exercise 49: ‘Minor Mishap’

There’s something bright and solid about a major chord,whereas a minor chord is somehow dark and sad. Exercise49, ‘Minor Mishap,’ introduces the three basic open-stringminor chords: A minor, D minor, and E minor. We are in

twangy surf-guitar territory here, andeach chord is followed by a few of its notes played one at a time. A chordplayed one note at a time is known as an arpeggio; we will be looking atarpeggios in greater detail in Section Eight.

Watch out for the sudden appearance of the E major chord in bar 13—notall the chords in this exercise are minor—and for the three-note A5 chord onwhich the piece ends. Also notice the wiggly line with an arrow before eachchord. This tells you to make a slow downstroke, playing the notes one at atime as a “spread” chord. Note that bars five and 13 are different. There thearrow points in the other direction and tells you to drag an upstroke. These“spread” chords are also arpeggios, and come closer to the original meaningof the word, which is “harp-like.”

78

CD

47

1

x o o

2 3

1

A E A C E1 5 1 b3 5

1

x x o

1

2

4

D A D F1 5 1 b3

1

o o o o

1 2

E B E G B E1 5 1 b3 5 1

T H E O R YThe wiggly line that tells you to arpeggiate a chord tells you in what order toplay the notes. So an upward-pointing arrow means you start with the lownotes and end with the high notes. A downward-pointing arrow means youstart with a high notes and end with the low notes.

T E C H N I Q U EBe careful to avoid the open E-string (sixth string) when you’re playing D minor or D major, as it doesnot belong. You can get away with the open A-string as it does belong in the chord, but chords tend tosound best with the root note (the note that gives the chord its name) in the bass. A chord played withthe root note in the bass is known as a chord in “root position.” In this case, the lowest note you playshould ideally be the D-string (fourth string).

S O U N D SUse your bridge pickup for a cleanand bright tone. If you have a delaypedal, experiment with a rhythmicdelay effect like the one on the CD.

Am Dm Em

Three vital minorchords. Top to bottom:Am, Dm, and Em.


SECTION SIX CHORDS

79

CD

47

q=110

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Exercise 50: ‘Low Strum, High Strum’

So far we have been strumming using all the notes in the chords we are playing. Very often, guitarplayers move the strumming around, sometimes hitting the bass strings, sometimes the high strings.‘Low Strum, High Strum’ demonstrates this technique in the style of a slow rock ballad. It also givesus a chance to start mixing up some of the major and minor shapes we’ve learned. There are no chordgrids in this exercise: you will need to have memorizedthe chord shapes. This exercise introduces one newchord, a “suspended” chord, which is usuallyshortened to “sus.” It is basically a D major chord withan altered top note.

The strumming is mostly in eighth notes in a slowrock rhythm. Pick directions are included for the firstfew bars, and sometimes the strum moves into 16thnotes to fill out a beat or two. The bass and drums aremixed in the background on the CD track, so you canhear what the guitar is doing and copy it. For the most part the low notes of the chords are soundedat the start of the bar, with high notes filling in the rhythm in the rest of the bar. Follow the tab ornotation and you should get the feel for it.

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q=75 Rock ballad

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T H E O R YThe end of bar eight has a row of xxxnotes; these are open strings muted withthe fret hand. It’s not unusual sometimesto play the open strings between chordchanges. They can be muted orotherwise, but be careful not to overdo it.


SECTION SIX CHORDS

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EXERCISE 50 CD TRACK 48 continued



Exercise 51: ‘Low Strum, High Strum’ with bassline

Exercise 51 uses the same chord sequence as Exercise 50, but in addition to the low strum/high strumapproach we begin each bar with just the root note of the chord. Played on itsown in this way, the root note makes an effective bassline and mimics theeffect of two instruments playing together. From bar nine, the chord sequenceis repeated, and the bassline is now fleshed out with the addition of “passingnotes” between the root notes. These passing notes are also sometimescalled “connecting notes.” It’s easy to see why. Follow the pick directionscarefully, and balance the volume of your bassline with the volume of yourstrummed chords.

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q=75 Rock ballad

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T E C H N I Q U EThe bassline is mostly played firmly, whilethe strumming on the upper notes is lighter.Dig in to produce more power as you headto the end of each eight-bar phrase.


SECTION SIX CHORDS

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Exercise 52: All the major chords plus Dsus4

As your guitar playing improves, you can develop an appreciation of differentstyles of music and how different bands get their sound. Exercise 52 uses allthe major chords we have learnt so far, plus the Dsus4 chord from Exercises50 and 51, to explore some indie rock jangle.

We begin by strumming the major chords (this piece uses all five open-string major shapes), keeping to the first beat of the bar and letting notes ringon. As the music builds, the strumming gets busier and looser, so we startwith downstrokes and gradually find more and more upstrokes as the pieceprogresses. Play along with the CD and listen closely to ensure that yourtiming doesn’t drift out. It may seem obvious, but to play in a band with othermusicians you need to learn to listen to each other, and that can be difficultwhen you’re trying to get your fingers around thechords and rhythms. Learn your part thoroughly and

aim to keep your ears open while you’re playing. The four-bar chord sequence is played four times altogether. In Section

Eight we are going to add an arpeggio-based lead guitar part to this exercise.

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q=110 Indie rock44&

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T H E O R YWe have used a sus4 chord in several of the recent exercises, so it’s time weexplained what they are. “Sus” is short for “suspended.” There are twocommon types of suspended chord: the sus2 and the sus4. In these chords themajor third is altered, either by raising it up a half-step so that it becomes thefourth, or lowering it a whole step so that it becomes the second. Suspendedchords have a restless quality that suits many different kinds of music, butthey are particularly popular with guitarists in jangly rock or indie bands. Wewill learn more sus chords in Section Eight.

D sus 4 chord


SECTION SIX CHORDS

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Exercise 53: Adding a bassline and dynamics

Exercise 53 takes the music used in Exercise 52 and adds a bassline. We explored a similar idea inExercises 50 and 51. This one is a little faster, and the bassline is more complex, but it is still basedon the idea of connecting notes as directly as possible.

From bar nine onwards we abandon the basslineand instead take to strumming steady eighth notes,keeping mostly to the lower notes of the chord andgetting progressively louder. When the music getslouder we call it a crescendo, which is often shortenedto “cresc…” in the written music. A crescendo can alsobe shown using this sign, which musicians often call ahairpin:

In this exercise the crescendo takes place gradually over four bars. The opposite of a crescendo is a“decrescendo” or a “diminuendo.” Diminuendo is often shortened to “dim…” We reverse the hairpinsign if we wish to notate a decrease in volume level:

You can see one at the start of bar 13. The whole business of how loud we are in music is known as“dynamics”, so we could say that this exercise has a wide dynamic range. Controlling your dynamicsis an important part of your development as a musician, so don’t begin too loud or there won’t beroom for you to get louder in the second half.

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T E C H N I Q U EHold the pick firmly and dig in to movethe strings further and produce thebigger sound required for thecrescendo.


SECTION SIX CHORDS

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q=110 Indie rock

5

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Exercise 54: C and G with root and fifth bassline

A simple bassline that will fit under any chord can be made from just the root and the fifth of the chord.This is very common in folk and country styles. The root is played on the first beat of the bar with the

fifth on the third beat of the bar. Beats two and four are filled by strumming the higher notes ofthe chord. Exercise 54 demonstrates the technique using just C and G chords; you should trythe same approach with the other chords that you know, working out where the root and fifthare for each shape.

The second half of the exercise, from bar eight onwards, introduces short basslines thatconnect the root notes of the chords. We arein the key of C major, and all these notescome from the C major scale. If you like this

style, experiment with any songs you know, and seeif you can fit in connecting basslines in the sameway. Pay attention to your dynamics in this exercise:the basslines are mostly played firmly, with thechords on the top three strings coming throughmore softly.

Can you work out which note of a chord is theroot and which is the fifth? The root should be simple; it’s the name note of the chord. To find the fifth,count five letter names up the major scale, starting with the root as “one.”

1 2 3 4 5C D E F G

1 2 3 4 5G A B C D

Remember that below the chord diagrams in this book you will find numbers that you can also use tofind the root (1) and the fifth (5).

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T E C H N I Q U EWhen you play a C major chord, your thirdfinger is on the root note, C. The best way toplay the fifth, G, on the lowest string, is justto “hop” your third finger across, hoppingback again to C when you need it.

S O U N D SIn search of some countrytwang we used the neckpickup on aTelecaster forthis track.


SECTION SIX CHORDS

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q=120 Country

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Exercise 55: C and G bassline with hammer-ons

Exercise 55 continues with the idea of adding basslines to chords, but also adds a cool country-style“hammer-on” technique. In the first bar you can see that we begin the same as Exercise 54, but thenplay the D-string open and hammer the second finger down on the second fret to produce thehammer-on note E. In other words, the hammered-on note is produced with the fret-hand finger, notthe pick. A hammer-on (the opposite is a pull-off) is also known as a slur, and slurs are notated in bothstaves with a curving line connecting the two notes.

Country guitar players would call this style “flat-picking” to distinguish it from fingerpicking, whereyou use the thumb and fingers of the picking hand. The bassline is played entirely with downstrokes,and each bass note and hammer-on is followed by the top three notes of the chord played with adownstroke and upstroke. Hold down the C and G chord shapes throughout.

This exercise requires very accurate picking. Play the bassline strongly and the chords lightly—and be prepared to work slowly at first.

This style of playing goes back to the early days of country, with tracks by The Carter Family andothers, and it is also the mainstay of bluegrass rhythm guitar. If this style is not your thing, learn itanyway and see if you can apply it to your own kind of music. You may come up with a whole newstyle of your own.

In Section Six we have learned to play the most important five major chords and three minor chords,experimented with a range of different strumming patterns, and added basslines. You will find that with just these eight chords a great many songs will be within your grasp, particularly if you also havea capo.

A capo clamps the guitar strings against the frets, effectively changing the pitch of the open strings.With a capo at the first fret, for example, any chords you play will sound a half step higher: a C major

chord shape becomes a D-flat major chord, andG major becomes A-flat major. That makes itmuch easier to play in those difficult keys. If youwant to be an acoustic strumming singer-songwriter, getting a capo is the way to go.

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With a capo at the first fret all the open string chordsmove up a half step, making it easier to play in difficultkeys like D-flat and A-flat.


SECTION SIX CHORDS

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q=140 Country

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SECTION SEVEN


SEVENTH CHORDSExercise 56: Eight open-string seventh chords

We build chords in thirds; each time we go from root to third, or third to fifth, we are going up threenotes. If we carry on adding notes to a chord in the same way, the next note would be the seventh.There are two kinds of seventh: major seventh and minor seventh. For example, C to B would be amajor seventh, whereas C to B-flat would be a minor seventh. One way of recognizing which kind ofseventh you have is to compare it to the octave. C to B, a major seventh, is one half-step or semitoneaway from being a full octave; C to B-flat, a minor seventh, is a whole step away from being a fulloctave.

You can add a major or minor seventh to any triad, and end up with some great-sounding—andsome weird-sounding—chords. Let’s look at what kind of chord you get when you add a minorseventh to a major triad.

Here are eight new chord diagrams, most of which are based on the open-string major chords thatwe learned during the course of Section Six. Practice playing each one in turn, making sure that youcan hear all the notes that should be sounding.

92

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T E C H N I Q U ESome of these chords are relatively easy, and some, particularly if they use all four fingers, are amongthe hardest chords to hold down that we have come across so far. One of the A7 chords alsointroduces a new technique, in which the first finger is laid flat across several strings as a “barre.” Afull barre covers all six strings, so this example uses what is known as a “half-barre.” Chords madewith a full barre are often called “bar chords”.


Our E major chord has become E7. There are two versions of this chord because it is possible to addthe note D to an E major chord in two ways. There are also two versions of A7, in which we add thenote G to the A major chord. To make C7, we have added the note B-flat to C major. To make D7, wehave added the note C to D major. To make G7, we have added the note F to G major. B7 is a newchord that we have not seen before, but it consists of the notes of B major (B, D-sharp, and F-sharp)with the added note A.

Get used to calling these chords by name. For A7 we say “A seven”; E7 is “E seven”; and so on.These “major triad with minor seventh” chords are also known as “dominant sevenths,” because theyare the type of seventh chord we get if we build a chord on the fifth step (or the dominant) of a majorscale, using only the notes of that scale.

We will return to chord-building soon, but first here is some music that uses these new chord shapes.

93

SECTION SEVEN SEVENTH CHORDS

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T H E O R YHere is an example to explain why these chords are known as dominant sevenths. Take the key of Cmajor. The fifth or dominant step of the C major scale is G. If we build a chord on G, using notes fromthe C major scale, we get G, B, D, and F. That’s root, third, fifth, and seventh. G, B, and D make a Gmajor triad, and F is the minor seventh above the root. This combination of major triad with minorseventh only occurs on the dominant step of a major scale.



Exercise 57: Rhythm part to Exercise 2

Exercise 57 is the rhythm part for Exercise 2. Youcan hear it on CD track 03. There are three four-barphrases, made up of the same chord sequenceplayed three times. In the first eight bars, the chords

are played on the first beat andheld throughout the bar. Thechords will be familiar to youfrom Section Six, except for theB7 chord in bars four and eight,which comes from Exercise 56.

B7 is a five-string chord, butyou do not have to play all five strings. In thisexercise, we keep to the middle four strings,avoiding the low E-string because it is not in thechord, and avoiding the F-sharp on the high E-string because we are looking for a dense, chunkysound. Avoiding the top E-string also leaves moreroom for the melody to sing out over the chord.

In bars nine to 12 we switch to steady, chugging eighth notes, just playing the lowest note of thechords. Notice that when the chord is C major we are again on the inner four strings of the guitar. Thismeans the lowest note of the chord is the root note – remember that chords always sound strongestwith the root note at the bottom. The B7 chord is again played as a four-note chord and then we crashinto all six strings for the E minor at the end.

94

CD

03 1

x o

3 4

B D# A B F#1 3 b7 1 5

B7

1

2

T E C H N I Q U EPractice moving backwards and forwardsbetween C and B7 to help get the shift toB7 faster.

S O U N D SThis track was played using the middle pickup on a Strat. There is also a slight chorus effect used,which creates some movement on the held chords.

A B7 chord. Touching the low E-string with the tip ofthe second finger prevents it from sounding if youshould accidentally play it.


95

CD

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Exercise 58: ‘Groovin’ Sevenths’

Seventh chords sound great in the blues and relatedstyles. In fact, they sound better than major chords, and

most blues guitarists would instinctively usesevenths in preference to the plain majorchord. Exercise 58 takes a 1960s rhythm &blues two-chord groove (G7 and C7) andadds a turnaround on A7 and D7. Play it twiceand then take the two-bar ending. There’s alsoa cool single-note riff linking the chords andkicking the piece off; great for practicing going

from single notes to strumming. Some strums are in abracket, which is a way of showing a de-accented chord or note—one which is strummed lighter thanthe others or perhaps not really meant to be there at all.

Notice that in this exercise the notation stave uses “stem” notes and just gives you the strummingrhythm together with the single notes; the tab stave spells out which notes to play. You could easilysee these different methods swapped around in other music books, depending on what the writerthought you most needed.

Here are some examples of how to count different 16th note rhythms:


96

CD

54

44

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S O U N D SThis track was played using aclean, bright tone and themiddle pickup of a Strat.

T H E O R YBy now, you should be used to countingeighth notes: “one-and, two-and, three-and, four-and.” Counting 16th notes canbe trickier: “one-e-and-a, two-e-and-a,three-e-and-a, four-e-and-a” is the bestmethod. For example, on the secondbeat of bar two, play a downstroke asyou say “two,” keep your hand movingas you say “e” and “and,” and thenplay an upstroke as you say “a.”


97

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Exercise 59: Surf-style rhythm

Exercise 59 mixes seventh chords with most of the other chords wehave learned. It is the rhythm part to Exercise 13, CD track 13. Therhythm track, without the lead guitar part, can be heard on CD track14. In this exercise we use all of the major open-string chords, most of the minor chords, and the E7and B7 chords as well. There are several different kinds of strumming, from chords that are spreadand held at the beginning, to accented downbeats in bar eight and a more filled-out strum in bars nineto 16.

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q=120 Shadows/surf style

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S O U N D SThere’s a stereo echo effect on this track; the rhythm guitar is panned slightly to the left of the stereoimage, and the echo effect is panned to the right, fattening the sound and adding a mysterious qualityas the sound spreads across.

T H E O R YNotice the “get louder” orcrescendo hairpin in bar 15

T E C H N I Q U EWhen playing B7, use the tip of finger 2 to mute the low E-string. We don’t want that note to sound,and muting it allows you to be more relaxed with the strumming and not worry about accidentallytouching that string with the pick.


99

CD

14


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Exercise 60: Four minor seventh chords and Am7–D7 groove

Exercises 56 to 59 were about dominant seventh chords, the kind of chord you get when you add aminor seventh to a major triad. Now we are going to look at the kind of chord you get if you add aminor seventh to a minor triad. We call that a minor seventh chord. Four examples are shown below.The normal abbreviation for a minor seventh chord is m7, although sometimes a minus sign is used,as in A-7. We would normally say “A minor seven” or “A minor seventh.” Minor seventh chords have ajazzy quality not found in the plain minor chord.

Minor seventh chords occur naturally on steps two, three, and six of the major scale. That meansthat all of the minor chords that are created when you harmonize a major scale (see Exercise 43)become minor seventh chords when you extend them to the seventh.

Exercise 60 introduces a chord sequence alternating between Am7 and D7 with connecting bassruns. In the key of G major, Am7 is chord two (ii7) and D7 is chord five (V7); ii-V progressions are verycommon in rock music with a jazzy tinge. This kind of chord sequence is also great for open groovesand free soloing in the style of Latin-influenced guitar players like Carlos Santana. (Check out the track‘Oye Como Va.’) In Exercise 85 we will look at adding a lead guitar solo to this two-chord groove.

100

CD

55

1

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1

2

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1

x o o

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4

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x x o

2

3

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1

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2


101

CD

55


q=90 Latin rock

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Exercise 61: Major seventh chords: Gmaj7, Cmaj7, Am7, D7

We are not through with minor seventh chords yet;but since we find ourselves at the jazzy end of therock spectrum, now would be a good time to look atwhat happens when you add a major seventh intervalto a major triad. The answer is you get a majorseventh chord: there are five examples below. Theabbreviation is “maj7” or sometimes just “ma7.”Some editions, particularly in jazz, use a ∆ or “delta” symbol instead of maj: C∆7, for example.

Look closely at the chord diagrams, so that you understand which note is the root, the third, thefifth, and the seventh for each shape. Compare these chords with the plain major chord on which theyare based— in each case a doubled root note is lowered one fret to become the major seventh.

Exercise 61 is in the key of G major, and switches back and forth between chord I7 and IV7, Gmaj7and Cmaj7, before progressing onto Am7 and D7, which are chords ii7 and V7. Major seventh chordshave a soft and dreamy quality and, as this exercise demonstrates, they work very well with minorseventh and dominant seventh chords.

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CD

56

1

x o o o

3

2

C E G B E1 3 5 7 3

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x x o

1 1

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T H E O R YThis Gmaj7 chord shape uses the underside of the third finger to mute the A or fifth string. We areleaving out the note normally played on this string because the chord sounds better without doublingthe third, B.

T E C H N I Q U EThe Dmaj7 chord is, like the A7 in Exercise56, a shape which uses a one-finger half-barre across the top three strings.


103

CD

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q=90 Dreamy strum

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Exercise 62: A, Amaj7, D, Dmaj7 rock style

We know that major and minor seventh chordssound dreamy and jazzy, but that’s not to saythat you don’t come across them in rockmusic. Artists from David Bowie to the RedHot Chili Peppers use them. In both ‘Life OnMars’ and the chorus of ‘UniversallySpeaking,’ for example, a plain major chord isfollowed by its major seventh.

In Exercise 62 we take this approach in the key of A major, following both A and D major chordswith their major seventh. When you listen to the CD track, you will hear that the effect is anything butjazzy. In bar nine we move to Bm7 followed by E7; in A major, this is chord two followed by chord five(ii7–V7), the same chord sequence that we saw in Exercises 60 and 61, but in a new key. Bar 14 bringsthe exercise back home to Amaj7 via chord four (IV) followed by “four minor seven” (iv7): D and Dm7.

Section Seven introduced the three most common seventh chords: dominant, major, and minorsevenths. Each of these chords has its own unique flavor. They can be used by songwriters to addcolor to the regular major and minor chords that are the mainstay of songwriting. Jazz and jazz-influenced styles, such as soul or jazz-funk, tend to rely more on seventh chords than the plain majorand minor. In the next section we will look at chords played one note at a time—arpeggios—and alsoat other ways of adding notes to major and minor chords.

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T H E O R Y‘Universally Speaking,’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is an interesting piece of rock music; it not onlyuses a major seventh chord but also a minor seventh, a diminished seventh, and a seventh with asharp fifth.

S O U N D SUse the neck pickup on your guitar and turn up theinput gain on your amp so that the sound is just onthe edge of breakup. A distortion pedal with nottoo much gain will have the same effect.


105

CD

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q=100 Rock strum

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SECTION EIGHT


We know that an arpeggio is a chord played one note at a time. Very often the lead guitar parts thatwe hear filling in the background on recordings use arpeggios, while another guitar plays strummedchords. We will look at this approach in Exercises 64 to 67. But first we are going to look at the flowingmotion that can be created with a solo guitar part and simple rising and falling arpeggios.

Exercise 63: Sweep or alternate picking arpeggios

Exercise 63 uses a chiming, rich tone and arpeggios on open-string chords in an indie style. Some ofthe open-string chord shapes are modified slightly, as shown above; we don’t need the whole chord,

so unnecessary notes are left out. These shapes are worthpracticing even if they are unfamiliar at first; economy ofmovement—not doing unnecessary things—is an importantprinciple of advanced guitar playing.

You may have noticed that this example is not in the usual 4/4,the four-beat rhythm found in almost all rock music. Here we’re in6/8 time, which involves counting six eighth-note beats in each bar,but with accents on beats one and four, like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6

Try tapping in time with your foot while counting the beats and thenadd a handclap on one and four to get the feel of this example. Then make up your own arpeggiosusing other chord shapes you know. You could also try adding the occasional connecting bassline,like the ones you hear in the exercise.

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1

x x oD

3

21

D A D F#1 5 1 3

4

1

x x o oG

43

G G B G1 1 3 1

1

x o x oA

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A A C# E1 1 3 5

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o x o o oEm

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E E G B E1 1 b3 5 1

T E C H N I Q U ERemember to let the notes ring on, and try using eitheralternate picking or sweep picking. We’ve alreadylooked at alternate picking, but sweep picking is whereyou use consecutive downstrokes when your hand ismoving in a downwards direction, and consecutiveupstrokes when your hand is moving in an upwardsdirection. I use a mixture of both alternate and sweeppicking on this tune; see which works for you.

ARPEGGIOS AND CHORDS WITHADDED NOTES


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SECTION EIGHT ARPEGGIOS AND CHORDS WITH ADDED NOTES

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Exercise 64: Arpeggios and pedal notes

When you play an arpeggio over a chord sequence you don’t necessarily have to stick entirely to thenotes of the original chords. You can add a note or two or introduce the idea of a pedal note, as in

Exercise 64. A pedal is a musical term for a note which is held still while thechords around it change. It can be a high note, a low note, or somewhere inbetween. Open strings can work very well as pedal notes. In Exercise 64, theopen E-string is working as a pedal note all the way through, and is joined at barnine by an open B-string pedal as well. (Yes, you can have two at once.)

We could call the repeated pattern that takes over in bar nine a riff, thoughin more formal music circles it might be known as an “ostinato.” For addedjangle, the open E is doubled by the E at the fifth fret on the B-string. Listen tothe CD track—a pedal note creates tension, as if the chords are anchored buttrying to get away. The rhythm part in this track comes from Exercise 53, CD

track 51, and CD track 59 has just rhythm and lead guitars. With a bassline in the rhythm part andarpeggios in the lead part you have a very filled-out sound; try getting it together with another guitarplayer. Swap parts when you repeat.

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T E C H N I Q U EPlaying an open string alongside thesame note fretted gives you instantjangle. It will be easier to let that openstring ring on if your fret-hand fingers areon their tips.

T H E O R YThe “pedal” term originated in organ music, where you have bass pedals that are played with the feet.As we have seen, nowadays the pedal note does not have to be in the bass.


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q=100 Indie rock

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Exercise 65: Slash chord arpeggios; pull-offs and slides

Staying with the idea of adding notes to chords when they are played as arpeggios, the first two barsof Exercise 65 are based on a D major chord, but the notes E and B are also sounded. The curvedline connecting the F sharp to the open E-string means it should be played with a pull-off. The secondfinger holds down F-sharp on the second fret of the top string and the note is played with an upstrokeof the pick. Then the open E is sounded by pulling the fret-hand finger off the string, moving in a

downward direction—no pick stroke is necessary.In bar two, all the B-naturals are played at the fourth fret. The straight line

connecting the A on the second fret to the first B means that the A should beplayed first and the finger should slide along the frets to the fourth fret. The firstnote of this slide is written in a smaller size as it is a “grace note,” a note thatoccupies no time of its own but is very quickly followed by the main note (in thiscase, the fourth fret B).

An interesting feature of this piece is the way that the melody stays the same,while the chords change underneath. Some of the notes of this melody are

chord-notes; for example, D, F-sharp, and A are in the chord of D major. But the melody notes E andB are the ninth and sixth; these are outside the D major chord, but they are interesting notes to addto it. When the chord changes to B minor the B, D, and F-sharp now belong to the chord, and the“outside” notes are now E and A, which are the fourth and seventh. This means that, although themelody is repeated several times, its musical effect changes with each new chord.

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T E C H N I Q U ENotice that using the fourth-fret B insteadof the open string allows more notes toring on and contributes to the janglyarpeggio style of the piece.

T H E O R YIn the chord symbols beneath the tab stave you can see, in bar three, D/C. This is known as a “slashchord,” and means D major with the note C in the bass.


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1SECTION EIGHT ARPEGGIOS AND CHORDS WITH ADDED NOTES

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Exercise 66: slash chords, rhythm part

Exercise 66 is the rhythm part to Exercise 65, and introduces threenew chords. The B minor chord is our first proper bar chord,requiring the first finger of the fret hand to be laid straight to forma barre across the second fret, stopping both the fifth string andthe first string. Use the tip of the finger to mute the low E-string.

Asus4 should need no explanation, as we have seensuspended fourth chords before. The open first string can besounded in Asus4 and A major, but in this piece I chose to mute itto give the melody more space above the rhythm part. D/C is, as mentioned above “D with C bass.”This type of chord is usually known as a “slash” chord, and is used when we wish to specify a bassnote other than the root for a chord. Slash chords are fairly common in modern rock music.

Chord grids and strumming notation are given on the score, and the strumming is a verystraightforward repeated pattern that we have come across before.

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1

xBm

2

3 4

1 1

B F# B D F#1 5 1 b3 5

1

x o o

1 2

4

A E A D 1 5 1 4

Asus4

4

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x xD/C

3

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4

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T H E O R YCompare the B minor shape to your open A minor shape from Section Six. Can you see the connectionbetween them? The B minor is the A minor shape played two frets higher up the guitar, using a barrewhere before we had open strings.

S O U N D SStay on the bridge pickup ofyour guitar and lightly strumnearer the bridge than usualfor maximum jangle.


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Exercise 67: low arpeggios

All the arpeggios we have looked at so far have tended to be onthe higher notes of the guitar. Arpeggios can also be very effectiveon the lower strings, as demonstrated in Exercise 67. Most of thechords in this exercise will be familiar, but the F major chord andD/F-sharp are new.

If you finger the E minor chord in bar one using fingers threeand four you can then slide them up one fret and they will be inthe right place for the F major chord. This should make the change much easier.

Bars nine to 12 are a contrasting section with a root note on the first beat followed by held chordson the second beat. This exercise formed the backing track to Exercise 4.

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CD

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4

1

x x F

43

2

1

F C F A1 5 1 3

4

1

x o x D/F#

4

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S O U N D SThe rhythm guitar is treatedthroughout this track with agentle tremolo effect. Tremolois a regular fluctuation involume and works best when itpulses in time with the music.

T H E O R YWe have come across slash chords before: D/F# is a D major chord with an F-sharp, which is themajor third, in the bass. Notice that it is quite normal to omit the F-sharp from the top string whenplaying this voicing.


115

CD

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q=80 Spooky Rock

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Exercise 68: extended chords and added-note chord sequences

These nine shapes are modified versions of the open-string chords that we learned in Section Six. Theeasiest way to memorize them is to compare them to the chords you know already and then get usedto the added note and the extended shapes. In fact, these are just some of the possibilities, and youmay be able to experiment with other open-string chords and come up with interesting and originalsounds of your own.

Exercise 68 uses these extended chords to create melodies in strummed chords. There are threeseparate examples, and each example is played twice. You will probably have no problem workingout the strumming, but will need to be accurate with your fret-hand fingers to allow fretted notes andopen-string notes to sound together. Listen carefully to your chords to make sure all the requirednotes are sounding.

If you’ve heard bands like R.E.M., Coldplay, Radiohead, The Smiths, and suchlike you’ll haveheard this type of playing. Back in the 1960s, The Who’s Pete Townshend also played rhythm partsthat made use of extended chord shapes. This type of jangly guitar chord has become a keyingredient in the sounds of indie bands today.

In Section Eight we have looked at arpeggios and adding notes to chords, whether as pedal notes,extended chords, or slash chords. In Section Nine we will go more deeply into the world of bar chordsand some of the most useful chords of all: movable chords.


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1

x x o

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T H E O R YAs you add notes to chords, it can be tricky to come up with accurate names for your new shape. Thebest thing is to keep a pencil and paper handy and get used to drawing quick chord diagrams. Thenthink of a name that means something to you like “D with added G.” It is more important that thename means something to you than that it is technically accurate. You will find the chords I’ve shownhere in various songs and chord books, and sometimes they’ll have different names, which goes toshow that guitar players often disagree about the “correct” names for some complex chords. So don’tget hung up on names at this stage. Just enjoy these chiming, resonant sounds and see if you cancome up with some chord sequences of your own that use them.


SECTION NINE


BAR CHORDS ANDMOVABLE CHORDS

We need to look at bar chords more closely because these versatile but difficultchords are among the most useful you will ever learn. Bar chords are movablebecause you can play the shape at any fret. First, we are going to look at “five”chords because they are easier to move around.

Exercise 69: Two-note and three-note five chords

We’ve seen “five” chords before, back in Section Four, where they mostly appearedbuilt on an open-string root. Movable five chords come in two flavors: a two-stringversion and a three-string version. Familiarize yourself with the shapes below—mutethe strings we don’t want to hear with the underside of your index finger. You canalso use the tip of the finger both to hold down a string and to mute the next stringover.

Notice that the index finger is on the root note of the chord. Get used to slidingthe shapes around and thinking of the name of the chord coming from the note thatthe index finger is holding down.

When you can hold these chords down comfortably, listen to CD track 63 andplay along with Exercise 69. You will find that the first eight bars use the two-note fivechord and the last eight bars (it’s a four-bar repeat) use the three-note five chord.Listen closely to make sure you are muting the notes we don’t want to hear.

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1

x x x

1

3 4

F C FR 5 R

F5

x x x x

8

Bb5

1

3

Bb FR 5

x x x x

8

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F5 can be played as a two-note orthree-note chord at the eighth fret.

F5 on the lower three strings.

T H E O R YThe two-note five chord consists of just a root and fifth. The three-note version goesroot-fifth-root. Neither of these chords contains a third, so five chords are neithermajor nor minor. Check out ‘Song 2’ by Blur for the inspiration behind this track.


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SECTION NINE BAR CHORDS AND MOVABLE CHORDS

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Exercise 70: Bar chords and added notes

It’s time to go deeper into the wonderful world of bar chords. We have seen the B minor shape before,and we are introducing an A major chord at the fifth fret and a G major chord at the third fret. One of

the great things about bar chords is that they are movable; the A major and G majorshapes are the same but played at different frets. You could play this shape at any fretand name the chord from the note you were holding down on the sixth string. The Bminor shape is movable, and this time the root note is on the fifth string. We also havean F-sharp minor chord at the second fret. This is also movable, with its root on thesixth string.

Alongside these bar chords we have some added-note chords that can be playedby releasing the barre and allowing the open strings to sound. Strum these shapes inturn and listen closely to make sure all the notes are ringing clearly. Notice that the lastchord shown, F-sharp minor 11 (F#m11), uses your thumb over the neck on the sixthstring. If you can’t get your thumb over, just leave that bass note out, damping thestring with your thumb instead.

Exercise 70 begins with held bar chords, which will give you some time to move those trickyshapes around. Then we go into a chugging downstroke rhythm with accents on beats two, three, andfour—watch out for the repeat signs. At bar 13 there is a rise in dynamic level (i.e., it gets louder), andwe begin using the added-note chords. This section is also repeated before we wind things down withmore held chords, this time of the added-note variety. If you look at the notation stave from bar 13onwards, you’ll see that when notes are stacked close together in chords, one is sometimes offset

slightly. You still play all these notes at once.Note the dynamic signs in the piece. There

are eight in common use. Here they are in order,going from extremely quiet to extremely loud:

ppp pp p mp mf f ff fff

In bar eight we have the sign p as the chord inthat bar is played more softly than the others.Bar nine sees a return to mf, before a boost in thelevel at bar 13 with f. In bar 17 we return to mf,with the final two chords in bars 21 and 22played p. Dynamic signs like these are notparticularly common in rock music, but youshould know what they mean in case you evercome across them.


120

CD

64

1

x

Bm

2

3 4

1 1

B F# B D F#1 5 1 b3 5

1

x o

2

1

3 4

B F# B D E1 5 1 b3 4

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2

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2

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F# C# F# A C# F#1 5 1 b3 5 1

o o

4

T 1

3

F# C# F# A B E 1 5 1 b3 11 b7

F#m11

T H E O R YAbrupt changes in the dynamic levelof music are written in italic scriptusing letters (p) and (f), which standfor piano and forte— literally softand strong. In between the extremesof quiet and loud we have mezzopiano (mp) and mezzo forte (mf).



121

CD

64

q=100

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There is one other new sign in this music. This is known as a “pause” or, to use its technical name, a“fermata.”

This sign can be seen above the chords in bars 21 and 22, and it means that you should breakwith the regular pulse and play these chords freely, as appropriate.

Exercise 71: G blues with movable seventh chords

Exercise 71 is a backing track for a shuffle blues in G, in the style of StevieRay Vaughan. We begin with a slide up to the fifth fret on the A-string and ariff which is repeatedly used to connect the chords, all of which are movable.Compare the G7 bar chord in bar one with the G bar chord in bar four ofExercise 70; by leaving off finger 4 we have introduced the note F-naturalinto the chord, turning it into a seventh chord.

There is one unusual thing about the chord sequence: it’s a “quickchange” blues, meaning that the music goes to chord IV (C7) in the secondbar. This adds interest to the opening four bars, which would otherwise befour bars of G7.

Bar five sees the introduction of a C9 chord. If we go root, third, fifth,seventh when building chords then the next note to add would be the ninth.Check out the chord diagram and you will see that the note D (nine notes upfrom C) has been added to the C7 chord.

Play the music between the repeat signs three times. We have oneending for the first and second times, and a different ending for the thirdtime, which will bring the music to a close on the final G7 chord.


122

CD

65

3

G7

1 1

2

3

G D F B D GR 5 b7 3 5 R

1

x x

3 4

C E Bb CR 3 b7 R

C7

2

1

x

3

C9

2

1

33

C E Bb D GR 3 b7 9 5

x x

3

D7

2

1

43

D F# C DR 3 b7 R

T H E O R YTthe open string C7 shape makes a great movable chord if you mute thetop and bottom strings. That’s how we can use the same shape for D7 andC7: it can be played at any fret. The root note is on both the A-string andthe B-string.

T E C H N I Q U EIf you find this one a struggle at first, leave out the bass riff andconcentrate on playing the chords, playing along if possible. Then work onthe bassline separately, finally putting the two parts together when you canplay each one on its own.

17

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123

CD

65

q=88 Shuffle blues

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Exercise 72: ‘Jimmy Or Jimi?’ rhythm track

‘Jimmy Or Jimi?’ begins with a new chord: E seven sharp nine (E7#9). This great crunchy-soundingchord is closely associated with Jimi Hendrix, who used it often, most notably in the rhythm part of‘Purple Haze.’ It is a movable shape and you should try it at other frets too. The rest of the rhythm partto this piece uses just two major bar chord shapes. The A, C, and G major chord shapes should befamiliar, but did you notice that they are based on the open E major chord? Compare these chordsshapes to the open E shape that we learned in Section Six and you will see that the barre is simplytaking the place of the open strings.

The D major chord in this exercise is based on an open A major chord: again, the barre takes theplace of the open strings. If you can, you should experiment with holding down the three notes in themiddle of this chord using your third finger flattened across three strings. If you can do it, it makes thechord much easier to play.

We also have fret-hand muting (notes that are written as xxx). Mastering this percussive effect isan important part of rhythm-guitar playing. Release the pressure from the fret-hand fingers but keepthem in contact with the strings while you strum. The piece is essentially made from an eight-barphrase that is repeated.

Most of the open-string chords we have learned can be turned into movable shapes if you use a barrein place of the open strings and adjust the positions of the other fingers.

The wallchart has more examples of movable chords that demonstrate this. Also, remember that fournotes are enough for a chord to have a full sound. You don’t always need a full six-string bar chord.

124

CD

66

5

A

43

2

1 1

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x

5

D

432

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2

4

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T H E O R YThese movable bar chords are very useful. Each one can be played at any fret, and when you’vemastered them you will be able to play any major chord in at least two positions. Referring back toExercise 70, you also have two minor chord shapes that you can use to play any minor chord in twopositions. To really make use of them you need to learn which note in each shape is the root: the chordtakes its name from that note. Knowing the names of the notes on the lowest two strings is importanthere. Refer to the complete note guide at the back of the book and practice these shapes chromatically(fret-by-fret) saying aloud the name of each chord.



125

CD

66

q=100 Rock

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SECTION TEN


BACK TO SOLOINGIn Section Three we learned minor pentatonic and blues scales starting on the low E-string and usingopen strings. To play in other keys, we need to learn scales that can be moved around in the sameway as the bar chords in Section Nine. There are five movable minor pentatonic and blues scaleshapes that together cover the entire neck of the guitar. Over the next few exercises we will learn thesescales in the key of G, plus five major pentatonic scales that are useful for a different flavor of solo,and then we will move on to play in other keys.

Exercise 73: G minor pentatonic, shape one, two-octave

Exercise 73 is the G minor pentatonic scale, written outto cover the full two octaves that you can reach in thethird position on the guitar. Notice that, although thescale begins on the root note, G, the highest note is a B-flat. In classical music, scales tend to be played from rootnote to root note; but in rock, blues, and related styles,because we are interested in using the scale for improvisation, we play all the notes we can reach inone position. Follow the fret-hand fingering that is given, making use of your pinky (finger four) at thesixth fret.

126

CD

67

44&

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T H E O R YUse alternate picking and listen closelyto make sure you play legato.



Exercise 74: G blues scale, shape one, two-octave

As we know, the blues scale is very like the minor pentatonic scale, but it has one extra note in eachoctave. In the key of G, the extra note is C-sharp or D-flat: that’s the same note by a different name.Just for convenience, we use C-sharp (C#) in the notation stave for the ascending scale and D-flat (Db)for the descending part of the scale. Sometimes this extra note is called a “blue note” as it adds anextra blues twist to the scale.

127

CD

68

SECTION TEN BACK TO SOLOING

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T E C H N I Q U EThe picking is more difficult in this scale because some strings have two notes and some strings havethree. Don’t be tempted to play each new string with a downstroke. Pay close attention to your pickhand at first and make sure you alternate-pick the whole scale.




Exercise 75: Solo on shape one with vibrato

Exercise 75 is a guitar solo using the minor pentatonic scale with CD track 65 as the backing track. Ituses a call-and-response structure and shows how just a few riffs can be used to build a whole 12-bar solo.

The first riff begins with a slide up from the third fret to the fifth fret on the D-string. Use your thirdfinger. When you arrive at the fifth fret, quickly release the note to produce a staccato. In bar two, youcan see a wiggly line underneath the held note. This is the sign for vibrato, which is a regular, pulsatingrise and fall in pitch.

There are two basic methods to produce vibrato on the guitar. One involves holding the note tightlyand then wobbling the finger from side to side, effectively stretching and releasing the string. Thesecond method involves pulling the string across the fret, and this is the method used on the CDtrack: it creates a more intense vibrato. Pull the D-string down towards the G-string and then push itback to its natural position. With practice you’ll be able to do this quite quickly, creating the rhythmicvariation in pitch we are looking for.

The answering phrase in bar five uses a hammer-on from finger 1 to finger 3, third fret to fifth fret,and you then hop your third finger over one more string to play the G on the fourth string.

128

CD

69/6

5

T E C H N I Q U EVibrato should be considered normal on the guitar, and most guitarists would tend to vibrato any notelonger than an eighth note. For this reason vibrato is not always notated, either in the notation stave orin the tab, as it is assumed that you’ll do it automatically. There are some styles, such as punk or indie,where it is not so common, perhaps because in these stripped-down styles it can sound too“musicianly.”


129

CD

69/6

5SECTION TEN BACK TO SOLOING

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Exercise 76: G minor pentatonic scales, shapes two and three

The important thing about these two new minor pentatonic scale shapes (below) is that they don’tintroduce new notes. They are made up of the same five notes as the scale that we saw in Exercise73, but shifted up the guitar neck. There are two reasons why this may be useful. Firstly, the top noteof the scale is different, so we have shifted therange of the scale up slightly. Secondly, therelationship between the notes, and how theyfit on the strings, has changed. If, for exampleyou wanted to do a slide from a C to D it wouldbe best to use shape two because in shapeone these two notes are on different strings.

130

CD

70

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T E C H N I Q U ENotice that in scale shape three you begin in eighthposition but have to jump down one fret to seventhposition when you come to the G-string. Then it’sback to eighth position for the B- and E-strings.

EXERCISE 76 SHAPE 2 CD TRACK 70




Exercise 77: G blues scales, shapes two and three

Exercise 77 shows the blues scale in G (from Exercise 74), moved up the neck tocreate shapes two and three. The notes are the same, only their location on theguitar has changed. Compare these two scales with the minor pentatonic scalesin Exercise 76: can you spot where the extra note appears?

131

CD

71


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T H E O R YNotice that in both these scales shapetwo begins on the second note of thescale, B-flat, and shape three begins onthe third note, C.



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Exercise 78: G blues solo using shapes one to three, introducing bends

Exercise 78 is a 12-bar guitar solo that makes use of all the minor pentatonic/blues scale shapes wehave learned so far. In addition to staccato, slides, and vibrato it also makes use of one very importantnew technique: the bend. A bend is achieved by holding the string on the fret and then pushing itaway from its normal resting point, with the aim of raising the pitch of the note by either a half step ora whole step. Slightly flat and slightly sharp bends can also be used expressively.On the notation stave, a bend is shown by an angled line: two can be seen in the very first bar. On thetab stave, an arrow pointing upwards from the note that is to be bent says “full” for a whole step bendand “1/2” for a half step bend.

Here is a “walk-through” for the beginning of this challenging exercise.In bar one, play the note Con the fifth fret of the G-string using your third finger. Immediately push the string towards the D-string,causing it to rise in pitch to the note D, two frets higher. Without re-picking, return the string back towhere it came from and play the remaining notes in the bar as normal. Bar two uses the sametechnique, but ends with a slide from the fifth fret to the seventh fret with added vibrato.In bar three, bend the fifth fret note again and hold the bend while you pick the third fret on the Bstring. Then re-pick the bent note and release it back down. Other bends in the exercise should bestraightforward from there on, but notice that in bar five the note is bent, released, bent again, andreleased all from one pick stroke. Remember that the exercise only uses the three scale shapes wehave learned and base your fingering on those shapes.

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T E C H N I Q U EBending is much easier if you support the bend with other fingers. In the first bar you should bepushing with finger three at the fifth fret. Also place your first and second fingers at the third andfourth frets on the same string and push with all three fingers.


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Exercise 79: G minor pentatonic scales, shapes four and five

Exercise 79 introduces the next two minor pentatonic shapes. Adding the final two scales completesthe set and means that we now have the entire neck available in minor pentatonics. If you start withshape one in the third position, you can work your way up the neck starting the next shape on eachsuccessive note of the scale until you reach the 15th fret, where you will be an octave higher thanwhere you started and can play shape one again. Try using all five shapes to solo over CD track 73;

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Exercise 80: G blues scales, shapes four and five

Exercise 80 does for the blues scales what Exercise 79 does for the minor pentatonic scales: itcompletes the set so that we now have all five shapes and can play all over the neck in in the key of G.

You can choose how you go about learning the five scale shapes. You could learn all the bluesscales, recognizing that you can leave out the extra note and change a blues scale to a minorpentatonic. Alternatively, you could learn all the minor pentatonic shapes, and be aware that you canput the extra note in to turn them into blues scales.

Make all five scales part of your daily practice routine. Start with shape one and play each shapein turn, working your way up the neck. Then practice making up your own phrases, finding ways toconnect one scale to the next so that you are not stuck in one position.


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the more you do it the better you’ll get at making up your own phrases. As we will see in the comingexercises, you can move these five shapes around the guitar to play in other keys.

If shape one can be played an octave higher than in Exercise 73, starting at the 15th fret, shapetwo can be played at the 18th fret—at which point most guitars will run out of frets. If you have a guitarwith a 24-fret neck, you will also be able to fit in shape three an octave higher.

The easiest way to memorize these scale shapes is to concentrate on the fingering diagram.Shape one goes 1 4, 1 3, 1 3, 1 3, 1 4, 1 4, starting on the lowest string, but you should also knowthe letter-names of the notes you are playing and pay attention to the diagrams that explain the scalesin terms of root, minor third, perfect fourth and fifth, and minor seventh.



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Exercise 81: G blues scale solo, using all five shapes

In Exercise 81 (opposite) we use the full repertoire of bends, slides, slurs, and vibrato to create anexpressive blues-style solo. We also use all five scale shapes, including using shape one at the 15thfret, an octave higher than where we begin.

This exercise “quotes” the beginning of Exercise 75: it is a good phrase and makes a goodstarting point for a solo. Bar two reuses the technique seen in bar two of Exercise 78, holding a bendwhile picking another note and then re-picking the bend and releasing it down to its original pitch. Barthree introduces a new technique, which is a unison bend. The third fret on the top string (G) is playedat the same time as the sixth fret on the B-string (F) and the B-string is then bent up a whole step,producing a unison G, both strings sounding together.

Finally, in bar 11, we introduce the “rake.” Lay your index finger across three strings at the 15thfret, muting the G- and B-strings and fretting the top string. Play all three strings with a quickdownward motion of the pick.

Exercise 82: The major pentatonic scale

Exercise 82 is all about major pentatonic scales, but you will be relieved to know that you do not haveto learn a new set of scale shapes. The major pentatonic scale shapes are on the wallchart, but theyare in fact the same shapes as the minor pentatonic scales. This is how it works:

We learned the E minor pentatonic scale in Exercise 23, and found that the notes were: E, G, A, B,and D. The G major pentatonic scale is the same five notes, but starting on G: G, A, B, D, and E.

So if you can play the minor pentatonic shapes from Exercises 73, 76, and 79 three frets lowerdown the guitar you will be playing E minor pentatonic. If you treat G as the root note, you will beplaying G major pentatonic.

136

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G major pentatonic

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Exercise 83: G major pentatonic solo

The minor pentatonic scale is a very useful scale, and as we will see in Exercises 84 and 85, it is notjust used in the blues or blues-related styles. Every now and then, however, you will come across achord sequence in which the minor pentatonic scale will not work—or at least, will need some specialhandling.

The chord sequence from Exercise 50, CD track 48, is an example of this. It is in the key of G, andyou should certainly try to solo over it using a G blues scale; don’t be surprised, however, if you findit does not sound good. The E minor chords in this chord sequence will not work with a G minorpentatonic. A better approach is to use G major pentatonic over the G major chords, which is thenthe same scale as E minor pentatonic over the E minor chords. For bars five to seven, C majorpentatonic will fit the C major chord, and it contains the same notes as A minor pentatonic to fit the Aminor chord.

The solo makes use of slurs and slides that should be familiar now. At the end of bar five, play Dand G together, and then hammer on the G-string to produce the note E while the G is still sounding.At the beginning of bar nine, there is a harmony bend using the same two notes; the D and G arestruck together, and the D is then bent up a whole step to E, in harmony with the still-sounding G. Infact, the E is slightly flat, but we felt it sounded authentic. There is a similar technique at the beginningof bar eight, using notes at the tenth fret, and more double stops combined with hammer ons can befound in the final few bars.

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T H E O R YA G major pentatonic scale is the same notes as an E minor pentatonic scale. Try to work out a solo ofyour own using all the E minor pentatonic scale shapes (or possibly the E blues scale) over the E bluesbacking track, CD07.

EXERCISE 83 CD TRACK 76 / BACKING TRACK CD 48


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EXERCISE 83 CD TRACK 76 / BACKING TRACK CD 48 continued



Exercise 84: ‘Jimmy or Jimi?’, rock guitar solo

If we play the minor pentatonic shapes from Exercises 73, 76, and 79, two frets higher up the guitar,we will be moving from the key of G to the key of A. Exercise 84, ‘Jimmy or Jimi?’ combines the firsttwo minor pentatonic shapes and the soloing techniques we have learned (bends, slides, slurs, etc)to create an authentic rock guitar solo. Minor pentatonic and blues scales are used throughout rockmusic, not just in the blues.

Here’s a walk-through of the opening bars to get you started. The piece begins with a slide “fromnowhere” up to notes that belong to scale shape two. Start around the fifth or sixth fret, pick the noteand slide your finger quickly up the string to the ninth fret, applying pressure along the string so thatyou hear it skid over the frets. Release the pressure when you get to the ninth fret to create thestaccato (indicated by the dot over the note).

In the next bar, the upward bend is very quick, but the release comes rhythmically on the secondeighth note of the bar, and this short lick ends with some fast vibrato on the D-string. To keep the piecesimple, all of the bends are “full” or whole step bends: always support the finger that is doing the bendby adding more fingers to the string whenever possible.

Bar three uses the same quick upward bend and slower release to begin an answering phrase thatends in a bend that is held while being vibratoed. Not an easy technique, but one that’s well worthacquiring.

Bar four repeats bar two (there is a question-and-answer structure to the whole solo) but ends witha rapid hammer-on run leading to a rising phrase with a vibratoed seventh-fret D.

The end of bar nine quotes the opening notes again as the beginning of the second section. Thefirst eight bars of rhythm are repeated as the solo stretches out to include higher notes from bluesscale shape two. Notice that the material in the opening bars is used as a building block or “motif”and is often quoted and varied during the course of the piece. Bars three, seven, and 11 are almostidentical, and bar 15 very similar. This helps to link the phrases of the solo together so that it makessense as a piece of music.

140

CD

76


141

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Exercise 85: Am7-D7 groove solo

As we have seen in Exercise 84, pentatonic scales can be veryversatile. Exercise 85 stays in the key of A, and is a solo over thetwo-chord groove from Exercise 60, CD track 55. The two chordsare Am7 and D7, and the A minor pentatonic scale is usedthroughout.

The exercise begins with four bars of groove: it’s good to sitout sometimes and let the groove develop. The opening barsshould give you no trouble at this stage, but bar eight is interesting because of the two quick hammer-ons, Carlos Santana style. Bar 17 features multiple bends and releases all from one pick-stroke.

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q=90 Latin rock

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EXERCISE 85 CD TRACK 78 / BACKING TRACK CD 55

S O U N D SIn search of a more intensesoloing tone, the guitar onthis track was powered byhumbucking pickups, and weused a distortion box in frontof the amp.


Further studyMany of the exercises in this book are intended to be used as backing tracks for you to be able todevelop your own soloing ideas, including this one, CD track 55. Steal riffs from the demonstrationsolos, experiment with them and make them your own.

Record your own backing tracks in other keys, and practice adding riffs and soloing over them.And practice your chords. Remember that most guitarists spend most of their time playing rhythmguitar, and it is probably more important to be able to play good rhythm than solos.

I hope this book has helped you to make guitar part of your life, and wherever it may lead you, enjoyyour music.

Rod FoggLondon 2013

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EXERCISE 85 CD TRACK 78 / BACKING TRACK CD 55 continued



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Complete notes of guitar by fret number

Spellings of common chords

TYPE OF CHORD NAME OF CHORD SYMBOL SPELLING

Triads: C major C C E G

C minor Cm C Eb G

C diminished Cdim, C° C Eb GbC augmented Caug, C+ C E G#

Sixths C sixth C6 C E G A

C minor sixth Cm6, C-6 C Eb G A

Sevenths C major seven Cmaj7, Cma7, C�7 C E G B

C seven C7 C E G BbC minor seven Cm7, C-7 C Eb G BbC minor seven flat five or Cm7b5, C Eb Gb BbC half-diminished Cø

C diminished seven C°7, Cdim7 C Eb Gb A (Bbb)Ninths C major nine Cmaj9, C�9 C E G B D

C nine C9 C E G Bb D

C minor nine Cm9, C-9 C Eb G Bb D

C added ninth Cadd9 C E G D

Elevenths C eleven C11 C (E G) Bb D F

Suspended Chords C suspended fourth Csus4 C F G

C suspended second Csus2 C D G


Documents

THE Guitar Ultimate... · 2020. 1. 16. · THE ULTIMATE GUITAR COURSE 4 CD01 Ex 1 The open strings and tuning notes. CD02 Ex 2 Open-string picking. CD03 Ex 2 Open-string picking,