While My Guitar
“While My Guitar”, Lennon/McCartney in Am at 100 BPM.
And I Love Her
“And I Love Her”, Lennon/McCartney in Dm at 85 BPM.
Come Together
“Come Together”, Lennon/McCartney in Dm at 85 BPM. PDF chord sheet linked below.
All My Lovin’
“All My Lovin'”, Lennon/McCartney in D at 95 BPM. PDF chord sheet linked below.
Nearness Of You
“Nearness Of You”, Hoagy Carmichael in F at 95 BPM. PDF chord sheet linked below.
Thinking In Numbers
Looking for a nifty New Year’s guitar-playing resolution?
Try thinking in numbers!
As a new Year’s resolution, how about adopting a new way of thinking about what you already do? Adopting a numeric system for understanding how to move easily around the neck might be useful for you.
Let’s start with a core pattern that we can play over a chord progression. We can start with (1/5/6/5) played over (1/4/5) as a foundational exercise for numeric thinking.
Key Insights:
We will be using numbers to refer both to the strings (1,2,3,4,5 and 6) and the numeric value of notes in an octave (1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 1). This can be confusing so please be patient.
The guitar’s coursed strings allows for playing the same note in multiple locations, enabling the use of identical numeric patterns in different positions.
The (1 5 6 5) pattern works on string pairs 5-6, 4-5, and 3-4. It requires adjustment on pairs with the B string (2nd string) due to […]
“All My Exes” Part 1
“All My Exes” part 1 introduction, chords and notation
Caught somewhere in time
introduction. This piece speaks to our focus on the Em scale, which is the relative minor for G. You can consider this tune to be written in either G or Em, as they both have one sharp.
The G major scale: G. A. B. C. D. E. F#. G
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8/1
If you check the intervals you’ll see that this follows the pattern of WWHWWWH
Now, if we leave the scale as-is and shift the beginning note to the 6th degree (E) something wonderful happens. We are playing the relative minor of the G Major scale, so starting and ending at 6. This is the pattern for playing any scale modally, btw- play the scale, starting and ending on a number other than 1. Here we start on 6 (E) and that gives us the relative minor.
1-2: whole step
2-3: half step
3-4: whole step
4-5: whole step
5-6: half step
6-7: whole step
7-8: whole step
E F# G A B C D E
6. 7. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6
See? All we did was to start counting from 6 instead of one. The intervals are the same. They don’t change, only the note we start on. This is the 6th mode of a major scale, also called the “Aeolian” mode. Very handy for rock music based in classical theory!
Here is the introduction and we’ll look at what’s happening here […]