If you think about a scale as having eight notes – do re me fa so la ti do-  and then assign numbers to the notes, you’d get one through 8, right? So your first note would be 1 and your last note would be 8 The one note is the “root” note in the scale and the other notes all different jobs to do when we play them as chords. 

For instance a major chord has the scale notes 1, 3 and 5. For a C scale, which has no sharps or flats, the notes corresponding to the numbers 1 through 8 are C, D, E, F, G, A, B and C.   So for our major C chord, 1,3 and 5 are the notes C, E and G. That makes a C major chord. 

When you take the 3rd out though, something interesting happens. Playing the 1 and the 5 makes a very beefy, crunchy sort of chord, and playing a simple 1/4/5 pattern with that power chord is like the basis for tons of rock’n roll songs.

Conveniently for us as guitar players it doesn’t matter if you play the 5th note above or below the 1st note, and we have two strings in standard tuning, the D string and […]

We know the C scale has no flats or sharps and we can play it in the first position using D, G and B open strings.
We can play, as shown here: C, D, E, F, G, A, B and C

Also the C scale continues both below and above the two Cs, so we can actually start playing that scale from the open E and above the C on the B string, as far as we want. Let’s go to G (third fret of the E string) so we’re using the C scale notes on the first 3 frets including open strings.A Minor (Am) is the relative minor of C and it doesn’t have any sharps or flats either! You can spell the Am scale just like the C scale just starting on the A! Try it out! What this means is, we can play these notes over changes like Am, G, F and Em which would be 1, 7, 6 and 5.

Try playing the chord and then the scale from the root note. So, play an Am, then play the scale from the A and so on.

Cool, right? Sounds sort of “Spanish ” to […]

Simple strumming patterns improve your playing for guitar and ukulele!

Simple strumming patterns will improve your playing! Using strumming patterns can be super handy for perfecting your guitar or ukulele accompaniment. Eventually you will figure out your own patterns for any song that you do, but in the meantime try these as a place to start. Just choose a chord you can play easily and strum down or up where indicated. Count out loud to help yourself with your timing.  Click here to download the PDF

One interesting exercise is to choose a lyric line for a song you know well- for instance, from the Eagles’ Hotel California: “On a dark desert highway”. Now see if you can strum that “syllabically” meaning, use either an up or a down strum per each syllable. Something like this below, which you can download a pdf for here.

Looking for online guitar or uke lessons? First one is free!

There’s an excellent article here about just how good learning an instrument is for your brain health: brain structure, function, development and acuity. From John Rampton’s article:

If you’re looking for a way to maintain or improve brain function, you could do much worse than picking up a guitar!

1. strengthens bonds with others
2. strengthens reading and memory skills
3. Make you happy!
4. Enhances the ability to process more than one thing at once
5. increases blood flow to your brain
6. helps the brain recover (from a stroke, for instance)
7. Reduces stress and depression
8. strengthens the […]