In August of 2019 I published “Practicing with no time part 3”,

in it I laid out the most common complaint I heard from my

adult students (younger ones too), having no time to practice.

It seems everyone but me is overworked nowadays! In that post

I laid out my experience with thousands of students over the

years that showed you can make real progress in a year’s time

with only 10 to 20 minutes a day, as long as you practice 4 to 6

days a week! The rest of the post gave some ideas on how to find

that time as well as hints on setting up a practice space, but the

main idea was to start small and build a habit. A habit is a

wonderful self improvement tool; once your action becomes a

habit, 80% of the willpower you need is removed, you just do

it. I used the example of brushing your teeth, you probably

spend about 10 minutes a day in total doing this but it’s not a

huge struggle, because it’s a habit. In the same way I started

small, with 10 minutes a day. Over the next 8 posts I laid out

a sample year of practice, starting with 10 minutes a day and

gradually increasing to 20-30 minutes a day. But in the

beginning, I started with only 10 minutes a day, because the

most important thing was to build a habit.

Amazingly enough, immediately after starting this series of

posts I had a house built, followed by the Covid thing and

topped off by hurricane Ida, which was still a category 2+

storm when it blew through our area a couple of months

ago. To make a long story slightly longer, it took me almost

2 years to finish my 1 year course! Oh well… at this point, I

would like to sum up what I’ve covered over the last 4 quarters

and see how we did.

FIRST QUARTER (1 TO 3 MONTHS): I showed you type 1 and

type 2 bar chords, both major and minor forms. Just as important

I listed the root notes for these chord types, type 1 chords are

based on the 6th string note and type 2 chords are based on the

5th string note. Learning the root notes all the way to the 12th

fret for both strings enables you to play a total of 48 chords; (all

12 major and minor chords in 2 positions), and is the foundation

of everything I teach. All that follows is based off of these 2 roots.

The total amount of time allotted for this was 10 minutes a day;

5 minutes of chord practice and root notes and 5 minutes of just

playing. We’re not in a rush, just building a habit!

SECOND QUARTER (4 TO 6 MONTHS): I gave my 3 main

technique exercises. These tackle the 3 main physical challenges

most guitar players encounter; gaining speed, stretching

enough with the chording hand, and picking accuracy (picking

the correct strings). Since I only added 5 minutes to the daily

routine, from 10 to 15 minutes a day, I suggested you either

choose one exercise (your worst problem), or skip around all 3

for gradual improvement. A serious technique program, to gain

massive speed and range, would take an hour a day just by

itself. So an extra 5 minutes a day of technique practice will

not make you an expert, just a better guitar player! Along

with the 5 minutes of technique we still needed to keep

reviewing the type 1 and type 2 bar chords, and especially

the root notes. The better you know the root notes the better

everything else will work.

THIRD QUARTER (7 -9 MONTHS): I showed you the penta-

tonic scale, an easy framework scale that works over most

popular music. Position 1 which is named from the type 1

root (6th string), and position 4 which is named from the

type 2 root (5th string). This means if you can locate your

chords you can locate your scales! They share the same root

notes/frets. Both positions can be played either from the

major root (4th finger) or the minor root (1st finger),

because a scale can be both major and minor, it just depends

on the root. Finally although I listed the notes for type 1 and

type 2 only up to the 12th fret, you can start over at the 12th

fret and repeat the same notes again until you reach the 24th

fret (eg. fret1 F= fret13 F.. etc.). Although you wouldn’t want

to play chords above the 12th fret you can definitely play

scales up there and this means you can cover half the neck

with just these 2 positions. For example, G minor; play pos.1

on the 3rd fret, pos. 4 on the 10th fret and pos 1 again on the

15th fret. That’s 3 positions at 4 frets per position equals 12

frets covered, half of a 24 fret neck! This works for all keys,

so with these 2 positions and your knowledge of type 1 and 2

roots, you can play half the neck in all 12 major and minor

keys! That’s a good return on 20 minutes a day total (since I

added an extra 5 minutes to practice scales).

4TH QUARTER (10-12 MONTHS): We learned key shapes,

an easy way to learn the chords for any key without tons of

memorization. I also upped the practice time to 20-30 min.

a day (gasp), depending on your schedule. Keys are the

“families” of scales and chords that go together. There is a

different key for every note in the chromatic scale, and there

are 7 chords and a scale in a major key and 6 chords and a

scale in a blues key. So 12 roots X 7 major key chords and 6

blues key chords is a lot of chords! (156). It was a happy day

when I realized all the chords in a key lined up in a physical

pattern that I could move up and down the neck to any root

and find the chords for that key! This also explains how bands

who don’t know any theory can play in key, they play the

shape! Since you already know how to play major and minor

pentatonic scales, (minor works well for blues) and you can

find all 12 keys off your type 1 root, you are set!

To sum up; in 12 months of practicing 10 to 20+ minutes a

day you can…

-locate the chords for any key

-play all of those chords in 2 positions.

-play the scales for any of those keys over half the neck.

-be a faster, more accurate guitar player.

An excellent return on your investment of time and will-

power! So what can you do with this information? I will

target 3 areas:

FIGURE OUT SONGS-Although you can find the music

for a lot of songs on the web, not everything is available.

This is a skill that takes work to develop and it’s beyond

the scope of this little blog post to explain completely, but

I can give a few tips. You have to figure out the first 2 or 3

chords by ear (they never tell you the key!). Once you have

those chords you can look for them in one of the 12 major

or blues keys. Once you know the key your song is in you

have a list of all the chords it can contain (6 or 7 depending

on the key). Now it’s much easier to figure out the rest of

the song, since you only have a group of 6-7 chords to

choose from, not much trial and error! Also, any lead solos

will be in the scale that goes with the key, so at least you

have a starting point. While this seems (and is) difficult,

it’s much easier than figuring out the entire song by ear,

one note and chord at a time. I’ve done it, I know.

SONGWRITING: Nothing beats a flash of inspiration

when you’re writing a song. Out of nowhere a cool riff

pops into your mind and in a few minutes, you’re playing

it. Nothing beats creativity but theory can help! If you

know the key your riff or chord progression is in, you

have a list of other chords and notes you can use to com-

plete your song. You can also recycle ideas from other

songs; change the key and alter the melody and rhythm a

bit (and change the lyrics please!). Bands recycle hit music

all the time, if it was good enough to sell hit records 20

years ago, it’s still good enough with a little “updating”.

SOLOS AND JAMMING: Once you know what key you’re

in, you have the scale to use. My book, “Take Control: for

guitar”, contains 6 easy, generic riffs that work over most

popular music styles (rock, blues, and country). The book

also has a lot more information about figuring songs by ear,

soloing, making chords etc. Check it out on Amazon!

SUMMARY: Bill Gates said, ” Most people vastly over-

estimate what they can do in a year, and vastly underestimate

what they can do in 10 years”. I’ve shown you how to do

quite a lot in a year, with only 10 to 20-30 minutes of daily

practice. 5 times a week. I wish you all the best on your

guitar journey!

 

 

 

 

 

My last post explained the concept of “key shapes”, an easier way

to find out the chords in any key by following the shape and

sequence the chords formed on the fretboard. That post referred

to major keys, this post is about blues keys. Blues harmony is the

foundation of most popular modern music; rock, jazz, modern 

country, R&B, etc. so even if you don’t like blues music you still

need to understand the harmony! As with the previous post on

major key shapes, the theory behind blues harmony is advanced.

My book, “Take Control: for guitar”, explains this in more detail,

but the short explanation is that a blues key equals a major plus

a minor key added together. These 2 keys are both built off the

same root, i.e.. E blues=E major+E minor. This major/minor

combo gives blues harmony both a distinct sound and a distinct

shape. Blues keys jump 3 frets from the root, then 2 frets, while

major keys jump in 2 fret + 2 fret intervals as I showed in the

last post. In addition the scale is different than the pentatonic

scale, since a blues scale contains notes from both major and

minor scales, it’s got a lot of notes! (Here is pos. 1/type 1 root)

Use the same root as the pentatonic minor, the first finger,

5th fret is A blues. Below I am showing the same key shapes

diagram as the last post. This time we want to look at Blues

key shape on the lower right hand side. We will use this 

shape to find the chords in the key of A blues; A,C,D,E,F,G.

 

If we start this pattern on the 5th fret, our type 1 root is

A (looking at the 6th string table on the left side of the

diagram). The root chord for this pattern will always

be a type 1 chord. The next chord goes up 3 frets to C 

major (bIII),  Then we switch to type 2 chords and get

the D (IV), E (V), F (bVI), and G (bVII). Notice that 

the V chord is the only chord that’s not 3 frets higher.

This illustrates an important point; the I, IV, and V

chords are the same for both major and blues keys.*

check the major key shape on top right if you need to.

This means if your song only contains a I,IV,V chord

progression you could be in either major or blues! 

This means both a major and a blues scale will work,

which one you use will depend on the style of the

song; both Johnny B Goode and Oh My Darling

Clementine use A, D, and E chords when played in

the key of A, but I would use a blues scale for J. B.

Goode and a major scale for Clementine. You don’t

have to play only the types of chords in the shape

above, either. You only use the shape to find out the

chords to play, once you know what chords to play

you can play any version of those chords you know.

(* If you look closely at the blues key diagram above

you will notice that the I,IV, and V chords are both

major and minor. That’s not a mistake! Blues

harmony is both major and minor and it’s quite

possible to have both a D major chord and a D minor

chord in the same song, in fact it’s one of the things

that tells me I’m in a blues key.)

The next post will sum up what we’ve learned over 

the past 4 ” quarters”.

In this post and the next we will learn how to identify keys
entirely visually, without having to memorize anything. Keys
tell you what chords and scales work together and are quite
useful. You can use them to figure out songs, compose, or
jam. Just knowing what scale you’re playing will give you a
list of chords to use. Playing 2 or 3 chords can tell you what
scale to play when you solo, and changing keys is easy, just
a chord by chord substitution. You’ve probably noticed that
most songs you play contain 3-6 chords total, just arranged
differently for the various parts. This because they are in a
key, which contains a total of 7 chords plus a scale. Over the
past 6 posts you have learned enough chords and scales,
now it’s time to learn how to put them together and use
them! (Again, a more complete explanation of keys, visual
and otherwise, along with practical methods for their use
is available in my book, “Take Control: for guitar”, available
on Amazon.)

My loose definition of a key is a group of chords and a scale

that work together. The 2 main types of keys used in popular

music are major keys and blues keys. Minor keys are just

major keys starting on a different root, the same as scales.

Here is the key of A Major…

SCALE NOTES       CHORDS        MODES      DEGREE #s

A                               A major           A major key       I

B                               B minor                                          ii

C#                            C# minor                                       iii

D                              D major                                         IV

E                               E major                                           V

F#                             F# minor       F#minor key      vi

G#                             G# dim.                                         vii*

-The left column lists the scale notes. Scales are used to

play melody; lead guitar, horn players, vocalists, and key-

boardists all use the same scales. The scale you have

learned is a pentatonic scale, which is a little more basic,

but it contains the same notes (minus the D and G#),

and will work fine. If you’re interested in the full major

scale, here is position 1 filled in(it has the same roots as

the pentatonic; 1st finger-minor/4th finger-major)

-The middle column lists the chords. Chords are used to 

play harmony and are used by keyboardists and guitarists.

You have learned to play 2 versions of all possible major

and minor chords and no version of a diminished chord.

Diminished chords sound nasty and are mostly used in

classical and jazz as passing chords (how many have you

played?) Look one up if you want, I can’t show you every

thing in a blog post!

-The  3rd column lists the 2 main modes in the key. This

shows that this is both the key of A major and the key of

F# minor! Just like your scales, the keys themselves are

both major and minor, just played from different roots.

If you play a 1st position A major scale with the 4th finger

on the 5th fret/6th string, you will see the minor root is

F# on the 2nd fret/6th string just like the example above!

The only difference between the key of A major and the

key of F# minor is what chord and note you consider to

be the root. In the key of A major the 1st chord ,A is the

main chord and in F# minor the 6th chord F# minor is

considered the main chord. As long as your jam focuses

on the main chord you can use any other chords in the

key and you will be in that mode/key. (Some chords will

work better than others, experiment!)

-The 4th column lists the degree numbers. Pros refer to

the chords in a key by Roman numbers, the 1st chord is

a I, the 2nd chord a ii, etc. Upper case numbers mean

major chords (I, IV, V) and lower case means minor

chords (ii, iii, vi), the last chord, a diminished, looks

like a minor with a * after it (vii*). The reason why we

use Roman numbers instead of regular chord names

is to change keys easily! Any I vi IV V chord sequence

is the same sequence for any key. This will make more

sense when we look at the key shape diagram below.

While all the above information is useful to know, you

can see the problem; there are 11 more keys, one for

each note in the chromatic scale, and they all have the

same amount of information and they’re all different!

With each key containing a 7 note scale, 7chords and 2

modes this adds up to 192 bits of information, which

is a lot to remember. Then there’s the obvious question

of how so many self taught musicians manage to write

songs and jam in key without knowing exactly what a

key is. The answer is they play by picture, both the

guitar and piano can be understood visually, this is

why the vast majority of self taught players play guitar

piano or both. We are already playing chords and 

scales without knowing all of the theory involved, so

learning the sequence of chords in a key visually is

just the next step. Below is the visual diagram of both

the major and blues keys along with the root notes on

the 6th string. (we are using the 6th string root to

locate the key but you have to use both 6th and 5th

string chords to get all of the chords in the key) The

top diagram on the right shows the location of all the

chords for any major key, the bottom diagram is for

the blues key shape, which we’ll talk about in the 

next lesson, ignore that for now. Notice the degree 

names instead of fret or chord names. This is what

allows us to play chords in any key.

You can start this shape on any fret and generate all of the

chords for that key. Need the chords for F major key? Move

the pattern to the F root/type I on the 1st fret and you get

all 7 chords in the key of F; just match the degree numbers

with the chord names for that fret. (1st fret-F major, 3rd fret

– G minor, 5th fret A minor, 1st fret, type2-Bb major, 3rd fret

C major, 5th fret-D minor, etc.) Start on any fret, the chords

will be there! The next post will explain the blues key shape,

which is vital for about half of all popular music.

 

 

In the last post we learned a pentatonic scale in position 1. I
also broke down the increased time allotted for practice from

20 to 30+ minutes a day depending on your schedule. 

Remember the most important factor in improving is regular

practice! 20 real minutes of practice is much better than 35

imaginary minutes. As I aid in the first post the pentatonic

scale is the most versatile and easiest to play, and the 1st

position we learned last time has the same root as the type 1 

bar chord. We also learned that the same scale is both major

and minor. The 4th finger (fret 8 in the diagram) is the major

root and the 1st finger (fret5 in the diagram) is the minor 

root. Just put the the correct finger on the type 1 root you

want and play away! By the way we are using 1 finger per

fret to play this scale; (1st finger 5th fret, 3rd finger 7th fret

and 4th finger 8th fret in the diagram). Now that we’ve

reviewed the last post, let’s learn the next position.

Fewer people know this pentatonic scale position (compared

to position 1) and it’s confusingly named. Although it goes

with a type 2 chord it’s called position 4! This is because we

are skipping 2 positions to get here, there are 5 positions in

total but we are are ignoring all but the 2 positions that match

our bar chords. You don’t have to worry about the 3 missing

positions since you will still be able to cover half of the neck

in any key! (I will show this at the end). Since this position

uses the same fingers for the roots; the circled note 4th

finger 15th fret is the major root and the 12th fret 1st finger

is the minor root, all you have to do is remember to name

it from the 5th string (type 2) root. Now you have a scale

to match each chord type. Again, just remember that minor

is 1st finger and major is 4th finger and you can play any 

key you want! Locate the type 2 root, put down the correct

finger and play! for example:

E major? 7th fret 4th finger

D minor? 5th fret 1st finger

Once your positioned in the key you can play anywhere in

the scale, you don’t always have to start with the root.

PLAYING HALF THE NECK WITH 2 POSITIONS

To do this we will need to go beyond the 12th fret. Although

my type 1 and 2 chord charts (1st quarter) ended at the 12th

fret that doesn’t mean you can’t play above the 12th fret!

It just means that chords are not practical above the 12th

fret, scales are another story. Since the notes on the neck

start over again on the 12th fret, I tell my students to view

the next 12 frets (frets 12 through 24) as a midget neck; 

the 15th,17th, and 19th fret markers have the same names

as the 3rd,5th, and 7th frets. You may not be able to play

chords on these frets but you can use the type 1 and 2

roots to play scales. No matter what the key, you should

be able to play at least 3 positions for any key. Since each

position covers 4 frets, those 3 positions add up to a 

total of 12 frets of scale coverage, half of a 24 fret neck!

(Here are 2 diagrams of  G minor chord/scale roots below))

Again, actually teaching you to use the scale is way beyond

what I can do in a blog post, although an earlier post,

“Permutations to the rescue” can help. However my book

“Take Control: for guitar” has an entire chapter with

sample riffs and a solo and is available on Amazon

through my website. To sum up:

Total time allotment;

5-10 minutes for scale practice

5-10 minutes for technique exercises

5 minutes chord/root review

5-10 minutes to jam

That’s it for this quarter! The final 2 posts will show

how to figure the chords and scales for any key, by

picture!

 

In this quarter the goal is to learn 2 positions of the pentatonic

scale. We will also need to increase the practice time from 15

minutes a day to 20-30 minutes a day. I’m keeping the time

flexible because 30 minutes is a big jump from 15! If you have

a busy day and 20 minutes is all you can do, great. I will break

down the time allocations at the end of this post. Even though

there are a total of 5 positions of the pentatonic scale, I’m only

using 2 because you guessed it, they go with the type 1 and

type 2 bar chords you learned in the 1st quarter. You don’t

need to worry much about the missing 3 positions, since you

will be able to cover half the guitar neck in any key, major or

minor with just these 2 positions! And you won’t have to

memorize any new root notes, just the same type 1 and type 2

roots you’ve already been learning (hopefully). A lot of the

following is taken from my book, “Take Control: for guitar”,

available on Amazon.

If you only learn one scale, make it a pentatonic scale. You can

use it for all popular music styles and it’s the foundation for

both major and blues scales. It’s easy to play and hard to screw

up! (Pentatonic means 5 notes, a pentatonic scale contains 5

notes repeated endlessly). The most common position is

called “position 1” and is named from the type 1 root.

PENTATONIC SCALE: POSITION 1

   8th fret, 6th string=major root/C major

 

Everybody knows this position, it’s the easiest to play and

the most used (half of all the guitar solos I’ve ever figured

out have been in this position). Many famous musicians

have built their careers with not much more than this

position. The first step in using this scale is figuring out

what key you want to play in. This is easy since the first

position scale has the same root as a type 1 bar chord, or

2 roots to be precise. Notice that the top note (fret 8) of

position 1 is the major root ( C on the 6th string, 8th fret).

The circled bottom note, which is on the 5th fret is the

minor root (A on the 6th string, 5th fret). As I teach my

students in the mode lesson, major and minor are just

different ways to play the same scale. If you want a minor

scale, play from the minor root (start on the 5th fret in the

diagram, using your 1st finger). If you want a major scale,

play from the major root (start on the 8th fret in the

diagram, using your 4th finger). The same scale is both

A minor (5th fret) and C major (8th fret), this is called

relative major and minor. Just remember that minor is

1st finger and major is 4th finger in this position. You

can play whatever key you want, just locate the type 1

root note (6th string), put down the correct finger and

play! For example:

Bb major? 6th fret, 4th finger

D minor? 10th fret, 1st finger

Once you’re positioned in the key, you can play anywhere

in the scale, you don’t always have to start on the root.

Now that you’ve learned a scale, and can locate it for any

key the challenge is how to use it. I use the metaphor of

learning to read; the scale is like the alphabet, riffs and

scale patterns are like words (your vocabulary), and solos

are like sentences. Teaching this is way beyond what I

can do in a blog post so I will again plug my book, “Take

Control: for guitar”. It’s available on Amazon, and has

an entire chapter of patterns, riffs and a sample solo.

It’s cheaper than 1 lesson with me and smells better!

To review the total time allotment:

5-10 minutes for scale practice

5-10 minutes for technique exercises

5 minutes chord/root review

5-10 minutes jam

The time varies with your schedule, it could be 20

minutes if time is tight or 30 minutes plus if you’re

up to it. In the next post we will learn another scale

position that goes with the type 2 root and see how

to cover half the neck (in any key) with just these 2

positions.