Electric guitar

Learning how to play the blues is a great idea, seeing as it’s the foundation of most rock music.

If you’re just starting out on guitar, blues guitar instruction may be a little too advanced, especially since blues lead guitar lessons are mostly what it’s about. Even the blues rhythm guitar instruction requires that you at least understand and can play barre chords.

Your average blues guitar instruction dvd seems to be geared towards the intermediate to advanced level.

How I stumbled onto the blues.

When I first began playing guitar, I was only really interested in rock music. Most of rock music is done with power chords, so there’s less to worry about when soloing. When a friend of mine told me that I play some of the best blues guitar he’d ever heard, naturally I was surprised.

Okay, he said it, not me.

This got me thinking about how to play blues guitar. Is there a blues scale or something that I’m supposed to know. Up till that point I was playing the major scale mostly and modifying it to accommodate the blues.

What is the blues scale?

A lot of blues players use the minor pentatonic scale. There’s also a guitar scale specifically called the blues scale. Here’s the most common finger pattern and position of the minor pentatonic scale. 

As I’m sure you can guess, this will work over a blues progression in A.

Blues guitar, or any blues for that matter, is tricky to learn, mostly because it defies classical music theory, and sometimes common sense as well. Here are the finger positions for this pattern.

These pics are from a page on my main website: Pentatonic guitar scales

So what about the blues scale?

The blues scale has an extra note added on to the pentatonic scale. This is called a blue note. In the A minor pentatonic, the blue note would be a D# or E flat (Same thing right).

Unfortunately, I’m away from my PC while writing this, and I don’t have my graphics program handy, so no picture.

You can work it out though.

In the top picture it’s the note on the fret just after the D, and to the right. Easy enough. Now here’s something that may shock you… I play blues lead guitar all wrong and it still works!

While everyone is working with the blues guitar scales I just showed you, I use a different blue note – G sharp, but that’s not all, I use the major scale and play in the wrong key.

I do also use the regular blue notes found in the blues scale, but I’m also trying to make the notes fit the chord better.

I think I’ve mentioned this in a previous blog post, but here goes again: If it’s a blues song in A, I use the G major scale, modified slightly. Whichever key the song is in (as long as it’s a blues or rock song) I use the major key that’s a whole tone down.

Here’s a video I made to demonstrate one of my guitar sounds by playing the blues. It’s not a guitar instruction video, but you can see and hear what I’m talking about.

A great way to learn and practice blues guitar is with backing tracks, or more correctly Jam tracks. When I get back I’ll post the backing I used here.

Learning how to play fast lead guitar solos, the kitchen sink and a mug.

I learnt something quite important the other day about playing guitar fast, when I accidentally bumped a mug that was standing on the kitchen sink.

You probably know what I’m talking about, like when you drop a plate or something like that and it doesn’t break, but instead does this funny wobble.

First it does this broad rocking motion, and then as it starts to settle it actually speeds up, with the vibration becoming faster and faster as the distance it moves from left to right becomes less and less.

Playing fast guitar solos means learning how to use less energy, or perhaps I should say it’s an economy of motion.

So anyway, there I was staring at this wobbly mug on the kitchen sink, and watching it come to a complete standstill I thought “Gee, I wonder how fast it’s going now?”

Here’s the basic principle behind playing fast guitar solos: The more energy you put into playing each note, the slower you’re going to be.

Here’s a list of things you can do to start playing guitar faster:

• Hold the plectrum so that less is protruding, so only the very tip hits the strings.
• Lower the strings on the guitar till they’re as close to the fretboard as they can go. If you get too much fret buzz then take it to a luthier (Guitar builder) and ask for a fret leveling.
• If you only know the pentatonic scale, then learn the major scale because there are more notes per string for each scale pattern.
• Learn to relax when playing guitar. Sometimes people tense up on the guitar when it’s important to substitute strength for speed. It’s a mistake to think that to play lead guitar solos faster you must apply more finger pressure.
• Practice your scales slowly with a metronome and gradually increase the speed. This is what Steve Vai recommends, and he’s not doing too badly with it.
• For faster picking, remember to keep your fingers stiff and let your arm do most of the work. When I pick very fast my entire arm becomes rigid and most of the motion is generated by my upper arm muscle (weird huh).
• Know your scales really well. If your mind is full of doubt, your fingers won’t put out.

A finger exercise I used to practice fast picking.

This is a finger pattern I devised myself, about 31 years ago, to practice fast picking as well as give me something that was easy to play fast and still usable.

Here’s a picture of it, with the finger numbers included. This is what it should look like from your point of view, with the thickest string being at the bottom of the picture.

fast guitar solo pattern

The way to practice playing fast with this pattern is to use alternate picking. In other words down up down on the 6th string, then up down up on the 5th string and so on. It doesn’t matter which direction you start with, as long as the next pick is in the opposite direction.

You should play from the lowest note to the highest as well as back again from the highest note to the lowest.

Although this is not technically speaking an actual guitar scale, the above pattern will work nicely over an E minor and an A major, as well as an E, A, D and G power chord.

Just remember to play fast guitar solos when using this pattern, cos it may not work out so nicely with the passing notes (the ones with the 2nd finger).

Last but not least, keep practicing till you break the speed barrier. It may seem like you’re making no progress the one day, and then the next thing you know you’re flying across the fretboard with style and finesse.

The true power of a distorted rock guitar power chord.

I remember it well. The guitar player magazine that ended my first marriage. It was an ad for the Art SGX 2000, a new guitar multi-effects processor with a valve preamp and digital effects.

It only took three words for me to know I just had to have it. Wanna know what they where?

Sure, they mentioned all the features, but that wasn’t what hypnotized me to buy the thing, it was those three words in bold and larger than the rest of the writing that stood out at the bottom of the page.

“Pure Heartstopping distortion!”

Isn’t that what every rock guitarist wants?

If you’re just getting started learning how to play rock guitar, there’s nothing more motivational than having a great distortion sound to crank out those power chords.

Power chords are the foundation of most rock rhythm guitar.

So what is a power chord?

A power chord is made up of the root note of a chord, and the 5th, so seeing as it’s only really two notes, it doesn’t really qualify as a chord.

The cool thing about power chords is that you don’t have to worry about majors and minors, seeing as it’s actually the 3rd note in a chord that determines whether it’s major or minor.

I see I’m going to have to explain myself further.

What is a third and a fifth? and for that matter, what’s a root note?

The root note is the lowest sounding note of a chord and it’s the one used to name the chord, so if you’re playing an F, then you know that the lowest sounding note of that chord is an F, simple enough.

To understand what a 3rd and a 5th is, you need to know the note intervals of the major scale. No need to panic, it’s quite simple.

If you’re playing an F, for example, the scale that tells you what the third and fifth are, is the F major scale.

I just need to add here that if you’re not too interested in the theory, and you just want to play the things, I’ve put a page up on my main website, and it’s simply titled Power Chords

But I would stick around a bit cos this is good theory to know. Okay, back to the F major scale.

All major scales follow the same pattern, and that is, going from the root note, or Tonic, which in this case would be the F note, the second note would be a whole tone up, in this case G, the third note would be a whole tone up again – A, then the fourth note would be a semitone up A# (A sharp) and the fifth note would be a C, which is a whole tone up. The sixth note would be a whole tone up which is D, the seventh note would again be a whole tone up which is E, and then the octave, which is a semitone up again, is F.

So in terms of the guitar, a whole tone = a 2 fret interval, and a semitone = 1 fret interval

so in terms of the guitar fretboard, the major scale goes 2 frets, 2 frets, 1 fret, 2 frets, 2 frets, 2 frets, 1 fret. And in terms of 3rds and 5ths and 7ths and all that, it’s simple 1234567 and so on.

If you’re playing a major chord, the notes that make up a major chord are the root, third and fifth of whatever major scale the chords root note is.

In the F example, the notes that make up the F major chord are F, A, and C, but if you’re playing an F Power chord, you only play F and C.

Here are some pictures that show where the third and 5th are in relation to the root note. These three notes are called Triads.

Now the really cool thing about the guitar is that everything works in patterns, or shapes if you like.

If you were to look for the G major Triad, the shape remains the same, you just move it up 2 frets, and so on for any other Major Triads.

Okay, so now you definitely know where to find the third and the fifth on your guitar.

Sorry I had to take you on that major detour (Pardon the pun) just so you could understand what I mean when I say power chords are made up of the root and the 5th.

The most commonly used power chord in rock music.

This would be power chords made up of the root note, the fifth, and the octave. The added octave just makes it a little fuller sounding. Here’s a picture of a G power chord to illustrate the point. The little X’s on the nut mean that you shouldn’t play those strings.

The G power chord could also be called a G5 chord

An F power chord could also be called F5, but don’t press F5 on the keyboard and expect help with power chords.

Just to hammer home a point, all the power chords played on the E, or 6th string will keep the same shape, so an F5 power chord will look like this.

There are many more places on the fretboard where power chords can be played, so now that you’ve got a better understanding of what makes a power chord, at least I hope you’ve got a better understanding of power chords, you should pay a visit to my main page on power chords at play-electric-guitar.net

Power chords in dropped D tuning – The beginner rock guitarists short cut

When it comes to beginner electric guitar lessons, this has to be the quickest and easiest short cut I know of to fast track to playing power chords on the guitar. Especially if you’ve only just recently started to play the guitar and your fingertips feel like they really need a break.

To be perfectly honest though, when I first started learning how to play the electric guitar, no-one told me about this, and I think it’s only recently that a lot of guitarists have started to do it.

Here’s how you do it.

Detune the 6th string E down to D, so instead of the tuning being EADGBE it’s now DADGBE, and by the way, the 6th string is the thickest one.

It should be quite easy to tell when the 6th string is tuned to D, cos it’ll sound like the open 4th string except it’ll be an octave lower – same note but half the frequency.

With this alternate tuning you can play power chords using only one finger. The strings you play are the 4th 5th and 6th strings. Try not to let any of the other strings on the guitar make a sound.

You place your finger flat across the fretboard, preferably just behind or at least in the middle between the frets, and then you strum the 4th 5th and 6th strings.

Here’s a picture of the fretboard, and most of the power chords you can play with dropped D tuning.

I know it looks like you have to use three fingers, but you only need one finger.

The three open strings are a D power chord. Once you’ve got your finger flat across the fretboard you can basically just slide it back and forth to get to whichever power chord you want. Simple isn’t it?

If you need more info on tuning the guitar and other beginner guitar chords you can browse the main site play-electric-guitar.net

Having worked in the music production and backing track industry for the last 12 years as a guitarist come music arranger, one thing has become quite obvious to me.

Playing lead guitar to a backing track definitely makes a big difference to how well you play guitar solos. I often have to stop myself from just soloing endlessly over the backing, when I know I should be concentrating on finishing the backing track. Customers waiting and all you know.

But anyway, here’s the thing. Sometimes I’ve wasted too much time, and the song is due yesterday already, so I skimp on copying the exact guitar solo that’s in the song, and make up my own. This is quite easy to do when I’ve spent some time on just jamming to the track.

If you want to play guitar solos that are meaningful and fit into the song, it’s a good idea to have practiced with the same kind of rhythm and chord structure. Backing tracks, or “Jam tracks” as they’re sometimes called – Jam tracks being more specifically created for playing guitar over, are an excellent way to improve your soloing style.

Sitting in your bedroom and running over scales and learning guitar licks is all fine and well. You do improve on your soloing skills a lot when doing that, but when it comes to making up your own guitar solos, and getting it to sit well with the song, getting some decent Jam along tracks to practice to is a major help.

If you can – Start a band.

The reason I say this, is because way back, when I first started to play lead guitar, I learned most of my guitar scales and lead runs sitting on my own in the bedroom, with no interaction with any other musicians. I thought I was doing alright but…

Later when I joined a band and started playing lead guitar to a whole lot of different songs, it took a lot of work to actually really get into the songs. I spent a two month stint down the coast as the lead guitarist for the band, and when I came back home I realized that my playing had improved radically.

For the first time ever, when I played a solo, it worked as if I’d taken it straight off the record.

Playing with a band for a good while, or failing that, some decent guitar backing tracks, just kicks your solo guitar style up a few notches.

Later then.

When I first learned to play lead guitar, I basically taught myself. I had no lead guitar lessons to work from. My knowledge of music theory was very limited, and all I had as a starting point was a simple finger exercise in the key of C.

I don’t want to bore you here with my life story, so let’s just get on with the lead guitar lessons.

The first step to playing lead guitar – The major scale.

I know some people will say that to learn to play lead guitar, you should start out with the pentatonic scale. I never bothered to learn the pentatonic scale, mostly because I didn’t have any information on it.

I had just joined a band as the lead guitarist, and I wasn’t one – so that little major scale finger exercise was just going to have to do. There’s a page on my site titled Lead guitar lesson one that shows it, and gives you some tips on how to work out the entire scale all the way along the fretboard.

A good reason for working it all out yourself, is that it becomes firmly embedded in your mind. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for you, I needed to expand on the whole lead guitar lessons theme, for which I had to draw the entire C major scale with every position or pattern clearly marked out.

Best thing is to work it out yourself then check it with my Full Fretboard C Major Scale page.

Once you’ve really familiarized yourself with the different patterns, you’ll begin to recognize how various chord shapes fit into specific scale patterns. A good example of this is if you take the first pattern, you’ll see how an A minor open, a C open, an F open etc, all fit nicely in there.

I’ve tried to explain this using as little music theory as possible. I think for myself, playing lead guitar is very much a visual exercise. You don’t want to be thinking too much during a solo. If your fingers get used to the different patterns, and your ears guide you well – you can start playing really passionate lead guitar solos.

How I play blues guitar solo’s or rock n roll.

Here’s something that confused the Dickens out of me when I first started playing lead guitar. Many standard blues progressions, as also used in rock and roll songs, are just plain musically incorrect.

In a standard major key, you can’t have a seventh chord as your root chord, and then compound the problem by adding a seventh to both the 4th and 5th chords as well.

If you’re playing a blues number in the key of A, you can forget about trying to solo over it in the key of A major – It just doesn’t work.

Here’s a tip. Try playing to it in the key of G for the A7 and the D7, then switch to the key of A for the E7. It’s not perfect, but I’ve gotten away with it for years, and it makes an interesting solo. Now all that may sound complicated, but it’s really just a matter of moving the pattern up 2 frets for that extra chord.

The other alternative, which is what most people use, is called the blues scale. I’ve never learned the blues scale, although I play it all the time. It’s hidden inside the major scale and it’s also called the pentatonic scale. When I do play blues, I play a lot of other notes as well, but that’s because I’m following the chords and not just playing in a certain key.

Here’s the pentatonic lead guitar pattern for the key of A, at the fifth fret – where you’d play an A Bar chord. It looks very similar to the G major scale pattern at the 5th fret.

Here I added the extra notes in green for G ….. hmmm

Playing rock lead guitar over power chords.

When it comes to rock music, my approach is pretty much the same as my blues approach. But I generally don’t bother with changing keys for that extra chord. It’s a lot easier to figure out when you’re mostly dealing with root notes and fifths.

Two semitones back from what looks like the root chord of the song, and the patterns above work like a bomb. Don’t forget to keep your ears open though for any unexpected surprises.

Okay, confession time – I’m not one of those guys who can instantly solo over any song without first becoming familiar with it, and getting a good feel for what works best. You don’t have to be either.

I don’t think there are many of those people around anyway.

Just a short note to end off this guitar lessons blog post. You should look into learning the harmonic minor scale as well, cos someone’s going to play something with a Spanish progression, and you’ll need it.

Cheers for now – Keep rockin