How much do you know about chords existing outside of open position? Can you run through chords of a key using in position and along the neck chord drills? Most aspiring guitar players can't, because they understand very little about this concept of harmony... 


If this sounds like you, then you're in luck because this lesson will bust your chops when it comes to understanding chords and how they exist outside of the open position...




This lesson will not only help you better understand the chords that are located within a key signature, but these drills will also work great to help polish up your chord knowledge when it comes to performing the different fingering techniques used across all your diatonic chords of Major and Minor keys…

WATCH THE LESSON VIDEO:



A lot of guitar players do most of their learning about chords from the study of songs, and unfortunately all too often the chords being practiced are shapes that are almost entirely dedicated to existing only in the first position of the neck.

Now, while this is alright, it sure doesn’t allow for a guitarist to learn about chords located along and across the entire fret-board. And, if you only know chords that exist in the open position, it certainly doesn’t help a practicing guitarist learn how chords can occur within other fingerboard locations.




EXERCISE #1).
Major Key Center (key of "A Major")
The first exercise is based upon being in the key of “A Major” and uses the triad level chord harmony performed within the 4th to 6th fingerboard positions of the neck (from the “A” located at the 6th string root).

Here’s how this study breaks down on the guitar neck…





EXERCISE #2).
Minor Key Center (key of "F# Minor")The next thing that we’re going to do is drop the exercise over to this keys relative minor. 

If you’re already somewhat familiar with the key of “A Major” (and you have a general understanding of the theory involved with relative keys – i.e., Relative Minor), then you’ll already understand that the minor keys exist off of the major scales sixth step.

That means from off of an, “A” our sixth step inside the key is “F#.” So, we’re going to do an associated position drill from off of the key of “F# Minor.”

Here’s how this study operates, when performed from off of the 5th string root…





EXERCISE #3).
Interval Key Signature DrillFrom this point onward it’s kind of up to you how you want to expand upon this exercise. You can skip over tones using sequencing ideas in the key, or you can set your sights upon a specific interval movement, (which is something I like introducing early on with my own students).

However you begin expanding upon this study, it certainly won’t take you very long to build up your skills with using the chords of a key center. And, once you can do these studies, you’ll really get good at performing chords all over and around the guitar neck.

Before wrapping up, let me leave you with an interval exercise that applies this exact scale harmony process that we’ve been working on in this lesson…






CONCLUSION:
Once you build up some skill with these examples, (and try them out in all the other musical keys), you’ll start noticing a whole new level of skill and control for using these triad chords on the guitar.

I’d also highly recommend taking these exercises further in harmony to develop them with using the 7th chord qualities as well.




VISIT THE WEB-SITE:
Well, hey, thanks for joining me, If you'd like to Find Out What You Should Learn on Guitar - take a look at the courses over on my website at CreativeGuitarStudio.com.

My step-by-step; Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced courses will cover what you need to know, along with how to be able to move forward and become the best player that you can be.

I've worked on these courses since 1992 and I feel that all together they're the best guitar program you'll ever find. The courses will help you learn to identify what's required to get you up to the next level of guitar playing, in a very organized way, that makes sense.

I look forward to helping you further at, CreativeGuitarStudio.com ... 

And, as always, if you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more, until next time, take care and we'll catch up again on the next video. Bye for now!

Do you understand the diminished chord? Are you using them in songs or playing them in exercises? The diminished chord can be somewhat of a mystery to a lot of guitar players. In this lesson I'll break down the three levels of diminished chords - both on the guitar as fretting patterns and within a number of chord progressions that you can begin jamming on right now...



Let’s face it, diminished chord quality isn’t as common as the basic major and minor chord types. And, when the diminished chords are used, they tend to either be in passing, or they’re played as a part of specific styles like classical music or jazz.

So, to help you become better familiar with these chords, I’ll be breaking down the "three levels" of Diminished for you in this episode of the Guitar Blog Insider…

WATCH THE VIDEO:



LEVEL 1).
DIMINISHED TRIADS (SHAPES)
Guitar Players will most often tend to discover the diminished chord used as a passing chord in somewhere like a; folk song, or in a country tune, maybe even perhaps in some blues number or in traditional /ethnic music piece.

But wherever you discover the diminished chord, more often than not this chord type will show up as a triad, (1, b3, b5). This means that the diminished will have three tones (the Root, the minor 3rd and the Diminished 5th). Let’s run through some shapes for these types to get started with.





DIMINISHED TRIAD APPLICATION
These chord qualities will tend to either occur as a passing chord, (such as being placed in between a pair of diatonic major chords, as when there would be a move made in-between a IV and V chord.



Another popular placement will be in minor keys, where the diminished will function as a borrowed chord from the parallel Harmonic Minor harmony. This will have the diminished occur off of the raised seventh degree of the key center.

Here’s an example of that type of thing happening.




LEVEL 2).
½ DIMINISHED TRIADS (SHAPES)
If you’ve ever studied jazz, or if you’ve ever played any Latin music, you’ve definitely come across the half-diminished chord.

It is important to state here right away that this chord does have another highly popular name. This chord’s other common name would be the “Minor 7(b5),” chord.

So, let’s start by running through some of the common chord patterns for the Minor 7(b5) chord type.




MINOR 7(b5) APPLICATION
The Minor 7th(b5) chord shows up most often as a II-chord in a minor key center. Although it will also (on rare occasion), show up as a II-chord in a major key as well, (like in the jazz standard “Star Eyes,” composed by Gene de Paul  - that I play a few bars from the harmony line at the start of this lessons YouTube video).

First, here’s an example of the Minor 7(b5) being used as a II-chord in a Minor key “II-V-I” progression.



II-Chord in a (more rare) Major Key “II-V-I”





LEVEL 3).
DIMINISHED 7th (SHAPES)
In my final example level of the Diminished chord use and application I want to make a study of the “Fully Diminished” chord, (also otherwise commonly known of as the, “Diminished 7th).

This diminished chord is found in the Harmonic Minor Scale’s chord harmony functioning on the raised 7th degree and it sounds really nice when it’s applied off of that chord step in Minor keys.

But, before we get too ahead of ourselves with application, let’s run through some fingerboard patterns of this “Fully” Diminished Seventh chord quality.






DIMINISHED 7th APPLICATION
The diminished 7th chord can be applied in all of the same ways that the Diminished Triad is used. However, one of the most popular applications that you’ll find for the use of this dim.7 chord type is what is often referred to as the “Diminished 7th Substitute.” 

In this case the Diminished seventh chord is applied as a substitute chord for a “Dominant 7th.” Let’s check out how this can operate. First we’ll start with a chord progression that just has Dominant 7th chords used in it, and then we’ll start introducing the “Dim.7” chord substitute…

No Dim.7th Substitute:




Dim.7th Substitute:
added alongside the III-Chord and as a straight sub for the V-Chord.




Dim. 7th substitute:
added alongside the V-Chord’s sub, but applied as an inversion.






CONCLUSION:
The interesting thing about Dim.7th chords is how they act as substitutes and how they can function within progressions as substitutes for diatonic Dom.7 chords, or for Secondary Dominant chords.

And also, how diminished 7th chords don’t need to exist off of their root notes, (because being symmetrical every note of this chord can act as a root note). This allows for a lot of flexibility in the Diminished 7th chords application. 



VISIT THE WEB-SITE:
I'd like to end the discussion by saying, thanks for joining me... If you want to learn more about what I do as an online guitar teacher, then head over to my website at creativeguitarstudio.com and sign up your FREE lifetime membership.

Down the road you can always upgrade to either a Basic, or a Premium lesson package and start studying all of the professionally organized guitar courses that I've organized for the members of my website.

Also, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on all of this in the comment section below... if you enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more on YouTube. Thanks again and we'll catch up next week, for another episode of the, "Guitar Blog Insider."

July 27, 2018:
RHYTHM GUITAR 010:
Spanish and Latin Rhythms
 
 NEW  The tenth lesson of "Rhythm Guitar" studies the unique rhythmic feel found in Spanish and Latin music including the; Tango, the Merengue and Samba.

Four examples cover four detailed rhythmic examples along with twenty-two chord shapes that are common to the Latin guitar style. Plus, there's a bonus "Rhythm Challenge" (MP3 Jam Track and TAB's) that applies rhythm guitar layering using chords along with filler lines over a recurring harmony in, "Bb Major."

A bonus for BASIC and PREMIUM web-site members are the MP3 play-along tracks that will help with learning each rhythm example. 


Paid Web-site members (BASIC and PREMIUM), can watch the associated video lessons and download the detailed PDF handout, along with the MP3 clap /strum play-along tracks...

Join the member's area to download the PDF handout and MP3's. Study all of the examples with full access to both video lessons. Be sure to spend some additional time on learning the "Rhythm Jam Challenge" piece that I performed at the start of the lesson in the "Part One" video...

Watch the Part One Video FREE on YouTube:






Paid members can download the handout along with the MP3 jamtracks in the members area at: CreativeGuitarStudio.com

How bad is it to play a major 3rd on a sus4 chord? Well, this week on Twitter guitarist “Alex Skolnick” published a funny tweet about this. His Tweet was actually a spin-off of another Tweet made by someone about their cat. Alex’s spin-off of that was saying how bad it would be to play a major 3rd over a sus4 chord... Get it?

You'll only get his joke if you know and understand what he’s suggesting with the sound of that interval (and the color clash it creates). 

However, if you don't perfectly understand the musical joke of Alex's Tweet and if you’re not exactly sure what he’s getting at overall, then this lesson should help to clear things up...




WATCH THE VIDEO:



DISSONANCE AND CONSONANCE:
When we have notes in a melody that clash against chord tones, we normally call that out of balance sound, “Dissonance.” And, when it happens, the clash of tones of a Dissonant interval can come across as being pretty unstable sounding.

When notes sound more stable and more balanced in our chord tone and melody situations, we’ll call that sound, “Consonance.” One of the most stable Consonant sounding intervals is a “perfect” interval.

Probably the most popular of those for rock players is the “Perfect fifth,” (otherwise known as the “Power Chord”).

On the flip-side of all this, one of the most unstable of intervals is the “Minor 2nd.” The clash produced form a Minor 2nd interval is pretty sour sounding.



A CLASH OF TONES:
In respect to that Twitter post made by Alex Skolnick, let’s find out just exactly what happens when we perform a Major 3rd resolution against a “Suspended 4th” chord.

First, let’s start out with what will be our chord progression, for our example… I’ve created a chord progression in the key of “F Major.”

The Example Progression:



Now, let’s play the first pass through landing on the tone that Alex Skolnick warned us about (resolving onto the major 3rd when performing the suspended 4th chord). Here’s how that sounds.

Keep in mind that the suspended 4th chord is going to be performed on the last measure…


Melodic Example 1). "Dissonance"



Next, let’s get into some further study with this sound. As you can tell, it isn’t all that great of a sound on that chord being covered right now. What I’m going to do first is lead into that suspended 4th chord by way of anticipating the sound of our suspended 4th tone in the preceding measure.

In this case, that sus4 tone is “F.”  So, what we’re going to do is; cover that sus4 chord with its 5th, 6th and root tones (G, A, C), and that’s going to really lock down on that sus 4 chord... Here’s what those ideas sound like…

Melodic Example 2). "Consonance"



Alright, now we're going to make one more refinement with this sound to really polish it up. For this final idea, I will exclusively lock into the sound of the sus4 chords’ root (C) and the Sus4 tone itself (F).

This will really tighten-up the sound overall since those specific tones are very strong and they offer the listener a chance to better comprehend the color of that sus4 chord as it’s used in the progression.

 Melodic Example 3). "More Consonance"




CONCLUSION:
Be sure to download all the TAB for this melody line that I've composed, and most importantly, be sure to download the MP3 Jam-Track of the backing chord progression, (so that you can start practicing these ideas on your own).

Ya know, Alex Skolnick brought up a very important principle in that Tweet of his, because chord tone targeting, (whether good or bad), makes a huge difference in the way that our melodic lines sound.

It’s something that I was never really exposed to in my early years, when I was studying guitar. I really wish that I had been, since studying interval ideas always has a big impact on melodic control.

Make sure that you spend some time practicing this stuff. The tones of a scale and the chord tones of underlying chords are the main connections that we have when it comes to composing and improvising our music. 




VISIT THE WEB-SITE:
Well, hey, thanks for joining me, If you'd like to Find Out What You Should Learn on Guitar - take a look at the courses over on my website at CreativeGuitarStudio.com.

My step-by-step; Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced courses will cover what you need to know, along with how to be able to move forward and become the best player that you can be.

I've worked on these courses since 1992 and I feel that all together they're the best guitar program you'll ever find. The courses will help you learn to identify what's required to get you up to the next level of guitar playing, in a very organized way, that makes sense.

So, I look forward to helping you further at CreativeGuitarStudio.com

As always, if you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more on YouTube. Until next time, take care and we'll catch up again on the next video. Bye for now!