Play This for 2 Minutes & See Why Guitarists Get Addicted
If you are able to commit to a consistent but short effort, (as little as 2 minuets), learning the keys, along with a few arpeggio shapes on the neck, you will be amazed at how much better your knowledge for diatonic harmonized arpeggios will become in just a short period of time!
When diatonic harmonized key practice is organized as arpeggios and then combined with focused attention on their neck patterns, and how you pick through them, your skills for this area will explode!
So, I need to ask you, do you want to get your key signatures and your chord harmony (for all the keys), memorized? Well… if you said yes, you’re going to have to give me 2 minutes of your time (per day) for at least about 3-weeks to get this done.
Not, one minute, but two minutes. Because I have an exercise for you that’s just under 2 min. long and it breaks down a key’s chord harmony into a routine that’s not only fun to play, but it’s also really quite easy to memorize!
On top of that, it’s also a great exercise for getting better at your picking technique! Plus, it sounds cool so it’s something that you’ll find fun to play. So, if you’re ready to try this – let’s get started.
GETTING STARTED:
The exercise I have for you focuses on a key signatures harmony. What this means is, when we take a key, (and for this lesson we’ll use the key of “F Major” for our demonstration purpose), so when we take a key and assign each step of the key its chord types, we get the harmony for the key.
Now, the good news is that the harmony always remains the same no matter what key that you’re in. And, the chord movement inside of the key is important to commit to memory because it always stays the same.
So, start by making sure that you know the chord movements inside of a key. I’m going to go through them right now and I’ll call out each chord...
Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major, Minor, Diminished
Just memorize that sequence of chord qualities and you’ll always know all of the chords that are found inside any key signature used in music!
1st SHAPE and the EXAMPLE PICKING PATTERN:
The first pattern from the key’s harmony as a shape on the guitar looks like this…
When I was first shown this exercise, the teacher I had asked me to create a picking pattern with the notes so that I was “not only learning my harmony on the neck,” but I was also improving my pick hand technique as well.
I’ve taught this to a lot of players and I’ve found that having a picking pattern is valuable, so let me demonstrate how an example picking pattern might actually work.
Keep in mind that the Root note of the first pattern, (or you could also think of it as an arpeggio pattern as well), the first root note is the note of “F” which is located on the 4th guitar string.
So, please start the pattern and end the pattern from that root note. That way, you’re always generating the correct interval layout of sound to be able to produce the color of the degree that you happen to be on. In this case, since we’re in the key of “F Major,” our Root note is an “F” and the quality of this pattern is “Major.”
Now, when it comes to a picking sequence I’m going to leave that up to you, but for today’s demonstration you can try using this example I have for you.
So, as you can tell the idea that we started with is all organized around, first selecting a key signature, then establishing the layout of the key’s first chord harmony, (or if you prefer you can just think of it as an arpeggio), and then, you can work out a picking pattern to use across the notes.
2nd SHAPE with the EXAMPLE PICKING PATTERN:
Now that we’re rolling along with this exercise, the next step is to move on to the next chord in the key. Remember, we’re in the key of “F Major,” so our second chord is built off of the second note of this key, and that note is the note of “G.” With the chord quality of, “Minor.”
Keep in mind that the root of this step of the key is “G,” so you’ll want to focus on that step to align the intervals correctly and create the color of Minor.
Also, remember to apply the picking pattern that we’d established from the “F Chord” back in the first pattern layout, but now applied to the “G Minor chord.
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I wanted to take a minute to let you know, that if you want to learn even more about scales and theory I have a great offer for you.
With any donation over $5, or any merchandise purchase from my Tee-Spring store, I’ll send you free copies of THREE of my most popular digital handouts.
One is called, “Harmonized Arpeggio Drills” (it’ll train you on developing your diatonic arpeggios).
Another one is my “Barre Chord” Handout which includes a page showing all the key signatures along with a chord progression that applies barre chords.
Plus, you’ll get my Notation Pack! It has 8 pages of important guitar worksheets for notating anything related to; music charts, guitar chord diagrams, and TAB.
As a BONUS, (from my "Over 40 and Still Can't Play a Scale" video), I'll also throw in a breakdown of all of the chords that are diatonic to the "F Major" scale.
As an EXTRA BONUS for my Phrygian Dominant video, I'll also throw in a breakdown featuring all of the chords that are diatonic to the Phrygian Dominant scale.
Just send me an email off of the contact page of CreativeGuitarStudio.com to let me know about either your donation or your Merchandise purchase and I’ll email you those digital handouts within 24 hrs.
____________________________________________________
I wanted to take a minute to let you know, that if you want to learn even more about scales and theory I have a great offer for you.
With any donation over $5, or any merchandise purchase from my Tee-Spring store, I’ll send you free copies of THREE of my most popular digital handouts.
One is called, “Harmonized Arpeggio Drills” (it’ll train you on developing your diatonic arpeggios).
Another one is my “Barre Chord” Handout which includes a page showing all the key signatures along with a chord progression that applies barre chords.
Plus, you’ll get my Notation Pack! It has 8 pages of important guitar worksheets for notating anything related to; music charts, guitar chord diagrams, and TAB.
As a BONUS, (from my "Over 40 and Still Can't Play a Scale" video), I'll also throw in a breakdown of all of the chords that are diatonic to the "F Major" scale.
As an EXTRA BONUS for my Phrygian Dominant video, I'll also throw in a breakdown featuring all of the chords that are diatonic to the Phrygian Dominant scale.
Just send me an email off of the contact page of CreativeGuitarStudio.com to let me know about either your donation or your Merchandise purchase and I’ll email you those digital handouts within 24 hrs.
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THE FINAL STEP:
Now that you understand the basic principle for how we’re building our way through each step of a key signatures chord harmony, (or arpeggio harmony - however you’d like to look at it), the next thing that we’re going to do is travel step wise through all of the remaining notes of the key.
THE REMAINING PATTERNS OF THE KEY:
We’ll keep doing the same thing with the correct chord quality and the same picking pattern.
The third step of “F Major’s” harmony is “A Minor.”
The fourth step of “F Major’s” harmony is “Bb Major.”
The fifth step of “F Major’s” harmony is “C Major.”
The sixth step of “F Major’s” harmony is “D Minor.”
The seventh step of “F Major’s” harmony is “E Diminished.”
Once you’ve worked out your key, and you’ve determined all of the notes that are a part of the key, (along with establishing the patterns on the neck), your next stage of this exercise will be based upon moving through the entire key ascending and descending.
The daily goal will be to perform the entire routine up and down the fingerboard within a time frame of 2 minutes. In the beginning, 2 minutes might not be enough. But, as the days go on, and with practice, you should be able to accomplish the entire exercise within a 2 minute time frame.
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