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Articles & Books From Desi Serna
Make your guitar sing with insight on music theory brings your instrument to life There’s a universe of incredible music living in your guitar. You just need to discover how to let it out. In Guitar Theory For Dummies, expert guitarist and instructor Desi Serna walks you through the music theory concepts you need to understand to expand your musical horizons.
A one-stop resource to the essentials of owning and playing the guitar If you’ve just bought a guitar, or you’ve had one for a while, you probably know it takes some time and effort to learn how to play the popular instrument. There’s so much to know about owning, maintaining, and playing a guitar. Where do you even begin?
Cheat Sheet / Updated 04-27-2022
Guitar theory is an area of study that explains how you can play, improvise, and compose popular music on the guitar fretboard — and why certain elements of music go together the way they do.Dive into guitar theory by exploring a fretboard diagram showing notes along the 6th and 5th strings; some major scale patterns; Roman numerals and the major/minor chord sequence; and mode names.
Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-10-2022
Learning to play the guitar is a lot fun. Use this cheat sheet to help you get started with your guitar finger placement and guitar chords. If you need help with finger placement on your guitar, use tablature (tab) and fingerboard diagrams.Practice playing the most common open-position chords on your guitar to get that “jangly” sound, and make sure you know the notes on the neck of your guitar to change starting notes in scales, chords, and arpeggios.
Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-15-2022
This Cheat Sheet has some handy tips that you can keep in your practice area for quick reference.Use these techniques to review your basic rhythms and warm up your hands at the beginning of a playing session. Before you begin, trim and file the nails on your fretting hand so that nothing comes between your fingertips and the strings.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
Knowing guitar theory is one thing — applying it is another. To become a strong guitar player, you have to practice and play. This article includes suggestions to help you implement an understanding of guitar theory in your playing. The following are some of the best ways to practice along with tricks to help you take advantage of every playing opportunity.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
Modal interchange, sometimes called modal mixture, is a guitar technique through which you combine chords from parallel scales. A parallel scale is any scale that starts on the same pitch. For example, the A major scale and the A minor scale are parallel. Because the tonic pitch remains the same with modal interchange, it isn’t considered a key change.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
On the guitar, you can use the CAGED arpeggios to form minor chord arpeggios just as you can with major chord voicings. To do this, you lower all the 3rds in each arpeggio pattern to minor 3rds (f3rds). This simple adjustment changes everything from major to minor. You then fret and play different kinds of minor chord voicings with each of the five minor CAGED forms.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
The major scale is a seven-step scale that’s built using a formula of whole and half steps. You can play a major scale on the guitar by starting on any pitch and moving up in the following specified steps (W = whole step; H = half step):
W-W-H-W-W-W-H
For example, if you start on the open 6th string, the 2nd note is a whole step (two frets) higher at the 2nd fret.
Article / Updated 03-26-2016
Phrygian is the third mode of the major scale on the guitar — when the 3rd scale degree functions as the tonic. It’s considered a minor key because it centers on a minor chord.
This type of minor scale is pretty uncommon, but some heavy metal artists use it for its dark, unusual sound. Here’s what happens to the G major scale when you reorganize its notes and chords, beginning with the 3rd degree, B, to produce B Phrygian mode:
G major
1-2-3-4-5-6-7
G-A-B-C-D-E-Fs
I-ii-iii-IV-V-vi-viif5
G-Am-Bm-C-D-Em-Fsmf5
B Phrygian
1-f2-f3-4-5-f6-f7
B-C-D-E-Fs-G-A
i-fII-fIII-iv-vf5-fVI-fvii
Bm-C-D-Em-Fsmf5-G-Am
Phrygian is a type of minor scale with a flattened 2nd as its most defining characteristic.