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Books and Articles by Desi Serna
Desi Serna has built a substantial online platform as an engaging and approachable guitar guru-a guitar player and teacher with more than 10,000 hours of experience providing private guitar lessons and classes. Serna is hailed as a "music-theory expert" by Rolling Stone magazine.
Articles & Books From Desi Serna
Video / Updated 11-09-2022
Open chords are chords that fall within the first four frets typically using open strings. They sound twangy because they include unfretted strings that are permitted to ring open. This chart represents 24 of the most useful open chords you use to play guitar:
Article / Updated 09-22-2022
You can use chord patterns to track chord progressions in the open position on the guitar, although doing so takes some extra work and requires that you identify the actual note name of each chord.To play in the key of G using common open chords, visualize the 6th string chord pattern starting on G at the 3rd fret and replace each barre chord with an open chord.
Article / Updated 09-16-2022
A triad is a set of three notes stacked in 3rds. Playing in 3rds on the guitar means that you start on a scale degree, count it as “1,” and then move to the scale degree that is three away, “3.” For example, the G major scale is G-A-B-C-D-E-F♯.If you start counting from G, then the 3rd is B (G-A-B, 1-2-3). If you start counting from A, then the 3rd is C (A-B-C, 1-2-3).
Article / Updated 07-22-2022
On the guitar, Ionian mode is the first mode of the major scale. It’s the sound that’s created when the 1st scale degree is functioning as the tonic. It’s better known as the plain major scale. In fact, musicians generally don’t use the name Ionian and don’t consider it a mode.
Ionian is the plain major scale.
Article / Updated 07-22-2022
After you know how to approach a dominant 7th chord in a blues fashion on the guitar, you’re ready to tackle a whole chord progression. The most common type of blues chord progression is the so-called twelve-bar blues. It’s based on what appears to be the I-IV-V chords of a key, and it’s actually one of the most popular chord progressions in all of popular music.
Article / Updated 07-22-2022
When you’re ready to cover the entire fretboard on the guitar with the harmonic minor scale, you have a couple of choices to make. First, you have to decide how you want to organize the notes of the harmonic minor scale into patterns.
To keep things simple, here are you five patterns. Over time, these patterns will start to run together, and you’ll stop thinking of them in only the five forms shown here.
Article / Updated 07-22-2022
You can’t talk about blues on the guitar without mentioning the so-called blues scale, which is really just a pentatonic scale with a chromatic passing tone. This added scale tone is a f5th in the minor pentatonic. When the pattern is applied as major, the same note in the patterns becomes a f3rd.
Here is an example that includes A minor pentatonic patterns with added f5ths shown in gray.
Article / Updated 07-22-2022
On the guitar, Phrygian is the third mode of the major scale. It’s the sound that’s created when the 3rd scale degree is functioning as the tonic. Because it features a f3rd and centers on a minor chord, it’s considered a minor mode.
Drawing from the G major scale, Phrygian mode looks like this:
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
Looking at this scale’s construction, Phrygian mode can be thought of as a natural minor scale with a flattened 2nd.
Article / Updated 07-22-2022
On the guitar, Lydian is the fourth mode of the major scale, and the sound that’s created when the 4th scale degree functions as the tonic. Because it features a major 3rd and centers on a major chord, it’s considered a major mode.
Drawing from the G major scale, Lydian mode looks like this:
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
C Lydian
1-2-3-s4-5-6-7
C-D-E-Fs-G-A-B
I-II-iii-sivf5-V-vi-vii
C-D-Em-Fsmf5-G-Am-Bm
Lydian can be thought of as a major scale with a raised 4th, it’s most defining characteristic.
Article / Updated 07-22-2022
On the guitar, Dorian mode is the second mode of the major scale. It’s the sound that’s created when the 2nd scale degree is functioning as the tonic. Because it features a f3rd and centers on a minor chord, it’s considered a minor mode.
Drawing from the G major scale, Dorian mode looks like this:
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
A Dorian
1-2-f3-4-5-6-f7
A-B-C-D-E-Fs-G
i-ii-fIII-IV-v-vif5-fVII
Am-Bm-C-D-Em-Fsmf5-G
Looking at this scale’s construction, Dorian mode can be thought of as a natural minor scale with a major 6th.
