Guitar Theory For Dummies: Book + Online Video & Audio Instruction
Overview
Serious about jamming, understanding, and creating guitar-driven music? Easy. With an approachable and engaging style, Guitar Theory For Dummies goes beyond guitar basics, presenting the guidance intermediate to advanced players need to improve their improvisational and compositional skills. Plus, with access to audio tracks and video instruction online you can master the concepts and techniques covered in the book. Key content coverage includes: pentatonic and major scale patterns; the CAGED chord system, chord progressions, and playing by numbers; roots, keys, and applying scales, plus modes and modal scales; intervals and chord extensions; popular song references and theory applications that help you understand how to play popular music and contemporary guitar styles, and create music of your own.
- This title also features companion audio tracks and video content hosted online at Dummies.com
- The expert instruction and easy-to-digest information provides comprehensive guidance on how to apply music theory concepts to fretted instruments
If you already have a handle on the basics and want to know more about the building blocks and theory behind guitar music, Guitar Theory For Dummies has you covered.
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About The Author
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.
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guitar theory for dummies: book + online video & audio instruction
CHEAT SHEET
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.
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"Hotel California" by the Eagles features one of the best-known extended dual guitar solos of all time, and understanding the music theory behind it will help you master it. The chord sequence isn't a commonly used progression, and properly applying scales to it requires some extra insight.
The guitar solo section is played over the same chord progression heard in the song's introduction and verses.
On the guitar, there are many types of chords that include 2nds and 9ths, but the three that you’re most likely to encounter are sus2, add9, and 9 chords. You start with the sus2 chord, a chord that has its 3rd replaced or suspended by a 2nd.
Basics of sus2 chords
Sus2 chords are stacked 1-2-5 or some combination thereof.
By far the most common type of 4th chord that you encounter on the guitar is a sus4, where a 4th replaces the 3rd and a chord is stacked 1-4-5. On occasion, a 4th is added and the 3rd is retained, in which case you view the formula as either 1-3-4-5 or 1-3-5-11 and call it either add4 or add11.
Basics of sus4 chords
Here are a handful of sus4 chords in various keys.
Guitar
On the guitar, a 6th chord is some combination of 1-3-5-6. If a 6th extends beyond the 7th, it’s still called a 6th unless a 7th is also present in the chord, in which case it’s called a major 13th.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Desi Serna
The following songs feature 6th chords:
“Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
“Brass in Pocket” by The Pretenders
“Laughing” by The Guess Who
“Lenny” by Stevie Ray Vaughan
“Lie in Our Graves” by Dave Matthews Band
By far the most common use of 6ths on guitar is when guitarists play the so-called “blues shuffle” or “boogie-woogie” that accompanies many rock ’n’ roll, rockabilly, and blues songs.
Guitar
The dominant chord (or the chord built on the 5th degree of a scale) is a fairly important chord on the guitar because its structure and tendency toward the tonic chord really help define the tonal center of a progression. The word dominant refers to two things in music theory:
The first is the 5th degree of the major scale, named the dominant.
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Before you get started playing new types of chords on the guitar, some preliminary information about chord tones and extensions is necessary. You go beyond playing triad-based chords by adding in the degrees of the major scale other than 1, 3, and 5. These added chord tones are the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 7th.
Sometimes chord tones extend an octave above the 7th.
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When you move a chord shape up or down by one half step as you move to another chord on the guitar, you’re using a chromatic passing chord. For example, when a progression moves from V to IV, which are a whole step apart, you can add a chromatic passing chord between them to smooth out the transition.
Here is an example in the key of F.
Diminished chords are chords that you never use as anything other than a passing chord. On the guitar they sound very dissonant and unstable by themselves, almost unusable. But when placed between the right chords, they make great transitions. Generally speaking, diminished chords have a jazzy flavor to them, and they appear in styles that emphasize voice leading and dominant functions.
Dorian is the second mode of the major scale on the guitar — when the 2nd scale degree functions as the tonic. Because it centers on a minor chord (ii), it’s considered a minor key. Although this type of minor scale isn’t as common as Aeolian mode (the natural or relative minor) it does come up from time to time, so you need to look out for it.
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Like the spaces between natural notes, the spaces between intervals on the guitar are filled with flats and sharps. For example, the 1st and 2nd major scale degrees are a whole step apart, meaning they have a pitch in between them. This pitch is called a flat 2nd (f2) because it’s one half step lower than a 2nd interval.
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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.
On the guitar, intervals are classified by one of five qualities. The five interval qualities in music are:
Perfect (P): The perfect intervals are 5ths, 4ths, and 8ths (better known as unisons or octaves).
Major (M): The major intervals are 3rds, 6ths, and 7ths.
Minor (m): The minor intervals are flat 3rds, flat 6ths, and flat 7ths.
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Three of the basic modes of the major scale on the guitar are Ionian, Aeolian, and Locrian. In fact, any degree in the major scale can function as the tonic (or key) and serve as the starting place in the scale. Here are some of their basic properties.
Basics of Ionian (I) mode for guitar
Ionian is the first mode of the major scale on the guitar — when the 1st scale degree functions as the tonic.
Generally, major keyed songs on the guitar center on the 1st degree of the major scale, while minor keyed songs center on the 6th degree. However, you can also center music on one of the other major scale degrees. As a result, you can’t assume that a major key is always Ionian or that a minor key is always Aeolian.
Lydian is the fourth mode of the major scale on the guitar — when the 4th scale degree functions as the tonic. Because it centers on a major chord, it’s considered a major key. Rarely do you hear a song that’s completely in Lydian mode. Instead, this mode usually occurs only temporarily in a song, until the music moves to a more stable tonic like I.
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There’s more than one way to put together and play a 7th chord shape on the guitar. Here are a few m7 examples, namely variations on the open Em7 and Am7 forms. Expect to see these shapes used elsewhere on the fretboard as full or partial barre chords. To understand why these variations work, look at the intervals to see how they appear in multiple locations.
Mixolydian is the fifth mode of the major scale on the guitar — when the 5th scale degree functions as the tonic. It centers on a major chord, so it’s considered a major key. It’s also called the dominant scale because the 5th degree of the major scale is named the dominant pitch and forms a dominant 7th chord.
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Blues and funk guitar players often use chromatic half step motion to move into the main chords of a 12-bar chord progression on the guitar. For example, many blues players approach a I chord or IV chord from either a half step above or below.
Here is an example in the key of G. In the first line, you see the IV chord, C9, approached by the Df9 chord that’s one half step above it.
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.
A scale is a series of notes played one at a time in an ascending or descending fashion. Guitarists use scales to play melodies, riffs, lead guitar solos, and bass lines. Different types of scales make different patterns on the fretboard that you have to learn and practice.
In popular music, the two most commonly used types of scales are the pentatonic scale and the major scale.
Non-tonic-but-still-dominant chords on the guitar are called secondary dominants. The relationship between the tonic and dominant chords is so strong that composers sometimes use a dominant function on chords other than the tonic, like on the ii chord or perhaps even the V chord itself. You recognize them in chord progressions as major chords where you’re expecting minor ones and especially as dominant 7th chords where you’re expecting simple triads.
On the guitar, voice leading is the technique of writing smooth transitions from one chord to another, using common tones between chords and stepwise motion between their different pitches. Voice leading allows composers to take advantage of relationships between chords when connecting them in order to create more melodic lines.
On the guitar, the A form is one of the most commonly used shapes and is typically what comes to mind when guitarists think of barre chords. You move up an open A chord and use it as an A form barre chord to play major chords all along the 5th string.
With this shape, the root is under your 1st finger on the 5th string.
The open C chord is one of the most basic types of chords that guitarists play. You probably learned it early on when you first started with guitar. But did you know the C chord shape doesn’t have to be confined to the open position? You can move the shape up and play other major chords with it.
You accomplish this move either by placing a capo (a device clamped on the fingerboard to raise the open strings) on your guitar or by rearranging your fingers and barring across the neck.
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On the guitar, if you take each triad from the major scale and play its notes as a common chord shape, you get seven chords. Here are the chords shown first in the open position and then as barre chords that move up the neck along the 6th and 5th strings.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Desi Serna
You can see how to do it at Chapter 3, Video Clip 4: Major Scale Chords in G.
No discussion on how to play the guitar would be complete without mentioning the circle of fifths, sometimes called the cycle of fifths. In music theory, the circle of fifths represents relationships between the different key signatures. Knowing how to move in fifths and recognizing songs that use chord progressions that follow this pattern is very useful for guitar players.
On the guitar, the D form is unique in that it’s the only CAGED form that isn’t rooted to either the 6th or 5th string. Instead, its root is on the 4th string. This form is awkward to finger and technically isn’t a barre chord. As with some of the other CAGED forms, you don’t usually use it in the same way that it appears in the open position.
On the guitar, like the A form, the E form is a standard barre chord shape. You use it to form major chords for notes along the 6th string, as shown here. You can form it into some unique chord voicings, especially when you use the extra note found in its arpeggio pattern.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Desi Serna
Here, you add only one note to the E form shape to complete the arpeggio pattern: a 3rd interval on the 5th string.
Like the C form, the G form barre chord is hard to play on the guitar and rarely, if ever, used in its entirety. Don’t worry about being able to play it perfectly because more often than not, you break it down into other, more manageable shapes. You use the G form to form major chords for notes along the 6th string.
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Before you dive into the harmonic minor scale on the guitar, you need to understand the concept of dominant function. Basically, dominant function is the tendency of the dominant chord, chord V, to pull to the tonic, chord I, in a key. Similarly, secondary dominants are a way of using the dominant sound to strengthen a progression toward chords other than the tonic.
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.
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The melodic minor scale is a variation of the harmonic minor scale with a raised 6th in addition to the raised 7th. It’s used more often in jazz and classical music than in rock, and its formula looks like this: 1-2-f3-4-5-6-7. It’s also thought of as a major scale with a flattened 3rd or a Dorian scale with a raised 7th.
When you hear a guitar riff or solo, you’re hearing a scale. A musical scale is a series of pitches (or notes) played one pitch at a time in an ascending or descending order. Together, notes from scales build chords, create melodies, and produce harmonies. When people sing, the sound they make goes up and down in a scale.
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Every piece of music on the guitar has a tonal center called a tonic. The tonic is the primary pitch or chord that everything else revolves around. It’s where a piece of music sounds resolved or complete and usually where the music begins and ends.
Generally speaking, the tonic also determines a song’s key. There are two basic types of music tonalities and keys: major and minor.
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After you understand how to build triads on the guitar, you can continue to build on each degree in the G major scale. Here’s what the completed scale looks like in triads:
G: G-B-D, G major
A: A-C-E, A minor
B: B-D-Fs, B minor
C: C-E-G, C major
D: D-Fs-A, D major
E: E-B-G, E minor
Fs: Fs-A-B, Fsminorf5 (also called a diminished triad)
Here is how to play through all seven major triads in three different ways.
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Guitar players must know the notes on the fretboard to keep track of the specific scale patterns and chords they play all over the neck. But rather than memorize every single note in every fret on every string, guitarists do better to just know the natural notes along the 6th and 5th strings. After all, most scale patterns and chord shapes are rooted on these strings.
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.
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On the guitar, the distance from the 1st to the 2nd scale degrees in the major scale is called a second interval, from the 1st to the 3rd is called a third, from the 1st to the 4th is called a fourth, and so on. Here’s what makes up each interval:
2nd: A whole step above the 1st scale degree.
3rd: Two whole steps or over a string and back one fret.
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"Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan is considered one of the most influential compositions in popular music. Harmonically, it's a great example of using the major scale's sequence of major and minor chords. It's based in the key of C and cycles up and down chords I through V.
The intro starts out with a change from C to F, which is I-IV in C.
Guitar players can use several types of scales and patterns to play melodies, riffs, and solos, but some are used far more than others. For example, the plain major scale and Mixolydian mode are very common, while Lydian mode is rare. Also, the natural minor scale and Dorian mode are common, but Phrygian mode isn't.
As you study guitar theory, you'll hear terms like mode, tonic, and scale. The most common scale in music is the major scale. It includes seven degrees, or pitches, and involves seven steps or intervals. When you play the major scale beginning on its 1st degree, you create the familiar "Do, Re, Mi . . ." sound.
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Guitar theory reveals that the major scale is stacked in thirds to make triads and chords. Each scale degree of the major scale produces a triad and major or minor chord. Starting with the first degree of the major scale, the chord qualities go as follows:
major-minor-minor-major-major-minor-minorb5 (also called a diminished triad)
This seven-chord sequence is one of the most important patterns in music.
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A secondary dominant is really just an altered version of an existing chord. This change to the chord is to create a dominant 7th. What gives it its secondary dominant function is that it leads to another chord a 5th below. So the I chord is altered to I7 to create movement toward IV, the ii chord is altered to II7 to highlight V, and so on.
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You begin playing new chords on the guitar by adding 7ths to major scale chords. Adding 7ths is a good place to start because it’s in keeping with the consecutive 3rds formula that triads follow (1-3-5-7 are all consecutive 3rds).
Plus, you can easily add 7ths without needing to suspend a 3rd or interfere with the rest of the triad.
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On the guitar, a pedal point (also known as a pedal tone or just a pedal) in music is a sustained or repeated note that’s sounded against chord progressions and melodies. The term originates from organ music where the player sustains a low tonic or dominant pitch with the foot pedals, allowing him to easily play chords and melodies above this note on the keyboard.
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The best way to start using the harmonic minor scale in a pentatonic pattern on the guitar is to play over a simple minor chord progression, using a minor pentatonic pattern and adding a raised 7th over the V7 chord. Start with A minor pentatonic and the chords Am and E7.
Here, you see A minor pentatonic followed by the same pattern with the raised 7th scale degrees of the harmonic minor shown in gray.
When applying the major scale to music on the guitar, you have to pick music that’s drawn from the same scale. To determine what scale a song is drawn from, follow these simple steps:
Identify the song’s basic chords.
Fit those chords into a harmonized major scale, better known as the I-ii-iii-IV-V-vi-viif5 chord pattern.
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When you apply the pentatonic scale to music on the guitar, the general rule is to match the scale to the tonic. If the tonic is a major chord, then play the same corresponding major pentatonic scale. For example, use A major pentatonic over a song that centers on an A major chord (as in “Amie” by Pure Prairie League).
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Sometimes when a song moves to a new key on the guitar, that change introduces a completely different chord progression. Here, you start with a chord progression in A, followed by a new chord progression in a different key, C. The last chord in the example, E, leads back to A, the tonic of the first chord progression.
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You may think of music on the guitar as having a main chord called the tonic, as well as a parent scale that the tonic and the rest of the chord progression are drawn from. However in many songs the tonic changes at some point, and sometimes the parent scale changes too.
Technically, a key change is a change from one tonic or tonal center to another.
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Raising the 7th in the minor scale creates whole new scale patterns for lead guitarists to learn on the guitar. Understanding this scale can help you better understand both melody and harmony. Knowing the harmonic minor scale and how it’s used for composition and improvisation can help you combine the harmonic minor with other types of scales, such as the pentatonic and major scale modes.
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On the guitar a scale or chord formula is its pattern of steps and intervals. For example, a major triad is 1-3-5. A major scale is 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. The following charts compare the different scale formulas of the major scale modes that are used for keys and chord progressions.
Don’t worry about memorizing all the charts; just use them as a tool to help you better understand the relationship between the modes and their structures and the major scale.
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After you add the notes of the V7 chord into the pentatonic pattern on the guitar, you’re just one note away from having complete natural and harmonic minor scales. In A minor, you only need to add in F. Here is A minor pentatonic, then A natural minor and A harmonic minor with the F note added.
Notice that the only difference between natural minor and harmonic minor is the 7th scale degree — G versus Gs.
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On the guitar, you connect the five CAGED forms all with the same chord to cover the whole fretboard. For example, play a C chord with every CAGED form. Start with each form in its open position, and then move up the neck by using different forms while staying on the same chord.
As you move from position to position, keeping with the same chord, the forms always go in the order of C-A-G-E-D, C-A-G-E-D, and so on.
On the guitar, the five minor CAGED forms connect just as the five major ones do. Here is one example of how to connect the five minor forms, starting on a Cm form, Dm. Here, the whole minor arpeggio patterns are shown; the black dots indicate the most commonly used chord voicings.
Focus on the black dots as you play through this exercise.
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When you feel comfortable playing through all five pentatonic scale patterns on the guitar, the next step is to connect them to cover the rest of the fretboard. To do so, simply connect pattern 5 to another pattern 1, as shown here.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Desi Serna
This new pattern 1 is identical to the original except that it’s located an octave higher on the fretboard.
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A chord progression is any series of chords used in a piece of music. For example, on the guitar the chord progression to “Wild Thing” by The Troggs is A-D-E-D. Chords can go together in all sorts of ways, but they’re usually drawn from a scale, specifically, the major scale.
You use the major scale to stack groups of three intervals called triads.
Grouping notes together on the guitar helps you remember string areas that don’t connect easily to a common open chord or open string. As you review the note groups, take a few moments to rehearse all the notes in each group, playing through them forward and backward and calling them out as you go.
After you have all these natural notes memorized, you can easily fill in the gaps with flats and sharps.
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Relative major and relative minor aren’t the only types of keys you can have when playing the guitar. In fact, any degree in the major scale can function as the tonic (or key) and serve as the starting place in the scale, so because the major scale has seven degrees, it also has seven possible starting points, or modes.
Learning songs on the guitar is the absolute best way to develop as a musician. Every song you learn teaches you something new about using chords, playing progressions, and applying scales (not to mention licks, phrasing, fingering, and overall technique). For each new song you study, identify its components and analyze how it’s put together.
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Before you can use the CAGED system to create different chord inversions on the guitar, you need to familiarize yourself with a few terms and concepts.
A chord inversion is a reordering of notes in a chord. A C major chord is C-E-G, root-3rd-5th, with the root, C, placed in the bass (lowest) position. If you play the chord with E in the bass as E-G-C (3rd-5th-root), you make what’s called the first inversion.
Just as builders use measurements to identify distances between points, guitarists use intervals to identify distances between pitches. Intervals are important to understand because you use them to build scales and chords and to describe musical movement.
The tape measure used in music is called the major scale.
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Blues-based music on the guitar usually applies all three of the scales (that is, the major and minor pentatonic, as well as the full dominant scale) by mixing them up on the fretboard. To begin this mix, combine the major and minor pentatonic scales, as shown here.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Desi Serna
You can see an example in Chapter 15, Video Clip 36: Mixing Major and Minor Pentatonic.
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The notes of a scale are usually numbered 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on. You use Arabic numbers when you’re talking about the notes themselves and Roman numerals when you’re talking about the chords built on those notes. So in C major, 3 or the 3rd is the note E, and iii is the chord E-G-B.
The different scale degrees also have names.
Guitar players navigate the fretboard in a few ways. First, they know the location of some key notes. For example, they often know the notes along the 6th and 5th strings well and use them to track chord shapes and scale patterns. Second, they identify notes on other strings by tracing them to the 6th and 5th strings with simple octave shapes.
To number the relative minor on the guitar, remember the major scale has seven degrees with a triad built on each one. In music, uppercase Roman numerals represent major chords, and lowercase Roman numerals represent minor chords, as you can see in this example:
1-2-3-4-5-6-7
I-ii-iii-IV-V-vi-viif5
You may recognize this example as the major scale.
The raised 7th in the harmonic minor scale on the guitar is the same pitch as the 3rd of the V7 chord. For example, in A harmonic minor, the Gs is also the 3rd of E7. When you play the Gs over E7, you’re outlining the E7 chord by emphasizing one of its chord tones, the 3rd. You can also outline E7 by emphasizing any of its other chord tones.
“La Bamba” is a Mexican folk song made famous by Los Lobos. It’s a great example of the I-IV-V chord progression on the guitar, the use of major scale patterns, and the technique of playing in 3rds.
The song is very simple from a theory standpoint — key of C, I-IV-V, and major scale patterns. You can’t get any more basic than that; however, you may have a hard time keeping up because of the tempo and the techniques involved.
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“Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin is one of the most popular songs of all time on the guitar and for good reasons. Not only is it a great piece of music to listen to, but it’s also a goldmine of guitar chords and techniques. In it, you hear both 6- and 12-string guitars, both acoustic and electric.
Some parts are picked and arpeggiated, some are strummed, and still others are fingerpicked.
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“Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd is a great example of using the pentatonic scale pattern on the guitar with added chord tones as a result of pedal tones. It’s also a good introduction to lead guitar playing.
The song mainly features acoustic guitar playing. It opens with a 12-string guitar playing a combination of chords and melody in the open position.
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“With or Without You” by U2 has a few features that make it one of the most important examples of contemporary music on the guitar. These features include implied chords, ambient guitar playing, sustained notes, pedal point, and the use of a delay effect.
Starting with the D-A-Bm-G chord progression, the chords are never explicitly played.
On the guitar, Aeolian mode, the sixth mode of the major scale, is the sound that’s created when the 6th scale degree functions as the tonic. Because it features a minor 3rd and centers on a minor chord, it’s a minor mode. It’s better known as the natural or relative minor scale. Rather than being called Aeolian mode, it’s usually referred to as the minor scale.
Augmented chords are another type of chord that you can use as passing chords on the guitar, though they can also function as dominant chords. Basically, augmented chords are major chords with raised (or augmented) 5ths. They’re popular in styles of music that use dominant function and voice leading, like jazz.
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On the guitar, different C form chord voicings are played by breaking down the arpeggio pattern into smaller, fragmented pieces. Here are several ways to play partial chord shapes based on the full C form. In these examples, you fret and pick only the black dots. The numbers in the black dots are suggested fingerings.
So far, you’ve covered various chord progressions built out of root movements of 5ths and 4ths, but how is a lead guitarist supposed to play over these types of progressions? Secondary dominants borrow not only their chord function but also their notes from another scale. As a result, you treat them as V chords and use the dominant scale, Mixolydian mode, for your solos.
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You use the numbered chord pattern to put together chord progressions on the guitar. This is where you get into playing by numbers. Songs can center on any number (chord) and combine numbers (chords) in any order and any amount. The most basic type of progression uses just the major chords, numbers I, IV, and V.
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.
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On the guitar, because Dorian mode centers on a minor chord, most lead guitar players prefer to approach it with minor pentatonic scale patterns. You can see how to put together A minor pentatonic and G major scale patterns here.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Desi Serna
You can think of Dorian mode as being the minor pentatonic with an added 2nd and major 6th.
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.
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.
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On the guitar modal interchanges also take place in songs that have a minor tonic chord. Here are some of the most common minor chord modulations.
How to mix Aeolian with Dorian
Aeolian and Dorian are the two most commonly mixed minor modes. The main difference between them is that Aeolian has a minor iv chord, while Dorian has a major IV chord.
On the guitar, Mixolydian is the fifth mode of the major scale. It’s the sound you hear when the 5th scale degree is functioning as the tonic. Because it features a major 3rd and centers on a major chord, it’s considered a major mode. And because the 5th scale degree of the major scale is named the dominant, the fifth mode is also called the dominant scale.
Here is a look at some common modal interchanges on the guitar. These include mixing up major modes, mixing minor modes, and even going back and fourth between major and minor.
How to mix major with Mixolydian
One of the most common and simplest modal interchanges mixes the plain major scale (Ionian mode) with the Mixolydian mode.
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The key to playing blues music on the guitar is remembering that all the chords used are some type of dominant 7th chord. In other words, blues chords are any type of chord with a major 3rd and f7th, such as A7, A9, or A13.
Even when the guitar plays chords without f7ths, like plain major chords or 6ths, the tonality of each chord is still treated like that of a dominant 7th, and the melodies, lead guitar solos, and bass lines still feature f7ths.
Although a single guitar can play a pedal and a chord at the same time, in many cases, one instrument plays the pedal tone while other instruments play the standard chords. For example, one guitar may hold or repeat notes on upper strings, while another guitar plays through chord changes on the lower strings.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Desi Serna
You can see this at Chapter 5, Video Clip 10: Pedal Tone from Two Guitars.
Here are all the notes of E minor pentatonic that fit between frets 2 and 5 on the guitar. Notice that half of the notes in this new pattern 2 position you use in pattern 1. Visualizing how shapes and patterns connect is the key to navigating the fretboard.
Credit: Illustration courtesy of Desi Serna
Here is pattern 2 ascending and descending in tab.
Pentatonic pattern 5 on the guitar is unique in that it’s completely symmetrical. You can try beginning this pattern with your 2nd finger and using the one-finger-per-fret approach, though there’s nothing in the 11th fret for your 3rd finger to play. You can also try using just your 1st and 3rd fingers, which seems to work well in this position because of the narrow fret spacing.
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Pentatonic patterns 3 and 4 constitute two more examples of how to finger a five-tone scale on the guitar. When guitar players learn scales, they work on covering one small area of the neck at a time and then connect these individual positions to cover the whole guitar neck. Each position creates a unique pattern.
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.
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Some songs on the guitar are based on simple progressions that contain only the I and V chords (also known as the tonic and dominant chords). Songs like “You Never Can Tell” by Chuck Berry, “Jambalaya” by Hank Williams, and “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus are all good examples of this basic chord progression.
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There’s more than one way to break the major scale notes on the guitar into pattern pieces. The patterns you see here take on different forms than the five major scale patterns, but they still use the same notes.
You don’t have to memorize or even use the patterns described here, but it’s recommended that you experiment with them to see how they feel.
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.
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On the guitar, before you break down the C form into smaller and more useable chord voicings, you should add to it in the form of an arpeggio pattern. An arpeggio is a technique in which you play the notes of a chord one at a time like a scale rather than simultaneously as a chord.
The term is also used as the verb arpeggiate to describe how players pick through the notes of chords individually rather than strumming them all simultaneously (think of the opening to “The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals or “Everybody Hurts” by R.
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Generally speaking, you use only one mode of the harmonic minor scale. In this mode, the 5th degree of the harmonic minor scale functions as the tonic. That’s means that the V chord is the tonic chord. Here is an example of this modal application of the harmonic minor scale — with two major chords a half step apart: E and F.
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.
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The notes of the major scale are located all over the guitar neck. To make the major scale more useful, you break it into smaller positions, or patterns, that are easier to finger and memorize. You then cover the whole guitar neck by connecting these individual patterns.
For instance, here you can see all the locations of G major scale notes between frets 0 and 15.
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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.
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There are many keys in which you can play pentatonic scales on the guitar. Transposing the pentatonic scale is easy; with scale patterns on guitar, the patterns remain the same regardless of which key you’re playing in — you just change the position you play them in. Just as you can move a barre chord around the neck, you can shift the pentatonic patterns on a different tonic note.
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The easiest way to get to know the pentatonic scale on the guitar is to begin working in the key of E minor, because it uses all the open strings on the guitar and is very common in popular music. The E minor pentatonic scale consists of the notes E-G-A-B-D. Here are all the occurrences of these notes on the fretboard.
Playing up and down scale patterns on the guitar isn’t exactly the most enjoyable way to spend your time. Frankly, it can be tedious, and it may even feel pointless to you. Sure, eventually, you’ll be able to use the scale to play things that you enjoy, like melodies, riffs, lead guitar solos, and bass lines, but what can you do now while you’re still getting the patterns down?
Blues music on the guitar doesn’t always follow the rules of traditional music theory and harmony. Specifically, you find minor 3rds applied to major chords, and progressions that switch keys on each chord instead of staying in one parent major scale. The three main features of blues music that you hear in popular music on the guitar are
All chords with a major 3rd are treated as dominant 7th chords.
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It’s easy to build a new chord pattern that starts on the 5th string of the guitar. The chords and scale degrees are still drawn from the major scale. The numbers stay the same, too. But the pattern looks and feels different because chords I, ii, and iii are placed on the 5th string, while the others — IV, V, and vi — get moved over to the 6th string.
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Guitarists often use diminished 7th chords as substitutes for dominant 7th chords on the guitar. For example, you can play the typical jazz progression Cmaj7-A7-Dm7-G7 as Cmaj7-Csdim7-Dm7-G7. In this case, the Csdim7 chord replaces A7.
This substitution works for a couple of reasons:
Csdim7 has many of the same notes as A7.
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On the guitar you can use the notes along strings 6 and 5 to track any note on the fretboard with the help of octave shapes. An octave is the distance between one pitch and another with half or double its frequency. In other words, it’s a higher or lower version of the same pitch.
You can also think of an octave as the same pitch in a different register.
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On the guitar, sometimes a song’s chord progression is moved, or transposed, up or down by a particular interval for a section; the song’s tonic changes by the same interval. Here is an example of a transposed chord progression that starts out in the key of C before transposing and reproducing the same chord progression a whole step higher in the key of D.
If you’re ready to move past the G major scale on the guitar, playing major scales in other keys is as simple as starting the patterns in a new position. Here are all the patterns you use in G moved up two frets to the key of A. As a result, all the 1s are now A notes.
You can continue to connect and play the five patterns until you either run out of fretboard or can’t reach any higher.
After you memorize the G major chord pattern, you can instantly play the chords in any new key on the guitar simply by moving to a different position. For example, move the whole chord pattern up two frets and play in the A major scale. Or move up four frets and play in the B major scale.
Wherever you begin this pattern, the 1st scale degree is your key.
On the guitar, the major scale has seven degrees, and technically any one of them can function as the tonic — the tonal center, or primary pitch, of the scale. The sound and feel of the scale changes depending on which scale degree is heard as the starting point. The Greek names used to identify the seven modes of the major scale are Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian.
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Voice leading on the guitar is a technique where a set of chord changes includes notes that lead from one chord to the next. Augmented chords are also used to connect major triads to 6th chords, as in the progression I-Iaug-I6.The augmented chord connects I and I6 with a chromatic line. The 5th of the I chord moves to the 6th of the I6 chord through a sharpened 5th.
Guitar
Guitarists always use diminished 7th chords as passing chords on the guitar. One common usage is to connect chords I and ii in the major scale. Here is an example in A major, where you add a diminished chord between the A and Bm chords in two different positions using two different diminished 7th chord shapes.
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On the guitar, the Dorian mode is like a natural minor scale with a raised 6th. So if you raise the 7th as well, you end up with a melodic minor scale.
Using a V7 chord in Dorian mode is just as common as using one in natural minor. When a V7 chord occurs in Dorian mode, you have a few options for your solos:
Ignore the chord completely and keep playing the minor pentatonic scale, or the Dorian scale.
Guitar
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.
Guitar
In traditional music theory, Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, and so on) represent both the degrees of the major scale and the chord quality of each chord. Uppercase Roman numerals represent major chords, while lowercase numerals represent minor chords. Here is a list of the Roman numerals that represent chords, along with the major/minor sequence of the major scale and a sample key of G major.
Guitar players use the notes along strings 6 and 5 to track other notes on other strings, so the first thing to do is memorize the natural notes on strings 6 and 5. The natural notes are the letters A through G without any flat or sharp signs next to them. Here are all the natural notes on the 6th string between the open position and the 12th fret.
Guitar
The pentatonic scale can function as both major and minor on the guitar. You can start with E minor pentatonic, but the same notes and patterns can also produce G major pentatonic.To understand how this works, look at this example. Notice how both an E minor (Em) chord and a G major chord fit into pentatonic pattern 1 in the open position.
Guitar chords are built from groups of three notes called triads. Understanding how to use the major scale to build triads and recognizing the resultant sequence of major and minor chords are two extremely important aspects of music. You work with triads by stacking the major scale in 3rds.
Basics of the CAGED chord system
You can play literally thousands of different chord shapes on the fretboard, but most of them can be traced back to just five common open forms.
As you explore guitar theory, you'll learn that the major scale is a series of notes played in an ascending and descending fashion. Guitarists use the major scale to play melodies, riffs, solos, and bass lines. Additionally, it's used to play intervals, build chords, and chart progressions.
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Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has crafted some of the most famous guitar riffs of all time. What's unique about his style is that most of his signature hooks are chord changes, not scale riffs. And these changes almost always combine chord voicings derived from the CAGED system's A and C forms.
Richards favors the use of an open G tuning, which detunes the 1st, 5th, and 6th strings one whole step.
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