Introduction To The Chords Course
Prerequisites
Guitaru.com is free, open and available to anyone. In order for you to take this course however, I suggest that you are at least familiar with basic strumming patterns and chord diagrams. Therefore, this is not a course for beginners but rather for those with at least some experience who want to understand the special relationship the guitar has with chords and chord forms. If you understand the basics, the exercise below will seem easy to you.
As you practice this song make sure that you are hearing each note clearly, playing clean arpeggios in time with the recorded example. If you are still memorizing the chord forms remember to keep your eyes on your left-hand as much as possible and also to train your fingers individually, as if they were the four players on a team. I have had great success by posing this question to my students “where does your first finger go?” if you are taking mental snapshots of the chord forms your first finger being placed correctly is all the stimulation your brain will need to remember the rest of the form automatically. It’s a great practicing and it really works!
The following example has two purposes. First, it’s a great piece of original music that will help you to learn your dominant seventh chords, chords which are often neglected in our beginning studies. The second purpose of the lesson is to help to train your ear to listen for and recognize chord to chord movement. Throughout the many lessons I have written for this training program I have said many times: “all songs in every style are based on pleasing combinations of chords”. it is important that you learn the standard it, and common knowledge ways in which musicians and songwriters combine chords. The example below uses a string of dominant seventh chords resolving to one another, this type of chord movement is very common in blues, jazz, traditional and even classical music. I call the following example…
Domination
Reading Rhythms
There are four examples in this lesson meant to be played on the guitar. If reading the rhythms in these exercises, the whole notes, half notes, quarter and eighth notes present difficulty for you, I have written a book intended to be a basic, first guitar book thatsomeone could use to quickly understand rhythm guitar, it’s called Cool Chords and is available here or on Amazon.com. Also, study the beginners course here on Guitaru.com.
- Take The Guitaru.com FREE Beginners Course.
- Purchase Cool Chords
Remember, this is a course designed to teach you all about how to play and name chords and also how to understand which ones fit together. That having been said, this is not a course in learning to read music nor is it a course designed to teach music theory I have addressed those two concerns with complete, first-class course material which is available here, for free at Guitaru.com.
- Take The Free Music Theory Course
- Take The Free Music Reading Course
The course material on this website is designed to stand alone and each course is designed to be complete in its own right. Various parts of my method have been published over the years and I have written 5 book available here or in the marketplace. I strongly suggest you augment these web pages by collecting as many guitar books as you find interesting and appealing. Having your own resources, material and references is a part of any profession but especially music. Make it your business to collect guitar books, songbooks and musical textbooks and incorporate them into your program of improvement and self teaching.
