Essential Grooves 1

When it comes to developing rhythm skills, working to broaden the number of strumming patterns, grooves and feels we are comfortable with helps us in a variety of ways:

It means there are more rhythms that are available to you in your own composition and accompaniment choices.It becomes easier to hear and transcribe rhythms present in…

Triads with a root on string 3

We can move around shapes with a root on string 1. We can also move around shapes with a root on string 2. And we have one more small moveable chord form – which has a root on string 3. With these three shapes, you can unlock a considerable portion of the fretboard. You can…

Triads with a root on string 2

A triad is a chord that includes three specific notes – 1 3 5 for major triads, and 1 b3 5 for minor triads.

The numbers refer to the relationship between each of the notes in the triad. 1 is the root note of the chord that designates which chord it is. If our root…

Sixteenth Note Rhythm

What do we mean by sixteenth note rhythm?

We have done quite a bit of down up strumming using 8th notes, or a 1+2+3+4+ count. Using this type of strumming, there is a maximum of 8 possible places in the bar where you can strum – there are eight arm movements, four downstrokes and four upstrokes. With…

Fingerstyle Training: Pinch pattern

It’s important to keep building your speed and fluency with the Travis patterns so that you can apply them to different sets of chords, and so that you can adapt them to the speed of any ensemble setting or song you want to use them with.

Here are two chord progressions that repeat with audios…

G Major Blues

This blues uses only five notes – the five notes of G major pentatonic that go along with the G major triad. Playing it will help you with dexterity and finger independence and being able to use those notes effectively. Getting some phrases really into your fingers allows you to build confidence improvising in other…

How To Understand Rhythm For Guitar part 1

Part one looks at the difference between the pulse (the regular beat that goes through the music) and the rhythm (which is organised around the pulse, but isn’t always the same thing). We look at some easy ways to train your ability to identify the pulse and to start training your right arm to synchronise…

2020 Song list

Listen through to all the songs on the playlist. There may be some you don’t know or haven’t heard recently that you’d really enjoy learning. Think about the guitar techniques needed, and what types of guitar sound you can hear. There may be some sessions where we look at sections from one of the songs…