Tag: theory

Most used 7th guitar chord shapes

In this video I show the most common 7th chord shapes, it’s all pretty self explanatory! for the theory you can also checkout these other lessons: https://www.trueguitarist.com/understanding-how-triads-and-other-chords-are-built https://www.trueguitarist.com/from-the-major-scale-to-the-harmonized-scale-pt-2-7th-chords And the shapes I use are here: https://www.trueguitarist.com/LESSON%20MATERIAL/7th%20chords.jpg

Harmonized major scale with 7th chords on guitar

We have seen in previous lessons how to build the harmonized scale from the major scale. In this video I show the application on guitar in three different keys, using 7th chords. This is what I play in the video: You can find the most used 7th chords here as well: Most common 7th chord shapes on… Continue reading Harmonized major scale with 7th chords on guitar

Factorial Thinking (Combinations applied to music)

Today’s’ tip has to do with mathematics applied to music…we have already seen how in the finger combinations exercises we have used all the possible combinations of 2,3 and 4 fingers of our left hand to make sure we cover every possible motion. This is not only a great warm up and technical exercise, but also a way… Continue reading Factorial Thinking (Combinations applied to music)

A tool to improve your improvising skills.

It’s not a secret that one of my all time favourite guitar instructional books is The Advancing Guitarist by Mick Goodrich. One the exercises explained in this great book is about creating a random sequence of chords by writing every type of chord (major, minor, all the 7th chords and, if you feel more adventurous, chords… Continue reading A tool to improve your improvising skills.

Playing in Fourths

I really like this style of phrasing, take some great examples like McCoy Tyner, and a lot of the ‘hard bop’ jazz cats. The basic idea is this: take a scale, in this example I will use a C major scale. Now  play all the diatonic fourths contained in C major: In the video I am playing… Continue reading Playing in Fourths

Guitar Great Vic Juris: A couple of great video lessons.

I was lucky enough to study with Vic Juris in the early 90’s. Today I stumbled into a couple of great lessons on youtube  and I wanted to share them with you. He is a great jazz guitarist, if you don’t know about him, check out his music: http://www.myspace.com/vicjuris In this lesson he talks about… Continue reading Guitar Great Vic Juris: A couple of great video lessons.

Tips: play Giant Steps on guitar

Giant Steps has always been a challenging standard to play, in this video I give a few tips on how to approach this famous tune. The Chords (from the fake book-as far as I know it is not copyrighted material so I am posting the original): One good ‘pattern’ to start familiarising with the progression in playing… Continue reading Tips: play Giant Steps on guitar

Jazz guitar: Altered Chords Pt2

In this video I show how to use the Superlocrian mode (nothing more than the 7th mode of a minor melodic scale) to improvise over altered chords. On C7 the choice would be C Superlocrian C, Db,Eb,E, F#,G#,Bb (also known as Db melodic minor starting from C). Listen to a few examples of resolution from C7(alt) to… Continue reading Jazz guitar: Altered Chords Pt2