Desi Serna

Learning to play the guitar is a lot fun. Use this cheat sheet to help you get started with your guitar finger placement and guitar chords. If you need help with finger placement on your guitar, use tablature (tab) and fingerboard diagrams.Practice playing the most common open-position chords on your guitar to get that “jangly” sound, and make sure you know the notes on the neck of your guitar to change starting notes in scales, chords, and arpeggios.

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.

This Cheat Sheet has some handy tips that you can keep in your practice area for quick reference.Use these techniques to review your basic rhythms and warm up your hands at the beginning of a playing session. Before you begin, trim and file the nails on your fretting hand so that nothing comes between your fingertips and the strings.

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.

Although more than 99 percent of all rock playing on the guitar is played with a pick, occasions for fingerstyle do pop up occasionally. Fingerstyle, as the name implies, means that you pluck the strings with the right-hand fingertips. For these times you can put the pick down or stick it between your teeth; whichever allows you to grab it the fastest after the fingerstyle passage is over.

Probably the greatest invention ever created for lead rock guitarists is the pentatonic scale. Its construction and theory have spawned countless theoretical discussions, but for rock guitar purposes, it just sounds good. Staying at home position The main position for the pentatonic scale is in 5th position. This is the home position of the pentatonic scale in C major or A minor.

Although lead guitar is a studied craft with an established orthodoxy (that is, you can buy books on the subject), rhythm guitar is a universe without any rules. No one can say for sure what makes up a good rhythm guitar part, but you sure know one when you hear it. The best rhythm players in rock — such as Pete Townshend, Eddie Van Halen, and Keith Richards, just to name a few — all play in a style that’s hard to label or analyze.