Category Archives: Intermediate Lessons

Guitar lessons for intermediate players.

Lesson 11: Standard Music Notation For The Guitar Player

One of the challenges for guitar players wanting to learn how to use standard music notation is knowing where on fretboad to play what’s written down on paper. It’s one thing to read music notation and another thing to then play it on the guitar.

Notes On A Staff

This is why tablature is so popular with guitar players, because it shows them exactly where on the fretboard they should play. The downside is that tablature doesn’t convey time, tempo and rythm.

The following diagram is a great tool for bridging the gap between standard music notation and tablature.

Key

  • The letters along the top from left to right are the note names of the strings from the thickest to the thinnest string.
  • The numbers indicate the fret location, from 0 (not fretted) all the way up to the 24th fret (if your guitar spans two octaves).
  • The letters down the right hand side indicate the note name at that particular fret number and string. This example is for the Key of C.

As an example lets see where we can play the notes from the above diagram. E, G, B, D, F. Which we can remember with the mnemonic Every Good Boy Deserves Food.

The E is on the bottom line of the musical staff. If you look on the diagram below you can see there are three numbers on the lowest of the five black lines. The numbers are the 12 on the E string, the 7 on the A string and the 2 on the D string.

This means that the E on the musical staff above can be played at the 12th fret of the low E string, the 7th fret of the A string and the 2nd fret of the D string.

Musical Staff and Guitar Fret Diagram

These note locations aren’t something you’ll be able to learn overnight. My advice is to concentrate on learning the note locations for the common chords that you play so that you can recognise them when they’re presented to you in standard music notation. For example learn the music notation for these chords.

After that you should start paying attention to the notation of songs that you’re learning to play, not just the tablature. Many song books feature both tablature and standard notation which you can use as a good opportunity to improve your sight reading.

Lesson 10: Chord Progression Library

Circle Of 4ths and 5ths

Please refer to: Lesson 9: The Circle of 4ths and 5ths if you haven’t already before reading this article.

In this article I’m just going to present you with a list of common and not so common chord progressions. Use these to write your own songs, record them and use them to improvise over or use them to figure out how to play popular songs.

Please add any more chord progressions to the comments section and I’ll add them to this article.

Chord Progressions Using Two or Three Chords

I-IV

I-V

I-IV-V

I-II-IV

I-IV-V7 (The V7 is a Dominant 7th chord. These will be explained in a future lesson)

I – bVII-IV (The VII is flattened)

I-bIII-IV (The III is flattened)

Chord Progressions Using Four Chords

I-IV-I-V

I-IV-I-V7

I-IV-V-IV

I-vi-IV-V

I-vi-ii-V

I-V-vi-IV

IV-I-IV-V

I-I-IV-V

vi-IV-I-V

Chord Progressions Using Five Chords

I-vi-ii-IV-V7

I-vi-ii-V7-ii

Chord Progressions Using Six Chords

I-IV-I-V7-IV-I

Jazz Progressions

IIm7-V7-Imaj7-Imaj7

Imaj7-VIm7-IIm7-V7-IIIm7-VI7-IIm7-V7

Imaj7-Imaj7-IIm7-V7-Imaj7-Imaj7-IIm7-V7

Imaj7-#I°7-IIm7-#II°7-IIIm7-VI7

Imaj7-Imaj7-II7-II7-IIm7-V7-Imaj7-Imaj7

Imaj7-IIm7-V7-IVmaj7

Imaj7-I7-I7-IVmaj7-IVm7-IIIm7-VI7-IIm7-V7-Imaj7-Imaj7

Lesson 9: The Circle of 4ths and 5ths

Circle Of 4ths and 5ths

The circle of 4ths and 5ths is a way of visually representing the relationships between the 12 tones of the chromatic scale. It is one of the most useful tools you can use to understand music theory because it gives you insights into the fundamental way that Western music works.

The great thing is that standard guitar tuning follows the circle of 4ths and 5ths so if you’ve followed previous lessons (Lesson 6: The Five Fret Pattern and Lesson 8: The BEAD-GCF Pattern) you’ll already know a lot about the circle. This lesson will show you how to find the notes in the circle as well as some practical applications for your guitar playing.

The order of the notes around the circle (which determines their relationship to each other) can be found as follows. Starting at the top with C (though you an start with any note) you can find the next note in the clockwise direction by finding the next note 7 notes along in the chromatic scale (the chromatic scale is all 12 notes) as follows: C – C# – D – D# – E – F – F# – G. The interval name of this 7 note / fret distance is the Perfect 5th.

To find the next note name in the clockwise direction we move another 7 notes up the chromatic scale (or 7 frets up the neck) like this: G – G# – A – A# – B – C – C# – D. Continuing in this way, finding the next note around the circle by moving up 7 notes / frets in the chromatic scale, you’ll find all notes in the following order: C – G – D – A – E – B – F#/Gb – C#/Db – G#/Ab – D#/Eb – A#/Bb – F. That is how you find the notes around the circle in the clockwise direction.

You can also find the notes in the anti-clockwise direction by moving along the chromatic scale in Perfect 4th intervals which is a 5 note / fret distance. Again, starting with C you will find the next note to be F like this: C – C# – D – D# – E – F.

Using the above you’ll be able to find out in which order all 12 notes appear around the circle as shown in the diagram at the start of this lesson.

Earlier I mentioned that previous lessons will have given you a good grounding for learning this circle. The guitar strings are tuned (in standard tuning) from the lowest to the highest string in Perfect 4th’s (or a 5 fret distance), the same as the anti-clockwise direction around the circle.

The BEAD-GCF pattern that was easy to remember in the previous lesson can be found by locating the B and then following the circle in the anti-clockwise direction: B – E – A – D – G – C – F – Bb – Eb – Ab – Db – Gb. You can start to see why the guitar is such a great instrument to learn theory on.

Practical Applications

There are many ways in which this circle can help your understanding of music theory and your guitar playing. In this lesson I’ll show one of the things you can do with the circle; how to determine which chords fit in a particular Major key. This will help you when writing your own songs, figuring out songs by ear or when transposing a song to a different key.

Choose a key for which you want to know the chords, for example the key of C. The 7 chords for each key appear in the same order as shown by the Roman numerals. I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, viiº. Capital numerals denote Major chords while small numerals are minor chords. The viiº is a diminished chord (For a lesson on how to play these chords see: Major, Minor and Diminished Chords).

The chords for the key of C in the example below are (I) C Major, (ii) D minor, (iii) E minor, (IV) F Major, (V) G Major, (vi) A minor, (viiº) B Diminished.

Circle Of 4ths and 5ths

The pattern is always the same as you can see for the key of E Major in the diagram below. Just slide the pattern around the circle until the I is over your chosen key and you’ll know all the chords for that particular Major key.

Now when you hear people talk about a I – IV – V progression in the key of B Major you’ll know what they’re talking about.

If you have a song that uses the progression F# Major – B Major – C# Major but you want to change it to the key of E Major, you do the following. First identify the chord pattern, in this case I – IV – V by having the Roman numeral patterns centered around F#. Then slide the Roman numerals pattern around the neck until the I is over the E. Now you’ll see that the same song in the key of E uses the chord progression E Major – A Major – B Major.

Circle Of 4ths and 5ths

Knowing this will help your song writing as well. Choose a key and then some chords in that key to guarantee good sounding progressions. Experiment with different progressions to see what works and write down the Roman numerals for future reference. Another exercise to do is to figure out the patterns of popular songs, you’ll find that many songs share the same progressions but in different keys. This will help you when figuring out songs by ear.

There are many more things you can do with the circle of 4ths and 5ths and I’ll cover them in future lessons. If you want to learn more about how the Circle of 4ths and 5ths and the Roman numeral system can improve your ability to learn songs and help you write your own music then sign up for the GTR Newsletter.

Lesson 8: The BEAD-GCF Pattern

Remember you can zoom in and out on the images in this post by pressing Ctrl + and -. This lesson builds upon Lesson 6: The Five Fret Pattern.

Five Fret Pattern 1st String

The Five Fret Pattern occurs because of the particular way in which the guitar strings are tuned 5 frets apart. The great thing about this is that it makes the guitar reflect fundamental patterns in western music. This is why I think it’s so important for guitar players to learn music theory for the guitar in a way that is specific to the instrument and not just a rehashing of piano lessons.

If you take any starting note and you keep moving up 5 frets along an imaginary infinitely long guitar string, you will eventually cycle through all the different notes (a real guitar string isn’t long enough but the same thing happens when you move vertically across the strings).

Guitar Fretboard Diagram

For example, start with the B note on the lowest string, move 5 frets to the right and you’ll find an E (or follow the Five Fret Pattern and move up to the next string). When you move along another 5 frets (or the next string using the Five Fret Pattern) you’ll reach the A note. If you continue following this pattern you’ll encounter all the notes in the following order:

B – E – A – D – G – C – F – A# / Bb – D# / Eb – G# / Ab – C# / Db – F# / Gb and then the pattern starts at the beginning again: B – E – A – D – G – C – F etc. It’s a circular pattern.

To help you remember this pattern more easily you can simplify it to:

B – E – A – D – G – C – F – Bb – Eb – Ab – Db – Gb

Pronounce the first four notes as the word BEAD and remember the next three with the mnemonic Get Carter For me (after the movie Get Carter). Finally repeat the first five note names but as flats Bb – Eb – Ab – Db – Gb.

Now look at the notes on the fretboard again and see how this pattern appears across the strings. Find the B on the lowest string, then the E on the next string, the A etc and remember that this pattern follow the Five Fret Pattern so it shifts over to the right for the two highest strings.

Pick another note on the lowest string, for example the A at the 5th fret. The next notes are D – G – C, then remember to follow the Five Fret Pattern by moving a fret to the right to find F and Bb.

This pattern is another tool to help you learn all of the notes on the guitar fretboard, but it will also help you learn the Circle of 4ths and 5ths, a fundamental tool for understanding music theory. The Circle of 4ths and 5ths will be covered in the next lesson.