Guitar Lessons
Four A minor backing tracks uploaded free to download at www.free4allbackingtracks.com
Quick n dirty recordings of simple chord progressions looped for up to 4 minutes in length.
Perfect for honing lead guitar chops, runs phrases and licks.
Related Reading:
What is a capo?
‘A capo (short for capotasto, Italian for “head of fretboard”) is a device used on the neck of a stringed (typically fretted) instrument to shorten the playable length of the strings, hence raising the pitch. It is frequently used on guitars, mandolins, and banjos. G.B. Doni first used the term in his Annotazioni of 1640, though capo use likely began earlier in the 17th-century.’ – WIKiPEDIA
Using a Capo can be quite a difficult thing to get to grips with.
A lot of songs on the internet will state whether a capo is used a few don’t.
But besides playing a song in the way it was intended we can us a Capo for other reasons.
transposing a song to our voice without having to change chord shapes or when trying to avoid too many barre chords.
Why avoid barre chords?
The first obvious reason is that when we start playing guitar the barre chord is a deal breaker.
It’s damn hard for new guitarists to move freely to a barre chord and sometimes dammit you just want to play that song!
The other is that when finger picking we can use open chords to play more elaborately, also the preasure needed to apply barre chords while picking can be very wearing on the fingers and hand.
Below are some tables showing the transposed open chords when the capo is applied to each fret.
The ‘Black‘ letters indicate the Original Chord, mainly Open Chords apart from the ‘F‘ and ‘Bm‘ which can be Barre Chords.
The ‘Red‘ letters indicate the new chord.
I’ve used the most common chord shapes to keep things simple.
The way to use these tables is to write out your chords on a peice of paper and then look for the best solution.
Find the chords you have in the red row and then move the capo to that fret. Using the chord shapes form the black row will now give you the transposed version.
Capo 1st Fret
C D Dm E Em F G A Am B Bm B7 C# D# D#m F Fm F# G# A# A#m C Cm C7 Db Eb Ebm Gb Ab Bb Bbm
Capo 2nd Fret
C D Dm E Em F G A Am B Bm B7 D E Em F# F#m G A B Bm C# C#m C#7 Gb Gbm Db Dbm Db7
Capo 3rd Fret
| C | D | Dm | E | Em | F | G | A | Am | B | Bm | B7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D# | F | Fm | G | Gm | G# | A# | C | C#m | D | Dm | D7 |
| Eb | Ab | Bb | D#m |
Capo 4th Fret
| C | D | Dm | E | Em | F | G | A | Am | B | Bm | B7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E | F# | F#m | G# | G#m | A | B | C# | C#m | D# | D#m | D#7 |
| Gb | Gbm | Ab | Abm | Db | Dbm | Eb | Ebm | Eb7 |
Capo 5th Fret
| C | D | Dm | E | Em | F | G | A | Am | B | Bm | B7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F | G | Gm | A | Am | A# | C | D | Dm | E | Em | E7 |
| Gb |
Capo 6th Fret
| C | D | Dm | E | Em | F | G | A | Am | B | Bm | B7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F# | G# | G#m | A# | A#m | B | C# | D# | D#m | F | Fm | F7 |
| Gb | Ab | Abm | Bb | Bbm | Db | Eb | Ebm |
Capo 7th Fret
| C | D | Dm | E | Em | F | G | A | Am | B | Bm | B7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | A | Am | B | Bm | C | D | E | Em | F | Fm | F7 |
| Db | Eb |
Capo 8th Fret
| C | D | Dm | E | Em | F | G | A | Am | B | Bm | B7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G# | A# | A#m | C | Cm | C# | D# | F | Fm | G | Gm | G7 |
| Ab | Bb | Bbm | Db | Eb |
Capo 9th Fret
| C | D | Dm | E | Em | F | G | A | Am | B | Bm | B7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | Bm | C# | Cm | D | E | F# | F#m | G# | G#m | G#7 |
| Db | Gb | Gbm | Ab | Abm | Ab7 |
Note:
These charts show only the basic chords so as to avoid confusion.
Only one 7th chord is used and no sus chords have been used.
If you find that your chord progression has any of these follow the chart below to replace or add.
| C | D | Dm | E | Em | G | A | Am | B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Csus2 | Dsus2 | Esus2 | Asus2 | |||||
| Csus4 | Dsus4 | Esus4 | Asus4 | |||||
| Cadd9 | ||||||||
| C7 | D7 | Dm7 | E7 | Em7 | G7 | A7 | Am7 | |
| Bdim |
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.untidymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/clockfacetranspose_full.swf" height="400" width="550" /]
Related Reading:
Learning the notes on the guitar – Key of G
The notes above give us all the notes from the ‘Key of G’.
As in a previous lesson to help learn the notes better we are going to use somthing called modes.
What modes are and what they mean is not important for this lesson, we’re just going to use their concept to create exercises that will help us learn the notes.
MODE:
G A B C D E F# G = Ionian (Major)
A B C D E F# G A = Dorian
B C D E F# G A B = Phygian
C D E F# G A B C = Lydian
D E F# G A B C D = Mixolydian
E F# G A B C D E = Aeolian (Natural Minor)
F# G A B C D E F# = Locrian
———————————————————
Exercise 1:
Try and find all the G Major Scales, this would playing all the notes G A B C D E F G.
Exercise 2:
Now find all the different ways to play the E minor scale.
Exercise 3:
Try playing the E minor scale and remove the notes F# & C this will create the pentatonic minor scale.
You could also try this with the G Major or any of the Modes.
Related Reading:
This guitar lesson is a companion or can be seen as an alternative to a previous lesson that was writtem for this site.
That lesson can be found here – click
The following free guitar lesson will if followed closely give you a better understanding of the guitar and of music as well.
Take a look at the following grid: The numbers across the top indicate the fret, the letters going indicate the note.
The notes above give us all the notes from the ‘Key of C’.
To help learn the notes better we are going to use somthing called modes.
What modes are and what they mean is not important for this lesson, we’re just going to use their concept to create exercises that will help us learn the notes.
MODES:
C D E F G A B C = Ionian (Major)
D E F G A B C D = Dorian
E F G A B C D E = Phygian
F G A B C D E F = Lydian
G A B C D E F G = Mixolydian
A B C D E F G A = Aeolian (Natural Minor)
B C D E F G A B = Locrian
So let’s get started with our first exercise,
Finding the lowest note on the guitar the ‘E’ - Open E string indicated below.
Using the Phrygian Mode we are going to play the notes E A B C D E F G as a scale.
The notes we will play have red ticks next to them.
In TAB format this would read:
Written on the stave:
——————————————————————————
If you’ve understood so far we can move on to really testing ourselves.
Try the next 2 exercises yourself, answers will be at the bottom.
Exercise 1. Work out Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian, Ionian and Dorian starting each scale on the ‘E’ String and playing 1 octave only to finish on ‘D’ String
Exercis 2. Work out 5 different ways to play the ‘C’ major scale from middle ‘C’
Circled in red middle ‘C’ – there are two.
Answers:
Exercise 1:
Phygian: E F GA B C D E
Exercise 2:
Below are 6 different positions – if you’ve got 5 bravo, if you’ve got all 6 you are definitely on your way.
If you didn’t get at least 5 take a look at the ones you missed and then look back at the grid to get yourself familiar.
It’s good practice to say the notes as you play through and try and find the notes in relation to the grid.
Those with good ears will recognise the scales sound and try to root out the notes by ear.
This is invaluable but can work against you, whilst being able to recognise the scale use it only tog hear when you’ve played the scale wrong and not to find the notes.
————————————————————-
Further exercises: These exercises will not have answers, if you’re confident of after the previous exercises then try the following to cement and test what you already know.
Exercise 1. Try each mode in the same way as above – find three variations of each of the following modes, Aeolian, Dorian and Locrian.
Exercise 2. Try finding modes staring on a different string.
Exercise 3. Remove the notes that do not appear in the pentatonic scale – these notes are F & B this exercise can be applied to Aeolian, Ionian, Phrygian, Mixolydian and Dorian modes.
—————————————————
Finally take your time to learn the notes rather than patterns. Play evenly, try using a metronome and use alternate picking.
Also take care with your fingers positions.
Related Reading:
Getting your fingers to untwist themselves can be a frustrating process.
Practice is king – for the exercise we’re going to use the ‘G’ string as our basis and the notes from the A minor(natural) scale have been used – this will hopefully give us a few things,
- Learn how to use our fingers properly.
- Learn the notes on the ‘G’ string.
- Get used to moving up and down the neck in a none scalic way.
- Build up stretch in our fingers.
First thing we need to do is get used to the pattern – try the exercise below – the finger to use is written above the corresponding note – to get to grips with this you need to start slow and concentrate on getting your fingers right.
You will see that the first note of each bar is played with the 1st finger and the last note is played with the 4th finger.
The middle note is the trickier part, this note is indicated in blue it’s important that you get this finger correct as it will allow a smoother way of playing – it may be awkward but stick with it and you’ll see an improvement.
Remember,
- Play slowly to start
- Use Alternate picking
Once you’ve mastered the exercise try playing whilst learning the notes.
Notes have been added below for each bar.
Learning the notes on the guitar is one of the most important skills you can aquire.
Hope it helps!