Music theory for guitarists
You can develop your songwriting, lead playing and funky rhythms if you know how the raw material works.
This is a brief guide to understanding what you’re playing. It’s not difficult and you don’t have to be able to read music.
Here’s how to read tab notation and tune your guitar.
These are the names of notes on your guitar.
An understanding of rhythm will help all aspect of your guitar playing.
The major scale is the mothership from where all other scales and chords are launched. Intervals are a way to name the distance between notes.
Here are some lead guitar ideas using major scale runs and sonic shapes.
Closely related to the major scale are minor scales. These are some soloing ideas using runs.
The cycle of 5ths looks at the relationship between keys, chords and scales.
Chord construction shows how all chords are built.
Harmonising scales shows you which chords are in a key. This can be used to write songs or to workout the key of a chord progression you’re going to play lead guitar over.
Make rhythm playing more interesting by embellishing chords.
Use the chord / scale relationship to find alternative scales and modes to play over any chord.
