Monthly archives: June, 2019

electric guitar G 2

How to Generate a Chord Progression from a Scale

The first step is to figure out what types of chords can be generated from the scale. Learning to harmonize scales in triads and 7th chords is a typical approach to this.

Once you know what types of chords can be generated from the scale, try stringing two or three of them together and see if…



acoustic guitar F

Scales are Not Keys

Keys are a concept based on the idea of setting up a specific tone (tonic) as the point of final rest in a piece of music. Once Harmony was introduced and became the most important tool for setting up and supporting a tonic. this idea developed into two keys – major and minor. Within the…



Learning Theory, But Don’t Know How to Apply It?

In order to know what you’re doing, you have to analyze what you’re doing.

If you want to learn/analyze a song, the first thing you’re looking at are the types of chords or riffs being used. In order to do that, you have to know how chords and riffs are built. In order to know…



electric guitar D

How to Build Diminished Chords

Diminished triad = flat the 3rd and 5th of a major chord, or flat the 5th of a minor chord.

Diminished 7th chord is a little tougher. You have to know a diminished triad, already, and add a diminished 7th to it. One way to get there is to start with a major 7th chord and…



electric guitar D

The Diminished 7th Arpeggio

The diminished 7th arpeggio is most commonly associated with the minor key. If you build a chord off the 7th degree of A harmonic minor, you get G# B D F.

In A minor it usually functions as a leading tone chord that resolves one fret higher into the tonic chord (Amin).

Once you understand how it…