The guitar is a great instrument for people who'd like to get involved with
music even if they've never had formal music education. You don't need to
read music notation to play songs - you can learn a few chords visually and
start playing. But you might have discovered that the next songs you want
to play have chords that are "too hard." They might be too hard to make,
or understand, or remember. Having a richer understanding of the
fretboard, chord construction and scales can help you tackle more complex
chords.
Our goal is to teach you "just enough" music theory so that you can
construct and deconstruct more complicated chords. It's a progressive
education with each idea neatly building on the ones before it.
Video lessons make this learning process pain-free and maybe even
fun! We've included 65 minutes of video. The videos have pictures,
diagrams, animations and a live teacher. The video is divided into 13
short lessons.
Didn't quite catch something? Each chapter's text is the identical
material that's in the video, with lots of pictures from the video, so you
can review previous chapters or simply study at your own speed.
What's covered:
•Guitar Basics
•The Major Scale
•Roman Numerals (that's where we serve you pizza)
•The Natural Minor Scale
•Basic Terms
•Chords: Major and Minor
•Chord Syntax (our unique 4-column method)
•The Terrain of the 6-String Guitar (visual intervals, moveable
chords)
•Chords with Added Notes (Cmaj7, C7, C9, Cm maj7, Cm7, Cm b5 7,
Csus4, Cdim, Caug)
•Scale Tone Chords (and transposing songs to new keys)
Here are some things that you WON
'T have to do in this book.
•You won't be playing along with a recording.
•You won't be reading sheet music or tabs.
•You won't be taught how to hold your guitar, strum your guitar,
finger the chords, or any special plucking techniques.
You WILL be learning principles of music theory and the guitar
fretboard. Our goal is to give you knowledge and confidence to start
playing more complex chords.
