Music Theory for Guitarists, Volume 3: Music Theory for Guitarists, #3

By James Shipway

Volume 3 in the 'Music Theory for Guitarists' series: Intermediate to advanced music theory & guitar fretboard concepts explained in 100% confusion-free language with no music reading necessary!

• Learn about modal improvisation, the CAGED System, the harmonic minor scale, extended chords, key changes/modulation techniques and more
• Boost your skills as a composer, songwriter, improviser and all-round musician
• Includes practical exercises and quizzes to check your understanding
• Free backing tracks and play-along audio demos of selected examples available

After using this book you'll have a near 'pro-level' understanding of music theory and how it relates to the guitar,

You'll discover:

• How to use the CAGED system to master finding your way around the guitar neck. Learn to find any scale, chord or arpeggio anywhere on the fretboard without getting lost on the guitar neck!
• Modes Part 3. Following the topic of modes as begun in Volume 2, we go deeper, looking at how to use modes in your solos and compositions, 'modal keys', playing over chord changes with modes and more
• The Harmonic Minor scale: what is it, how to play it, and how to use it in your guitar solos & compositions
• Minor keys & the Harmonic Minor scale. We'll examine how the Harmonic Minor scale impacts minor key chord progressions, harmonic minor chord families, and analyse examples of classic minor key chord sequences
• Key changes & modulation. Discover how composers use key changes and modulation in their music to create more interesting and creative music. We'll look at modulating to relative minor keys and parallel keys, using V chords to create smooth key changes & more. Sounds complicated, but this book makes it easy to learn the basics
• How to spice up bland chord progressions with 'secondary dominant' and 'borrowed chords'. Learn where they come from and how to use them in your music. Essential knowledge for any player who wants to start getting into jazz style harmony and chord sequences (and avoid confusion further down the road!)

Plus lessons on diminished chords and harmony, augmented chords, introduction to 'altered dominant chords' (appendix).

 

Music Theory for Guitarists, Volume 3 comes with over 90 mins of audio content including play-along demonstrations of most of the examples & backing tracks for you to practice with. 

 

Perfect for:

• Any player who wants to take their knowledge of practical music theory to an intermediate/advanced level without years of confusion and frustration
• Readers of the first and second books in this series who want to continue their journey towards music theory mastery and greater musical freedom
• Any guitar player who is confused by modes, key changes, extended chords, advanced chord progressions etc and wants an easy-to-use and easy-to-follow method book to help (with audio examples to actually hear concepts at work)
• Guitar players who want to play more complex music like jazz, Latin, fusion, jazz-rock etc, understand what's happening and how to approach it
• Composers and singer-songwriters who want to learn and experiment with more colourful, creative and interesting sounds in their music and become more skilled and knowledgeable in their craft
• Guitarists who need to reach an advanced level of music theory knowledge quickly and easily for music college courses, exams, auditions etc.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Headstock Books
• Release date: Dec 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781914453052

James Shipway

James Shipway, born in Australia and raised in the UK is a professional guitarist and guitar teacher with over 25,000 hours of experience helping students of all ages and abilities reach their guitar-playing goals.  He's shared his knowledge with millions of guitarists worldwide via his YouTube channel and his online guitar academy, Total Guitar Lab as well as in his acclaimed 'No Bull' series of guitar books.  James first began playing guitar at 16. Self taught and with no prior musical education or experience, he still remembers very well how confusing guitar playing could be for a newbie. He brings this personal experience of struggling with adversity and confusion on guitar to everything he does, and his practical, , easy-to-use, 'BS free' approach to learning, playing and practicing guitar has gained him a legion of followers around the globe.  His recent book releases include: - Music Theory for Guitarists, Volumes 1 & 2 (Volume 3 coming soon!) - Barre Chords for Guitar - Blues Soloing for Guitar, Volumes 1 & 2 - The CAGED System for Guitar - Circle of Fifths for Guitar These books aim to boost a guitar players ability and confidence by breaking down and simplifying seemingly complex theory, techniques and styles.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

ORGANISING YOUR FRETBOARD WITH THE CAGED SYSTEM

The guitar fretboard can be confusing.

There are normally multiple ways to play any scale or chord, and several different fret locations for playing the exact same note.

These factors are what make the guitar the unique and versatile instrument it is, but they can also make it difficult for a player to learn their way around the guitar neck.

This is where the CAGED System can help. You see, it gives us an easy to use way to organise the fretboard and makes it simpler to find musical tools like scales and chord shapes when we need them.

We’re not going to take an exhaustive look at the CAGED System in this book, but I am going to show you the basics of how it works. If you want to dive deeper into the wonderful world of the CAGED System and truly master your fretboard then you’ll want to check out my CAGED System for Guitar book. This goes into great depth on this extremely powerful way to learn the fretboard, covering all the most useful scales and demonstrating how to use them using sample licks.

But for now, grab your guitar and we’ll get started.

MAJOR CAGED CHORDS AND SCALES

We can apply the CAGED System to almost any scale, but for the sake of this demonstration we’ll start with the major scale.

First we need to learn a set of five major chord shapes. These can be used to give us five ways to play any major chord.

The chords in question are the movable barre chord shapes which come from the five simple open chords:

C A G E D

Open chord shapes CAGED

As you probably spotted, the names of these chords spell out the word CAGED, and this is where this system of fretboard organisation gets its name.

Let’s convert these open chord shapes into movable barre chords. Play these shapes anywhere you like on the fretboard for now. The root note for each shape is shown as a white dot:

The 5 major barre chord shapes we can use for the CAGED system

You’ve probably used some of these shapes before. Take a moment to learn any you don’t already know. Some of them are a bit awkward and seldom used to play chords with, but they are an important part of how the CAGED System works, so learn all five shapes well.

These chord shapes give us five possible ways to play any major chord; simply use the root note in any shape to work out where on the fretboard to play it. As an example, here’s how you can play G major five different ways with these shapes:

The CAGED shapes being used to play G major

Try using these shapes to play some other major chords now. Notice how they interlock to cover the whole of the fretboard. This means that wherever you are on the guitar neck, you can always find a shape nearby for playing any major chord. This becomes especially powerful when we add scales to these chords, which is what we’re going to do next.

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Try this Practical Exercise:

Choose a root note and see if you can connect all five shapes up along the fretboard played from this root. Start as low as possible on the neck and work your way up to the highest point you can comfortably play at.

Take a little more time to get really familiar with how these chord shapes work before you move on, they're an extremely important part of the CAGED System.

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Attaching CAGED Scales

The next step is to attach a major scale pattern to each of these chord shapes. This is a great way to learn your major scales, it emphasises the relationship between the chord shape and the scale pattern and means that wherever you can find one of the chord shapes, you can also find a major scale pattern.

Let’s start with the E chord shape as it’s likely the most familiar. This diagram shows you the E barre chord shape (flipped around from the previous diagram) with the major scale pattern built around it. The notes in the E chord shape are shown as black dots and the remaining major scale notes are shown as white dots or squares (more on these in a moment). The root note is marked with an ‘R’ and all the intervals are numbered for reference. Play the chord and the scale pattern before we look at the diagram in more detail.

Major scale pattern built around the E shape chord

So what are all those ‘squares and circles’ about?

The circles show you the major pentatonic scale pattern built around the chord shape.

As you know from the first No Bull Music Theory for Guitarists book, the major scale is like the major pentatonic scale with an added 4th and 7th interval. As you can see, the 4th and 7th are the white squares on the diagram - add them into the major pentatonic pattern and you get the major scale shape. So, these diagrams give you what you need to learn the major pentatonic scales as well as the major scales.

I’d suggest taking the following 3-step approach for each major scale pattern:

Play the chord shape the scale is built around (black circles)

Play the major pentatonic scale (black and white circles only)

Add the 4th and 7th (white squares) to get the complete major scale

This process will give you a pretty solid understanding of how major chords and scales are related. It will also help you to use the major pentatonic pattern as a ‘framework’ for building major scale licks, phrases and melodies. Try this process for the E shape pattern we just saw, then apply it to the remaining major scale shapes which follow.

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C shape major scale (built around C chord shape)

Major scale pattern built around the C shape chord

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A shape major scale (built around A chord shape)

Major scale pattern built around the A shape chord

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G shape major scale (built around G chord shape)

Major scale pattern built around the G shape chord

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D shape major scale (built around D chord shape)

Major scale pattern built around the D shape chord

Essentially, the CAGED System works by taking five barre chord shapes derived from the C, A, G, E and D open chord shapes and building a scale shape around each one.

Obviously there’s a fair amount to learn here if you don’t already know any of these scales, but that’s ok.

Don’t feel overwhelmed, just work through them one after the other when you think it’s time for you to learn them.

You could try this action plan to make the process easier:

Learn all 5 chord shapes. Make sure you can find them and play them all in a variety of different keys

Now, one by one, build the major pentatonic scale around each chord shape

Finally, add the 4th and 7th to each major pentatonic shape to get five major scale patterns

Modify this method to suit how you like to learn and work through new material.

The big mistake most people make (including me!) is to rush through all the shapes. Go slow, take your time and learn them thoroughly, there’s no hurry. You are much better off if you know a handful of patterns which you can use really well, than if you know them all, but badly!

As you’ve probably spotted, these scale patterns interlock to cover the entire fretboard. This is the real beauty of the CAGED System; it gives you a simple method for learning how to play all over the guitar neck (no more being stuck in just one place).

MINOR CAGED CHORDS AND SCALES

Minor scales can be learned using the CAGED System as well. Simply convert the five major chord shapes into minor chord shapes as follows:

The 5 minor CAGED shapes

These shapes work off of the same root notes as the major shapes so they are played in the same place on the neck as the major chords are. This makes them easy to learn if you did the major shapes thoroughly.

Now we can build a minor scale around each shape. There are several minor scales we could use, but we’ll go with the minor pentatonic scale, just because it’s so common.

Here are the five minor barre chord shapes with a minor pentatonic scale attached. As before, the notes in the relevant chord shape are shown in black. Scale notes which are not in the chord shape are shown as white dots. All the intervals are numbered for reference and root notes are marked with an ‘R’.

C shape minor pentatonic (built around Cm chord shape)

Minor pentatonic scale pattern built around the C minor shape chord

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A shape minor pentatonic (built around Am chord shape)

Minor pentatonic scale pattern built around the A minor shape chord

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G shape minor pentatonic (built around Gm chord shape)

Minor pentatonic scale pattern built around the G minor shape chord

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E shape minor pentatonic (built around Em chord shape)

Minor pentatonic scale pattern built around the E minor shape chord

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D shape minor pentatonic (built around Dm chord shape)

Minor pentatonic scale pattern built around the D minor shape chord

Now you have five different ways to play any minor pentatonic scale. Like the major scales, the patterns interlock to cover the whole fretboard, meaning that with a bit of practice you’ll be able to solo all over the guitar neck.

If you want to master these patterns, then I suggest nailing the five chord shapes to begin with. Then, one by one, build each minor pentatonic pattern around the relevant chord shape. Make sure to do this in a variety of keys.

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Vocabulary

Learning these patterns is a big step forward for any aspiring guitar soloist, but it’s ultimately what we do with them that really matters! We need to build a vocabulary of musical ideas for each scale pattern. It’s this vocabulary, more than just the scale pattern itself, which will make for great music.

How can you build a vocabulary? Start by trying to come up with a few good sounding licks for each pattern you learn. This will help you discover your favourite notes to bend, discover specific scale fragments you like the sound of, and hunt out anything else within the scale you think