Metadata
- Author: Desi Serna
- Full Title:: Guitar Theory for Dummies With Online Practice
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- Document Tags:: priority,
- URL:: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/142866227
- Read date:: 2025-09-01
Highlights
Guitar players navigate the fretboard in a few ways. First, they know the location of some key notes. For example, they often know the notes along the 6th and 5th strings well and use them to track chord shapes and scale patterns. Second, they identify notes on other strings by tracing them to the 6th and 5th strings with (View Highlight)
simple octave shapes (View Highlight)
The simple box-shape patterns that the pentatonic scale makes on the fretboard are ideal for getting started with riffing and jamming. Plus, many of the most recognizable guitar riffs of all time are based in pentatonic patterns. (View Highlight)
The more melodic a line is, the more likely it is to use a seven-tone major scale (View Highlight)
Modes are all the different types of scales that the major scale makes when you change the starting point and pitch center in the scale. (View Highlight)
properly identifying a song’s mode is critical to understanding its composition and construction (View Highlight)
You work with triads by stacking the major scale in 3rds in Chapter 3. (View Highlight)
You can play literally thousands of different chord shapes on the fretboard, but most of them can be traced back to just five common open forms. These forms are C, A, G, E, and D. (View Highlight)
(
(roots (the primary pitch from which a chord gets its letter name) to common chords. (View Highlight)
»»The 5th fret is A; it matches the 5th string open and is used for relative tuning. »»The 12th fret is E, an octave higher than the same string open. (It’s specially marked by two inlays on most guitars.) (View Highlight)
The 5th fret is D; it matches the 4th string open and is used for relative tuning. (View Highlight)
On a guitar, a half step is one fret. (View Highlight)
E-F and B-C are half steps, while F-G-A-B and D-C-E are whole steps. (View Highlight)
New highlights added 2025-11-12
The first octave shape you need to know stems off of strings 6 and 5. Place your 1st finger somewhere on the 6th or 5th string and use another finger to reach over two strings and up two frets: (View Highlight)
New highlights added 2025-11-15
The major scale has seven pitches that are separated by a series of intervals known as whole and half steps. Here’s what the major scale formula looks like: W-W-H-W-W-W-H (View Highlight)
Two whole steps or over a string and back one fret. (View Highlight)
Three and a half steps or over a string and up two frets. (View Highlight)
Guitarists often play what are known as harmonic intervals, which are really just intervals you play together to create harmony. Thirds are a common type of harmonic interval. (View Highlight)
Many songs feature guitar parts played in 3rds. One of the best examples is the opening to “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. The guitar plays the G major scale in 3rds over the G chord and the C major scale in 3rds over the C chord (View Highlight)
Sometimes guitarists invert 3rds by moving the 1st degree up an octave (View Highlight)
With intervals, you always count from the note in the lowest position to the note in the highest position. Thus, inverted 3rds are more commonly called 6ths (View Highlight)
By far, the most popular type of harmonic interval among guitar players is the 5th. After all, a root and a 5th make up the so-called power chord that appears in almost every distorted rock song ever recorded. (View Highlight)