Guitar Tricks Blog: Music Theory

Posted February 11, 2022

Power Chords Explained in 5 Easy Steps

Power chords are the backbone of rock music. They're often used in rock music, and are also known as fifth chords. They're called fifth chords because they're made from the root note and the fifth. They’re beefy, often crunchy and are super simple to play because it takes only three notes to make these types of guitar chords. Here are 5 easy steps to learning and practicing these powerful chords.

Posted January 20, 2022

7th Chords Explained

7th chords are triads but with the addition of one more note, the 7th. Common 7th chords are major 7th (Cmaj7), minor 7th (Cmin7) and the dominant 7th (C7). These chords are used in all genres of music including blues, jazz, rock and more.

Posted January 15, 2022

3 Minor Chord Progressions and How to Find Them

Minor chord progressions are very similar to major chord progressions but of course, we’re looking at the minor scale! It’s important to know how to find chords within a minor scale so that you have a number of options when it comes time to create your own song or if you simply want to know how your favorite hits have come together.

Posted August 9, 2021

CAGED System Explained

As you're learning guitar, you'll likely hear players reference the CAGED system as being a great tool to utilize in your learning process. To put it simply, CAGED is essentially a way of visualizing chord shapes on the fretboard. The trick to using the CAGED system is to realize that it consists of moveable shapes that can be any chord depending upon where you put the root note. The letters C-A-G-E-D refer to the open chord shapes.

Posted January 8, 2021

A Crash Course in Open Tunings

While standard tuning is certainly the go-to, and the tuning we likely all learned how to play guitar with, let's face it: it can get a little boring. It's not the guitar's fault, it just sometimes takes a change of scenery (or in this case, tuning) to spark a little creativity in your mind. There are countless alternate tunings for the 6-string guitar, but a style of alternate tuning that can be fun to play with (especially for beginner-intermediate guitarists) is an "open tuning."

Posted July 29, 2020

Eddie Van Halen Guitar Style

Eddie Van Halen’s guitar style was all about using a strat-style guitar with humbucking pickups and turning that all the way up for blazing-fast riffs, licks and more. Eddie Van Halen songs are chock full of really great material for guitar learners to study, including hammer ons, pull offs, as well as more advanced techniques like using a boogie-style rhythm, two-hand tapping, hybrid picking and palm-muting triads. There is so much to dig through when learning how to play like Van Halen, so don’t forget to check out the full free lesson at the end of this, as well as the entire tu

Posted June 23, 2020

12 Bar Blues - Explained

The 12 bar blues is a form in blues music where the first (I) chord of a key is repeated for four measures, or bars, followed by two bars of the fourth (IV), then two bars of the first. The last group of four bars begins with one bar of the fifth (V), one bar of the fourth and then resolves with two more bars of the first. It only uses the I - IV - V chords of a key and is very prominent in blues music, and is heavily associated with guitar music in general.

Posted May 15, 2020

Hendrix Chord - Jimi Hendrix Songs

The Hendrix chord is usually a 7#9 chord, and more specifically, an E7#9. The chord shape is colloquially called the Hendrix chord because guitarist Jimi Hendrix frequently used it in a number of his songs like “Purple Haze.” Let’s take a look at this chord below.

Posted March 20, 2020

B.B. King Box Explained

B.B. King is considered to be one of the greatest blues artists of all-time and certainly one of the most influential guitar players ever. His signature guitar tone can be replicated via what guitar players call the “B.B. King Box” or the “B.B. Box.” This box refers to a box pattern on the fretboard that players can utilize to play B.B. King’s signature licks. This box pattern is also great to incorporate into any guitar player’s repertoire as it’s always helpful to know a few licks that c

Posted March 5, 2020

5 Advanced Guitar Techniques to Learn

Advanced guitar techniques like sweep picking, travis picking, two-hand tapping open up a myriad of expression and creativity to playing. More than anything, the mastery of these techniques elevate the guitar into an instrument that is richer and fuller. Check out these five advanced guitar techniques every guitarist needs to learn.

Posted January 23, 2020

Country Guitar Licks You Can Learn Right Now

Country guitar licks are like musical sentences strung together by different words, or musical notes. Guitar licks are a handful of notes that create short phrases and you can use these licks to help with your lead guitar playing and improvisation.

Posted December 18, 2019

What Key is this Song In - How to find the Key of a Song in 3 Steps

What key is this song in? That's a regularly-asked question when a guitarist wants to jam or play by ear. Guitarists can figure out how to find the key of a song with a few super easy methods. In this blog post we’ll go over a very simple way of playing the correct notes, even if you don’t know what key the song is in.

Posted December 5, 2019

5 Ways to Play the Pentatonic Scale

The pentatonic scale is the first scale any beginer guitar player should learn. It’s easy, it sounds great, and can be applied to almost any genera or song.

The pentatonic scale is made up of 5 notes (‘penta’ is Greek for ‘five’) derived from the standard major scale or minor scale. This pattern creates a ‘box’ on the fretboard which is easily movable and playable all over the neck.

Posted November 14, 2019

Ghost Notes - What Are They?

Ghost notes are notes that are muted by a single fretting hand and are displayed by an “X” on guitar tabs. According to our guitar glossary, they “create a percussive effect with a slight underlying hint of a specific note.” But ghost notes may also carry another meaning. Some ghost notes are muted, but other times, a ghost note is a note that can be optionally played, that is, they’re notes that are not required but are there to embellish a piece if the performer choose

Posted October 17, 2019

Music Vocabulary - 4 Quick Lessons!

Music vocabulary is all of the words and jargon associated with playing music, and in this case, all of the words associated with playing guitar. If you ever have trouble with what a word means within a Guitartricks lesson, look no further than our guitar glossary here.