Posts by: Don J MacLean

December 16, 2011

What is a Sus 4 Chord and How is it Played on Guitar?

categories Guitar Chords, Guitar Theory | comments 0 Comments

You’ve probably seen the chord symbol D sus 4 in many popular guitar songs. But what does this really mean?

Let’s start by looking at what a chord really is.

A chord is three or more notes played simultaneously.  Chords provide accompaniment and support for melodies.

There are many different types of chords; the most common are called triads.

A triad is a chord that contains three different notes.  To build a major triad, take the first, third and fifth notes from the major scale.

In the C major scale, the notes are:

C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

C major scale in tab and standard notation for guitar

C major scale in tab and standard notation for guitar

 

If you were to take the notes 1-3-5 from the C major scale, your result would be the notes C-E-G.  These are the notes required for a C major chord.

 

C major scale with major triad

C major scale with major triad

There are many C’s, E’s and G’s on the neck of the guitar.  You can play any combination of the notes C-E-G, and you will have a C major chord.  You may double and even triple the notes as needed.  The most common way to play a major chord is in root position.  In root position, the root note, or 1, is the lowest sounding note in the chord.  In other words, a C major chord in root position has C as the bass note.

Below you will find a very popular fingering for C major.

C Major

C major triad guitar fingering

C major triad guitar fingering

 

C major barre chord

C major barre chord for guitar

To build a sus 4 chord, all you do is take the first, fourth and fifth notes from the major scale.  So this means for a C sus 4 chord, you would need the notes:

 

C-F-G

1-4-5

C sus 4 formula

C sus 4 formula

Here is one fingering for C sus 4.

 

C sus 4

C sus 4 guitar chord diagram

C sus 4 guitar chord diagram

C sus 4 chord diagram for guitar

C sus 4 chord diagram for guitar

Now let’s look at how to build a D sus 4 chord.  To play a D sus 4 chord, take 1-4-5 out of the D major scale.

The D major scale consists of the following notes:

D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D

 

D sus 4 chord formula

D sus 4 chord formula for guitar

Therefore, the notes in D sus 4 are:

D-G-A

1-4-5

Here is a popular fingering for D sus 4.

D sus 4

D sus 4 guitar chord fingering diagram

D sus 4 guitar chord fingering diagram

By the way, the word “sus” is an abbreviation for the word suspended.  So a D sus 4 chord is more formally known as D suspended 4.

As you can probably now guess, understanding the notes on the fretboard and the basics of scales will make it much easier to learn guitar chords.  Obviously, when you understand how guitar chords are put together, you will find it much easier to remember guitar chords.

Here is a proven way to totally understand and use guitar theory superfast -> How to totally understand guitar theory superfast.

September 23, 2011

Lead Guitar Solos: 5 Tips for Creating Your Own Unique Guitar Solos

categories Lead Guitar | comments 0 Comments

How to Solo on Guitar

When you first start to play guitar, you want to sound just like your favourite guitar player.  But over time, you reach a point where you want your own guitar sound.  You want to create your own unique guitar style.

One of the biggest questions I get from guitar students is, “How do I get my own style?”

The good news is that every guitar player can develop his or her own unique guitar style or sound.  The bad news is it’s not easy and will take some time.

Now there are many steps in the process of becoming a unique and original guitar player.  What we will look at here are 5 tips for getting started on creating your own unique guitar style.

1.  You must imitate before you can originate.

This is the most common way that most guitar players learn guitar, and it really makes a lot of sense.

Learn to play your favourite guitar songs.

Learn them note for note.

Practice them until you can play them along with the recording.

After you’ve been playing for a while and have a good number of songs down note-for-note, you should start to listen to songs you like, and then work on imitating them very loosely.

So at this point, your objective is to get the gist of the song, and put your own take on it.  Yes, you will still want to learn songs note for note, but by learning songs and starting to change them around a bit, you will be on your way to creating your own guitar style.

2.  Master the concept of tension and release.

This is a really big and important concept.

When you listen to any guitar solo, you will hear notes that create tension and notes that relieve the tension.  A guitar solo is simply a repeated pattern of tension and release.

When you create a guitar solo over a chord progression, you are playing either a chord tone or a non-chord tone.  By this, I mean that each note you play in a guitar solo is either a note contained within the chord, or it is a non-chord tone.

Generally, when you play a non-chord tone, you are creating tension.  When you return to a chord tone, you release the tension.

So this means that creating a guitar solo is simply a game you play with tension and release.

The more control you have over this, the better your guitar solos will sound.  How you do this establishes your sound.

3. Begin with a less is more approach.

After most guitarists get their first few scale fingerings down, they begin to improvise guitar solos. More often than not, first attempts at guitar solos sound like musical diarrhea.

The best approach at first is to limit the number of notes you play in a guitar solo.

Here’s what you do: start by playing only one note.

That’s right, just one note for the entire guitar solo.  Start with a simple chord progression like:

|C        F          G          C|

Or:

|C        Am       Dm      G|

Simply play one note from the C major scale (C-D-E-F-G-A-B) over the entire progression.

This will force you to really hear the sound of that one note over each chord.  You will hear how one note can sound beautiful over one chord and then sound quite dissonant over another.  This is part of the learning process.  Over time, you will want to catalogue these sounds.  This will allow you to start to build your personal guitar solo toolkit.  You will learn what notes work best against each chord. Again, it’s a tension and release thing.

The next step is to pick a different note and repeat this process.

4. Focus on rhythm and timbre.

In addition to starting to hear what each note sounds like against the chords, you should also begin to have some fun with rhythm.  When you can only play one note for an entire guitar solo, you have to do something of rhythmic interest.  So experiment by playing the note with different rhythm patterns.

The next aspect to look at is timbre (pronounced tam’ -ber).  This refers to the quality of sound.  Again, when you are only playing one note, you will need to do something different to create interest.  Look at different ways of attacking the note.  Slide into the note, use vibrato, pinch harmonics, pluck the note, use only up-strokes, use only down-strokes, use alternate picking, etc.

Once you’ve done this exercise with different notes, repeat the process with two notes.  Now you will work on creating a guitar solo using only two notes for the entire guitar solo.

Then repeat the process with three notes, then four notes, etc.

This is very simple but powerful exercise that will really get you on your way to understanding how to create your own guitar solos and in the process begin to establish your unique guitar sound and style.

There are many benefits to doing this exercise.  After you’ve finished the exercise and allow yourself to create a guitar solo with as many notes as you want, you will find that you will appreciate the musical freedom that much more.  Most importantly though, after this exercise, you will find yourself being more economical with your note choice.  You will start to make every note in your guitar solo count.

Now instead of having to guess which notes will work best with each chord, there is a short cut…

5. Learn the basics of guitar music theory

You’ll find that learning the basics of guitar music theory will save you way more time than it takes to learn.

Once you understand the basics of music theory, you will understand the notes that are found in each chord and scale.  This will allow you to take your guitar solos to a much higher level.  You’ll be able to develop your unique guitar style further.  When you understand how to apply music theory to the guitar, you will be able to create guitar solos with chord-scale relationships in mind.  This means you’ll have better control and you’ll find improvisation to be easy and tons of fun.

Now of course you don’t have to learn guitar music theory.  Many good guitar players can’t even tell you what notes they’re playing.  What you should keep in mind is that self-taught-by-ear guitar players usually take the long route to mastering the guitar.  They can be good players, but it usually takes them a really long time to get there.

If you learn to play guitar on your own, you only get to learn from the person facing you in the mirror each morning.  If you decide to get some help from an expert, you get to learn what has worked for the best musicians over the last several hundred years.

In other words, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

So why learn by trial and error when you can cut your guitar learning curve at least in half.

Oh yeah, the other great thing about learning guitar theory is you can also turn it off at any time, so no, you don’t have to worry that it will cramp your style, or hurt your creativity–in fact, it’s actually the opposite.

Guitar theory cuts your learning time down and gives you additional tools to boost your creativity.   Isn’t it time to take your guitar playing and understanding of music to the next level? Check out how to totally understand guitar theory super-fast, and transform your guitar playing today.

September 6, 2011

Can Guitar Music Theory Destroy Music for Pleasure?

categories Guitar Theory | comments 0 Comments

The other night I was out with some of my old high school buddies.  In our conversation, an interesting question was posed by my buddy Rob.  He asked:

“Don, with all of the training you’ve had in music, can you still listen to music for pleasure?”

Rob continued and asked:

“Can you shut it off, or are you always analyzing music?”

So what do you think?

If you really understand guitar music theory and how to apply music theory to guitar, are you forced to analyze everything you listen to, or can you shut it off whenever you want?

Before we answer this, we need to make sure we’re on the same page on what music theory actually is.

Music theory is simply a way organizing what composers have been doing for hundreds of years.  Unfortunately, music theory is often taught so it seems like a bunch of useless boring things given to music students as a form of mental torture!  The good news is when you learn music theory the right way, it’s fun and often becomes addicting.

When you apply music theory to the guitar, it’s usually called guitar theory, or guitar music theory.

With a good understanding of guitar theory, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  You get to learn what other guitar greats have done and you’ll see why it works so well.  With a good understanding of guitar theory, you see the big picture as well as the little picture.  You understand how everything works.  It’s sort of like how the pieces of a puzzle fit together.

You’ve probably heard that knowledge is power.  Napoleon Hill took this a step further by saying:

“Knowledge is only potential power.”

What he meant by this is that knowledge is only power when we actually use it.  So to get the most out of guitar theory, you must apply it to the guitar.

You need to see how it works on the guitar fretboard.

You must see how guitar scales and guitar chords really work on the fretboard, and how they are used in songs.

Okay, so now that we’re on the same page about what guitar theory actually is, let’s get back to the original question.

As you understand things more, don’t you usually appreciate them more?

The same is true with guitar music theory.  When you understand guitar theory, you will actually appreciate music even more.

When you understand guitar theory, you will hear things in music you never heard before.  This is a common thing I see with my guitar students.  As they start to learn more guitar fretboard theory, my students start to hear guitar parts they never noticed before.  This is really powerful stuff!  On top of that they also start to understand what these parts are.

When you understand how things work, you’ll be able to make them work for you.  In other words, as you begin to “get it”, you start to find it easier and easier to learn songs, and guitar solos.  You also find it easier and easier to create your own songs and killer guitar solos too!

Once you grasp guitar theory, you always have the option to turn it on, or off—and it’s very easy to do.   You can listen to music and analyze everything, or you can sit back and just listen to the music purely for pleasure. It’s a lot of fun doing this.  You’ll love it too.

If you are ready to discover a simple proven way to learn guitar theory and improve your guitar playing faster, check out Guitar Theory – The Absolute Essentials of Music Theory for Guitar.

« Older Entries