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ChristopherSchlegel
Guitar Tricks Instructor
Joined: 08/09/05
Posts: 8,486
ChristopherSchlegel
Guitar Tricks Instructor
Joined: 08/09/05
Posts: 8,486
01/31/2020 1:12 pm

Hey & welcome to GT!

Originally Posted by: bouncee

As I don't know any musical theory it can be a challenge even to try to describe what I wish to achieve or what I need help and pointers for.[/quote]

Normally I encourage students to work through one of the guided courses. Either the Fundamentals or the Styles courses.

https://www.guitartricks.com/experienced.php

Those are great places to start because they will teach you skills along with the appropriate amount of theory when you need it. So, you should find the right one according to your current skill level & work through them!

But you seem to already have some skills & more importantly have a very specific goal you are working on. So I'm going to directly address your question.

Originally Posted by: bounceeSo I was told to learn a new song before next practice session and the chord progression is as follows.

[br]Verse is like this

Am - G - C - F - C - F - G

[br]Chorus like this:

Dm - C - G - C – F - Dm - C - G - F

[p]Before you start trying to play scales, you should consider that you can just play some interesting voicings of the chords. For example, most beginners would simply play open chords or barre chord voicings of those chords. But once you understand chord triads & inversions you could play something like this for the verse chords.

|--5----7----8----8------8----8----10------------------------|[br]|--5----8----8----10----8----10----12-----------------------|[br]|--5----7----9----10----9----10----12-----------------------|[br]|-----------------------------------------------------------------|[br]|-----------------------------------------------------------------|

|-----------------------------------------------------------------|

Notice all the notes go up in pitch, the voices gradually move in one direction through the chords. Instead, or the second time through the verse chords, you could go down in pitch for variety!

|--12----10----8----5----3----5----3------------------------|[br]|--13----12----8----6----5----6----3------------------------|[br]|--14----12----9----5----5----5----4------------------------|[br]|-----------------------------------------------------------------|[br]|-----------------------------------------------------------------|

|-----------------------------------------------------------------|

You could play them in different rhythms or arpeggiate them! The point is that there are so many creative things to do with chords once you understand a little music theory.

This tutorial is an intro to chord voicings.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=148

And this collection of tutorials systematically covers all possible major & minor chords triads & inversions across the guitar.

https://www.guitartricks.com/collection/triads-and-inversions

[quote=bouncee]Also, because this song is relativly slow tempo at 98 BPM I feel this could maybe also be a song I could try to put my scale practicing into play. Any solos will be for my pleasure(!) only as I am only rhythm at practice. My understanding so far is that if this song was written with say a C major key signature, I could practice Am pentatonic over the song without too much worry about chord changes. Will that also work for this song? Can I do A minor pentatonic over this song regarding the chord changes or only at the Am chords?

Yes, but you might want to consider using the entire A diatonic minor scale since some of the chords have notes that are not in just the pentatonic version of the scale.

The point is that you figure out which single note lines, melodies, or solo licks to play based on 3 things:

1. The key of the song.

2. Targeting chord tones as they happen.

3. Creating melodies.

I cover the basics of this in this tutorial.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=876

And this collection of tutorials covers this concept in depth.

https://www.guitartricks.com/collection/learning-to-improvise

Hope that helps! Please ask more if necessary & have fun!


Christopher Schlegel
Guitar Tricks Instructor

Christopher Schlegel Lesson Directory