So you just found a song you’d love to play, you looked up the chords, and everything is fine and dandy, right? No! Darn that pesky F minor 7 chord lurking in the backend of the bridge section…

So today I’m going to make all your wishes come true and get you back to playing that song asap. You’ll also be able to play this chord in different parts of the neck too for any wacky chord progression that could arise in the future.

Let’s go!

Make Your First F Minor 7 Guitar Chord Shape

Righty ho, so that you can actually remember this thing once you’ve flown the Fm7 nest, we’re gonna build this chord together.

To start, we’re going to play an E minor 7 chord like this:

Yup I’m using a weird finger, you’ll see why in a second.

(For those who haven’t seen an Em7 before, normally we would fret that A string note with our 2nd finger)

Anyway, this shape uses the low E string as its bass note. From there, we build the rest of the minor 7 shape on top of that.

That means if we use an F note as a bass note, then build the same shape on top, we will get an Fm7 chord.

Luckily, there is an F note on the 1st fret of the low E string. If we want to turn this into an Fm7 chord, we just need to copy and paste the Em7 shape up to this fret!

That means just sliding this entire shape up a fret.

Normally we would use our first finger to “barre” down all those notes on the first fret like a capo. These notes used to be played open in the Em7 shape. But, since we are shifting the whole shape up a fret, all the open strings need to move up a fret too. That means shifting them from the 0th fret, to the 1st fret.

However, with this shape, you’d need a finger the width of Dwayne Johnson’s bicep in order to press down all those damn strings…

Soooo lots of people cheat and make their own interpretations and skip certain notes to make it easier to play.

I’ll let you decide which version you like the most:

1. Skip the low F bass note

Now you can focus your energy on just barring those higher strings.

2. Shorten it down to just the top 4 strings.

It’s easy to play, can slide about nicely, and kinda has a different sound. If you’re looking for a quick way to play Fm7 for a song coming up tomorrow, this is your guy.

3. Play the bass note and barre the middle notes

Yes, this shape looks as ugly as a gorilla in lingerie. But I actually find it weirdly comfortable and use this shape the most. Most jazz guys opt for this shape too, particularly if you want to hear that low bass note move as you shift chords.

4. Move the 7th to a higher string

Now this one sounds just lushhh. Although it is a bit trickier.

It works because we’ve moved where we are playing the minor 7th note in the chord. Previously, we were playing it on the 1st fret of the D string, but here we use our pinkie finger to play this m7 note on a higher string instead.

I find that way you can properly hear this minor 7th note without it sounding muddy.

Anyway, all these F minor 7 chords are categorized under the E shape. And that’s because we used an E chord to make it! See, guitar does make sense…

^^Make sure you make a note of this, skimreading people!! It is very important for later on! ^^

How to Play an F Minor 7 Chord Elsewhere on the Guitar Neck

So we used the logic earlier of starting with an E minor 7. Then we shifted the same shape up the guitar fretboard to an F bass note, creating a new F minor 7 chord.

We can actually use the same logic with the A minor 7 chord shape. This will allow us to create another F minor 7 chord further up the guitar.

E.g. If most of the chords you are playing in a progression are around the 5th fret/7th fret area, you don’t want to have to slide all the way down the Mr Fret 1 over there.

So to make another shape, start with an A minor 7 chord, played like this:

Then slide your 3rd finger up to the 10th fret and your 2nd finger up to the 9th fret.

After that, smack your first finger across the 8th fret to squish down all those strings that would have just been left open in the A minor 7 chord.

Voilà! There’s your next shape. Surprise surprise, this one is called the A shape. But a very nice sounding chord if I do say so myself…

No cheating in this one I’m afraid, so you’re just gonna have to get used to that barre.

Make sure that you do not play the low E string in this shape. The whole reason it works is that we are now using the F note on the 8th fret of the A string as our bass note.

If you don’t believe me, then play the 1st fret of the E string, then the 8th fret of the A string. They’re the same note! Just the A string note is an octave higher.

Using this new F bass note, we can make this shape too:

And this one is kinda cool because we can make a super fancy Fm11 chord just by barring that higher string too.

Give it a play, and you’ll realize how cool it sounds. In most cases, you should be able to use that in place of the normal minor 7 chord. So throw it in a song and see if it works

You can download and print all the F Minor 7 guitar chord shapes mentioned in this post for free by clicking here.

Use These Shapes to Make Every Chord Ever!

Alrighty readers, get your musical thinking caps on because this going to take a bit of brain yoga. But trust me, it’ll be worth it!

Okay, let’s think about how we made those shapes earlier, particularly the E shape.

We found a minor 7 chord that could be played with open strings, then we shifted the shape up the fretboard. We did this using the concept of bass notes.

By finding an F bass note, we could then stick the rest of the chord shape after it, using our index finger to barre any strings down that used to be open, like a capo.

So what if we moved this E shape up to use a different bass note? For example, the G note on the 3rd fret of the E string?

Well, congratulations! You have just made a G minor 7 chord. It is the exact same shape as the F minor 7 chord, but with a G bass note instead.

In fact, you can use this to make ANY minor 7 chord, granted you are using an E string bass note as your starting point.

Above is a diagram of all the notes on your guitar fretboard. You can see the F on the 1st fret of the low E string, and a G on the 3rd fret.

If we look at the 7th fret of the low E string, we see a B note. Soooo, shift this E shape up to fret 7, and you get a B minor 7 chord! Shift it up to fret 8, and you get a C minor 7 chord. Shift it up to fret 100?! That’s right! You get… Oh, forget fret 100…

Anyway, I hope what I’m saying makes sense.

We can use the same logic with our A shape too.

You can see on the 8th fret of the A string, there is the F note that we used as our bass note earlier.

So, slide this A shape down to the B note on fret 2, and you get the other way to play B minor 7. Slide it to the C note on fret 3, and you get C minor 7 again, etc.

That way, you haven’t just found 7 ways to play an F minor 7 chord on guitar… you’ve found 7 ways to play ANY minor 7th chord on guitar!

Phew, that’s some complicated stuff. Reread this section if you need to.

If it doesn’t make sense to you, then just ask me. You can comment, message me on Pinterest, or email me at sam@beastmodeguitar.com. Understanding this now will ensure you don’t need to look up another minor 7th guide ever again

Tips for Practising These Chords

You’ve come to learn these chords because you want to play them in a song, right? Great! Because this section happens to be full of tips on how to get you doing that fast.

• Tip 1 – Get a bouncy ball!

Finding barring down all those notes quite tiring on the old index finger?

Good, that means you are normal.

In order to make bar/barre chords easier to play, we first need to strengthen our pincer muscles. These are the muscles that do all the flattening for us.

By squidging a bouncy ball between our index finger and our thumb – as show above – we can help to build up these muscles.

Can you see the pincer muscles around the thumb working? Doing a few reps of this at random points throughout the day should make barring chords more effortless.

• Use The Switch Method

Anyone who has read my posts on playing chords in the past knows I would marry The Switch Method if I could. Alas, stuck in the friend zone…

So what you want to do is as follows:

1. Find 2 chords that you are trying to learn. E.g. Fm7 (E shape) and Fm7 (A shape)

2. If we play the Fm7 (A shape) on the 1st fret of the A string, we get Bbm7. For the purpose of ease, we’ll practise the A shape here instead.

3. The task is to continuously switch between these chords for a few minutes. Fm7 to Bbm7 to Fm7 to Bbm7…

4. Have a break and do it again at random points in the day until these changes feel comfortable. After that, BOOM! You’re ready to play an F minor 7 chord on guitar in a real life song

5. If you want to learn other F minor 7 shapes, you can extend the exercise by adding more shapes to the sequence. You could even place these on the 3rd or 4th frets to force yourself to get used to moving about. E.g. Fm7 – Bbm7 – Gm7 (E shape 3rd fret)

Feel free to add any more chords you want to learn to the sequence too.

Anyway, this is a super efficient way of getting your fingers to plonk down where you want them. Soon enough, your fingers will be flying through these chords faster than Sonic in speedos.

Wrapping It Up

See? You came here wanting to learn a single chord, and now you know all of them!

Jee, Beast Mode Guitar is just the gift that keeps on giving…

Have fun playing those wonderful chords.

I’ve been Sam Olverson.

Chow!

P.S. If you want to know how to play the other bar chord variations, such as major, minor, and the other 7ths, then click here to view my post on that!

The post 7 Simple Ways to Play an F Minor 7 Chord on Guitar appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

But then almost every beginner you see starts with an acoustic, so what the flip?

Today I’ll be going over which one is actually the best to start playing so that you can smash some songs out in no time, which is what we all want, right?

Let’s begin.

Which Will Hurt Your Fingers More?

Ha ha ha, the classic question. And here’s an even more classic, annoying answer… Both.

Electric guitar strings are thinner, which means that they are sharper. As a result, the strings will feel particularly spikey on your wee, uncalloused digits in the beginning.

You’ll probably only be able to play for 5 mins or so before you need a break.

However, acoustic guitar strings are thicker and therefore a bit softer to play. As well as this, acoustic guitars tend to have four wound strings, and electric guitar only have three. This means that you get an additional soft feeling string on acoustics.

But still, you’ll only be able to play for about 10-15 minutes at a time when you first start out before the damned finger pain hits.

That’s because, being thicker, the strings require more effort to push down. This means you have to push into the strings more than on an electric.

At the end of the day though, both will be a little uncomfortable for the first week or two, and your fingers will soon toughen up. Mine nowadays could probably even block a Nerf bullet…

Anyway, I’d say the acoustic still wins the least-finger-pain-whilst-playing-guitar award.

Playtime is everything when you’re starting out, and acoustic will help with that.

Which Is Easier to Play Riffs On?

Alright, so you like riffs and want to play along with tracks of your favourite band asap?

Obviously it depends on the genre, but I’d say electric guitar just pips this one.

The riffs themselves are actually about the same difficulty in most cases. Funk, blues, soul, reggae, rock, indie etc. you won’t be able to feel a noticeable difference.

The only problem occurs when you start playing genres like Metal and Hard Rock, where lots of distortion is used.

You can buy a distortion pedal or an amp with a distortion setting for electric guitar, but you don’t do that for acoustic guitar. At least, not unless you are moderately insane.

So the electric guitar is just a bit more customizable in terms of genre, although you will have to pay for those extra gadgets.

Which Is Easier to Play Notes On?

Electric guitar. Fact.

No offence acoustic, but those thicker strings just make everything require increased effort. More friction makes slides more annoying, hammer ons and pulls offs need more power to sound out clearly, and bends aren’t gonna happen without your fingers needing a burial after.

This is normally the point where people decide that electric is easier than acoustic. Those same licks and solos require a tenth of the effort on an electric guitar than on an acoustic.

And by the time you want to play licks and solos, your fingers are tougher anyway, so the sharper strings aren’t so much of an issue.

However, you’d be more of an intermediate guitarist than a beginner by this point. So in terms of choosing a guitar from a beginner’s perspective, don’t let this worry you too much.

Which Is Easier to Pick Up and Play?

So you’re in a Guitar Centre, overwhelmed by the wall of guitars facing you, and you just wanna know, which can I buy, take home and just play straight away?

Well, the answer to that – my friend – is going to be the acoustic.

You pick it up, tune it with a free app like GuitarTuna, and voilà! You have your own playable, not-terrible sounding instrument.

No knobs, no cables, no amps dials or funny words like “EQ”, “Mid” or “Gain”. That stuff confuses new electric guitar players and gets people frustrated messing about with things they don’t understand. Really, you should just be playing.

The last thing you want is quitting because you got fed up trying to find a “good tone”.

Plus, you’d have to buy an electric guitar, an amp AND a cable, which costs much more than just a simple acoustic.

If you wanna just play, then choose the wooden guitar with hole in the middle.

So Which One Should You Get?

Here’s the thing, they are both the same instrument and teach you the same skills.

Electric will be harder initially, but then easier in the long run, particularly once you have callouses and are at that intermediate stage.

That’s why I recommend that people should start out on acoustic. Learn the chords, play the instrument as much as possible, and don’t worry about anything more complicated than that just yet.

Find out whether you actually even like playing before you dive in with money.

And hey, once you’ve played for a few months and find yourself wanting more, then great! Get yourself an electric guitar & amp and have fun learning the technical stuff.

But obviously, if your mate is offering you an old electric guitar and amp for free, then you should definitely just take that!

Loads of people start out on electric, and if it saves money, then it’s worth it.

I myself started in summer on an old, battered acoustic with a massive split open crack through the middle of it.

I played for a while, got good at chords, then got a 10W Marshall Amp and Squire Telecaster for the following Christmas… Worked for me!

Wrapping It Up

Hopefully that’s been insightful for y’all. Everybody starts differently, so don’t spend too much time dwelling on it.

Some people even start playing bass, realize guitar gets you way more dates, then transition over and do absolutely fine.

I don’t care what you get, as long as you actually play it.

Anyway, I’ve been Sam,

Chow!

P.S. If you want to take your first free guitar lesson and learn how to play guitar for beginners, then click here to start playing!

The post Is Electric Guitar Easier Than Acoustic for Beginners? appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

Well tough. Your guitar is never going to sound like a harmonica. But it can do harmonics!

So today, I’ll be going over how to play natural harmonics on guitar to create some nifty riffs, chord progressions and licks.

Let’s go.

Note: These are different from “Artificial” or “Pinch” harmonics, which give you that cutting “squeal” sound. Click here to learn to play those.

The Easy Natural Harmonic

Alright, let’s start with the one that you see and hear all the time – the fretted harmonic.

I wish I could go through the biblical stories of how the natural harmonic rose up and took over the world, but unfortunately there isn’t enough time for that today.

So here’s how you do it:

1. Find the 7th fret on your guitar, and gently rest your index finger on the low E string EXACTLY above the metal fret bit.

2. Pluck the string

Yup, it’s that easy.

If you aren’t getting any clear, resonant sound, then it’s probably because of one of two things:

1. Your finger isn’t DIRECTLY above the metal fret bit.

2. You are pressing down too hard with your index finger. Remember, you don’t have to press down AT ALL when doing these natural harmonics, your finger just has to lightly contact the string on top.

Anyway, once you’ve got your first harmonic going, have a go at it on a different string.

Try resting your index finger lightly across the top of the A string 7th fret now instead. Pluck it, and you should get that clear metallic ringing sound again.

In fact, this natural harmonic trick works on any string, as long as it is at the 5th, 7th or 12th fret. It works on the 9th fret too, but it’s quieter, and you’ll need some distortion to hear it properly.

So give it a test. Try replicating what you did at the 7th fret on the 12th fret, lightly resting your finger above the metal fret bit and plucking.

If you enjoy consistently proving to their friends that your IQ is higher than theirs, then you can even try resting the underside of your index finger lightly across all 6 strings at once.

That’ll give you something like this when played through at the 12th fret:

Oh, and by the way, you can play these natural harmonics on guitar 12 frets higher too. E.g. the harmonic on the 19th fret sounds the exact same as the harmonic on the 7th fret.

The 5th fret = 17th fret (but an octave higher) and the 12th fret = 24th fret (also one octave higher). Not that useful, but meh, interesting to know.

The Weird, Not So Easy Natural Harmonics

So we know that we can play natural harmonics on the 5th, 7th, and 12th fret of our guitar. In general, these are the harmonics that ring out the best.

But actually, we can do them on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th fret too. They’re just a bit weirder.

Why are they weird? Aha! I never thought you’d ask.

They’re weird because within the within these 3 frets, there are six separate harmonic spots:

I still haven’t figured out to this day why harmonics do this. But hey, at least they sound cool!

So if you were to play them from the 2nd-4th fret, you would get this:

What’s further discombobulating is that as I go up the fretboard here, the harmonics go down in pitch. Hmpf, physics…

But I do think particularly the 3rd fret harmonics sound really cool. They’re probably the most used in metal and rock songs because they sound the sharpest and most aggressive.

They will also work 12 frets higher, but try them at your own peril…

The Harmonic Scale

You’ll have noticed by now that each of these harmonics sound different. That’s because each has its own note.

Because I’m amazing, you can download this as a PDF here if you want to print it out.

It looks kinda confusing, but because it’s a scale, there is a clear pattern.

Each note on the 5th fret is the same as the open string. All the notes on the 7th fret are the 5th of the open string, and the 9th fret has the major 3rd of the open string.

And if you look at the E string, the most common notes are E, G# and B. These together make-up an E major chord! Since every string follows the same formula, we know that each string will mostly feature its major chord notes.

See? The harmonic scale is nice!

The Other Type of Natural Harmonics

You can do all of that? Great. Now we get into the spicy chicken curry stuff.

Those harmonics we’ve just learnt are great, but you can only do them on certain frets, which means that you’re limited to a number of notes.

This other type allows us to play natural harmonics as any note on any string of our guitar.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Fret the 2nd fret of the D string with your fretting-hand index finger, and don’t move it!

2. Notice the fret 12 frets higher than this – in this case the 14th fret – because this note is an octave higher than the one you are currently fretting.

3. Gently rest the index finger of your picking hand directly above the metal bit of this 14th fret – like you would to do a harmonic.

4. Using your spare, picking-hand thumb, pluck the string.

5. Boom! Harmonic!

If you aren’t getting any sound, then make sure the fret you are lightly resting your index finger on is EXACTLY 12 frets higher than the one you’re fretting, and don’t push down too hard with it either.

Now why the hell does this work?

Well, let’s consider the open E string harmonics we did earlier. When the string was open, we were able to play a harmonic on the 12th fret.

And if you compare this with the open string, you will see that they are both E notes.

This harmonic hot-spot is precisely 12 frets higher than the open string. Using this, we now know that there will always be a harmonic hot-spot 12 frets higher than the note being fretted, and it will produce the same pitch, just as a harmonic replica.

Soooooo, let’s have a go with some chords…

Fret an A major chord, like so:

Then find the notes of these chords, twelve frets higher. The open string harmonics will still be on the 12th fret, but the three fretted notes will have harmonics on the 14th fret.

So, using the picking-hand technique we just went through: rest your picking-hand index finger on the fret 12 notes above the one being fretted, pluck the string with your thumb, then move to the next string.

In this particular chord, the harmonics will be on the (A)12th, (D)14th, (G)14th, (B)14th, (E)12th frets.

This will work for any note, anywhere. Unless you choose a fret like the 19th fret which can’t go 12 frets higher, try to make a harmonic out of it and get really annoyed because it won’t work. In which case, learn bass instead.

The Other Type of Natural Harmonics Part 2

Wait, there’s more…!? Yup. On an open string there are harmonic spots on the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 12th frets, and we’ve only done the harmonics 12 frets higher so far.

You can actually replicate this picking-hand index finger trick on any fret 3, 5, or 7 frets higher too, yippeeee!!!!

Just never do it 3 frets higher because it sounds terrible.

But 5 frets higher sounds great!

And so does 7 frets higher.

I’ll show you some chord progressions later to muck about with harmonic trick and create some really cool sounds.

But we can turn this into something even cooler!

Tapped Harmonics

Okay, maybe it’s not even cooler, but it’s at least just as cool.

Because what if I told you that we could play the natural harmonics on our guitar as above, but make them sound more aggressive, and not even use our thumb.

I’m judging by the confused looks that no one knows what I’m on about.

So here’s what you’ll want to do:

1. Set up a gainy, overdriven, lead tone.

2. Fret the 5th fret of the G string.

3. Find the fret 12 frets higher (the 17th fret), and look at it like you’re in love with it.

4. Pluck the string with your plectrum, then lift your picking hand and tap the top of that sweet lookin’ 17th fret very gently with a free finger.

5. Wiggle with your left hand to give some badass sounding vibrato.

Seeee? Isn’t that awesome!? You can also tap 5 frets, 7 frets and even 3 frets higher (if you’re mentally insane) than the note you are playing in case you find it easier to tap those midway through a solo.

And just to completely blow your mind, you can add these harmonics to a bend too.

Bend up. Look 12 frets higher. Tap. BAM!

Harmonics Licks, Riffs, and Progressions!

Whoop, whoop, time to have some fun. I mean, that was all fun. But this is even more fun!

Why is it even more fun? Here’s why.

Woo yeah! If you didn’t love harmonics before, you’ll love them now.

The first and third time through we’ll use the 3rd fret harmonic just to the right of the 3rd fret dot marker, and on the second time we use the one just to the left of it.

Here’s riff numero dos:

For this one, we don’t even have to worry about hitting specific harmonics! We can instead do the classic “harmonic slide”. Just start your index finger somewhere around the 2nd fret and slide it slowly up to the 4th fret, picking with your other hand at the same time.

Hopefully that’s a cool trick you can play around with.

Anyway, final riff, then the licks!

Woah there, now we’re adding some rhythms to the harmonics, ooooooh…

By the way, it helps to have a fairly gain-intensive sound when you play natural harmonics on guitar. Otherwise, they just end up sounding dull. So make sure you’ve got that gain knob wacked up a bit when playing these riffs.

Now how about some licks, too?

Little melodic one there to whet your appetite.

You’ll want to hold down the 7th fret of the G string, do the harmonic tap at 19, then slide down your fretting hand from the 7th fret to the 4th fret. This’ll create a nice harmonic slide before doing a normal tap on the 16th fret.

If you want to know more about learning to tap on guitar, then click here.

Anyway, you’ll want to gather yourself for this next one…

Okay, Sam. Stop it. You’re showing off.

Damn right, I am! You got a problem with cool-sounding licks?

Like the last one, this one features a tapped harmonic on the bend. So bend up, lightly tap 12 frets up from the bending fret, then pull it back down.

Alright, let’s get some tapped harmonic chord progressions in the house…

Here’s the one I’m gonna use, so make sure you feel comfortable with that first:

Then I’m going to pluck the bass notes with my thumb and do the 12-frets-up trick to tap the other chord notes.

Put together, it should sound something like this:

Mmm mmmm… Scrumptious. Tapped harmonic chords always give a nice, airy, spacious feel. So if you’re writing some chord progressions and the mood just isn’t there, try tapping them instead!

But for ultimate chill vibes, have a go at this:

Then tap it to make it awesome.

Zzzzz zzzzz zzz-Oh! Didn’t see you there! That chord progression was just too damn relaxing…

And the reason why it’s so relaxing is that I switch between two Major 9th chords – the most chill sounding chord in the world.

If you want to learn how to play 9th chords and add some exciting colour to normal chords, then click here to view my post on that.

So there’s just some harmonic stuff for you to play around with. Feel free to nick and customize as many of these as you want and make everyone think you’re awesome.

Tune Your Guitar With Natural Harmonics

Well, you thought you’d heard all the cool tricks that come along with natural harmonics by now, did ya?

Muhaha, there’s still one more!

Because each harmonic note on the 5th fret of one string and the 7th fret of the next string up is the same, we can tune one string to be in sync with the other.

Here’s what you’ll want to do:

1. Rest your index finger on the 5th fret of the E string – like you would do when playing a harmonic – and your ring finger on the 7th fret of the A string.

2. Play the E string harmonic, then the A string harmonic right after.

If the two strings are in tune, then you will hear the harmonics will vibrate in unison.

3. If they are vibrating at different speeds, then lower or raise the pitch of the A string until the two harmonics link up.

Here, I turn the tuning peg clockwise to lower the pitch of the A string until it syncs up with the E string.

4. Repeat this 5th-7th fret trick for the other strings, up until you start matching the B string up with the G string.

5. Because the B string is weird, it doesn’t follow the same 5th-7th fret pattern as before.

Instead, play the 4th fret of the G string normally, and then the B string completely open. It’s a bit trickier, but from there you can adjust the B string as required to match the G string pitch.

6. After that, you can return to the original 5th-7th fret method for the last two strings.

It is pretty difficult, but if you’ve done everything correctly, you should end up with something like so:

The only problem with this method is that if your initial low E string is out of tune, then you are tuning the rest of your guitar to fit that out of tune string.

Now, that’s alright for practising at home and developing your musical ear. But in a band situation, you might wanna just check the low E is in tune first.

Wrapping It Up

There you have it, ladies and gents. Follows these steps, and you’ll be adding some serious pizazz to your songs in no time.

And if you try hard enough, you may even be able to get your guitar to sound like a harmonica! *Evil laugh, knowing they can never make their guitar sound like a harmonica*

Anyway, I’ve been Sam,

See ya!

P.S. If you want to learn how to play pinch harmonics on guitar (the other type of harmonic) so that you can add some scream to your riffs and solos, click here to view my post on that.

The post How to Play Natural Harmonics on Guitar appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

If you’re changing strings for the first time, then it’s probably because a string snapped on you – Dammit! – or there’s a weekly-string-changing guitarist next-door who looks down on you like a bit of dirt on his shoe.

And I don’t want you to feel like dirt.

So today I’ll be going over how to change electric guitar strings for newbies, how often you should change them and some extra string changing bonus tips too.

Let’s roll.

Changing Strings: Step-by-Step

Step 1: Get ready

1. For all you I-have-never-changed-a-string-before-this-is-really-scary-omg people out there, just chill. Calm your nerves, you aren’t going to break your guitar unless something goes REALLY wrong…

And by REALLY wrong, I mean accidentally dropping it off Mount Everest or something.

2. Also, make sure that you have your guitar laid down flat on a table with a small flannel where they contact. You don’t want any scratches going on there.

But Sam, you’ve laid your guitar on the floor! Yes, that’s because my desk is grim, and you won’t want to see that in a picture.

3. Find out your string gauge. Most guitars will come with 9-42 (aka 9s) or 10-46 (aka 10s, thicker than 9s) strings sets from the factory. These gobbledegook numbers refer to the thickness of each string, with a 10 in the 10-46 set being the high E string, and the 46 being the low E string.

If you put on a different string gauge, then you’ll have to reset your intonation, which probably isn’t what you’re here for.

If you have a caliper at home, then below is a video of how you can check your string gauge using that.

If not, then hand it to an experienced guitar-playing mate or take it to a guitar store, and they should be able to figure it out for you.

4. Get yourself some strings. To restring your guitar, you’re gonna need something to actually resting it with!

Favourites among guitar players include:

1. Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10-46 (Super Slinky for 9-42)

Used by soooo many bands. Metallica, Paul McCartney, Slash, John Mayer, John Petrucci, Iron Maiden and KISS are just to name a few. You can view the whole roster on their website here.

2. D’Addario Regular Light 10-46 (Super Light for 9-42).

Used by Mark Knopfler, Slipknot, Herman Li, Guthrie Govan (my fav guitar player), Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani etc. You can view their roster here.

Although, my personal recommendation for any fellow Brits out there is Rotosound Yellows 10-46 (Pinks for 9-42).

They cost and feel the same as the strings above, except you get a free extra high E string… Which is awesome because that’s the only string that breaks anyway!

Still, you’ll see me in this post using Rotosound Blues in this post because I’m weird. They’re a hybrid set between 10-46s on the high strings and 12-52s on the low strings. This gives more flexibility for down tuning to Drop D and beyond, but also makes the strings stiffer to play.

To learn more about the best string gauge for different tunings, check out this video here.

You’ll also see people trying to sell you high-end string types for extortionate prices. Don’t worry about all that noise for now, these strings will do the job more than well enough.

But if you are interested in the change to expensive electric guitar strings, then here’s a useful expensive string comparison video on that.

Step 2: Remove the String

You may have noticed in the image for Step 1 that there’s a peculiar tool in the bottom right corner.

This is called a string winder. When restringing, we’re gonna have to do a lot of athritis-inducing peg turning, and that beautiful device basically gives you hacks to speed up the process.

You can also get away with turning with your fingers. But if you ever plan on restringing again, I recommend getting one of these and you’ll never look back.

Either way, you’ll want to turn the peg clockwise until the string becomes loose and floppy.

Then you’ll want to get some wire cutters and snip the string, or- … hey! If you’ve got the same string winder as me, then it’s got a built-in wire cutter already.

After that, just rip the first half of the string off the tuning peg and push the other half out the back, and you’ll be good to go.

PLEASE NOTE: Only restring one string at a time! To change all strings at once upsets the neck tension and disrupts technical electric guitar tuning stuff that neither you nor I understand. So, unless you’re doing fretboard work like cleaning it or replacing frets, stick to one at a time por favor.

Step 3: Add the New String

Now it’s time for the fun part. Find your strings and take a long hard look at that gorgeous string packet…

Either way, the most important part of a string set is the back of the packet!

That’s because it shows you which string needs to go where. The last thing you want is restringing your guitar backwards.

Yes, people have actually done that.

If you have Ernie Ball strings, then never fear because each string will already be in its own mini, labelled packet on the inside anyway.

So open the packet, choose the right string, and thread it through the bridge!

For Fender Strats, you’ll have to thread this through the underneath of the guitar. And on Gibsons, you’ll have a separate section behind the bridge for your strings to chill.

Once it’s through, make sure you pull the string through/over the saddle like the other strings are doing.

If you have a bridge like mine, then pressing your index finger down – like so – will help flick that string upwards through the saddle.

Once you’ve done that, turn your turning peg so that the hole faces towards the bridge.

The string should be able to just slide through it in a straight line.

BONUS STEP: Get a pencil

A handy trick when restringing is to get your all-time favourite pencil, and essentially colour in the string slot.

Since I’m kinda stupid, I forgot to do it on the first 3 strings this time. But that’s only because I’ve done it there before!

Anyway, you should be able to see the graphite in the socket afterwards.

Now, why have I asked you to do this random as frick thing?

Because the graphite acts as a lubricant to the string in the socket. This allows the string to easily move through the nut and gives a 5-star tuning experience.

Step 4: Get ready to tighten

To ensure that we get some nice tuning stability, there are a couple of steps we wanna take.

The first one is making sure that we don’t coil too much string. More string on the peg = more string that can go out of tune.

So a good way to figure out the right amount is to pull the string through the peg, taught.

I appreciate I use the A string in this demo, for some reason the E string pics for this one didn’t turn out well. Either way, it’s the same thing.

You see that D string tuning peg one to the right? Good, your eyes are still working. The next step is to pinch the part of the string you’re holding adjacent to that, using your other hand. I’ve highlighted the section below:

Then, just thread the string backwards until your pinching hand comes into contact with the peg – that’s the amount of slack you want.

Step 5: Tightening the String

Whoop! Whoop! This is the fun part…

Keep the string in position using your right hand, and let go of your left-hand pinch.

Now that your left hand is free, use it to press the string down on the other side of the peg, ideally next to the nut. This will keep the string in place as you tighten it.

Then tighten by turning the tuning peg anticlockwise. This is where a string winder really comes in handy.

As you tighten the string, it’ll start to wrap around the peg, normally forming about two coils. But do you see that annoying bit of string sticking out from the exit of the tuning peg?

Yup, that bit that keeps flicking everywhere and scratching you.

Try to guide the first coil underneath this annoying bit of string, and the second coil above it.

This will clamp it between the two coils, preventing slippage and out-of-tune-ness.

After you’ve tightened up a fair amount, you’ll want to get your tuner out – plug in tuners are the most accurate, but an app like GuitarTuna will also do the job – and tune the string to pitch.

Step 6: Stretching the strings

The fact is, when you change electric guitar strings, tuning to pitch ain’t enough. We need to get them ready for all the mania that we’re going to throw at them.

So to do that, grab the string you’ve just tuned. Then, tug on it upwards.

This will move the guitar a bit, so make sure you hold it in place.

Do a couple of tugs there, then move along a bit and do a couple of tugs there too. Aim to tug all the way along the length of the string a couple of times.

However! Sometimes tugging on the lower frets can pull the string out of the nut, which is a pain in the ass! So to avoid that, just press your thumb down on where the string rests in the nut whilst you’re down there.

Also, the higher strings can be kinda sharp to tug on. So normally I’ll grab them with a clean cloth over my hand to make my fingers happy.

And after a couple of tugs here, there and everywhere, just check your tuner again…

Ohhhhh! That ain’t pretty. But it also is pretty because it means you’re doing stretching right.

Now, you’ll want to tune up to E again. Then, stretch like you did before.

You should see that the string doesn’t go as far out of tune now.

Repeat this process of tuning, stretching, tuning, stretching until eventually the string doesn’t go out of tune anymore when you stretch it. Now your string is ripe!

Just think of stretching strings like kneading dough. You gotta aggressively wack it, toss it about, and throw it at people until the dough just becomes ready.

WATCH OUT: On the higher strings, do not stretch too vigorously! Because I’m a vigorous man, I accidentally snapped my high E string as I stretched it. What a fool!

Thankfully due to Rotosound I had a free backup one anyway… Phew. Either way, just make sure you play it safe and gentle on the unwound strings.

Step 7: Tidy the string up

You know those pokey string bits that I told you to loop your coil around…

Do you like the look of them?

The correct answer is No. If you answered Yes, then your answer is invalid.

Unless you are Tom Morello and like to have all the string bits dangling about like a caretaker’s mop. But he’s Tom Morello, so he’s allowed.

Anyway, to make everything look nice, we’ll want our wire cutters again to snip off the excess.

(Not in the picture, but it helps to hold the part you are cutting off with your other hand so that it doesn’t go flying off into outer space)

But oh my, oh my… Please DO NOT accidentally snip the coiled part of the string.

I once helped one of my friends restring his guitar for the first time, and after we had done the low E string, I gave him my cutters and told him to snip off the pokey bit.

I turned around to get the next string, just to turn back and see that he’d somehow managed to cut the coiled string around the peg whilst he was at it. He looked at me confused, holding the string in two parts, and said, “I think I snipped the wrong bit.”

If there was ever something such as a head in hands moment, then that was it. Just don’t be that guy…

Anyway, now you just need to repeat this restringing process across all the other strings. It’ll take a while on your first go, but in time you’ll be able to restring fully within 15-30 mins.

So buckle up, get a podcast or guitar-related music on in the background and crack on. Then, once it’s all finished, you can step back and admire your hard work:

Mmm, mmm… scrumptious.

And then why not play a chord to test it out?

Awesome Bonus Tip

If you’ve discovered that you hate to change electric guitar strings because it’s annoying, takes a while, and strings seem to bully you, then great. You’re like me!

One way to reduce the amount that you have to change your strings is through a product called GHS Fast Fret.

It’ll basically clean the strings so that they feel nicer and sound better, for longer. Neat, right?

Almost every gigging guitarist under the sun will have one of these to wipe the grime off their guitar strings after a gig, and I can only recommend it.

How Often Should You Change Your Strings?

Alright, alright. You knew this was coming…

But it’s actually good news! Because you can basically change your electric guitar strings whenever you want.

I’ll normally just keep going until either: the high E string breaks, they stop intonating properly, or they become clammy beyond repair.

But that’s because I’m stingy and don’t wanna spend a ton of money on strings.

A lot of people will say once every 3 months is a good number. But in my opinion, for the amateur stay-at-home guitarist, every 6 months or so is fine.

New strings sound bright initially, but after a month they’ll deaden down and stay at that level from then on. So the difference between 3-month and 6-month-old strings just isn’t noticeable tone-wise to me.

As long as they work, I’m happy.

The only time I’d recommend changing strings often is if you’re in the recording studio or on tour, where you constantly want to sound as good as possible. Apart from that though, every 6 months is fine, especially if you’re using Fast Fret to keep them feeling fresh.

Wrapping It Up

Boom! Learning to change electric guitar strings is such a vital skill for guitar. And other stuff like setting action (string height) and intonation will feel a lot less daunting to you in the future now you’ve got your hands dirty.

Plus, I bet you like your new strings…

Feel clean? Yup.

Sound fresh? Yup.

Getting you dates? Not really.

Darn, all that string changing for nothing. Ah well, at least your guitar sounds good.

Anyway, I’ve been Sam Olverson.

See ya!

P.S. If you want to learn how to set your guitar action to make playing guitar easier, click here to view my post on that.

The post How to Change Electric Guitar Strings – 7 Easy Steps appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

Named after the blue fish in Finding Nemo, the Dorian Minor Scale is a way to instantly sound cool, and clever…

You say to someone you play the normal minor scale, they’ll be like, “meh”.

You say to someone you play the Dorian minor scale, they’ll be like, “Shiver me timbers!” and then faint or something.

So today I’ll be going over how to play, connect and use all 5 B Dorian Minor Scale guitar shapes so that you can sound like a soloing pro, in no time.

Los geht’s!

B Dorian – Shape 1

Ooh, fun(ish) fact before I show you the first shape… The Dorian minor scale is actually really similar to the normal minor scale.

Natural minor: 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7

Dorian minor: 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7

The only difference is that the 6th note of the scale is a major 6th instead of a minor 6th. This gives that groovy Dorian sound. *Mind blown.

So, here’s the first shape:

Woah there! What do all those colours mean?!

Aha! How sweet of you to ask…

Red = Tonic/Root note (B, in this case). Blue = The other notes of a B minor chord.

You’ll want to spend some time really noticing these notes as you go through practising. Just like how you know the exact isle, shelf and column of your favourite chocolate bar in the local supermarket.

Green = The note that sounds super Dorian.

This is that major 6th that differs in a Dorian scale compared to a normal minor scale. So hit this, and you’ll get some proper colour out of this thing.

I like to call these kinds of coloured notes, Bingo notes.

That’s because these are the notes that you’ll be aiming for when you start soloing with this scale in the future. Why? Because hitting the Bingo notes makes your solos instantly more melodic.

And to make sure that you can hit these notes in your soloing, I recommend pausing on each one as you go up and down the scale:

This way, you’ll get used to knowing where these notes are so that you can hit them on the fly.

One of my favourite guitarists, Kiko Loureiro, has a great video on this. And I’m not gonna lie, I completely nicked this way of practising scales from him.

Would he care that I nicked his idea? Yeah, probably. But if he wants to take me on, then tell him to meet me down the park in 5 minutes for a man’s game of Uno. That’ll show him…

B Dorian – Shape 2

Now that that’s settled, let’s get on the 2nd B Dorian guitar scale shape.

Notice how the top half of this shape is the exact same as the bottom half of Shape 1? So if we connected shapes 1 and 2 next to each other to make 1 large shape, then we’d get this:

It’s this way of thinking that’ll enable us to connect all the scale shapes and slide between them like a giraffe on ice.

And there’s a few things that we can do to make life easier for ourselves along the way.

*How to Connect Scale Shapes Properly

We want to learn the scale shapes like Buddhas, and make them all feel in harmony together as one…

And learning all 5 B Dorian guitar scale shapes at once will have a very unharmonious effect, that will probably upset a lot of Buddhas.

So to make sure we achieve scale shape fluency, I recommend using The Glue Method:

Man, that name still kicks ass!

1. Step one is to choose 2 shapes (in this case, shapes 1 & 2), and practice them separately for a bit. Just get comfortable with how to play both the shapes, ready for the next step.

2. Now ascend through Shape 1 to the highest note, then slide up to the highest note of Shape 2, and descend through Shape 2.

And you can even invert this by ascending through Shape 2, sliding down to Shape 1 when you reach the top, and descending through Shape 1.

3. This time, ascend through Shape 1 as normal, but slide up to the extra Shape 2 notes on each string.

And again, you can invert this by descending through Shape 2 and sliding down to the lower notes in Shape 1 on each string too.

This is the stuff that’ll really help to connect those two shapes.

4. Have a go improvising between the shapes you’ve just connected. Slide about and try to form some kind of musicalness, just playing whatever comes naturally.

It doesn’t have to sound great, just get that improvisation ball rolling. If you still feel a bit hesitant when sliding between them, just repeat step 3 until they’re nicely conjoined.

And then once you’ve done that, congrats! You’ve successfully glued the two B Dorian guitar shapes together like a professional glue artist.

Yes, that is actually a thing…

And when you learn any extra shapes, just use the Glue Method again to connect them to a shape you already know.

B Dorian – Shape 5

If you’ve ever read any of my other blog posts on learning scales like a boss, you’ll know that I like teaching Shape 5 after Shape 2.

Why do I do that? I do that because it aggravates people and enriches my inbox with abusive emails :).

I actually do it because it connects nicely to the top half of Shape 1. This means that we can form a nice 5-1-2 megashape with our home Shape 1 cosy in the middle.

It also means that we unlock a whole new direction that we can go when improvising, and we don’t get stuck only ascending from Shape 1 because we just learnt the shapes upwards.

BAM! Audience speechless.

So here it is in all its glory:

Like with before, you’ll want to use the glue method to connect this bad boy to Shape 1.

Then you’ll be ready for more shapes!!!!!!!

And even more exclamation marks!!!!!!

B Dorian – Shape 3

Okay, Shape 3. I don’t really have anything interesting to say about Shape 3.

*Nothing interesting*

B Dorian – Shape 4

Whoop whoop! You’ve made it to the last shape. Everybody dance!

Oh, and here’s a link to download a free PDF of all 5 B Dorian Scale shapes in this post. Aren’t I awesome?

But when learning this shape, you have to promise me one thing…

You double glue it! This is the shape that completes the chain, so you’ll have to connect one end to Shape 3 and the other to Shape 5.

And once you’ve done that… then yeah, you’re done practising scale shapes.

Practice the Scale Vertically Too

Hahaha! You thought you were done practising scale shapes…

And to be fair, you mostly are. But before we get into actually using this scale, you should not neglect playing it on a single string too.

This’ll give you the power to make exciting phrasing, bend to higher notes in the scale, and even slide past entire shapes like they’re a broken down car on the side of the motorway. “So longgggg, hahaha!”.

So make sure you have a go at that. All the pros do it, so you should too.

Get the Dorian Flavour

Alright, let’s start having some fun.

When you’ve learnt a new scale, I think it’s really important that you get a feel for the colour of it. And for that, I recommend finding a drone pedal, and improvising over the top.

It’s my favourite thing to do in the entire world apart from going up staircases two steps at a time, and it just gives you a natural instinct for the different notes in the scale.

You’ll find the tense ones, the colourful Dorian ones, the homey ones, and the ones that are as boring as a pencil sharpener. And that’ll give you wayyyy more control over the notes you play in your improv.

Plus, as you learn more scales and modes in the future, you’ll be able to associate each with different colours and feels.

So just play about. Land on different notes and get to know the scale.

Tips to Improvise with Dorian Like a Pro

So we all know by now that just learning a scale ain’t gonna make you sound good.

And when I was learning, everyone online said the only way to make melody was just to practice with the scale and see what works.

Thanks!

And because that’s the most useless advice ever, here are some actually helpful tips to help you improve your improvisation…

Actually Helpful Tip 1: Hit the Bingo Notes

I briefly mentioned this earlier, but hitting those “home” notes at the end of runs, phrases and bends is where it is at.

It’ll stop you sounding like you’re just playing a scale, and will help to form some actual melody. So shimmy about, take two steps to the right, jump up and down and then BAM! Cap it on a Bingo note.

Actually Helpful Tip 2: Don’t use every note, please…

Oh my. If there’s one way to sound like a guitar playing robot instantly, it’s to play every note in the scale, all the time.

And that’s because as soon as you start playing so many different notes, they all lose their colour.

What do you get when you mix blue and yellow? Green. Yay!

What do you get when you mix blue, red and yellow? Browny green. Yuck!

*No offense to the 0.001% reading this who like actually browny green*

So skip notes & strings freely and ignore some like they’re an annoying sibling. Everything will start to sound better, trust me.

Actually Helpful Tip 3: Hit the notes of each chord

Ever wonder how some guitarists just make every note sound right? They’ll play a melody, and finish it on a note that makes you just go Ooooooooh.

That’s because they’ve probably just hit the Bingo note of a new chord.

This is a more advanced step btw, so if you’re new to improv, you might want to come back to this idea at a later stage.

Earlier, we learnt about using the B Dorian guitar scale as a route to hit the B minor Bingo notes. And this will 100% make you sound more melodic.

But when the E minor comes around, there are still notes that will sound better over Em than Bm. And these’ll be the notes of the E minor chord, aka, the E minor Bingo notes.

So as the Em chord comes around, you can still use the B Dorian guitar scale as passing notes, but just make an effort to land on Em chord notes instead. Then as the D chord comes, aim to hit the notes of a D chord.

To achieve this, you can either learn the major and minor arpeggio shapes, then aim to hit the notes of each chord’s arpeggio as it comes around. (My preferred method).

Or you can learn all the notes on the fretboard. Then hit the chord notes as they come if you know them.

Nope this ain’t easy, but oh boy will you sound like a pro.

Actually Helpful Tip 4: Use suspended notes

Finally got your head around that? Great! Because Joe Satriani aims to do the complete opposite.

He’ll try to hit the suspended 2nd, 4th and 6th notes of a chord first, then resolve to the cosy Bingo note, after.

This is just extra stuff at this point, but is cool to know about. Here’s his explanation on that if it sounds cool to you:

Awesome B Dorian Guitar Licks

Alright, let’s get this cuisine under way. My finest B Dorian minor inspired guitar licks, coming right up!

The Beverage – Lick 1:

Just a bit of Dorian flavour there to whet your appetite.

This is a great example of how to combine the Minor Pentatonic scale with that expressive Dorian 6th to create some epic sounds.

The Cheese Platter – Lick 2:

The tab maker I use doesn’t let me do this – Dammit! – but after each 12th fret bend, you’ll want to pull off to the 10th fret instead of picking it. Oh, and that’s also meant to be a slide from the 12th to the 14th fret at the end of the 1st bar.

Tab issues aside, MAN this is a sweet sounding lick. Some small, bluesy bends, one or two pull offs, and a couple of slides… What’s not to like?

The Appetizer – Lick 3:

You wanted groove, you got groove! And that’s what Dorian is all about, ladies and gentlemen.

So enjoy having a bash at that before we get into the meaty bit…

The Main Course – Lick 4

Mmmm hmmm, that double stop bend at the end just kicks ass.

To us shredders, that’s the guitar equivalent of a stuffed crust pizza.

The Gourmet Dessert – Lick 5

This lick is so good that it even needs an intro:

Intro over, here’s the lick.

Thank you, thank you, oh you’re making me blush…

Now if that ain’t gonna win me a Michelin Star, I don’t know what will.

It’s just awesome! Not to brag, of course…

Anyway, all of these licks will work in B Dorian. Particularly over chord progressions using the B Dorian scale!

The Chords in the Dorian Scale

How’s that for a smooth transition? In case you weren’t aware, each scale has a set of chords that you can use with it.

We make these chords using the notes of that very scale.

So here’s a quick method to find them all out:

1. Draw a 7 x 5 grid

Hmmm, curious…

2. In the second row from the bottom, write out the notes of the scale you want to find the chords for. In this case, I’ll write out the notes of the B Dorian guitar scale.

If you don’t know the notes in the scale you want to write with, then just go onto Google Images and type in, “Notes in the (insert your scale here) scale”.

Uhhh… okay?

3. Fill in the notes of the tonic chord vertically.

We are in B minor here, so I’ll write out a B minor chord. (Again, Google will tell you the notes in the tonic chord if you don’t know them)

Mmmmhmmm…

4. Write out the scale twice more, starting from each new B minor chord note.

Ahhhh…

BOOYAKASHA! These are the notes in each chord in the B Dorian scale. And it wasn’t that hard, was it?

But at the moment, this just looks like a big bundle of notes. So let’s figure out whether each chord is major or minor.

5. Figure out each chord type

The best way to do this is to either make a chord out of these notes on your guitar and see whether the chord sounds major (yay), minor (sad) or diminished (death!).

Or if you know music theory, then you’ll be able to figure out the chord type by looking at the notes.

Either way, once you’ve figured out what type it is, just write it in that bottom row underneath the corresponding chord. A capital numeral for major (IV), lower case for minor (iv), and a lower case with a degree sign for diminished (iv°).

By the way, this Roman numeral sequence will be the same for EVERY Dorian key. E.g. the 4th chord in the C Dorian scale will also be major, and the 5th chord, minor etc.

EL BONÚS STEP: Add the 7th notes of each chord.

To achieve another level of spice, write the 7th note (A) of the B Dorian guitar scale in the top column. Then fill in the rest of the scale from there again.

And voilà. Then you can figure out what type of 7th you can add to jazz up a chord prog.

Speaking of chord progs…

Writing Some B Dorian Chord Progressions

Nailed it! MAN are my transitions on fire today…

Aaanyway, you might be wondering… Oh! Sam of Beast Mode Guitar, how do I write my own chord progressions?

Well, it’s as simple as chucking a few chords together and seeing what sounds good.

But to know what chords you can chuck together, you’ll need your chord grid handy to help.

Here’s a few that sounded nice to me:

• i – IV (Bm – E)

Oi, just because I only used two chords in a chord progression doesn’t make me lazy. It makes me a “minimalist”.

Anyway, this 2 chord progression perfectly encapsulates the Dorian sound.

Particularly when you add in a 7th to the chords.

i (m7) – IV (7) (Bm7 – E7)

Groovy, right?

• i – III – v – IV (Bm – D – F#m – E)

Then toss in a 7th or two.

i (m7) – III – v (m7)- IV (Bm7 – D – F#m7 – E)

Then throw in all the 7ths, ahhhhhhhh!

i (m7) – III (maj7) – v (m7)- IV (7) (Bm7 – Dmaj7 – F#m7 – E7)

• i – VII – IV – IV(7) (Bm – A – E – E7)

And why not add some more 7ths again. I mean, they’re free, right?

i (m7) – VII (maj7) – IV – IV(7) (Bm7 – Amaj7 – E- E7)

Boom!

So knock yourself out with those home-grown Dorian progs.

Improvise over them, draw inspiration from them, or just flat-out steal them, play them off as your own and become a world-famous musician. Doesn’t bother me.

But if you have a deep and vengeful hatred for all of those progressions, then feel free to use the chord grid and make your own.

Wrapping it Up

Dorian… Dorian… Wherefore art thou Dori-

Whoops, didn’t see you there… #awkward.

Anyway, the B Dorian guitar scale is an awesome scale with a unique flavour. And it works great with the Minor Pentatonic scale for all you blues guys out there.

Just make sure you glue the shapes properly as you go along. Then you can start learning to use the scale like a pro… like me.

And on that arrogant note, I’ve been Sam Olverson,

Enjoy Dorian!

P.S. If you want to learn the notes on the fretboard so that you can follow chord changes with more precision, click here to view my post on that.

The post How to Play the B Dorian Minor Scale on Guitar appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

The F sharp minor 7th variant, the sharpest of them all. *Whisper* I’ve even heard stories that when someone touched it, they got a paper cut! Hmmpf, maybe that was actually just the paper...

Anyway, today I’ll be going over how to play an F sharp minor 7 chord on guitar so that you can ace that chord progression you are trying to learn!

Vamos!

F# Minor 7 – The E Shape

Because there isn’t any F sharp minor 7 open shape that any sane person uses, we’ll have to configure our own… And the best way to do that is through using bar chords.

If you’ve never touched them before, then don’t worry. They’re not that scary and they’re super useful.

So you’ll want to start by playing an E minor 7 chord – bear with me – like this:

Notice how the open E string note is our bass note in this chord, right? So if we shifted this chord shape up two frets so that F# becomes our bass note instead, we’d get an F# minor 7 chord.

Like this:

However, to play all of those strings that were open once upon a time, we’ll have to use a “barring” technique.

To do this, you’ll want to place the underside edge of your index finger across the 2nd fret, and press down so that each string rings out clearly.

But HELLLLLLLLLLL no. That just ain’t gonna happen. And even I, as the best guitarist of all time, find that chord practically impossible to play.

So most of us will shorten the shape down a bit, and play the chord like this:

Or you can play it like this if it’s more comfortable:

So they’re a couple of common ones. But it’s also fairly common to see people skip the bass note, and just bar down the top 4 strings with their index finger.

Like this:

So choose whichever one you like the sound and feel of the most. And remember, this is a safe place. I will neither judge you nor ridicule you for your choice…

Unless you somehow misread the labels in your cupboard and put sugar in your tea, just to taste it and realize that it was actually salt. Tee-hee, that’d be funny…

You’ve Just Learnt Every Minor 7th Chord!

Yup, you heard me correctly. So here’s why…

When we made the F sharp minor 7 guitar chord shape, we found the E minor 7 variant first, then shifted it up so that F# became our bass note. From there we rearranged the chord a tad to make it more playable, right?

So using that logic, if we moved this shape up to fret 7 and used the B note there as our E string bass note instead, we’d get a B minor 7 chord!

In fact, this will work for any minor 7 chord we want to create.

Wanna make a C#m7 chord? – Just shift this shape up to the 9th fret.

Wanna make a Gm7 chord? – Just slap it on the 3rd fret.

Wanna make a Dbm7b5#9#13b11+23÷4.5 chord? – Then go take a maths class, music won’t help you here.

But in order to know which new variant of each chord you are making, you kinda need to know the notes on the E string.

For more on learning the notes on the guitar strings quickly, click here to view my post on that.

That way, when you want to make a specific chord, you know exactly which fret to play the shape on.

I also really recommend learning the notes on the A string whilst you’re at it. This’ll help you massively with the second minor 7 shape.

F# Minor 7 – The A Shape

Alright, so knowing one bar chord shape is great and all… But knowing two is wayyyy better.

Because the chances are, F sharp minor 7 won’t be the only barred guitar chord you play in a progression.

Often, you’ll play entire songs with bar chords and hop around to each different one as they come.

And that’s fine, until you start having to make hella gigantic leaps from the 9th fret to the 2nd fret when changing from C#m7 to F#m7… Boy! I’m wincing just thinking about it…

But that’s where the A shapes come in. So start by playing an Am7, like this:

Then slide this shape up 9 frets until your 3rd finger is chilling right next to the 12th fret double dots, and rest down your index finger across the 9th fret.

And since our bass notes for this shape are on the A string, we can skip out the low E string when barring. So we only need to press down the highest 5 strings in this shape!

Bada-bing, bada-boom. There’s your second way to play an F#m7 bar chord. And it works because we use the F# on the 9th fret of the A string as our bass note.

How do I know that? Well, a good magician never reveals his secrets… But I’m a terrible magician, so I’ll tell you anyway.

I only know there’s an F# there because I learnt the notes on the A string too. So now, like with the E string, we can shift this shape to any fret we want and create different chords.

That’s why you need to learn the notes on those lowest two strings, kids!

And the best thing about this is shape is that we don’t even have to change it because it’s pretty friendly already. Hoorah!

Tips for Practising Bar Chords

Bar chord are cool, but they do take a bit of practice.

So here’s a tip or two to help you out with all that:

• Bouncy ball time!

What better way is there to get good at bar chords than squidging a bouncy ball? That’s right, there isn’t any!

So dig out that bouncy ball that’s been under the sofa glaring at you for the past 7 years, and squeeze it. Like this:

Why do I want you to do this seemingly random and weird thing?

Well, it’s because this will help to train up your pincer muscle. And that’s the muscle that your index finger uses for strength when barring.

So do reps like these for a couple of weeks, and those bar chords should feel like a piece of cake in no time!

Imagine if bar chords actually felt like cake…

• Use The Switch Method

If you wanna quickly learn a new chord shape, then use The Switch Method, baby!

OK, that just came across as cringy and a bit excessive… But it’s only because I just loooove the switch method!

So here’s how you do it:

1. Find 2 chords that you are trying to learn. E.g. C#m7 (E shape) and F#m7 (A shape)
2. Switch between them continuously for a few minutes. C#m7 to F#m7 to C#m7 to F#m7…
3. Have a break and do it again until these changes feel comfortable.
4. Add an extra chord to the mix. E.g. Bm7 (E shape)
5. Switch from C#m7 to F#m7 to Bm7 to C#m7 to F#m7 to Bm7 for a few minutes
6. Once this feels comfortable, add another chord. E.g. Em (A shape)

And after you’ve given that a go and all those changes feel easy, then congrats! You have successfully earned your Beast Mode Guitar licence to play Minor 7 bar chords.

I bet you thought this day would never come.

Wrapping It Up

Phew, that was a tough one… I had to stay sharp the entire way through haha!

Crowd Member 1: Boooooooooo!

Oooh, well someone’s being a bit cutting hoho!

Crowd Member 2: Hissssssss!

Alright, alright. I’ll just have to go back to sharpening my pencils!

Crowd Member 3: Get off the stage you twit!

The fact I’m a guitarist and not a stand-up comedian still amazes me to this day.

Anyway, errr yeah, F sharp minor 7… Just do what it says in this post, and you’ll get good at it pretty quickly.

I’ve been Sam Olverson,

Tally ho!

P.S. If you want to learn the other bar chord shapes so that you can play any progression in any key, then click here to view my post on that.

The post 5 Easy Ways to Play an F# Minor 7 Chord on Guitar appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

You see someone playing something cool and you think, “MAN! I wanna do that! But am I too old? Am I too slow? Am I just past the age where guitar stands on a bridge, puts its foot down and bellows ‘You shall not pass!!!'”

Well, today I’ll be debunking all the myths and going over whether it’s ever too late to learn guitar whether you’re 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 and beyond to help with that.

So let’s rock.

Does Age Weaken Your Ability to Play?

Hmmm, let me quickly think… No! Age means diddly squat to playing guitar. That is, unless you have a severe condition that inhibits your ability to control your fingers. In which case, yeah, guitar probably ain’t gonna work…

You’ll probably want to learn something like the Harmonica instead. But otherwise, you’re good to go.

And golf is a great example of this. Golf is particularly popular with slightly older people because it’s not so demanding on muscles and joints. And do these older people struggle to learn golf at all? Nope.

So guitar is, in a sense, like golf. There’s not much physical effort required, it’s just muscle memory that needs to be trained. And you can do that at any age.

Is it Harder to Learn Guitar As You Get Older?

Okay. So we’ve established that as you get older, there’s nothing stopping you from learning to play. But what about the time it takes to learn?

Well, I think it goes without saying that kids will learn the fastest. That’s just how nature works. And as you get older, it does become gradually harder to learn new things.

So everything will require a little more effort, just like learning a new language.

But many adults who learn guitar late still learn faster than most kids. Hmmm, mysterious… why could that be?

Because they actually want to learn it! Most kids dread guitar lessons like they are Doomsday. They’ll turn up, pray for the lesson to be over, and be sprinting out the door before you can say “Usain Bolt”.

And are you ever gonna learn anything that way? No.

But adults have the power of something called focus and an attention span – I know, pretty radical, right? So if you enjoy playing, and are actively trying to make progress then you’ll still learn at a healthy pace.

And if you still aren’t convinced, then take Kenyan midwife Priscilla Sitienei. She had gone through her whole life without ever learning to read and write. As she grew older she wanted to write down her knowledge for others, and so started attending school. From scratch, she learnt to read and write at the age of 90.

Mic drop!

Proof That Age Doesn’t Matter

Alright, here’s the fun part… I’m gonna list a load of guitarists who are all at least 50 and still absolutely killing it. And hopefully that’ll prove to you that it’s never too late to learn guitar.

And literally so many more that I couldn’t be bothered to write on this list…

Wrapping It Up

Hopefully now you’re feeling nicely inspired to pick up a guitar and start learning. Whether you’re 40, 80, 120, 1000 years old or not even born yet, you have the ability to play guitar like anyone else.

And whoa! What a coincidence… you’re already on a guitar website!

So if you’ve decided you do want to learn guitar, then check out my post on how to play guitar for beginners to take your first guitar lesson today.

Anyway, I’ve been Sam Olverson,

Have fun playing guitar!

The post Is it Ever Too Late to Learn Guitar? appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

And the other four just don’t exist.

So today I’ll be going over how to absolutely ace the hammer on and pull off technique for guitar, along with exercises and licks to put it into practice too.

Let’s roll.

The Hammer On Technique

A hammer on is basically a way of playing a note without having to pluck it.

So to visualize this, imagine a Blacksmith away in some isolated, soot-covered, Viking workshop in northern Scandinavia…

He’s been given orders by Erik to make him a sick-ass new sword that’ll get his wife back from Bjørn. So he heats the metal up, raises his hammer, curses in some Nordic gibberish as touches it and burns his pinkie, and then brings it down to hit the metal.

The result? A high pitch in the form of a chink. And a hammer on functions in the same way on guitar. We’ll want to think of our fingers as the hammers in this guy’s workshop, and the string as the metal we are hitting.

So to actually do this on guitar:

1. Find a note that feels comfortable to you, and put your 1st finger there. For me, that’ll be the 7th fret of the G string.

2. Play this note, and without plucking it again, slam down your 3rd finger on the 9th fret of the same string. Just like a Blacksmith’s hammer.

3. Hear a noise? Congratulations! You’ve just done a hammer on.

So do this a few more times to get used to the action, and aim to get a clear sounding hammered note.

The trick is to not be too rigid or tense, and try to hit the area of the string closest to the metal fret. This’ll make hammer ons way easier down the line, and prevent any note buzz.

Then after that, you’re ready for the other one!

The Pull Off Technique

The concept of the pull off technique for guitar is similar to the hammer on technique. You’re making two notes out of only plucking a string once.

But because I’ve run out of completely unrelated amazing analogies, I’ll just get straight to the technique on this one:

1. Find a note that you feel comfortable playing with your 3rd finger. This’ll be the 9th fret of the G string for me.

2. Place your index finger two frets behind it, on the 7th fret.

3. Play the string, and flick your 3rd finger downwards towards the floor. Make sure you keep a relatively firm pressure down as you do this.

4. Now the lower note that you index finger is fretting should be ringing out. At that point, you’ve just done a pull off!

The tips for this one are pretty similar to the hammer on tips. Basically, just aim to have your index finger next to the fret – and be forceful, but not tense. You’re gonna be doing these pretty regularly, and tension = not good señor.

Combining Hammer On and Pull Offs

Here’s for the fun part… Yup, you guessed it, combining them together! I mean, it literally says it right in big black bold writing above, so it’s kinda obvious, but still, well done!

One of the common ways you’ll see hammer on and pull off techniques combined, is like this:

Or occasionally notated like this, with each loopy arch broken up separately.

And the loopy arch indicates that every note connected to/within an arch, is a hammer on or pull off note. You play the string once at the beginning, then make the other notes by hammering on or pulling off.

It’s also worth noting that hammer ons and pull offs basically have the same tab symbol. The thing that matters is whether that loopy arch goes towards a higher or a lower fret. Loopy arch towards higher fret = hammer on, towards lower fret = pull off.

Anyway, to combine the hammer on and pull off guitar technique:

1. Pluck the string, and do a hammer on with your ring finger like you did before. E.g. From the 7th fret of the G string to the 9th fret.

2. Without playing the string again, flick off from this new note like you would when doing a pull off. E.g. From the 9th fret to the 7th fret.

3. Try to do this a bit faster, making it more of a quick flurry.

And it’s also really easy to reverse this by starting with a pull off, and then hammering on again straight after.

And then you’ve got it! Easy, right? You can even push yourself by repeating multiple cycles of hammering on and pulling off without plucking the string again. After a minute or so, it’ll begin to burrrrnnnn! But that’s all part of the fun.

Hammer On and Pull Off Exercises

The hammer on and pull off guitar technique is pretty easy to get to grips with initially. Especially if you’ve got a spare hammer lying around.

But the bit that needs more practice is using different fingers on different strings and parts of the neck.

So here’s a few of my favourite exercises to help with that:

• Favourite Exercise No.1

Now that’ll get your other digits working! The trick is to make each hammer on/pull off sounds as clear as the last when having a go at this one.

• Favourite Exercise No.2

Do you know what? I hate chromatic exercises. I think they sound terrible so the thought of doing them every day to get better gives me makes my brain melt. Sometimes they can be very useful, but meh…

That’s why I much prefer doing an exercise like this which goes up a scale, and you can use in music too. So have fun with that.

• Favourite Exercise 3:

And finally, a nicely symmetrical lick for y’all there to get you shifting about the strings.

And if you can do all that and make it sound good, then it’s fair to say that you’ve got this technique nailed.

Some Mini Licks to Practice

Fancy putting those new skills you just learnt to use? Well, here’s some of the freshest new hammer on and pull of licks, coming right at ya!

Fresh new hammer on and pull of lick 1:

Now that, is seriously cool. It’s a descending lick that goes up the fretboard, so you can break music AND sound epic whilst you’re at it. Neat, right?

Fresh new hammer on and pull of lick 2:

The Pentatonic Scale and pull offs are just a match made in heaven. And that E string flurry at the end – with a non-pentatonic note – adds a pinch of zesty flavour to this lick.

Fresh new hammer on and pull of lick 3:

And that’s just a nice bluesy lick to show you how hammer ons and pull offs can create some groovy phrasing.

So have fun tinkering about with those, and customize them to your will!

Wrapping It Up

See? Hammer ons and pull offs are actually kinda nice. And that’s good because you’re gonna use them literally trillions of times in your shift as a guitar player.

The only thing that isn’t so nice is that they’ll wear out your fingertips a little quicker than playing notes normally. Darn those pesky wretches!

Anyway, I’ve been Sam Olverson.

Have fun hammering and stuff!

P.S. If you want to learn how to fingerpick on guitar so that you can play more varied lead lines, chord progressions, and riffs, click here to view my post on that.

The post The Best Hammer On & Pull Off Technique for Guitar appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

Wanna know a scale that people just as much, if not more than the major scale? That’s right, it’s a fish scale! Oh, wait… uhhh… I mean the natural minor scale!

So today I’ll be going over how one can play the natural minor scale on guitar, solo with it and write chord progressions with it, using the key of E minor as our example.

Let’s do this.

Natural Minor – Shape 1

In case you weren’t aware, the natural minor scale uses all the same scale shapes as the major scale. So if you learn these shapes, you’ve actually just learnt two different scales at the same time.

That’s theory for later, but hopefully that’s good to know.

Anyway, let’s get going with the first shape:

When learning this, pay particular attention to those coloured notes in the scale diagram.

Red = root note. Blue = the other notes in an E minor chord.

Whip out your monocle, your glass eye, your bird-watching binoculars, whatever it takes… just notice those notes.

I like to call them Bingo notes.

Not because they remind me of a bunch of old ladies sat in a hall ferociously crossing out numbers on their multi-coloured tickets, but because these are notes that you’ll want to land on during your solos.

So a good way to learn where these Bingo notes are as you practice, is to pause on each one as you go up the scale:

That way, you’ll be training yourself to instinctively hit the good sounding notes when soloing. As a result, you’ll sound wayyy more melodic down the line.

I first saw this way of practising scales from one of my favourite guitarists, Kiko Loureiro, which I totally accidentally stole from him. So if you want to see his take on it, click here to view that.

Natural Minor – Shape 2

Alright guys, it’s time for shape number dos. Let’s get you opening up more of that fretboard, shall we?

And because we’re getting pretty high up the neck, I also recommend practising this one an octave lower on the 2nd fret:

Wait a minute… Is that? No, it can’t be. Yes, it is! That’s the same as the 1st major scale shape… MAN, aren’t scales just confusing and awesome at the same time?

Anyway, you may have also noticed that the lower end of Shape 2 is the same as the top end of Shape 1. So if you stuck them side by side, you’d get this:

And that’s the ultimate goal of learning the scale shapes. We want to chain them up to become one massive shape over the entire fretboard.

So to do that, we’ll want to practice sticking each shape together.

*How to Properly Connect the Scale Shapes

If you don’t connect the scale shapes as you go along, then you put yourself in extreme danger…

Extreme danger of falling into the I’m-stuck-in-one-position-all-the-time-and-I-can’t-get-out-help-me-plz trap. A trap that’s swallowed more guitarists than I can count on my left hand…

So to avoid all that, you’ll want to use what I call The Glue Method:

1. Practice Shape 1 and 2 separately until they both feel comfortable

2. Play up Shape 1, and when you get to the top, slide up to the highest note of Shape 2. Then descend through Shape 2.

You can invert this on the way back by ascending through Shape 2, sliding down to Shape 1, and descending through Shape 1.

3. Now ascend through Shape 1, but slide up to the higher notes in Shape 2 on each string as you go.

Again, you can do a quick switcheroo. Descend through Shape 2 and slide down on each string to the lower notes in Shape 1.

4. Improvise sliding between the two shapes to put it all together.

It doesn’t have to be melodic yet, just play about and make an effort to slide back and forth between the two shapes.

And as soon as you’ve done that, BAM! You have now officially connected Shapes 1 & 2 like a pro.

*Permission granted to move onto the next shape.

Natural Minor – Shape 5

Yuppidy yup, your eyes don’t deceive you. That’s because I always like to teach Shape 5 straight after Shape 2.

If we learn Shape 5, then we can go up or down the fretboard from our home of Shape 1. This unlocks a new direction, and makes sure we don’t just get too used to just going up. Makes sense, right?

So here it is in all it’s glory:

See, isn’t it nice? The way it fits onto the bottom of Shape 1 and all…

Just remember to use the glue method here again to connect it. And before you know it, you’ll have 5, 1 and 2 combined into one mega-mahoosive shape!

Natural Minor – Shape 3

OK, time to make people happy again by going in the right order.

Ladies and gentlemen, shape number drei:

And of course, you’ll also be practising this an octave lower:

You know what to do here, people! It begins with Glue and ends with Method.

That’s right… the Method Glue! Wait no, the Glue Method!

Natural Minor – Shape 4

You’ve made it to the last E natural minor guitar scale shape, so the end is nigh…

But you’ll most often be using this shape down here:

Just please promise me that you double glue Shape 4. It’s the connector between Shape 3 and Shape 5, and so needs to be glued on both sides to complete the loop.

And then once you’ve done that, congratulations! You officially know the E natural minor scale across the entire guitar neck.

But make sure you also practice it at some point in other keys apart from E! Otherwise, you’ll end up as versatile as a static caravan with no wheels on it… And no one wants that.

Play the Minor Scale Vertically As Well

This is one thing that people forget about all the time, but is sooo helpful it’s unreal.

If you learn to play the E natural minor guitar scale up a string vertically, then switching between scale positions will feel way easier and more natural.

Plus, you’ll be able to come up with some super melodic phrasing that isn’t possible when simply ascending and descending through boxes.

Plus plus, you’ll know where the notes are that you can bend to, and make big slides across large portions of the neck at once.

See? It’s a no-frickin-brainer! All the pros do it, so you should definitely do it too.

Get the Flavour of The Natural Minor Scale

Pedal. Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal. Hmmm, and did I mention pedal?

That’s because improvising over a pedal tone is the best way to get the flavour of any scale. You’ll be able to find the tense notes, the resolving “home” notes and the notes that sound as bland and pointless as a stale brussels sprout.

And particularly as you learn other scales like The Harmonic Minor and the Modes in the future, you’ll be able to build up a repertoire of each scale/mode’s colour is.

Man… if I could marry pedal tones, I probably would…

Phew! Kinda emotional in here right now. Let’s move on before I start crying.

Tips for Improvising With the Natural Minor

We don’t just learn scales for the sake of it! We learn them because we want to do stuff! And some of that stuff may be improvising.

So here’s some freshly brewed improvisation tips for y’all, coming right up:

Freshly Brewed Tip 1: Don’t use every note!

Yes, you have 7 notes to play with. Yes, you spent a lot of time learning them. And yes, scale shapes may have traumatized you beyond repair at this point…

But that doesn’t mean that you should try to use every note just because you’ve learnt them. That’ll just sound robotic. So skip notes liberally to make stuff sound less like a scale and more like a melody.

Freshly Brewed Tip 2: Hit the Bingo notes

Landing on those sweet sweet red and blue notes will make your soloing sound 534x more melodic. So try to make those the notes you linger on.

Obviously it’s fine to land on a tense note for effect, and then resolve it to a chord note after. But if you’re landing on yuck notes all the time because you don’t really know what you’re doing, it just ain’t gonna work.

Freshly Brewed Tip 3: Hit the notes of each chord

If you really want to reach the pro level of improvisation, then you’ll want to practice hitting the notes of each chord as they arrive.

You might start improvising over an E minor chord, using the natural minor scale as a path towards the Bingo notes you want to linger on.

But then as the A minor chord comes around, you’ll try and hit the chord notes of A minor (A C E). Again, you can use the natural minor scale as passing notes to navigate to these new Bingo notes to make stuff sound melodic.

Then as the G chord comes round, you’ll try to hit the notes of G major, etc…

It ain’t easy, but MAN you sound good. It’s mostly just about paying attention to the backing track, and learning where the notes are on the fretboard, so you can target them.

Freshly Brewed Tip 4: Use suspended notes

A completely different way to look at following the chords, is to purposely hit non-chord notes like 2nds and 4ths.

I first heard about this from a video that Joe Satriani did for Guitar World. He does this to prolong the listener’s attention and keep them on the edge of their seat.

Now, this is not stuff for the faint-hearted or guitarists with music theory phobia… But when done right, you’ll sound seriously dynamic.

E Natural Minor Guitar Licks

Oooh baby, it’s time to light this place up with some fiery lickeroos! You wanna impress your mates with some out of tune, slow and downright terrible licks?

Then you’re in the right place! Because I’ll be showing you some actually good ones.

So here’s the first one:

Some slides, some bends, some pull-offs, this lick has it all! And the best part is, the pull-offs at the start make this lick way easier than it sounds.

Anyway, here’s lick number two:

Woooo… spooky! This lick is all about exploiting the most tense notes of the natural minor scale – the major 2nd and the minor 6th – to creating a sighing, sad kinda sound.

Here’s lick numero three, coming your way:

To make those string skipping pick jumps at the end of bar one easier, I use a technique called “Hybrid Picking”.

Basically, I’ll pluck the higher string with my ring finger and the lower string with my pick. This saves me having to make massive pick leaps. Plus, it sounds pretty epic, am I right?

Lick number four, freshly out the oven:

Here I’ve combined a typically pentatonic lick with the natural minor scale, and MAN it sounds good… Plus, it’s a great example of how to skip notes like a skipping rope and stop stuff sounding like a standard scale.

And finally, lick number fünf:

Okay, that one may take a bit of practice. And to be honest, I just did it to show off. But still, it’s a super cool lick and one for all the shredders to get their teeth stuck into.

The Chords in the Natural Minor Scale

If scales aren’t something that you’ve ever delved deep into before, you may be unaware that you can make chords using the notes in a scale.

And with these chords, you can write chord progressions and even entire songs out of the natural minor scale. Now that’s pretty epic, am I right?

So to figure out what chords we can play, we need to make a chord grid. Here’s how you do it:

1. Draw a 7 x 5 grid

2. In the second row from the bottom, write the notes of the scale you want to write with.

In this case, it’s the notes of the E natural minor guitar scale.

3. Write vertically the other notes of the tonic chord.

You can find the tonic chord by selecting the 3rd and 5th note of the scale you just wrote out.

4. Write the same scale out again in the 2nd and 3rd rows, but this time starting from the two new chord notes you just added in.

And would you look at that… There are the notes of each chord in E minor. Easy, right? You just find a note, look at the two notes above it, and you know what to play.

But to make life easier for ourselves, we’ll use the bottom row of the column to display whether each chord is major (V), minor (v), diminished (v°) or augmented (V+).

That way, we don’t have to figure out what the chord’s tonality is every time.

5. Write down each chord’s tonality

This was pretty easy for me because I know the chord notes off by heart. But if you don’t, then try to build and play each chord on your guitar, and it’ll be pretty obvious whether it’s minor or not.

Either way, the Roman numerals for every natural minor key will be the same. E.g. The 3rd chord will always be major, and the 4th chord always minor etc… So you don’t really need to go about learning all the chord notes if you don’t want to.

BONUS STEP: Add the 7th notes of each chord

Just write the 7th note of the E natural minor guitar scale in the top left box, and fill in the rest of the scale again.

From there you can see what kind of 7th you can add to your chords to jazz them up a little.

And at that point, my friend, you are ready to write to some slippery, snazzy chord progressions!

Writing Chord Progressions With E Natural Minor

Now that you’ve put buckets of blood, sweat and tears into sitting still and watching me make the chord grid for you, the next part is easy.

It’s literally just trying random chords together and seeing what sounds good. In fact, its made even easier by the fact that I’ve already made some for you…

Am I being too nice? I think I’m being too nice.

Anyway, here’s a few that I’ve come up with to hopefully inspire you a little:

• i – v – VI – iv (Em – Bm – C – Am)

But I think this progression sounds especially good with a couple of 7ths inside.

i – v (m7) – VI (maj7) – iv

Hell! Even add 7ths to all the chords! I mean, why not?

i (m7) – v (m7) – VI (maj7) – iv (m7)

Mix and match with the 7ths, and just customize stuff to your will.

• i – III – VI – VII (Em – G – C – D)

Again, with a couple of 7ths:

i – III (maj7) – VI – VII (7)

Wow! Thanks, chord grid!

• i – VI – VII – v (Em – C – D – Bm)

And let’s go a bit bonkers again to finish with a bang!

i (m7) – VI (maj7) – VII (7) – v (m7)

(For those groovy slides, all you need to do is start the chord 1 fret below where it should be, play it, then slide it up a half step to hit the chord you’re aiming for)

And I’ve literally come up with all of those in the last 10 mins, just by looking at the chord grid. So always use one! It’ll become your best friend for writing music.

Wrapping It Up

Shabam! Pow! Hit! Ouch! You’ve just nailed the E natural minor guitar scale like an absolute beast. High five!

As you’ve seen, learning the scale shapes is just the first part. And all the fun comes later with the improvisation and the writing stuff.

So …er… yeah… knock yourself out with all that. And before you know it, you’ll be blasting out so many good tunes that the police will get called on you for being so illegally good.

Anyway, I’ve been Sam Olverson.

Chow!

P.S. If you want to learn the notes on the fretboard quickly so that you can improve your soloing and play any chord, click here to view my post on that.

The post How to Play the E Natural Minor Scale on Guitar appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

Ah well, I guess I’ll talk about it anyway.

So today I’ll be going over 5 easy ways that you can play an F minor chord on guitar to get you ripping up those chord progressions.

Let’s roll.

F Minor Shape 1 – The E Shape

E shape? What the heck does E have to do with any of this…

Aha! Well, start by playing an E minor chord like this:

Notice how the bass note is the open low E string, which is obviously an E note. From there, we build a chord shape using the other strings, right?

So that means, if we use the F note on the 1st fret of the E string as our bass note, and we slide all the notes in this Em shape up 1 fret with it, we’d get an F minor chord:

And there’s your first shape! We call it the E shape because it’s just an E minor chord shifted upwards. But to play this shape, and all F minor shapes actually, we’ll have to bar with our 1st finger.

So to do that, you’ll want to flatten down the underside edge of your index finger down across the 1st fret so that it presses down the low E string, and GBE strings too.

Tried it yet? Good, you’ll have realized that it’s practically impossible to play by now. I mean, whoever came up with that shape deserves to stub their toe on something.

So most of us guitarists will simplify this shape down to make it easier to play. We’ll either drop the bass note:

Or drop two notes, and just start the shape from the F note an octave higher:

Both do the same job, so pick whichever shape you prefer. Yup, you’ll still have to bar down those top 3 notes with your index finger, but it should now feel much easier.

And if this new bar chord thing is taking a lot of getting used to, then you can always simplify the shape down even further:

It’s got the notes of an F minor chord in, so it’s still an F minor chord. That means you can use it in a song the exact same way you’d use a full F minor shape.

This is great as long as barring notes feels new to you. But I’d recommend learning one of the two shapes above when possible.

You’ve Just Learnt to Play Every Minor Chord

Congratulations! You’ve just learnt one way that you can play every single minor chord there is. But what do I mean by this…?

Well, we started with an open E string bass note, and built an E minor chord of that.

Then we shifted the shape up to the 1st fret so that the F note was our bass note instead, and built an F minor chord off that.

Sooooo, if we decide to use the Bb note on the 6th fret of the E string as our bass note for this shape instead… we’d get a Bb minor chord!

All we’d have to do is shift this exact shape that we used to play F minor up to the 6th fret, and we’d get a different minor chord.

Another is example is that there’s a C note on the 8th fret of the E string. If we shift this bar chord shape up to the 8th fret, and play it… Voilà! You’ve got a C minor chord.

We probably won’t play the root note on the E string note because it’s annoying, but we’re still at the fret that it would be if we did want to play it.

So bar chords are pretty cool, right? By learning the F minor shape, you’ve actually just learnt the generic E minor bar chord shape.

And we can even use this logic to build chords off an A string root note too.

F Minor Shape 2 – The A Shape

Knowing one way to play and F minor chord on guitar is great, but knowing two is even better!

When you start diving head first into bar chord progressions – which you’re now perfectly capable of – you’ll realize you have to move about when changing chords.

If two chords are close, like G minor and F minor, then this is easy. You just shift the E shape up or down a couple of frets.

But let’s say you were mid-progression, and had to switch from C minor to F minor. You’d play C minor at the 8th fret using one of the shapes that we’ve gone through…

But then F minor is frickin’ miles away on the 1st fret! And that chord change is making me wince just thinking about it.

But aha! There’s an F note on the 8th fret of the A string. If we built a chord using this as our bass note instead, we wouldn’t even have to change fret when switching between Cm and Fm.

So start by playing an A minor chord like this:

Then slide your fingers up 8 frets to the F note:

Then bar down your index finger on the 8th fret:

Booyakasha! That’s how you play an F minor bar chord in the A shape on guitar. And this shape is actually pretty nice to play, so there aren’t any real variations.

And like with the E shape, this isn’t really just an F minor chord shape.

This is the generic minor bar chord shape for the A string.

For example, there’s a C# note on the 4th fret of the A string. Copy and paste this shape onto the 4th fret and BAM! You get C# minor. Such is the magic of bar chords…

Tips for Practising These Bar Chord Shapes

Yup, I get it. Bar chords are not the easiest things in the world to get used to.

So here’s a couple of tips to make life easier:

• Squeeze a bouncy ball!

Okay, that sounds like it has as much to do with guitar as a unicorn does with a one legged squirrel. But trust me on this one.

Find a bouncy ball lying about from a shoddy Christmas cracker or something, and do reps of squeezing it. Like this:

This works and strengthens the pincer muscle, which is the muscle that your index finger bars notes with. So you can be practising bar chords without even playing your guitar!

And the best part is, you can do reps anywhere and everywhere. On the train, in the bus, on the loo…

• Learn the notes on the E string and A string.

If you really want to get the most bang for your buck with these F minor chord shapes, you’ll want to learn where to move them too to make a different minor chord.

And if you know the notes on the low E and A string, you’ll be able to make any minor chord you like, whenever you like. AND you’ll be set up for when you want to learn the other bar chord shapes, and start playing bar chord progressions.

• Use The Switch Method to practice the shapes:

This is my favourite way to learn new chord shapes, fast.

1. Find 2 chords that you are trying to learn. E.g. Cm (E shape) and Fm (A shape)
2. Switch between them continuously for a few minutes. Cm to Fm to Cm to Fm…
3. Have a break and do it again until these changes feel comfortable.
4. Add an extra chord to the mix. E.g. Dm (E shape)
5. Switch from Cm to Fm to Dm to Cm to Fm to Dm for a few minutes
6. Once this feels comfortable add another chord. E.g. Am (A shape)

And then once these 4 chords feel easy to switch between… Boom! You’re ready for the outside world.

The Chords of F Minor

Alright guys, to finish I’ll be showing you the chords in the key of F minor, along with some chord progressions to put everything to use. I mean, that’s why you wanted to learn it in the first place, right?

So here’s the chord scale of F minor:

The bold notes on the bottom show the different notes of an F minor scale. And underneath is the Roman numeral that shows whether each note’s chord should be major, minor or diminished in the key of F minor.

I’ll always draw one of these when writing a chord progression for whichever key I’m writing in. To make this one, I wrote the notes of an F minor chord vertically, and then filled in the F minor scale notes in order after each one. From there, I could look at the chord notes and figure out whether each chord would be major or minor.

And oh yeah, that top row shows which type of 7th you can add to each chord too if you’re feeling spicy.

So using this F minor chord scale grid, here’s a couple of progressions that you can try:

• i – iv – VI – VII (Fm – Bbm – Db – Eb)

If you aren’t familiar with the major bar chord shapes, which will allow you to play chords in any key ever, then click here to view my post on that. Then come back and have another go!

• i – VI – VII – iv (Fm – Db – Eb – Bbm)

• i – v – III – VII (Fm – Cm – Ab – Eb)

And if you can play all that, then give yourself one mahoosive pat on the back.

Wrapping It Up

Muy bien! You now know not only how to play F minor on guitar, but any minor chord, in two different ways! And you didn’t even come here to learn that! So why the heck did I teach you it! And why am I using so many exclamation marks!

Sorry, bar chords just excite me. Anyway, hopefully you’re now enjoying the freedom to play any frickin’ minor chord, whenever the frick you want.

Bar chords seem scary on the outside, but once you get to know them, they’re kinda cool.

I’ve been Sam Olverson.

Have fun chording!

P.S. If you want to learn how to play the other bar chord shapes on guitar so that you can play chord progressions in any key, click here to view my post on that, and take your rhythm playing to a new level.

The post 5 Easy Ways to Play an F Minor Chord on Guitar appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.