Test your improv skills over this chilled romantic backing track. Comprised of 3 chords, G major, A minor and C major. Try out the G major scale, or just G major pentatonic for best results!
G major pentatonic
G major Scale
G major Chords
A Minor Chords
C Major Chords
Album cover: Apple Music
B.B. King - Completely Well
Released in 1960.
Features songs such as the thrill is gone, so excited, no good and Cryin’ won’t help you now.
Led Zeppelin are one of the greatest bands of all time! Enjoy playing over this backing track, just don’t play it in a music shop!
Test your improv skills over this relaxed backing track. Comprised of 6 chords, Am, Cmaj7/G#, C/G, D/F#, F, and E7. Try out the A natural minor, minor pentatonic or harmonic minor scales for best results!
A Natural Minor
A Minor Pentatonic
A Harmonic Minor
A Minor Chords
C Maj7/G# Chords
C/G Chords
D/F# Chords
F major Chords
E7 Chords
Album cover: Apple Music
Led Zeppelin - LED Zeppelin IV
Released in 1971.
Features songs such as Stairway to heaven, rock and roll, black dog and going to california.
Toots Hibbert was such an inspirational musician and it saddened me to hear about his passing recently! He was a big inspiration to so many people and worked with so many of the greats! This is one of my favourites and probably one of yours too! Hope you enjoy it!
Test your improv skills over this 54-46 Was my number-style backing track. Comprised of just 2 chords, G and C. Try out the G major and major pentatonic for best results!
G major pentatonic
G major Scale
G major Chords
C Major Chords
Album cover: Apple Music
Toots & The Maytals - Sweet & DANDY
Released in 1968.
Features songs such as Monkey Man, Pressure Drop, 54-46 That’s My number and I Shall Be Free
Learning the notes on your guitar is essential if you want to progress as a guitarist—or as a musician in general. Many guitarists start by learning through tablature, using numbers to guide finger placement. While this is a helpful starting point, relying solely on tabs can hold you back when playing with other musicians or learning songs written in standard notation.
STEP 1 - UNDERSTAND WHAT A NOTE IS
This might seem obvious, but many guitarists confuse terms like “minor” and “major” with a note. A note is simply a single letter—A through G—that may have a sharp (#) or flat (♭) next to it (we’ll cover this in more detail in the following steps). Each letter represents a specific pitch, which corresponds to a fret on your guitar. The frets are the spaces between the metal bars on the neck, and pressing a string down at a fret changes the pitch, creating the note you want.
There are 12 notes on your guitar. They are:
A, A# or B♭, B, C, C# or D♭, D, D# or E♭, E, F, F# or G♭, G, G# or A♭
The # stands for SHARP
The ♭ stands for FLAT
Sometimes seeing this sequence on a piano can help you to visualise how this works out.
Practice saying the sequence out loud and then write all 12 notes out by memory 5 times.
There is something about saying these notes out loud that helps get the sequence into your head.
Starting on the A strings:
the open string is A, First FRET is A# or B♭, second fret is B, third fret is C and so on…
Then jump to the E string: the open string is E, the 1st fret is F, the 2nd fret is F# (or G♭), the 3rd fret is G, and so on.
Next, we need to speed up the time it takes to figure out where a note is on the guitar. The first step is to memorise the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fret names on the E and A strings.
Say them out loud, write them down, play the frets—whatever it takes to get them firmly in your head!
On the E string -
And then on the A String, do the same thing -
Memorising these six notes will speed up your navigation of the fretboard. For example, if you want to play a C#, you can first locate the C (3rd fret on the A string) and then move up one fret. Similarly, if you need an A#, start at the A (5th fret on the E string) and move up one fret.
Try some random note challenges and see how quickly you can find them on these two strings.
The next sequence will help you find all the notes of the same name across the entire guitar.
First, try it in the key of G, moving up and down the guitar:
Once you have this memorised, try it in every key—again, back and forth. Here it is in the key of A:
Hopefully this is all making sense, and you are starting to navigate around the fretboard knowing the notes you are playing.
The best way to get super quick at this is to tie together the two main things you’ve learned. First, whenever you want to find a note, relate everything back to the E or A string.
For instance, if you are trying to figure out a note on the B string, use the sequence you just learned to navigate back up to the E string.
As an example, if you were trying to figure out what the notes are on the 6th and 8th frets of the B string, this is how you would do it…
This will also work when trying to figure out notes on the G string. For instance if you are trying to find the 6th and 8th frets on the G String, this is how you would do it…
By now, you should—maybe without even realising it—be able to locate and identify any note on the fretboard.
That’s basically it! That is the secret. Now, you just need to put it into practice and build speed.
Good luck, and don’t forget to share this article if it’s helped you!
There are literally hundreds of scales you can learn on guitar. But where do you start? What’s the best scale to start with? Major scale? Minor Scale? Dorian? Phrygian? Harmonic Minor? Blues scale?
THE Minor Pentatonic is one of the most popular scales for all styles of music when improvising and playing solos. Some of your favourite solos may even just use this scale the whole way through. The Scale has 5 notes in it and is the perfect scale to give you a great foundation to learn others.
Exercise 1 - G minor pentatonic scale (E Shape)
Exercise 2 - G minor pentatonic scale (D Shape)
Exercise 3 - G minor pentatonic scale (C Shape)
Exercise 4 - G minor pentatonic scale (A Shape)
Exercise 5 - G minor pentatonic scale (G Shape)
Exercise 6 - G minor pentatonic scale (E Shape) - from the root
Exercise 7 - G minor pentatonic scale (D Shape) - from the root
Exercise 8 - G minor pentatonic scale (C Shape) - from the root
Exercise 9 - G minor pentatonic scale (A Shape) - from the root
Exercise 10 - G minor pentatonic scale (G Shape) - from the root
We are in the key of G minor, so first start there! Here is a backing track for you play over. Get each position memorised in your head.
Arpeggios are great things to make you start understanding chords and the notes within them. A lot of guitarists spend most of their time worrying about lead playing, using licks and solos and trying to play faster and faster (I don’t blame you, it’s fun!!). However it is really important as a guitarist to think about chords and you will actually find your lead playing improves as a result.
So what is an arpeggio? An arpeggio is playing all the notes from a chord in sequence. Lets look at some chord formulas...
Let's learn some chord types in C major as the C major scale has no sharps or flats so you are only using the white notes on a piano.
Major – 1 3 5
Minor – 1 ♭3 5
Dominant 7th - 1 3 5 ♭7
Next let's learn these chords on the guitar. This time listen to how each chord sounds. The major chord should sound happy, minor is sad, a dominant chord wants to resolve and a diminished chord should sound dark! But make your own mind up!
C major – C E G
C7 – C E G B♭
C minor – C E♭G
C Diminished – C E♭ G♭
If we are in the key of A major (which has 3 sharps - F#, C#, G#), we can us the chords A major (CHORD I), C#minor (CHORD iii), E7 (CHORD V) and G#diminished (CHORD VII).
The first thing we should do when learning arpeggios is to learn how to play the chords. There are many places to play each of these chords, but I have decided to stick to one section of the neck. This is a great way to start really understanding the different areas of the neck, by singling out the sections.
A major
E dominant 7
C# minor
G# diminished
(QUICK TIP- Diminished chords can be moved up 3 frets on a guitar and the chord is the same!)
Make sure you use your ear and really listen to each chord and how it sounds.
The first arpeggio we will learn is the A major arpeggio, notice I have added the chord before each of the examples, make sure you play the chord first and then the arpeggio whilst you are learning these shapes!
Exercise 1 - A major arpeggio (E Shape)
Exercise 2 - C# minor arpeggio (A Shape)
Exercise 3 - E7 arpeggio (C Shape)
Exercise 4 - G#diminished arpeggio (E Shape)
The following exercises are to get you playing around these arpeggios in some creative and cool sounding ways! Give them a go...
Exercise 5 - Ways to Practice Arpeggios (Pattern 1)
Exercise 6 - Ways to Practice Arpeggios (Pattern 2)
Exercise 7 - Ways to Practice Arpeggios (Pattern 3)
Exercise 8 - Ways to Practice Arpeggios (Pattern 4)
Exercise 9 - Ways to Practice Arpeggios (Pattern 5)
I have created a backing track with the chords in this article in the key of A major. Play through the following example and listen out for the changes and it will hopefully aid your improvisation!
Your final challenge is to improvise over the backing track. Use what we have learnt in this lesson to inspire your solos. Feel free to add in extra notes and play around the arpeggios. The main idea is to make it sound good! Here is my attempt:
Hopefully this has given you some things to think about with arpeggios and now you can start using these shapes in your playing. Record yourself playing over the backing track and tag #GUITARPUSH when you do so we can watch your solos!
Atlanta guitarist Peg Leg Howell was one of the first Bluesmen ever to make a ‘Race Record‘, and he was also re-discovered in the 60s when he recorded again. Joshua Barnes Howell of Eatonton GA lost a leg in an argument with a shotgun toting brother-in-law, and he turned to music when he found it hard to find work as a field hand. Playing and singing on the streets of Atlanta, Peg Leg spent some time in jail for bootlegging. When Columbia sent their field unit to Atlanta in 1926, they were pleased to bump into Peg Leg, and his ‘New Prison Blues’ was their first country Blues record. Guitarist Henry Williams and fiddle player Eddie Anthony would play on street corners with Peg Leg, and they often backed him on his records over the next few years. (allaboutblues.com, 2020)
Howell supplemented his income by bootlegging liquor, an offense which led to a one-year prison sentence in 1925. Soon after his release, he signed to Columbia; his first session for the label yielded the menacing "New Prison Blues," a song he'd learned while serving time. Having amassed a huge repertory of songs over the years, Howell recorded prolifically over the following months, his work ranging from traditional ballads ("Skin Game Blues") to dance numbers (the minor hit "Beaver Slide Rag") to even jazz ("New Jelly Roll Blues"); while some of his sides comprised solo performances, others featured the backing of his street group, the Gang (guitarist Henry Williams and fiddler Eddie Anthony). Columbia pulled the plug in 1929, at which time Howell returned to playing Atlanta's famed Decatur Street district; Williams was himself imprisoned not long after, and following Anthony's 1934 death, Howell gradually disappeared from the area blues circuit. He spent the next several decades clouded in obscurity, with diabetes claiming his other leg in 1952. Howell was 75 when the Testament label sought him out in 1963 to record his first new material in over 40 years; he died in Atlanta on August 11, 1966. (allmusic.com, 2020).
Lick 1. Peg Leg Howell - ‘Tishamingo Blues’
Lick 2. Peg Leg Howell - ‘Walkin' Blues’
Lick 3. Peg Leg Howell - ‘Doin' Wrong’
Lick 4. Peg Leg Howell - ‘Please Ma'am’
Lick 5. Peg Leg Howell - ‘Fairy Blues’
Lick 6. Peg Leg Howell - ‘New Prison Blues’
Lick 7. Peg Leg Howell - ‘Low Down Rounder Blues’
Lick 8. Peg Leg Howell - ‘Rock and Gravel Blues’
Lick 9. Peg Leg Howell - ‘Saide Lee Blues’
Lick 10. Peg Leg Howell - ‘Broke and Hungry Blues’
Lick 1. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Lick 2. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Lick 3. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Lick 4. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Lick 5. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Lick 6. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Lick 7. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Lick 8. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Lick 9. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Lick 10. Peg Leg Howell - Key of F
Peg Leg Howell Backing Track - Key of F
Album cover: Apple Music
Peg Leg Howell - The Very Best of Peg Leg Howell
Released in 2014.
Features songs such as Tishamingo Blues, Walkin’ Blues, Doin’ Wrong, Bail and Chain Blues and Saide Lee Blues.
I discovered this video about 3 or 4 years ago and was immediately impressed. Glen Campbell, if you haven’t heard of him before is an incredible guitarist/songwriter and is a legend in music. He is quite country, but his guitar playing covers all styles. This solo is improvised and difficult to play. I had to really work at it! Check it out and let us know how you get on!
Glen Campbell - Gentle On My Mind (Live Guitar Solo)
Glen Campbell - Gentle On My Mind (Guitar Solo)
Album cover: Apple Music
Glen Campbell - Gentle on My Mind
Released in 1967.
Features songs such as Gentle on My Mind, Catch the Wind, Just Another Man and Cryin’.
