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How To Blow Everyone Away At Your Next Jam Session

By Mike Hayes | September 1, 2010

Guitar players are constantly searching for new sounds on their
instrument; some players use different tunings, other guitar
players use electronic effects whilst others try out exotic
scales hoping for a breakthrough.

Unfortunately, most players end up more confused than they
started the guys and gals messing with different tunings often
find themselves down a musical dead end street, mostly because
they don’t know what they are playing; even if they do find
something they do like they don’t know what to call it, so their
new ’sound’ becomes “that thing”.

Guitarists going the equipment route are ultimately faced with
the problem of no matter how much stuff you put on a lame chord
progression you STILL end up with a lame chord progression with
interesting effects. It all comes down to the content of your
music, is it interesting or is it the same old boring stuff
recycled over again?

But what if they was an easy way to create new, interesting and
exciting chords and chord progressions for your next jam session;
the great news is there are many ways to develop easy chord
shapes and chord progressions that will blow everyone away, here
is just one of those ways.

Thinking outside the musical box:

Step 1: Take a familiar scale in a popular key.

I’m going to go with the minor pentatonic scale in the key of
‘G’; just about everyone knows how to play the minor pentatonic
scale even if they do not know the name of it and when it comes
to keys the two most popular keys at jam sessions would have to
be the keys of ‘E’ and ‘G’.

Step 2: Create chords from the names of the notes in the minor
pentatonic scale.

The ‘G’ minor pentatonic scale consists of the following notes.

G minor pentatonic = G – Bb – C – D – F

Step 3: Select a chord shape

I’m going with a standard ‘G’ chord shape in the open position

G

-3–
-3–
-0–
-0–
-2–
-3–

Since I will be moving this chord shape around the guitar
fingerboard I’m going to slightly modify the chord configuration.

Here is the same chord without the 3rd; essentially I have
created a really cool sounding ‘G’ chord using only two of the
possible three notes that make up the ‘G’ chord e.g., a ‘G’ chord
is spelt G – B – D in this particular shape I’m leaving out the
‘B’ note.

G (no 3rd)

-3–
-3–
-0–
-0–
-X–
-3–

Step 4: Move this shape around the fingerboard using the notes
from the G minor pentatonic scale as bass notes.

G minor pentatonic = [G] – Bb – C – D – F

G (no 3rd)

-3–
-3–
-0–
-0–
-X–
-3–

G minor pentatonic = G – [Bb] – C – D – F

Bb (no 3rd)

-6–
-6–
-0–
-0–
-X–
-6–

G minor pentatonic = G – Bb – [C] – D – F

C (no 3rd)

-8–
-8–
-0–
-0–
-x–
-8–

G minor pentatonic = G – Bb – C – [D] – F

D (no 3rd)

-10–
-10–
-0–
-0–
-x–
-10–

G minor pentatonic = G – Bb – C – D – [F]

F (no 3rd)

-1–
-1–
-0–
-0–
-x–
-1–

For those guitarists with cutaway model guitars here is another
version of the ‘F’ chord

F (no 3rd)

-13–
-13–
-0—
-0—
-x—
-13–

See how easy it is to find new sounds?

* the lead guitarist can play the “G’ minor pentatonic scale over
these chords

* you can play the chords in any order

Here is one example

G /// | Bb /// | G /// | C D G / |

* since none of these shapes (apart from the original G chord)
are in chord books you will definitely have created your own
sound.

Topics: Beginner Guitar Lesson, Guitar Chords, Learn And Master Guitar | No Comments »

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