It’s possible to be playing something incorrectly and unless the
error is corrected immediately the mistake becomes ingrained and
will turn up when you less expect it (and less want it) when you
are under pressure, usually this occurs in a performance
situation.

No matter how a newbie guitarist might try to avoid the musical
‘facts of life’ eventually almost everyone comes to realize that
there cannot be any progress without practice; the trick is to be
aware of and avoid the common practice hazards that sideline 95%
of guitarists.

Tip 1: Reading music on guitar is a two step process:

How many guitar players do you know that can read standard music
notation? Not many I’ll bet.

How many do you know that have tried to read and given up in
despair … most likely quite a few; maybe you have tried to
learn to read and given up.

Well you are not on your own, reading music on the guitar is one
of the most mysterious and difficult skills for guitarists to
learn the trick is to understand that reading music on the guitar
is actually two steps.

Step (a) the ability to read music notation WITHOUT the guitar in
your hands.

Step (b) to know the names of the notes and their location on the
guitar fretboard

Solution: begin by practicing easy music exercises without the
guitar in your hands; say the name of each note while imaging you
are playing the note on an invisible guitar.

Your left hand fingers (presuming you are right handed) should
move as if they were playing the notes on the fretboard.

Use your thumb as an imaginary fingerboard making certain that
your fingers touch the thumb; the sensation of touch will
reinforce the note position in your mind; of course if you are
reading an open note your left hand fingers won’t touch your
thumb.

Tip 2: max of 4 to 6 notes

The master musicians learn four to six notes at a time! That’s
true, the world’s finest musicians break down their learning into
tiny little pieces, perfect those notes and then move on to the
next four.

Now that’s an insider tip if ever these is one!

Learning this skill alone will accelerate your playing beyond
your wildest dreams.

Tip 3: data memory cards

Write anything you want to remember, chords, scales, chord
progressions etc., down on small question and answer cards.

The concept is simple; write a question on one side of the card
and the answer on the other, the idea is to do your learning away
from the guitar.

Here’s how you use your data memory cards: create three piles,
daily, weekly and monthly.

Daily pile: As you answer your questions from your daily pile
place the cards that you answered correctly into the weekly pile,
any questions that you answered incorrectly go back into the
daily pile.

Weekly pile: At the end of the week check your cards in the
weekly pile, the cards that you answered correctly go to the
monthly pile any questions you answered incorrectly go back to
the daily pile.

Monthly pile: When you check you answers at the end of the month
any cards that you answered correctly you can throw away as at
this point you have internalized the information, if you answered
any questions incorrectly they go back to the weekly pile.

This card system is very important, it’s your own contribution to
your learning that will help you overcome any mental ‘blocks’
with your learning that way you can spend 100% of your practice
time working on the physical (motor skills) aspect of playing the
guitar.

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.

The really sad thing about this is that many a time it was their
‘guitar instructor???’ that told them this! If this story is
familiar read on … you may be surprised at what I have to say.

The first step is to take a long, hard look at who is advising
you and explode this ‘finger’ myth. Never presume that just
because a person runs an add in a newspaper, has a business card
or a degree framed on their wall that they know what they are
doing.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to set yourself up as a ‘guitar
guru’ and in exactly the same way as there are accountants who
cannot operate a calculator (believe me, I’ve met them) there are
‘guitar teachers’ who don’t have the faintest idea about the
language of music; sure they can knock out a few licks and tricks
but they do not understand the language of music and how it
applies to the guitar fretboard.

The facts:

* It does not matter if your fingers are too fat.

* It does not matter if your fingers are too short (or too long)

* It does not mater if your fingers are too dumb (yes, I’m been
told by some students that they have dumb fingers)

How do I know this?

I’ve successfully taught many students who thought they had these
exact same problems.

Here is how we overcame their ‘finger’ issues.

Problem: fingers too short or too fat

Solution: Each chord is made up of a specific set of notes, since
it’s the notes that make up the chord NOT the shape on the
guitar, once you know how to ’spell’ chords you can design your
own chord shapes thereby making a shape that is easy to play
whilst still being musically correct.

Problem: Fingers too fat

Solution: Same as above, you might also want to consider looking
at the option of buying a twelve string guitar and removing six
of the strings (the octave strings); this way you will have a
wider fingerboard, this solution has worked well for a number of
my students with large finger.

Problem: Dumb fingers

Solution: I can assure you that you don’t have ‘dumb fingers’;
your fingers are not the thinking part of you they are the
‘doing’ part; without fail every single time I encounter someone
is convinced that they have ‘dumb finger’ I immediately get them
to put the guitar down and write or draw out the problem chord,
scale or progression on a piece of paper and 100% of the time
they write it out incorrectly!

I do this to show them that their problem is NOT their fingers,
it’s that they have not learned the information correctly.

What about ‘lazy fingers’?

Can’t help you there; lazy fingers are attached to lazy people
and nothing is ever going to improve there. (laughing)

Usually the people who are telling me this are guitar students in
their 50’s to mid 60’s, some are in their 70’s; they are coming
to me for one last try and it’s not just face to face lessons
where I encounter this, here’s a typical correspondence for my
online subscription community: “I am 75 so I have all kinds of
trouble trying to “stretch” my fingers so they can work with
chords. I am not getting any younger, so is mine a hopeless
case????”

As you can see there is a common theme, can I learn to play the
guitar or is too late? The truth of the matter is that it does
not matter what age you start to play guitar, it certainly does
not matter if your fingers are ‘too short’, too long’ or ‘too
dumb’… students have actually told me that they thought that
they had been giving dumb or clumsy fingers at birth.

It’s actually quite distressing to hear these stories; one guy in
his mid 50’s told me he had wanted to learn guitar all his life,
when he was sixteen he tried to learn however his ‘teacher’ told
him his fingers were too fat to play guitar so his parents made
him learn the piano accordion (which he hated), eventually he
gave the whole idea of learning music away.

Is it possible to learn to play latter in life?

Most definitely “YES”

Can someone in their 50’s who doesn’t know a note of music learn
to play guitar?

Absolutely, and they should!

Am I just trying to think positively? No, here’s the musical
facts of life:

Music is a language that anyone can learn, in fact learning to
play guitar latter in life has some distinct advantages.

(a) generally people at this stage of life know that you have to
take things s-l-o-w-l-y, there’s no hurry it’s all about
‘quality’ not ‘quantity’.

(b) most likely these people have some spare time that they can
devote to an interesting pass time of hobby without too many
distractions.

(c) there’s a BIG advantage learning to play guitar from the
beginning, if you learn it correctly you don’t have to spend
countless wasted years trying to un-learn bad habits!

With very few exceptions students in the 50 to 70 age group tend
to learn guitar for relaxation, rarely miss a lesson, and hardly
ever ‘drop out’ and are very highly motivated especially when
they start seeing results.

The truth is … you don’t have to stretch your fingers trying to
play impossible chord shapes – it’s the notes in the chord you
are trying to play and there’s heaps of easy ways to play chords
on the guitar, sometimes you only need one or two fingers, the
trick is to learn the language of music that way you will know
how ’spell’ chords and ultimately be able to design your own
chord shapes.

Here’s the question: “In A Song, I know that you play the 1,4,5
chords, but what if there are also minor chords in the song, how
do I know which minor chords to play?”

The best way to answer this is to understand how chords work, the
majority of guitarists learn chords in one of the following ways:

(a) a friend shows them a few chord shapes on the guitar

(b) they learn their chords from a guitar chord book

(c) they play chords form TAB but don’t know the names of the
chords they are playing (usually they don’t even know they are
playing chords)

or …

(d) the guitarists spends endless hours memorizing chord
construction formulas e.g., major: 1-3-5; minor 1-b3-5;
augmented: 1-3-#5 etc.

While all these methods teach you what to play the guitarist
never learns which chords work together and why; take for example
the guy or girl with the chord book, it doesn’t matter how many
chord shapes they learn if they don’t know which chords go
together and why.

So what is the best way to learn about chords?

By studying the language of music.

Step 1: Chord families – chords are not isolated groups of notes
they are created from scales; there are different types of chords
e.g., three note chords (triads); four note chords (scaletone
seventh chords) etc.

Generally the most common chord structures are created by
stacking the notes of a scale in thirds.

Here is an example of a chord family (triadic version) derived
from the key of G.

G scale: G – A – B – C – D – E – F# – G

Chord family key of G:

G – Am – Bm – C – D – Em – F#dim – G

Step 2: Identify the 1,4,5 chords – Many popular songs can be
reduced harmonically to three chords, most likely you have heard
about three chord tunes, essentially most three chord tunes
consist of the 1,4 and 5 chords (musicians call these chords the
primary chords).

Primary chords in the key of G:

1 = G

4 = C

5 = D

I arrived at this answer by assigning a number to each chord in
the key of G.

Like this

1 = G

2 = Am

3 = Bm

4 = C

5 = D

6 = Em

7 = F#dim

8 = G

Step 3: Identifying which minor chords to play in a song

(a) if a song has four chords there is a very strong chance the
fourth chord will be a minor chord, the problem is which minor
chord!

The answer here is simple it’s chord 6 in the chord family; chord
six is the relative minor to chord one.

What that means is that chord six represents a sound that is the
exact opposite of chord one; if you were to describe the sound of
chord one as ‘bright’ you would possibly describe the sound of
chord six as ‘dull’; if you were to describe the sound of chord
one as ‘happy’ you would might describe the sound of chord six as
’sad’.

Chord six is the most closely related chord to chord one however,
it has a chord texture ( or musical mood)exactly the opposite to
chord one.

(b) if you are searching for a minor chord that goes before chord
five it’s almost always chord two.

(c) if you have tried the 1-6-4-5 progression and you are not
convinced it’s 100% correct for your particular musical situation
try the 1-3-4-5 progression.

Bonus tip: One other chord progression that pops up quite often
is another variation of the 1-6-4-5.

Try this 1-6-2-5 and compare the musical ‘mood’ of this
progression to the 1-6-4-5 chances are it will be the progression
you are looking for.

This particular phrase made a gigantic impact on me and I think
about it almost everyday for two reasons:

(a) it keeps me motivated to make the most of everyday and not
waste time, after all ‘time is all you got!’

(b) as I go about my work as a professional musician/guitarist
I’m aware of how much time would-be guitarists waste by
repeatedly making the same awful mistakes everyday.

I’ve listed my top three mistakes or should I say “time wasting
traps” that the majority of guitar players fall into.

Mistake #1: practice too long – in most cases guitar players who
practice long hours are literally throwing countless hours of
practice out in the street.

The solution: the trick is to determine what type of practice you
need to do; many guitar players are not aware that there are
types of practice (a) data memory training; and (b) motor skill
training.

In a nutshell data memory practice sessions should be short
3-5 minutes whereas effective motor skill practice sessions can
be as long as 20-30 minutes.

Mistake #2: practicing too fast – long hours of sloppy guitar
practice results in a sloppy guitar technique; don’t train
yourself to make mistakes.

The solution: speed is a by-product of accuracy. The first
mistake should be a warning to slow down. There’s no point
practicing mistakes, that defeats the whole purpose of
practicing, once a mistake is ingrained it is extremely difficult
to eradicate.

Use a metronome to track your progress, always practice
everything slowly and gradually build up the tempo, never play
faster than you can accurately!

Mistake #3: can’t remember what they have learned – most guitar
players suffer from short term memory training. In our school
years we learned to retain information only long enough to pass
the test, once our short term objective (the test) was achieved
most or all of the information was discarded; the information is
still in our memory banks somewhere the difficulty is recalling
it!

While not being able to fully recall your algebra assignment may
not really bother you (unless of course you are working for
NASA); we don’t want this type of ’short term’ memory training to
spill over into our guitar practice habits.

The solution: develop long term memory and recall training habits
by practicing for short time frames of 2-5 minutes, use a timer
to keep an accurate track of your time frames, when the timer
rings take a break, stand up and get away from the guitar, leave
your practice area stretch have a drink etc., the idea is to
change your environment before going back to practice.

Summary: Avoid these mistake and develop effective, efficient
practice habits, learn how to work with your nervous system not
against it and you will be well on your way to becoming a
successful guitarist.

Now I’m not talking about things like dedication, motivation and
persistence, in fact many of these guitarists are above average
when it comes to these type of qualities it’s just that no matter
how much time they invest in guitar practice they always seem to
fall short in the progress department. Here’s why … it’s not a
matter of HOW much practice they do it’s WHAT they are
practicing!

Let’s be clear about one thing up front when it comes to learning
the guitar the only shortcuts you will find are at the butchers’
shop!

Guitarists looking for shortcuts end up taking the longest route
and many miss out entirely!

Sounds like I’m contradicting myself doesn’t it! Actually it’s
true, whether they know it or not (usually not) guitar players
end up being the victim of ‘quick fix’ guitar instruction, when
in reality if they learned their instrument correctly right from
the beginning and how the language of music could be applied to
their instrument they would progress more rapidly and overtake
the ‘quick fix’ guys.

Here’s the 3 most obvious musical ‘banana peel’ type mistakes
that I see 99% of guitar players make!

Mistake #1: guitar boxes – It’s common for guitar players to
learn to play scales by little diagrams (or guitar boxes); these
guitar shapes become the instant solution for lead guitar solos
or are they?

Ever wonder why most guitar solos are much more fun to play than
to listen to? Ever notice why 85% of guitar solos are instantly
forgettable or just plain boring?

It’s because the little guitar box method of guitar instruction
is like trying to teach people how to paint by numbers, everybody
ends up sounding the same.

The solution: Learn the names of the notes in each scale and say
their names out loud as you are playing them. Get to know which
note is under each one of your fingers instead of learning a
generic shape and hoping for the best.

Learn to play from your brain to your fingers not the other way
around.

Mistake #2: guitar TAB – Guitar TAB has been touted as the
greatest thing since guitar strings but does it work? Does guitar
TAB sky rocket you off to a successful guitar playing career
(that’s what the ad says) or is it simply a quick trip over into
the neighbor’s swinging pool?

Guitar TAB gives a guitarist the illusion that they are making
progress but remember … there’s absolutely no point in doing
something if you don’t know what you are doing!

Guitar TAB only works for guitar, it’s a closed world, it only
works for guitar players and it relegates it’s followers to
becoming musical fringe dwellers who spent their entire life
trying to reinvent the musical ‘wheel’.

The solution: Learn to read standard music notation; by learning
to read music notation you will become musically literate you
will understand what you are playing and you will gain insight
into why some things work and why others don’t.

Good players don’t waste any notes; they mean to play every note
they play there’s no accidents.

Mistake #3: key centers – not all songs remain entirely in the
one key throughout the entire piece; therefore a guitarist may
begin playing a solo in one key only to find their solo turning
sour halfway through the performance.

The solution: Learn to identify ‘key centers’ by looking at the
harmony of a song; the chords will indicate the changing keys.
Each scale creates it’s own set of chords, learn to play the
three note (triadic) and four note (scale tone seventh) versions
of chords produced from each key.

Your ear will always lead you to the right note(s) but you must
know why.

Summary: It’s a classic case of the tortoise and the hare, take
your time, learn your craft and you will be rewarded and in a
very soon you will overtake the musical hare; after all he’s not
going anywhere; he can’t!

These days I have learned to ask a few more questions as 99% of
the time the student does not really want to play classical
guitar in fact most of them haven’t heard much classical guitar
playing at all, I generally find that they either (a) want to
play single note melodies or (b) play finger style accompaniment
of the guitar.

In this article I will focus on the finger style accompaniment
type of guitar playing.

Guitar techniques for finger style

Essentially the left hand fingering of your chords (I’m assuming
you are a right handed player) will primarily remain the same as
if you were strumming although sometimes you won’t have to use as
many fingers (that’s good news).

Finger style skills to learn (right hand)

Most of the techniques will be done with your right hand.

Basically your thumb will play either the fourth, fifth or sixth
string depending on what chord you are playing e.g., if you are
playing a ‘D’ chord your thumb will play the fourth string whilst
if you were playing an ‘A’ chord your thumb would play the fifth
string.

The idea is for your thumb to play a bass note of the same letter
name as the chord you are playing.

Here is a simple table for you to practice, I’m going to call it
our ‘rule of thumb’.

A, Am, A7 = 5th sting

B, Bm, B7 = 5th

C, Cm, C7 = 5th

D, Dm, D7 = 4th

E, Em, E7 = 6th

F, Fm, F7 = 6th

G, Gm, G7 = 6th

Your remaining right hand fingers will play as follows;

First finger (right hand ) plays the third string

Second finger (right hand) plays the second string

Third finger (right hand) plays the first string

These fingers play the same strings regardless of whatever chord
you are playing; it’s just the thumb that changes; I know it
looks a lot more complicated than that and it can be more
complicated however if you are just staring and want to get a
‘feel’ for what is involved in this style of guitar playing this
is a great way to get started.

How to practice:

Start by playing only with your right hand, no left hand
fingering, begin by playing the following:

Thumb plays sixth string; first finger plays third string; second
finger plays second string; third finger plays first string;
second finger plays second string; first finger plays third
string.

Repeat this sequence over and over preferably while watching
television, your fingers will do all the necessary repetitive
work while your eyes will be watching the television all the time
you will be become more comfortable playing this style of guitar.

You will need to learn the following guitar skills

Finger style skills to learn (left hand)

* hammer-on’s

* pull-off’s

* slides

How long will it take? The basic guitar skills will only take a
few weeks, however since you will be using the ‘pads’ of your
right hand fingers you will need to allow time for your right
hand fingers to develop calluses, you will achieve the best
results by many short practice sessions rather than long sessions
particularly when you are starting out.

Blues chord progressions form the basis for many rock, jazz and
country songs so let’s take a look at the most important
progressions for you to learn.

All blues progressions are presented in the key of C for you to
study.

Progression #1

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7/// | G7 ///| C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

The G7 chord in bar 12 acts as a turn-a-round chord which signals
the return of the progression to bar one, the last time through
the progression will finish on the ‘C’ chord.

Progression #2 is another common variation of the basic 12 bar
blues template, notice how it is exactly the same as progression
#1 except for the ‘F” chord in bar ten.

Progression #2

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7/// | F /// | C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

Now for a progression with a slight twist, it’s the same
progression as #1 only with a surprise chord change in bar two.

Progression #3

C /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7/// | G7 ///| C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

Progression #4 is the same as # 2 again with the surprise chord
change in bar two.

Progression #4

C /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7/// | F ///| C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

Another favorite variation on the 12 bar blues is the sixteen bar
template here is a sample of a 16 bar blues for you to study;
notice how it is the same as progression #2 only with an
additional four bars added at the beginning.

Progression #5

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7/// | F /// | C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

It’s interesting to note that blues #2 is the only progression
that is used for the 16 bar version of the blues.

The twenty four bar blues is simply a double length version of
progression two.

Progression #6

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | F /// | F /// |

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

G7 ///| G7/// | F /// | F /// |

C /// | C /// | G7 ///| G7 ///|| C (last time)

Now it’s time to take a look at the eight bar format.

Progression #7

C /// | G /// | F/A /// | F/A ///|

C /// | G /// | C /// | G /// || C (last time)

A simplified version of the eight bar blues would look like this:

C /// | G /// | F /// | F ///|

C /// | G /// | C /// | G ///|| C (last time)

Play these blues templates over and over until you own them,
listen carefully to how each chord flows to the next and most
importantly try to get a ‘feel’ for each progression so you can
identify it next time you hear it.

Let’s take a look at a sample 12 bar blues progression written
exclusively as major chords.

Progression #1:

C /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G /// | G /// | C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

Now here is the same progression using dominant seventh chords:

Progression #2:

C7 /// | F7/// | C7/// | C7/// |

F7 /// | F7/// | C7/// | C7/// |

G7 /// | G7/// | C7/// | G7/// || C7 (last time)

Because there is so many ways to alter dominant seventh chords it
can be a difficult choice to decide the best type of dominant
seventh for your musical application.

In this next blues progression I’m featuring the dominant seventh
with a sharpened ninth. (one of Jimi Hendrix’s favorite sounds).

Progression #3:

C7#9 /// | F7#9/// | C7#9/// | C7#9/// |

F7#9 /// | F7#9/// | C7#9/// | C7#9/// |

G7#9 /// | G7#9/// | C7#9/// | G7#9/// || C7#9 (last time)

The dominant seventh with a sharpened ninth creates a lot of
musical tension and therefore can be very useful for blues based
material.

This time I’m only going to use the C7#9 to create musical
tension in bar five to introduce the ‘F’ chord.

Progression #4:

C7 /// | F7/// | C7/// | C7#9/// |

F7 /// | F7/// | C7/// | C7/// |

G7 /// | G7/// | C7/// | G7/// || C7 (last time)

How about a dominant seventh with a sharpened eleventh?

This chord would be written as: C+11 or C#11

The C+11 would contain the following 1, 3, natural 5, b7,9,+11

I’ve specifically indicated that the fifth is a natural fifth as
the +11 (sharp 11) could also be thought of as a flattened
fifth note.

Therefore the notes in a C+11 chord would be: C,E,G,Bb,D & F#

C+11 = C,E,G,Bb,D,F#

F+11 = F,A,C,Eb,G,B

G+11 = G,B,D,F,A,C#

Progression #5:

C+11 /// | F+11/// | C+11/// | C+11/// |

F+11 /// | F+11/// | C+11/// | C+11/// |

G+11 /// | G+11/// | C+11/// | G+11/// || C+11 (last time)

You may find some of these sounds usual at first but as your ear
becomes accustomed to the new harmonies I’m sure you will find
them very useful for creating interesting musical backgrounds for
your tunes.