I was searching around the net this morning searching for some popular chord progressions.  Below are the ones I found.  Let me know if you have any more to add to the list.

I-II-iii-iv “Longer” Dan Fogelberg
I-vi-ii-V “Please Mr. Postman”
I-ii-V-I
I-ii7-V-I
I-IVmaj7-V7-I
I-vi-ii-V-i
I-iii-vi-ii-V7-I
I-iii-vi-ii-V-I “Alices Restaurant” Arlo Guthrie

Minor Progressions
i–V–i–iv–i  “Black Magic Woman” Santana
i–bVI–iv–bVII–i  “Mr. Jones” Counting Crows
i-IV “Oye Como VA” Tito Puente
ii-V-I “Autumn Leaves” standard

DECEPTIVE CADENCE PROGRESSIONS:
I-iv-vi-V-iv
I-ii-V-vi
I-vi-iii-V-vib

DIMINISHED CHORD PROGRESSIONS:
I-IV-IVdim7-I
I-ii-viidim-I
I-I#dim-ii-V-I

INVERTED CHORD PROGRESSIONS:
1.C C/E F G C
2.C G/B F/A G C
3.C G/B Am F G G/B C
4.C G E/G# Am G/B C

SECONDARY DOMINANT CHORD PROGRESSIONS:
I-VI-ii-V-I
I-III-VI-ii-V-I
I-IV-II-V-I
I-II-V-I

MODAL MIXTURES PROGRESSIONS:
1.I-IV-iv-I
2.C C/E Fm G C
3.I-IIIb-IV-V-I
4.I-IV-iiidim-V-I

I was surfing along this afternoon and came upon this article over at The Boston Globe.  He describes the vi-IV-I-V as the Sensative Female Chord progression…lol.  He’s absolutely on the money!  I won’t rewrite his article here so head on over there and check it out.  I like it in Am where it goes like Am F C G.  That’s the progression in Joan Osborne’s “One of Us”.  You know…”What if God was one of us…”

I was surfing around looking for common chord progressions that I can solo over using my RC-20 looper pedal.  I found a site that had an interesting chart that I’ll be “playing” with for a while.  The first picture below is the Major chord pattern flow.  You can start from anywhere on the chart, just pick a chord within the key your playing and then follow it from left to right.  When you get to a bracket, you need to choos whether you’re going to go with the upper chord or the lower.   Now when you’re done with the I chord and you get the the *.  The astericks means you can then go to any chord.  If you’re doing a repeating pattern you may likely go to where you started. 

Below is the Minor version of the above chart.  Note that it adds the VII chord and shows that the best way to get there is from the iv which means the minor iv chord (lower case is minor)

Let’s play with these for a minute and see what sort of progressions we can come up with.  Let’s start with the easiest which I think is the key of C Major which means we’ll be using the upper chart.  Lets pick E to start and see where this takes us…

Em (which is the iii) which means it really needs to be Em
Am (vi)
F (IV)  I chose the lower path in the brackets
G (V) (I chose this route rather than the diminished becuase I’m not so good at grabbing a diminshed chords…need to work on that)
C

You’ll have to grab your guitar and give this a quick play to see how it sounds.  I’ll grab my ukulele since it’s sitting here next me.

But that’s how it works folks.   Hmmm…before I go…what sort of scales can we play on this progression?  Sounds like a topic for another post in the near future!

Later!

I was playing around in LT Spice Model of the famous Fuzz Face pedal circuit.

The circuit is brilliant in its simplicity. The first transistor in the signal path is biased as a high gain amplifier that feeds the base of a second transitor which provides a voltage feedback to the base of the first transistor.   Note that the transistor model I used is suppose to be similar to those old germanium ones used back in the day.  I can’t really vouch for these models though.  I found them somewhere on a forum so the origin of the models are somewhat nebulous.

This is a pretty easy circuit to start with if you interested in putting together your own pedals.  You can built this circuit youself in a few minutes with some old parts you may have laying around.  If you don’t have these sort of parts laying around you will soon be able to buy them in the Electric Chili store.

Take a look at the output waveformbelow.  It almost looks like I just generated a square wave.  It has a solid pattern which is good musically.  We don’t want anything that’s a hot mess because it’ll sound like crap.

Check out the FFT below. The blue sinewave is the simulated input. You can see that the input isn’t modeled as a perfect sinewave but that’s OK. We’re unlikely to get a perfect sinewave out of guitar. In face, if we did, we would hate the sound. It would be pretty darn annoying.  The Blue wave is the output of the circuit.  You can see that it sustains many of the high frequency signals.  This makes sense because of the hard edges on the waveform.

The model is set up so we can see different pot settings can be evaluated at the same time.  Pretty slick eh?  Here’s a copy of the model itself so you can play around with it yourself.  Change the resistor and cap values and take a look at how it affects the output.  Throw a diode in a strange place to see how if affects the signal.   A tool like this is a great way to learn about how analog circuits work so if you haven’t downloaded LT SPice, you should Google and get it!

I’ve decided to take Electric Chili in a little different direction or maybe I should say little different focus. My intent at first was to provide information about guitars, gear, and learning how to play. I think I might have bit off a little more than I was willing to chew. The world of guitars is huge and who could possibly handle it all without a full time staff of writers. There’s just no way one guy can really pull off what I had in mind. Well, how do you really know unless you try right?

So here’s the background…after a little work on putting guitar effects pedals up in the store (and ebay), I starting doing a little research about what I was selling as well as doing some reviews. In my research I found several communities of guitar players that enjoy creating their own effects pedals. I never knew this interest even existed. As an working electrical engineer I find this to be absolutely fascinating and want to jump in with both feet! So that’s where I’m going! I want to develop some of my own pedals as well as offer platforms and parts for developing guitar pedals. That’s my new focus. I admit that I’m somewhat ADD in my interests and move around quite a bit so we’ll have to see what happens.

My first project is to develop an effects development box that incorporates a breadboard inside so that tinkering with different circuits is extremely simple. From there I would like to see what can be done with PICs in the way of modifying guitar audio signals. I’m having a good time just thinking about the possibilities!

Eric gives us a fine version of this Otis Rush classic from an abandoned documentary ‘Nothin’ But The Blues‘ by Martin Scorsese.

Have you ever wanted to play guitar like the greats? While it’s easy to pass off their amazing guitar skills as pure talent alone, it’s more important to examine that massive amount of smart work that went into mastering those guitar skills. For every Slash and Eric Clapton, there are hundreds of wannabe guitarists wondering just how they could make it there, and without the right combination of inspiration and learning skills, it’s easy to think that you could end up along with them. Don’t worry, learning guitar isn’t something that has to suck up a lot of your time, nor does it need to be a hobby that you grow to dislike. By shedding the conventional learning styles and focusing on acquiring the most important and vital skills, you can fast-track your guitar progress and be out there playing your favorite songs and solos in no time at all.

It all comes down to mastering the most important techniques. While many guitar schools and courses focus on the less important skills; mastering kid’s songs and practicing scale after scale, very few actually put the most important skills in any real practical context. Instead of practicing mindless children’s songs that, while helpful, can be very demotivating, the best way to master guitar is by playing and mastering the music that you love to listen to. If you love the music you’re playing, you’re that much more likely to stick with it!

That’s right, learning guitar doesn’t have to be about mastering nursery rhymes and ‘Smoke on the Water’ (Although that is a classic every guitarist should learn!). Ask any experienced guitarist what part of learning they think is most important and they’ll tell you to simply focus on doing what you enjoy. I know for me, it was taking lessons I’d learned from reading and practicing and applying them in jam sessions with other musicians. All the essential skills of guitar, the scale learning, the playing positions, and the hand dexterity, they all extend from mastering the songs of your favorite artists and guitarists.

Ready to kick-start your guitar progress? Fast tracking the basics requires quite a lot of dedication and a determination to master what’s truly important. There are a lot of free lesson package, packed full of information on mastering the most fundamental and versatile guitar techniques for beginners looking to master guitar in a style that suits them.

So don’t despair learning guitar doesn’t have to be something that feels like homework. When you focus on the aspects of guitar that you already love, you can boost your dedication and fast-track your learning progress.

I have found a great resource for this on my own, which is listed on my blog. Using the knowledge and information within these types of unconventional methods, you can get the guitar skills that you dream of without the endless hours of monotonous practice. Once you’ve mastered some of the techniques in these types of lessons, go out and play with other, more experienced, musicians and learn all you can from them as well. It is the combination of lessons and experience that make guitar players into music legends.

About the Author

Matt Lee offers helpful and often witty insight into all things nerdy and/or geeky. He is a social networker and blogger who loves to share interesting information he finds on the web through his social media adventures. He has a newsletter which you can sign up for at http://www.MGL2Blogger.com. For more information about this Article, go here: http://www.mgl2blogger.com/post/598967414/so-you-wanna-learn-to-play-guitar

If you’re only just starting out on the guitar, you may never have needed to buy new strings just yet let alone come across the term “gauge”, so it’s easy to be a little confused when you first hear the word.

Basically, guitar string gauges are usually described by their thickness to a thousandth of an inch. The majority of guitarists use either 9′s or 10′s. What these means is, the thin E string on their guitar is either 9 thousandths or 10 thousandths of an inch thick.

If you’re a beginner then you might be best to use 9′s to start with, a good set of these are the Ernie Ball Regular Slinky or Rotosound Yellows.

Generally, heavier strings give a richer and more full sound, however are also harder on the fingers and can be quite difficult to play when trying to bend notes. Lighter strings, such as 9′s are easier on the fingers, especially when bending or sliding notes, however they do sometimes break a little easier.

Some packs of strings even mix and match gauges. Most major string brands have a range that allows you to match the top and bottom strings to suit your style… so if you like to easily bend your high strings when playing lead but pound the bottom strings when playing rhythm then you can chose a suitable combination.

Just for reference here is a list of all the string gauges offered by Ernie Ball (probably the most well known string company)

2215 – Skinny Top Heavy Bottom 10, 13, 17, 30, 42, 52 2220 – Power Slinky 11, 14, 18p, 28, 38, 48 2221 – Regular Slinky 10, 13, 17, 26, 36, 46 2222 – Hybrid Slinky 09, 11, 16, 26, 36, 46 2223 – Super Slinky 09, 11, 16, 24w, 32, 42 – Recommended for beginners 2225 – Extra Slinky 08, 11, 14, 22w, 30, 38 2626 – Not Even Slinky 12, 16, 24p, 32, 44, 56 2627 – Beefy Slinky 11, 15, 22p, 30, 42, 54

You may wonder what the “w” and “p” mean on some of the above string gauges. “P” stands for plain, which means the string is basically just a straight piece of wire. Whereas, “W” are strings which are wound, which means there is a thin bit of wire in the middle tightly wound with a wrapping of even thinner wire to make up the total thickness of the string.

In most cases the first and second strings with be “plain”, whereas the 3rd to 6th strings will be “wound”. Whenever this is not the case, then it is stated by adding either a “p” or “w” after the string gauge.

How often you change your strings basically depends on how often you play and what type of strings you use.

If you are new the guitar and find yourself playing quite a bit each day then it might be best to change your strings once every 4 – 6 weeks. The reason for this is that overtime when playing the guitar the strings become greasy and dirty which makes them lose their tone, and can sometimes go rusty and snap.

There are a few basic ways in which you can extend the life of your strings. This is as simple as:

* Washing your hands before you play the guitar

* Wipe your strings with a cloth or string cleaning product after playing to remove any sweat or grease. GHS Fast Fret String Cleaner is a great product to use on your strings and will keep them clean and sounding crisp for longer.

What Are The Signs That I Need To Change My Strings?

* Sound – When you play a guitar with new strings you will hear a very bright and crisp sound, even when the guitar is not amplified. Overtime, this will begin to fade and the strings can sound very dull. If you like that initial crispness when you play new strings then you might consider replacing them.

* Dirt and Grease – When you begin to feel a build up on the strings when you play them it’s a definite sign that need changing. From frequent playing, the strings with gather sweat and oil from your fingers. If you don’t clean the strings then this will build up and will make the strings feel harsh on your fingers and also lose sound quality.

* Broken Strings – This might sound like a no brainer, but I’m not just talking about replacing the broken string. When you break a string, it’s often because it is dirty or gotten a little rusty. If a string breaks for this reason then its most likely the other strings are in the same condition too. Rather than just replacing the one broken string it’s a good idea to replace the entire set.

About the Author

My name is Freddy and I am the creator and owner of FastfingerFreddy.com – An online video guitar lessons website focused on teaching the guitar to beginners. Visit me at www.fastfingerfreddy.com

Blues guitar playing has evolved quite a bit since it initially started in the deep southern region of The United States. The blues style has changed with musicians adding their unique variations to the blues chord progression and blues scale. But to learn blues guitar you will need to study the fundamentals of the blues guitar playing style.

To be able to start playing blues on the guitar you will probably require private classes or find blues guitar lessons online. The right blues guitar lesson will initially teach you the most fundamental elements of blues guitar playing. The first is the 12 bar blues chord sequence (this sequence is also common in other genres of music). The second important element is the blues scale. Learning scales is vital for virtually any genre of music and they will allow you to make your own compositions.

The 12 bar blues chord progression will help with your guitar strumming. The lesson will teach you how you can switch chords while continuing to strum a particular rhythm. This chord progression can be played in any key, where the root chord is played for four bars, the fourth chord played for two followed by two bars of the root note, the fifth chord for just one bar, the fourth for another bar and the root chord played once again for two bars. This adds up to twelve bars and hence it is referred to as the twelve bar chord progression.

When the blues lesson shows you the strumming part of blues you need to start learning the blues scale. The blues scale is simply the minor pentatonic scale that has a sharpened fourth note. This fourth is also referred to as the blues note. When you master the scale you’ll be ready to start manipulating the scale making use of different guitar techniques and make your own solo.

Listening to a lot of blues guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and B.B King will help give you the hang of blues guitar playing. When you listen to plenty of blues music while you are covering your blues guitar lessons, you’ll undoubtedly advance much faster. Also, playing the scale with a blues track backing or a drum patch will help you make your own modifications in the scale and start playing blues solos.

Blues guitar playing can be a lot of fun, but you simply must be focused and you must not force yourself through the blues guitar lesson. Getting a blues guitar lesson online will let you learn from your home and you’ll also be able to take your time for each session.

About the Author

We have provided information on some of the courses that we have researched. These Blues Guitar Lessons are excellent for aspiring the blues guitar players.