Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

MicroLesson: 077 – Make those boring chords sound better

Description

In this MicroLesson (ML077), you’ll learn how to take a basic chord progression and enhance it by playing chord embellishments. This will give you some new ways of approaching common chords.

Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson

Part 2 - For Premium Members

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Slow Walkthrough

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Video Tablature Breakdown

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Comments

  7. Charles S says

    Great lesson. I like that you included the 2nd part ( verse, chorus), it helps as a beginner to get some basic song structure ideas. I would like see more lessons on compositional elements. Perhaps something on how to include a “bridge” or middle eight in a song.

    Thank you!

  8. mritalian says

    What seems to be simple in your wheel house is not always so simple. Been working on my tone and pull offs on your lesson for a week and its beginning to sound better and better. Great way to think about different voicings and embellishments to what we would like to think of as simple chords, not so simple. Thank you for making my guitar playing sound better at every lesson Brian.

  10. richard p says

    OK, I think I finally get the secondary dominant thing. Yes, I knew that it was the 5 chord of the chord you’re going to. But, I just now figured out that in Blues, the 5 chord is basically a tension chord in the 1-4-5 sequence. So, a 5 chord anywhere else acts to add tension. I’m sure it sounds best when used sparingly… like when tension is needed or adds to the melody. Since, I’m so simple-minded, I’m going to start calling the secondary dominant the “tension chord”.

  12. David S says

    Brian, Don’t know how you keep coming up with these great lessons.Can hear some good gospel in this one.Really sounds great.Finally learning to go thru the lesson instead of just learning song.Getting to learn lots more.Keep up the good work.Old dogs can learn new tricks.!!!

  16. Lynne R says

    Great lesson….BUT….how about including the chord diagrams with the embellishments that we can print out. Seeing the diagrams is great but in terms of learning and reviewing, having printable diagrams would be even better and save every one a lot of precious time.

  17. Cliff Carbaugh says

    Hi Brian, I got this lesson in this morning’s email and loved it. I really thought it might be simple enough for me, so I printed it out and began learning it. I quickly discovered though that my fingers must be profoundly retarded. I can’t seem to hold my (partial) bar chords down hard enough to get a clear sound and my fingers regularly mute neighboring strings! Did anyone else have this trouble when they started learning guitar? Being quite elderly doesn’t help with memory retention much either! I’ll keep at it and see if I can improve over the coming weeks.
    you make your ‘Showboating’ look so easy so obviously I remain a newbie! Thank you 🙂

  18. David O says

    When I play this lesson in the tab mode it cuts off after the initial A chord into (about 3 seconds into the song). Am I missing something, or is there a problem with the stream? Thanks

    Dave

  19. Chris A says

    I love these chord melody type lessons. I can’t get enough of them. They help me to visualize the cage system and fretboard.
    I know you do do these type lessons a lot, but it’s still never enough.
    Thank you Brian

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