5 Ways to Practice A Chord A Day!

Today, I've decided to share five ways you can practice the chords in this blog and the ones you discover too! Most of these will essentially create a week or more of practice ideas from a single A Chord A Day lesson. Here they are:


1. Play the voicing in all twelve keys

Some voicings might be difficult (or impossible) because of the use of open strings or the stretches involved in fretting the chord. Should this be the case, try playing a simplified version of the chord by omitting one or more notes. Sometimes, the same voicing might be playable in a different key by using a different fingering. Keep an open mind and experiment!

2. Arpeggiate the chord

A chords sound different when arpeggiated differently, other moods might take over. Try different right hand fingerstyle patterns and textures!

3. Put it in a chord progression/song

Do you have a favorite chord progression? Try putting the voicing of the day into that context and find other chords that would voice-lead well into and out from the voicing of choice. If you have a favorite song, try using the same voicing for the chord type everytime it appears in the song, regardless of key!

4. Write a song

Sometimes a chord can invoke an entire song! Try using your new voicing in a song of your own. This is a great way to practice it as well as keep it in your long-term chord vocabulary!

5. Combine different days together

Pick two or three random days from #1-#88 (The first series of A Chord A Day) and see whether you can make up a chord progression, line or any musical idea that uses two or more of the voicings in one context! This can be both fun and challenging. I'm going to do this right after this!!

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #9: Rhythms (combination)

For today's lesson, I've listed four comping rhythms that use one attack on the beat and another attack on an offbeat. Example E1 and E2 are start on beat one followed by a syncopated rhythmic attack. In example F1 and F2, I did the opposite and played an offbeat rhythmic attack first.

Try playing each of these rhythms and then come up with your own rhythms (with two attacks per measure). I would recommend writing around ten to twenty different rhythms (some just on the off beats, some just on the beat and some in combination like the examples above). After writing them, play all of them and choose your favorite rhythms to practice. 

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #8: Rhythms (off the beat)

Today's A Chord A Day lesson continues yesterday study of different rhythms for comping. Here, all the examples are off the beat, i.e. syncopated rhythms. These are trickier so my advice is to practice one rhythm at a time, perhaps alternating between one of these examples and another from the Blues Comping #7 so that you don't lose the beat. If you're ready for a challenge, pick one rhythm from this lesson and keep that as the rhythm throughout a chorus of the blues. Play with a metronome or backing track so that you won't turn the time around accidentally since the rhythms are all syncopated.

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #7: Rhythms (on the beat)

Today's lesson is the first one touching on comping rhythms that we can use to practice material from Blues Comping #1-6. For this first example, I've chosen rhythms that fall on the beat. Example A1 is the basic comping rhythm on beats one and three. Example A2 is a displaced version of A1 with the rhythmic attacks falling on beat two and four. Example B1 is another rhythm falling on beats one and two. Example B2, B3 and B4 are displacements of the B1 moving the rhythm one beat at a time. B2 starts on beat two, B3 on beat three and B4 starts on beat four though now it appears like a new rhythm since the longer rhythmic attack is on beat one.

Practice suggestions: Pick one of the rhythms and play the entire blues chorus (from Blues Comping #4 to #6) with that one rhythm. Alternatively, you can write a combination of the rhythms as a rhythmic etude. Since there are six rhythms here, use each rhythm twice to create a twelve measure rhythm etude. You can also practice material from Blues Comping #1-3 with these rhythms to develop more flexibility with the material.

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #6: Chorus #1 (measures 9 - 12)

To conclude Chorus #1 of the Blues Comping lesson series, here's last four measures of a twelve bar Jazz Blues form. Remember to play the voicings cleanly and connect them smoothly. Again, I've played the chords as written first followed by a version with comping rhythms the way I would play them in a performance context. After learning this example, connect Blues Comping #4 to #6 together. Have fun and if you like to get deeper into the voicings, write a second chorus of comping to complement the lesson.

In the next lesson, we'll look at the rhythmic aspect of comping!

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #5: Chorus #1 (measures 5 - 8)

For today's lesson, we'll focus on the middle four measures of the twelve bar Jazz Blues progression. In a basic Blues progression, measures five and six usually stay on the IV7 chord but a very common variation is to insert a #IVo7 passing chord to lead back into the I7 usually in the form of I7/5 (a second inversion I7 chord) just like the example here.

I've used the same Drop-2 diminished voicing that was introduced in Blues Comping #3. However, here the chord functions as a diminished chord as opposed to the alternative function of being a rootless Dom7(b9) voicing (as it appears in measure eight).

After memorizing this example, play Blues Comping #4 and Blues Comping #5 back to back to hear how the first eight measures of this first full chorus example sounds like. Experiment comping with different rhythms, articulation, note duration and space. 

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #4: Chorus #1 (measures 1 - 4)

Today's example consist of the first four measure of a Jazz Blues progression. The voicings here are a combination of the I7 and IV7 voicings in Blues Comping #1 as well as II-V progression in Eb using voicings from Blues Comping #2.
In the audio example, I first played them as written so you can hear the voicings and voiceleading. The second time, I played them with different rhythms as I would in a performance context. Play, memorize the voicings and afterwards, experiment playing the voicings with different rhythms.


Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #3: Drop-2 Voicings for the V7(b9)/II and related II-7(b5)

In the third installment of Blues Comping, we're looking at two chords that really adds more Jazz flavor into the Blues progression. In this context, the G7(b9) functions as a secondary dominant that leads into the II-7. The voicing here is a rootless voicing which makes it possible for the chord to also be viewed simply as a Drop-2 diminished 7th voicing.

In the next few lessons, we'll start combining all the voicings we've looked at into complete Jazz Blues choruses. To prepare for this, make sure you practice the voicings as much as possible so that it becomes comfortable. We'll also be playing the same voicings in different keys in future examples, so get a head start by doing that now.

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #2: Drop-2 Voicings for the II-7 and V7

In the second lesson installment for our Blues Comping lesson this week, here are the four voiceled inversions for the II-7 and V7 in the key of Bb. For this lesson, I've even included the chord diagrams (so you can also see how the chord shapes relate to one another visually) in addition to our standard notation and tablature!

Practice playing all the Cmin7 and F7 inversions separately as well and in different keys! It's important to memorize these as soon as you can since future lessons will be based around alterations of these shapes.

Enjoy!

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Blues Comping #1: Drop-2 Voicings for the I7 and IV7

For this week, I've decided to continue exploring Dominant Chords. Today, we're looking at one chord quality (Dominant 7th) in one voicing type (Drop-2) within the context of a Bb Jazz Blues progression! In this first installment, we're looking at all the Drop-2 inversions of Bb7 and Eb7 within the inner four strings of the guitar (A-D-G-B).

For now, play the voicings as written and get comfortable moving from voicing to voicing. Be sure of the fingering that you want to use and plan each movement so that the transition is smooth. Although I've written the example in Bb, try playing the voicings in all twelve keys to really learn it.

If you like this lesson and would like to learn more, do subscribe to the blog to be informed about new lessons as soon as I post it!

Enjoy!

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Basics Lesson #1 | The Triads of the CAGED System

I decided to do something different for this weekend!

This is the first of a new series of Basics Lessons to help anyone build or fill in the gaps of their fundamental guitar chord knowledge. To start things off, I decided to cover some aspects of the CAGED system.

The CAGED System is a way of learning the guitar fretboard in standard EADGBE tuning. The chord shapes that form the basis of this system are  C, A, G, E, and D, hence spelling CAGED. By learning these shapes in open position, we will be able to learn the entire fretboard since same shapes reappear as barre chords.

This first lesson introduces the fives shapes in the four common triad chord qualities: Major, Minor, Diminished and Augmented. There are many ways of fingering these chords but this lesson will give a few to start with. 

Lesson Audio Intro:




Example 1 begins with a very common C Major open position voicing. For C minor and C diminished, I included two examples each, one directly derived from the first voicing and a second one that is perhaps easier to play. The C Augmented voicing may be played with or without the open first string.




In Example 2, the A Major and A minor voicing are standard followed by the less seen A diminished voicing. The A Augmented voicing here is a common and practical voicing.



In Example 3, only the G Major shape is very common. The other triad voicings are used less but still very useful to know.



Example 4 features popular E Major and E minor voicings follow by a less common E diminished voicing and an E Augmented voicing which is the shape at the C Augmented shape we looked at earlier but with the addition of the open 6th string.



In Example 5, the four D shape voicings are all practical and relatively easy to play.

And that concludes our lesson! For practice suggestions, listen to my spoken lesson outro:


Related Resources: (links to external sites)

• My 2006 blog post on CAGED Major Scale fingerings!
• Jordan Klemons on The CAGED System Part 1 (with diagrams on how the shapes connect)

Till next time,
Enjoy!

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