-
Mediant chord (iii)
The mediant chord: iii The mediant chord not used that often in the major keys for songwriting and is found more often in the minor keys. This doesn’t mean that we should avoid it completely and I find that the iii chord can add some interesting colour, especially in a bridge. iii rarely moves to V and generally leads to the chords vi, ii and IV.…
-
Dani California Tab by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Difficulty: Easy This is a fun and easy song to play, but only if you are familiar with a couple of common barre chord forms. It’s great for jamming with the band or just playing on your own. I know there’s a lot of you RHCP fans out there, so download it and play it…
-
What is chord phrasing?
Chord phrasing is art of taking a chord progression and turning it into a means of personal expression. Chord phrasing allows you total freedom during the performance of a song to do anything you can imagine with the song’s chord structure. In other words, when playing rhythm guitar you don’t have to just play the…
-
How do I play chords with slashes?
Sometimes when looking at a piece of music you’ll see some odd chord voicing that have slashes in them. For example a C/G chord, or an A/E. What kind of chords are these and how do you play them?
-
The Right Wrong Notes
Beyond The Box When playing music we can use scales as a guide which will tell us what notes will work best for a particular song. The pentatonic scale is a good example. The five notes in the pentatonic are all you need sometimes, but at some point may players want to be able to…
-
Suspended Fourth Chords
A suspended chord is a chord that creates a subtle harmonic tension by adding an extra note that sounds like it wants to resolve back to the original chord. You can hear their use in most types of music. Technically the extra note is the 4th step in the major scale replacing the 3rd. Common…
-
Songwriting Tips
Being prepared when inspiration hits. Scenario # 1. You are strumming your acoustic guitar, freshly polished, new strings and perfectly tuned. The sound is bright and crisp. You are playing a few chords that you have learnt from Guitar Alliance when bam! A brilliant chord progression hits you like a bolt of lightning. You rush to find a pen…