Darrin Koltow

Last time we took a major chord shape and transferred it from strings 2 to 5, to strings 1 through 4. The purpose of doing that is to expand your knowledge of the fretboard. When you learn one shape, whether a scale, chord or something else, you increase your fretboard navigation skills if you translate [...]

This tip will have us exploring that funky difference in tuning that you find between the B string and the G string. Sometimes it seems like the guitar would be so much easier to play if all strings were tuned a fourth apart. Specifically we’re going to learn how to transfer patterns — including chords, [...]

Have you heard this sound before? |——| |-6—-| |-5—-| |-4—-| |-5—-| |——| You probably have if you’ve done any listening to rock or blues. It’s the dom 7 #9. Consider it a kind of sister chord to the dangerous dom 7 b9 we covered in recent issues. All “sister” means here is that this is [...]

Hello, again. We’re back looking at the “Dangerous” dominant 7, flat 9. This is a chord you see a lot of before going to a minor key, and that’s one of the reasons it sounds dangerous when we hear it. The flat 9 of the dom 7 b9 chord turns into the b6 of the [...]

Here’s a dangerous sound for us to try out. Get our your guitar, and play this with open position chords. Dm, G7, C, Dm, E7b9, Am Play the E7b9 like this: |-1—-| |-0—-| |-1—-| |-0—-| |-2—-| |-0—-| That’s the dangerous sound of the dominant seven, flat 9. We used an E7b9 specifically. Here are the [...]

We’ve been adding some tasty new flavors to our usual major, minor and dominant 7 chords. We started with the major 9 in a previous installment, and now we’re going to look at the dominant 9. Here’s a common shape for the dominant 9 sound to get us started: -5- -5- -5- -4- -5- — [...]

We’ve been exploring a special “addition” to the plain major chord: the Major 9. In the scale of C major, you can have two different major nines: C major 9: C, E, G, B, D — listed in order of ascending pitch. And F major 9: F, A, C, E, G (You can also have [...]

This tip is about the major 9, major add 9, and 6/9 chords. We’re going into this because it’s nice to know there’s other stuff you can do with a major chord to keep it from sounding like the same old 3-note sound. Just what does this 9 refer to, in C major 9? First, [...]

We continue exploring approach notes in this tip. In the previous installments we worked out with notes that were below the note we really wanted to hit, and we did this for dominant 7ths and major arpeggios. Now we’re going to use notes that approach the target note from above. We could attempt to go [...]

We’re continuing our work with approach tones this time. Remember that all we’re doing is putting a little delay note before the real note we want to hit. This builds a little suspense and gives your melodic playing more color, whether you’re improvising or not. We continue using an approach that comes from a 1/2 [...]

Here’s a pattern that introduces us to approach tones. Approach tones are those notes used for melodic embellishment that happen before the note you actually want to play. For example, if you’re going to play a C, E, G (C major arpeggio) you could dress it up by instead playing B, C, Eb, E, Gb, [...]

Let’s look at a simple but pleasing pattern to break up the monotony of the standard scale pattern. We can call this the Stardust pattern. These are all eighth notes. |-8-5-6—5——-|—————–| |——-8—6-8-5-|-6—5———–| |—————–|—7—5-7—5—| |—————–|———–8—7-| |—————–|—————–| |—————–|—————–| —————–|————-| —————–|————-| —————–|————-| -8-5-7—5——-|————-| ——-8—7-8-5-|-7—5——-| —————–|—8—6-8-5-| |—————–|—————–| |—————–|—————–| |—————–|———–5—7-| |—————5-|—7-5-8-7—8—| |—5—7-5-8-7—|-8—————| |-6—8———–|—————–| —————5-|—6-5-8—-| —5—6-5-8-6—|-8———-| -5—7———–|————| —————–|————| —————–|————| —————–|————| If [...]

Let’s explore a tip that has a lot to do with music — no matter what instrument you play. We’re talking about singing. What do we guitarists need to know about singing? Maybe we should scrap the whole topic and let vocalists pick this up. But maybe we should investigate a bit. What’s the point [...]

What does “guilt” have to do with playing guitar? It has to do with practicing. Guilt over how often you think you ought to practice, versus how much time you’re actually spending on the frets. But more to the point, guilt related to the guitarist you are compared to the guitarist you think you want [...]

Timing is a critical part of making music. Without notes playing in their proper time, you have one enormously bad glob of harmony. But timing is also important in practicing music, in the discipline of making music. For one thing, a metronome will improve your ability to play in time. Always play with a metronome. [...]

This has to do with playing in position, versus at different positions along the fretboard. This is really a topic concerned with improvisation, but also with straight melodies. Here’s the gist: Do take the time and trouble to break out of staying within a single position. We’ll get to the reason in a moment. You [...]

Without harmony, there is no music. The more you understand harmony and chords, the better your playing will sound. Understanding chords makes learning tunes, melodies, improvising and licks much easier. How do we get this understanding? Exploring, playing and tinkering with chords. Just reading about chords won’t do it. Plus, how much fun is reading [...]

We started learning about modes last time. Let’s pick up the trail again, and explore some fundamental questions about modes. First, we noticed how playing a scale a certain way can be just like expressing the same feeling of a chord. We played the C major scale starting from note A and ending on A, [...]

We’ve been exploring the use of scales for soloing to learn which scales go with a particular chord. Please see the previous entries listed below for the details. Let’s look at minor chords now. What scale can we use to solo over an E minor 7 for example? Let’s rephrase and ask this: in what [...]

We’re exploring the melodic minor scale for soloing over dominant 7 chords. Please see the previous entries listed below for details. The last time we looked at playing the D melodic minor scale over a G7 chord. We saw how that D scale contains all the notes in a G7. Now we’ll see that D [...]