Guitar Noise

One of the best ways to cement what you learn on guitar, believe it or not, is to learn some of the basics of a different instrument. Guitar Noise extends a hearty “welcome back” to Bruce Fleming, who takes some of the rudiments of music theory and shows how to apply it to the keyboard, enabling you to get started with making chords.

Paul Andrews makes a long awaited return to Guitar Noise with the sequel to his February lesson on power chords. Here you’ll find the lowdown on augmented and diminished power chords, plus examples from everyone from Bush to Hendrix to Metallica to Eminem.

Paul Andrews returns to the pages of Guitar Noise with a primer on power chords, complete with practical examples from the music of Green Day, Nirvana, Blur, Blink 182 and (gasp!) The Kinks.

At long last, Tom takes the mysteries out of chord substitution, giving you detailed and simple explanations that will make you wonder why you ever worried about it in the first place!

Guitar Noise is pleased to welcome Peter Simms back to our pages. Peter’s got a new chord melody for you with a distinctive Latin feel to it. Get ready to provide both the bass and chordal rhythm/melody and to give your fingers (and thumb!) a workout.

A pedal point, a repeated note in a riff, arpeggio or chord sequence, is a great device to use to spice up your playing. Chris’ latest article gives you an introduction to this technique that crosses all genres of music.

Tom has a gift of being able to explain complicated material in a very uncomplicated manner. After guiding us through the maze of extended chords in his last article, he returns to explain altered chords and does so in such a simple way that I wish I’d had him explain it to me many, many years ago!

Getting to the stage of playing advanced chords doesn’t really require learning hundreds of new chord shapes - it only demands that you can relate new chords to old ones in a logical way. By the time you’ve finished reading Tom’s latest article, you’ll be able to form any chord extension that you want!

In this lesson, Tom unravels some of the mysteries of chord progressions. We’ll learn about cadences, the natural harmonic series, chord extensions, secondary dominants and much more.

Bruce returns to Guitar Noise with his second piece, one on the fascinating topic of chord voicings. This is a great thing for those of you who play with other guitarists to read up on and put to practice.

Bruce was kind enough to write out this concise article, which spells out some of the basics of chord theory. He was even kinder to include all sorts of handy charts and diagrams that should help out any beginner wanting to tackle this subject.

Just the words augmented and diminished give us pause. Do we need a special degree or extra study to employ one of these chords? Not at all! Let’s examine these chords, how they’re formed and the functions they can serve. If you’re capable of counting to twelve, you’re capable of understanding and using these marvelous chords.

Peter Simms walks us through the basic steps of chord construction, which is a truly helpful thing to know when playing chord melodies, no? Learn all about major, minor and dominant chords in one easy lesson.

Let’s explore the basics of chords and harmony right where you want to learn it - on the guitar. It’s a great way to develop your listening skills as well.

In this article we’ll be discovering ways to add some color to the most popular of open chords, G major.

This is a quick lesson by the dynamic duo on jazzy and bluesy sounding chords. They’re a lot easier than you think.