Overview of Each Chapter

To give you some idea of what you will be learning and how it all fits together, here is a basic overview of the book.

Chapter 1
The Fretboard
Knowing the layout of your fretboard is extremely important. Without this information, you would have a hard time applying any musical concepts to your instrument. This chapter, through some fundamental reading exercises, well acquaints you with every note on every string; from one end of the fretboard to the other.

Chapter 2
Intervals
Intervals are the building blocks of music. They are the pitch relationship between two notes; a way of telling you how much distance (in pitch, not time) there is from one note to the next. This applies to notes of a melody (played one note at a time), and notes of a chord (all notes played simultaneously). The exercises in this chapter are designed to provide you with a solid understanding of intervals so that you can more successfully understand chord and scale construction; as well as how they relate to each other.

Chapter 3
Key Signatures
Key signatures are the groupings of sharps (#) and flats (b) that you often see at the beginning of written pieces of music. The key signature indicates the key in which the music is written; therefore, which scales and chords you will be using. It is also an easy way to keep track of how many altered notes (#s or bs) are in each key. By indicating which notes of a particular key are altered, key signatures can be useful in the construction of major scales; which leads to Chapter 4.

Chapter 4
Major Scales
Just about everything in music (not to mention this book) can, somehow, be related to major scales. From the notes of major scales you get: melody, chords, soloing tools, harmonies, etc. This is the next essential step in building your musical foundation. By discussing the construction of major scales, and presenting a series of exercises, this chapter gives you the opportunity to know major scales forwards, backwards and upside down.

Chapter 5
Major Scale Patterns
All the information in Chapter 4 is great, but you need to be able to apply major scales to your instrument. Chapter 5, Major Scale Patterns, gives you a comprehensive network of major scale fingerings that take you from one end of the fretboard to the other; covering all the notes in between. This approach to learning major scales on your guitar allows you to play in any key, at any position on the fretboard, at any time. These patterns, when used with the practice techniques on page 32 and 33, will give you a great start in being able to easily move around the fretboard while soloing.

Chapter 6 Major Scale Harmonization
Part I: Triads
This chapter introduces you to chords; how they are constructed, and where they fit in major keys. I've started with triads, which are three note chords. There are four types of triads: Major, Minor, Augmented, and Diminished. This chapter starts by giving you the construction of each of these triads; then provides exercises so you can, without a doubt, build any one of these triads starting from any note. Next, you need to know where these chords fit in a major key structure. To think of a major key, you start with the major scale. Next, each note of a major scale has its own type of triad. The order of these triads makes up the major chord progression. This chapter provides all of this information in a simple format so that at the end of the chapter you will be able to recognize major chord progressions, and know what chords do and don't belong in certain keys. Some areas in which this is information will be helpful are: composing music, learning new songs, knowing why something sounds "wrong" and how to make it sound "right", and soloing.

Chapter 7
Major Chord Forms &
Chapter 8
Minor Chord Forms
These chapters will show you how to play the major and minor chords that you worked with in Chapter 6. In Chapter 7 you will find three moveable major chord forms. Each of these three forms can be used to play ANY major chord by moving the form to different places on the fretboard (hence the description, moveable). The exercises in this chapter will help you to: play each chord form clearly, be able to move easily from one chord to another, and increase your knowledge of the fretboard. In Chapter 8 you will find the same information applied to three moveable forms of minor chords.

Chapter 9
Arpeggios
Part I: Major and Minor Triads
Arpeggios are the notes of a chord, played one at a time rather than simultaneously. One of the best uses for arpeggios is to combine them with scales when you are soloing. This helps to create a strong melodic sense in your solo. Since, in the two previous chapters, you have learned about major and minor chords, I thought now was an appropriate time to learn major and minor arpeggios. These arpeggios are put into a format similar to the major scales: patterns that give you access to the arpeggios from one end of the fretboard to the other.

Chapter 10
Common Chord Progressions Part I: Major
This chapter talks about a chord progression called the Circle of 5ths, and how you can use it to easily recognize common major chord progressions. This can be extremely useful in determining things like what key a song is in, or what scales to use when soloing over the chord progression.

Chapter 11
Major Scale Harmonization
Part II: Seventh Chords
Major Scale Harmonization, Part II, is very similar to Part I (Chapter 6) except Part II talks about seventh chords rather than triads. A seventh chord is a four note chord which gets its name from the interval between the lowest and the highest pitch in the chord, a 7th. The five basic types of seventh chords are covered here: Major, Minor, Dominant, Half- Diminished, and Full-Diminished. After extensive exercises on how to construct each chord, you then find out where they fit in the major keys.

Chapter 12
Major 7th Chord Forms,
Chapter 13
Minor 7th Chord Forms,
Chapter 14
Dominant 7th Chord Forms, &
Chapter 15
Half-Diminished Chord Forms
Chapters 12 through 15 show you how to play all of the chords you learned about in Chapter 11 with the exception of the Full- Diminished Chord. The Full-Diminished chord, because of its unique characteristics and sound, is included in Chapter 20, which also deals with diminished scales and diminished arpeggios.

Chapter 16
Arpeggios
Part II: Major 7th, Minor 7th,
Dominant 7th, and Half-Diminished 7th
As in Chapter 9: Arpeggios Part I, this chapter shows fretboard fingerings for the arpeggios of major 7th, minor 7th, dominant 7th, and half-diminished 7th chords.

Chapter 17
Natural Minor Scales
Chapter 17 makes the transition from major tonality (working with major keys) to minor tonality (working with minor keys). Studying minor scales is the first step to playing in minor keys. You'll find that music written in minor keys is just as common, if not more so than music written in major keys (especially in contemporary music). Therefore it seems like a subject worth a little time and effort. In Chapter 17, the construction of the minor scale is discussed first; the interval lay out, and where the half-steps occur. The rest of the chapter is devoted to exercises to reinforce the minor scale concepts.

Chapter 18
Minor Scale Harmonization
Just as with major keys, minor keys are made up of scales and minor chord progressions. Chapter 18 gets you into the minor chord progressions. Luckily, you won't have to learn any new chords. This chapter shows you how to, through a relationship known as Relative Keys, take what you know of major scale progressions and apply it to minor scale progressions. Every major key has a relative minor key. Every minor key has a relative major key. These relative keys share the same key signatures, chords, and scale fingerings. This means you already know the parts of minor tonality, you just have to learn how to put them together. This chapter shows you how.

Chapter 19
Common Chord Progressions
Part II: Minor Keys
After learning about minor keys, it would be nice to know how to easily recognize some commonly used minor chord progressions. This chapter takes you through the circle of 5ths in minor keys, as well as discussing some different chords that minor keys sometimes use. Finally, it shows several examples of commonly used minor chord progressions. This information is useful in order to improve your soloing and over all musicianship.

Chapter 20
Diminished Chords,
Scales, and Arpeggios
This chapter is dedicated exclusively to the diminished sound. This sound is the result of the succession of minor third intervals, and is very unique and recognizable. Chapter 20 covers fretboard fingerings for full-diminished chords, diminished scales and full-diminished arpeggios.

Chapter 21
Sixth, Ninth,
Eleventh and Thirteenth Chords
Four common types of chords other than triads and sevenths are sixth, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords. Just as there are different types of triads and seventh chords, these other chords have different types as well. For example, there are major and minor sixth chords, dominant ninths, minor elevenths, etc. This chapter explains how these chords are constructed. These new chords can be used to add more color to your music.

Chapter 22
Modes
Each note of a major scale has its own scale which is called a mode. As there are seven notes in a major scale, there are also seven modes. There names are Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. Sometimes composers use these modes as a way to come up with a different sound that isn't quite major or minor. Sometimes one song may contain several key changes where only one or two chords of a key may be used. These two examples provide the situations in which a soloist may want to use a mode. To play modes on your guitar does not require any different scale fingerings other than the fingerings you have already learned in this book. What it does require is knowledge of which notes to focus on when playing those fingerings. That is what Chapter 22 provides.

Chapter 23
Pentatonic Scales
Pentatonic scales are five note scales that are extremely melodic and can be used as a good blues scale. This chapter shows you what these scales look like on a music staff, as well as providing fretboard fingerings.

Chapter 24
Melodic Minor Scales
and Arpeggios
In jazz, and other forms of contemporary music, you will often come across what are known as altered dominant chords. These are dominant chords in which one of the notes (usually either the 5th or the 9th) has been raised or lowered by one half-step. As a soloist, it would be nice to know a scale which provides some of those altered notes. Voila - the Melodic Minor Scale! When used in different positions the melodic minor scale (different from the natural minor scale) can provide different altered extensions. This chapter on melodic minor scales and arpeggios provides their fretboard fingerings as well as information on how to use them to obtain specific altered notes.

Chapter 25
Whole-Tone Scales
A whole-tone scale is made up of nothing but whole-steps. This provides an extremely unique sound, and like the melodic minor scale it also provides an altered dominant sound. In this chapter you will find scale fingerings and applications for the whole-tone scale.

Appendix A
Chord Index
This is a section of chord forms for 36 different types of chords. Some people would think of this as a Chord Dictionary. This section provides nine different voicings for each type of chord. Some of the forms will be alternate voicings for chords already learned in previous chapters. Others will be for chords not specifically discussed earlier in the book.

Appendix B
Chord/Scale Applications
Appendix B is basically a table which shows different types of scales that can be used when soloing over different types of chords. This section can really be a handy tool for the soloist.

Appendix C
Answer Key
Exactly as the name implies, this appendix is an answer key for all of the written exercises in the book. I included this appendix with a little hesitancy because I didn't want you to just look up the answers rather than coming up with them on your own. However, I did want you to have a key to look at if you were really having a difficult time with a certain subject. Also, it can help a person feel secure with a subject, if they can verify the work that they are doing. For optimum results in your playing, put a lot of effort into the exercises in the book so you won't have to use the answer key.