The guitar fretboard is dense and complicated. Many guitarists reach a state where they know a couple of chords, and maybe one or two songs, but when it comes to improvising or composing their own music, the guitar fretboard suddenly becomes a black box. And maybe this is fine for some people, but if you're starting this course, it means you want to take your playing to the next level - by learning the techniques and theory behind your guitar fretboard.
Many self-taught guitarists have the wrong idea about music theory. We associate theory with holier-than-thou music snobbery, but this misses the point entirely! Learning music theory is about having a language to define your own personal musical tastes and understanding why those sounds appeal to you. It's about communicating your craft to other musicians and sharing the love of music. But most importantly is developing an understanding of how it translates into your guitar playing.
I definitely think it’s enough to use your emotions—a lot of brilliant music was created that way [...] but for me, it’s been very helpful. It’s given me tremendous insight into music — I don’t think of each note as something that came out of thin air. I remember when I used to listen to Kiss as a kid, and I thought what they did was magical and came out of nowhere. I had no idea how it all happened and what the tonal relationships to music were. As I got older, I had to progress. My brain had to find a way of making mental symbols that equaled intervallic relationships. Some people can do that without knowing theory, but it’s really helped me.
Trust us, we know - most music theory resources are dry, boring, inapplicable, and use crazy terminology and notation without any explanation. It's nearly impossible to learn this way because of how demotivated and frustrated these "explanations" leave you. Well, we have a better way.
This course will pave the way for you to understand how your guitar fretboard truly works. We'll break down concepts in an easy-to-understand way, and then we'll show you using interactive tools and examples to keep things practical. We'll teach you some handy tips and tricks on how to learn by applying various Psychology principles, such as mnemonic devices. Most importantly, we'll show you what the point of everything we teach you actually is, and weed out all the elitist music theory crap that isn't really important because, in our opinion, music theory is only as useful as what you can actually apply.
By the end of our free nine-lesson course, you'll have a solid understanding of:
... and much more!
If your goals are just to learn and understand basic music theory and improvisation for guitar, then going through these lessons will be enough. However, if you want it to translate into your physical playing, well, you'll have to actually play your guitar. Without it, your fingers won't move as quickly as your brain can process things. We recommend at least 15-30 min. of noodling around with your guitar and connecting the dots after each lesson.