chord progression

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 today.

What The Main Riff Sounds Like…

Here’s what the guitar part sounds like with guitar and bass:

Now let’s take a look at the tab…Read More »Dani California Tab by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Dani California Tab by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Difficulty: Easy

What The Main Riff Sounds Like…

Here’s what the guitar part sounds like with guitar and bass:

Now let’s take a look at the tab…Read More »Dani California Tab by Red Hot Chili Peppers

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 chords that go along with the progression. Playing just the chords can, and will get boring rather quickly.Read More »What is chord phrasing?

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?Read More »How do I play chords with slashes?

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 symbols that signify a suspended chord are “sus” and “sus4”. They’re easy to learn, because you already know the fingerings for the original chord (just take the “sus” off and you have the original chord).

Play the E chord below and then add your 4th finger to the second fret
of the 3rd string. Do you hear how it sounds like it wants to resolve
back to the regular E chord? As a general rule you should always please
the ear by resolving the suspended chord back to the original chord.

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 and paper and grab a pen that hasn’t been used since your primary school days. You etch down your chord progression on an old scrap of newspaper dated January 7th 1994 that you found under a pile of magazines, yellowing from age. By the time you finally get the pen working you have forgotten the chord progression and have managed to get blue ink all over your hands and freshly polished guitar.

Chord Progressions

A chord progression (or harmonic progression) is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that “aims for a definite goal” of establishing (or contradicting) a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. Chords and chord theory are generally known as harmony.Read More »Chord Progressions