Truefire - Jeff Scheetz's - Street Theory for Guitarists

[srick]

I've been cobbling together music theory for many years. Like many of us, I never had and formal training. So, when it came to mantras like "major-minor-minor-major-minor-diminished" and "whole-whole-half-whole-whole-half-whole-whole", I had a lot of catching up to do.

The first book I clicked with was Bill Edwards' "Fretboard Logic", which was a great treatise on the CAGED system and chord construction. But somehow, when you've looked at the same material for too long, your eyes glaze over and you need a different presentation.

Truefire just "published" "Street Theory for Guitarists" by Jeff Scheetz. He does a great job of explaining musical terms that are essentially interchangeable, Interval and chord positions that can be used up and down the neck and providing diagrams of each segment for reference. And of course he's playing the exercises as you are watching; this being a video, you can rewind or loop. I'm midway into the course and have had several "ah-hah" moments.

I'm not sure if this just hit at the right time in my learning path or it's just that good, but check it out and see what you think.

best,

Rick

[Mr. Jelly]

Years ago when there were no guitar learning tools I came up with a way to learn the the part you mentioned. I used tone, tone, semi tone, tone, tone, tone. It's not as good but I figured it while not knowing anything.

[Metchosin One]

I found this really helpful. Like many of us who started "back in the day," I'm mostly self taught. What this course did was help me tie together all of the fragments of theoretical knowledge I've absorbed over the years and present it in a logical progression. It's helped me understand what I don't know and even more helpful, what I do know. Which is suprisingly more than I thought.
This is a huge AHA! moment for my understanding of musical theory.
Bob.

[TBman]

Take a half an hour and write down the chromatic scale of the entire fretboard - (make a map of the fretboard). Make a few copies of it. Then circle the first three notes of an open C chord, first fret (C 5th string, E, 4th string and the open G string) Then do the same over the entire neck. You now have a map of all the C triads on the guitar. Try it with other chords. It may seem "geeky" at first, but its good stuff to have in the back of your mind if you are ever improvising.

Then take a C7 chord and find out why its a C7 chord. Apply this to other chords. Another eye opener. Different color tone, fun stuff to play with.

[GHS]

The books I used with my instructor "A modern method for guitar" by William Leavitt, books 1,2,3. Pretty intense stuff. Think years to go thru them all, ( at least for me). But when you are done you will be light years ahead in understanding what is going on.