Guitar from Scratch

©2001; ISBN 0-9665029-4-9
84 pages - $16.50

Table of Contents

Sample Pages

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For the guitarist, it all begins here. This is where you’ll learn to finger the most common simple chords and to switch back and forth between them in a timely manner. Along the way, you'll see which chords group together in different keys according to the great and powerful Circle of Fifths. After getting the left hand (fretting hand) under control, we turn to the right hand to explore the easiest and most common strumming and fingerpicking patterns.

This book is all about CHORDS: Major, minor and seventh chords, jazz chords, anchor chords, power chords and barre chords. Even if you’ve been playing for a while, you might want to check out this book. I’ve heard from several readers that Guitar From Scratch helped fill in certain gaps in their knowledge that they didn’t know existed.

Preliminaries
Choice of guitar
Picks, capos and the neck
Fretting and tuning
Relative tuning
Chords and chords
E Minor chord
Some principles
E Major chord
A Minor chord
Switching from Em to Am
C Major chord
Switching from Em to Am to C
G Major chord
Switching between G and C
Teamwork
Sympathy and more G chords
Song Examples
D Major Chord
The G Chord Family - song examples
The Rhythm Changes
F Major chord
D Minor chord
The C Chord Family - song examples
Strumming Away
Down-Up motion
Notation
Rock Strum Pattern
Folk Strum Pattern
Country Strum Pattern
Hip Hop Strum Pattern
The D Chord Family - song examples
A Major chord
B Minor and B Minor-seventh chords
Seventh chords - D7, G7 and A7

1 - 4 - 5 substitutions
The A Chord Family - song examples
Switching from A to D to E to E7
The E Chord Family - song examples
B7 chord
The Circle of Fifths
Progressions in C, G and D
Strumming, Part Two
Escape hatch
Jazz chords
Major-seventh chords
Minor-seventh chords
Suspended chords
Anchor chords
Chord Review
Fingerpicking
Notation and the Tier System
Arpeggios and Tablature
¾ Time
Arpeggios in the wild
Travis-Style fingerpicking
5/4 and 6/4 bass patterns
Inside-Out picking patterns
Outside-In picking patterns
Pinch patterns
Strumming, Part Three (variations)
Power chords: E-shape and A-shape
Barre chords: E-shape and A-shape
1 - 4 - 5 and Rhythm Changes
Epilogue
Appendix A: Bunches of Useful Chords
Appendix B: Using the capo to make key changes