Guitar playing is a great way to relax and unwind particularly if your learn to remember songs via chord progressions. Many of our favorite songs share similar chord templates that make them easy to remember.
Whenever we are confronted by vast numbers of objects, tunes, people or anything else - our first step towards understanding how they fit into the overall scheme of things should be to divide and subdivide them into usable, understandable categories.
How To Guitar
The traditional approach to guitar playing is to learn each song as a complete new project, in other words if you wanted to learn five new songs to play on the guitar, you would have to learn five songs entirely from scratch.
The professional guitarist would look (or listen) to discover which category each song belonged to, this would make the whole process of learning and remembering new material much faster and easier.
By analyzing the musical form and content that gives the music its particular character, we should arrive at an overall view of the subject - music. A new perspective that might just lead to total control.
Some basic rock progressions are:
1. Blues Chord Progressions
2. 1 - 4 - 5 progressions
3. 1 - 3 - 4 - 5 progressions
4. 1 - 4 progression
5. Flamenco progressions
Let's take a look ...
Blues Chord Progressions - can be sub-divided into 8, 12,16 and
24 bar versions.
8 Bar Blues - Keys To The HighWay - B.B King and Eric Clapton
A /// | E /// | D /// | D /// | A /// | E /// | A /// | E /// :||
12 Bar Blues - Hound Dog - Elvis
A /// | A /// | A /// | A /// | D /// | D /// | A /// | A /// |
E /// | D /// | A /// | A /// :||
16 Bar Blues - Be Bop A Lula (verse) - Paul McCartney
A /// | A /// | A /// | A /// |A /// | A /// | A /// | A /// |
D /// | D /// | A /// | A /// |E /// | D /// | A /// | A /// :||
24 Bar Blues - Mustang Sally - The Commitments
A /// | A /// | A /// | A /// |A /// | A /// | A /// | A /// |
D /// | D /// | D /// | D /// |A /// | A /// | A /// | A /// |
E /// | E /// | D /// | D /// |A /// | A /// | A /// | A /// :||
Here's four popular variations of the 1 - 4 - 5 progression:
(a) A / D / | E / / /||
(b) A / / / |D / E / ||
(c) A / / / | D / / / | E / / / |E / / / ||
(d) A / D / | E / D /||
Listen as you play each progression, they should sound familiar, for example, A / D / | E / D /| is the chord progression for "Wild Thing".
The 1 - 4 progression is a favorite of groups like The Beatles Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen etc.
Bruce Springsteen's - Glory Days features this 1 - 4 chord progression:
A /// | D ///| A /// | D /// :||
Live and Let Die (Wings) is based on the 1 - 3 - 4 - 5 progression while Dire Straight's "Sultan's Of Swing" and Foreigner's - "Feels Like The First Time" are both based on the
Flamenco progression.
Sultans of Swing - Flamenco Progression
Am /// | G / F / | E /// | E /// ||
Feels Like The First Time - Flamenco Progression
Am /// | G /// | F /// | E /// ||
I invite you to use these tips and tools when you play the guitar.
Guitar Chords - How to Play Easy Rock Chord Progressions and Have More Fun Playing Your Guitar