Music

Away from work, I'm a keen guitar player (I studied for a while at Musicians' Institute in London, and went on to do quite a bit of private teaching). I'm into most styles; favourite players at the minute are Jan Cyrka (the UK's answer to Joe Satriani) Geoff Whitehorn (superb demonstrator from Marshall Amps) and Blues Saraceno (one heck of a cool player). If you haven't heard these guys, but you like good guitar music, then track down some of their CD's - you won't be disappointed.

This seems to be the most popular part of the website. I'm glad that so many of you are finding the tutorials useful. The feedback is appreciated, and thanks to everyone who has either sent me a message or simply rated a particular tutorial.

This section has finally been reorganised so the tutorials are now split into categories rather than being in a single list. Because of the way thay're arranged, you may find the same thing appearing in more than one section, but I think that should actually help you to find what you're looking for. Have a browse through the categories below.

General Music	Useful reading for any musicians, not just guitarists
Guitar Basics	Things that every guitar player ought to know
Guitar Technique	Tips to help make you a better guitar player
Scale Theory	Major, minors, modes and more
Intervals	Because what's between the notes is just as important as the notes themselves
Chords	Read this lot and you'll realise that chord construction isn't such a black art after all
Rhythm	All about timings, note values, etc.
Reference	Just the facts
Hardware	Guitar hardware
Sounds/Effects	Guitar Sounds and Effects

You might notice that there are a few gaps here - that's generally because some tutorials have been written in response to a specific request. If there is something that you'd like me to cover then please feel free to get in touch.

In the tutorials, wherever you see a little icon next to an example, you can click on that image to link to a .MID file with the music for the example. I hope you find this feature useful.

By the way, at the end of each tutorial is a rating form. Please spare a couple of seconds (that really is all it should take) to let me know if you found it helpful. Thanks.

Alongside the tutorials for this website I've also been working on a cool bit of software for guitarists. This is a fully-featured scale calculator called PhatPhish which plots scale patterns on the guitar neck - in any tuning you like. The scale database contains a comprehensive list of scales/modes and I think it'll be useful for a lot of guitarists. PhatPhish is available to download as shareware - check the PhatPhish mini-website for details.

1. Are you listening carefully?
2. The Circle of Fifths - a useful concept
3. A table of enharmonic equivalents
4. How to number scalar tones correctly
5. A list of key signatures for all the major keys
6. More key signatures, including natural minor keys
7. Telling the difference between major and minor keys
8. Transposing from one key to another

1. The layout of the fingerboard
2. Tuning a guitar using relative tuning
3. How to read tablature
4. Advice on holding the pick

1. Some exercises for perfecting your picking technique
2. A useful exercise for developing strength and reach in your left hand
3. Playing natural and artificial harmonics on the guitar
4. Some more picking exercises
5. Yet more exercises - using some slightly different patterns to before
6. Effects you can get using the tremolo/whammy bar
7. Getting new scales and chords by modifying existing shapes
8. Using your right hand for tapping
9. Making the most of your practise time

1. Meet the major scale
2. How to number scalar tones correctly
3. A list of key signatures for all the major keys
4. More key signatures, including natural minor keys
5. A table of enharmonic equivalents
6. An introduction to the natural minor scale
7. An introduction to the major scale modes
8. Introducing the major pentatonic scale...
9. ...followed by the minor pentatonic scale
10. Introducing the harmonic minor scale
11. Another minor scale: the melodic minor
12. How to find key centres of chord progressions
13. Telling the difference between major and minor keys
14. Transposing from one key to another

1. The intervals between notes
2. Something for reference purposes the geometric layout of intervals on the guitar neck
3. The theory behind inverting intervals

1. The basics of chord construction explained
2. All of the major scales, harmonised in triads
3. Re-arranging chord tones to give different inversions
4. Some open position chord shapes
5. Some fingerings for basic moveable chord shapes
6. For reference, all of the natural minor keys harmonised in triads
7. Using voice leading for smooth-sounding chord progressions
8. Adding some new sounds to chord progressions using suspended chords
9. Building 7th chords in major keys
10. Useful fingerings for 7th chords
11. For reference, all of the major keys harmonised in 7th chords
12. Introducing the idea of chord families
13. Parent keys of major triads
14. Parent keys of minor triads
15. Parent keys of diminished triads
16. Parent keys of major 7th chords
17. Parent keys of minor 7th chords
18. Parent keys of dominant 7th chords
19. Parent keys of half diminished chords
20. Telling the difference between major and minor keys
21. The perfect cadence
22. An introduction to extended chords
23. The theory behind extended chords in a major key
24. Transposing from one key to another
25. A look at secondary dominants
26. Tritone substitution of dominant 7th chords
27. The 7th chords of the harmonic minor

1. An introduction to the basics of rhythm (including time signatures)
2. The basics about note values
3. The values for rests
4. Ways of altering basic note and rest lengths
5. For reference, a chart of note and rest values
6. The right way to count rhythm patterns
7. An exercise in counting
8. Building rhythm patterns 2/4 bar patterns
9. Splitting a beat into triplets

1. A table of enharmonic equivalents
2. All of the major scales, harmonised in triads
3. For reference, all of the natural minor keys harmonised in triads
4. A list of key signatures for all the major keys
5. More key signatures, including natural minor keys
6. Useful fingerings for 7th chords
7. For reference, all of the major keys harmonised in 7th chords
8. Some fingerings for the major scale modes
9. A reference chart of all major scale modes
10. Something for reference purposes the geometric layout of intervals on the guitar neck
11. Some open position chord shapes
12. Parent keys of major triads
13. Parent keys of minor triads
14. Parent keys of diminished triads
15. Parent keys of major 7th chords
16. Parent keys of minor 7th chords
17. Parent keys of dominant 7th chords
18. Parent keys of half diminished chords
19. Rhythm reference - a chart of note and rest values

1. The various types of guitar
2. Looking at the anatomy of an electric guitar
3. Types of pickups and how they work
4. The neck and fingerboard
5. Of strings and things

1. An introduction to guitar effects
2. Getting dirty with overdrive and distortion
3. Different types of modulation effects
4. Delay effects
5. Adding some depth using reverb effects
6. A worked example of using effects to build a rock guitar sound
7. An electric blues guitar sound