I’m going to keep this article short…if you haven’t read my other articles, they are definitely a novel because I want to be detailed and informative. I do a lot of research and include a lot of logic when explaining things to ensure it’s valuable to my readers. But for this article, I wanted to keep it short so you’ll read it all.
I highly recommend checking out my blog if you’re a beginner guitarist or like anime and Japanese music. I got so many resources and insights for you! I am a guitar beginner myself, over 2 years in, but I’ve taken music all through school, so I’ve been sharing my journey and what I’ve learned along with this new instrument.
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My inspiration for this article was this….As I scroll through some guitar groups, a lot of beginners are trying to learn more scales, more modes, more complex chords, more techniques, more riffs and licks. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn, but I also fell into the trap of trying to learn too much before even mastering the basics.
I get it. Everyone wants to be different, they want to sound original, and there’s this fear that the basics will sound…basic. That certain things have been overused and they need to get outside of that. It can also feel limiting to only know a handful of chords and a couple scales. Trust me, I get it.
However, if you look back at the music made over the generations, it’s quite amazing all the variations people have made with the same elements. The video below compiles many many classics that used the same 4 chords in the same progression….yet, that didn’t stop them from becoming hits and still being remembered for many generations to come.
Let’s talk about power chords for a moment. They seem to get a lot of hate due to their over-usage in punk music, but they’re still relevant! What makes power chords great is how they sound with distortion. There’s some bands that have only created songs with power chords throughout their careers, and some of the biggest hits like Iron Man and Smells Like Teen Spirit utilized these too. If you listen to anime music, many opening songs still use power chords.
So if you’re in a slump, or you feel like you need to learn 200 chords and 30 different scales to be good, I want to challenge you to take what you know and be more creative with it.
Take the pentatonic scale and come up with 25 original solos. Change the order of the notes, hold some notes or play them in staccato. Use slides, hammer-ons, vibratos bends. Change where you’re playing on the fretboard, and see what tone comes out of it. If you can learn to make the most with just 5 notes, you’ll be much better off when you add a note or two later.
Stick with the basic open chords. Learn a new chord progression and combine it with a new strumming pattern or arpeggios (broken chords). Maybe try playing in 3/4 time instead. Change the length of how long you play each chord and add some transition chords. Learn inversions and triads which are the same chords just played in different ways and different spaces. See how far these ‘simple chords’ can go. Try playing over drum beats and see how that inspires you to play.
Then incorporate some borrowed chords into your progressions. You already know how to play these chords, they just don’t belong to the key you’re playing in. You don’t need to know the theory, but if you’re curious, definitely check out the video below from one of my favourite channels, Signals Sound Studio. To keep it simple though, you can just switch a major chord to a minor chord or vice versa. Just play around by inserting other chords you know into a progression and see how that sounds and feels.
So make the most with what you know. Don’t overwhelm yourself trying to memorize many unusual chords and mode scales that you may not use or not know how to use. See how and why people of the past were able to do so much with so little and why new songs can take these basic elements and still create something new to your ears!
Trust me. If you can learn how to be creative with just the basics, your time would be way better spent than trying to memorize all these other tricks and concepts and not remembering them to actually use them. One step at a time, my friend~