The Guitarator Suite of Apps

The ultimate guitar reference tools for all platforms

Guitarator Toolbox
for Windows

Includes Chorderator, Scalerator, and Reverse Chorderator
Lefty mode
Listen to chords and scales
Share chord shapes

Guitarator Toolbox 2.0
for Mac OS X

Includes Chorderator, Scalerator, and Reverse Chorderator, PLUS Metronome and Tuner
Lefty mode
Listen to chords and scales
Share chord shapes

Chorderator
for Android

Look up chords for any tuning
Listen to chords
Share chord shapes
Find related chords and scales

Reverse Chorderator
for Android

You design the chord, the app tells you what it’s called.
Listen to the chord you designed.
Integrates with Chorderator for Android

Chorderator
for iPhone and iPad

Look up chords for any tuning
Listen to chords
Share chord shapes
Find related chords and scales

Reverse Chorderator
for iPhone and iPad

You design the chord, the app tells you what it's called.
Listen to the chord you designed.
Integrates with Chorderator for iPhone and iPad (iOS)

FREE Online Tools

Chorderator

Look up chords

Scalerator

Look up scales

Chord Designer

Reverse chord lookup

Can Education Kill Instinct?

Note: This is based on a message I originally posted on the Harmony Central Forums. Revised and extended.

This is a topic that seems to come up quite often, both in online forums and in talking to people. Does learning music theory take away from the ability to simply “play what sounds good?” Can learning proper vocal technique remove the raw emotion from singing? Does learning more about the established techniques in a field (like songwriting) remove true creativity and make us all sound alike?

I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’m going to say no. And here’s why.

Continue reading Can Education Kill Instinct?

Oh When the Saints (beginners fingerstyle)

One of my favorite ways of playing acoustic guitar is country-blues fingerpickin'. Also known as Cotten pickin' (after Elizabeth Cotten) or Travis pickin' (after Merle Travis). The style consists of a steady bass line played with the thumb, accompanied by a syncopated melody line played with the fingers. The combination of the driving bass and the melody that seems to float in space over it creates a sense of movement and lets a solo guitar sound like more than a solo guitar.

The best way to learn a technique is to learn songs in that technique, so that's what this lesson is for. A good song to start with is Oh When the Saints, because it has a simple melody that we all recognize, but still has a lot of room for elaboration. That way, we can start simple and add embellishments as we go along.

Chord Progression: I-vi-IV-V

Throughout the long tumultuous history of Rock ‘n’ Roll, there have been certain song patterns that have shown up over and over. Many of them are cliches by now (how many times have you heard the fire/desire rhyme?), but others are classics, comfortable sounds we recognize in our bones. We’ve heard them a million times, but can’t help but feel inspired anew every time. Today I’ll cover one of those: The I-vi-IV-V Chord Progression. Yeah, just rolls of the tongue, right? Well, trust me that it sounds better when you play it than when you try to name it.

My Problem with Jazz

I pride myself in a willingness to listen to different styles and genres of music. I have favorites in rap, heavy metal, Irish folk, country, classical, even opera. So my strong negative impression of jazz may come as a surprise. To be fair, there is a lot of jazz I like, mostly the early stuff and the great singers. Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, basically back when jazz had melodies and was meant to be danced to. Before rock and roll came along, jazz was young people’s music. It’s what people danced to, it was rebellious, it was accessible, it was listenable. Then something happened.

Slash Chords

This lesson builds directly on the Chord Inversions lesson, so I suggest re-reading that one, if you have not read it yet.

That lesson introduced the slash notation, for example, C/G, pronounced C over G. In that lesson, the slash notation was used to choose an alternate bass note from the notes that are in the chord. The notation can be expanded, though, and you can play any chord over any other bass note. Because of the way they are written, I call these types of chords slash chords. You might also see them called alternate bass chords or compound chords. All it means is you play a different note in the bass, but it opens up a whole bunch of possibilities, especially when songwriting.