The Chord Progression Famous Guitar Players Use ALL THE TIME

Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com. This blog post transcribes my YouTube lesson on the 1–4–5 chord progression — the backbone of a huge amount of guitar music.

You're at a party itching to play. It feels like too many chords. Don't worry. 1–4–5 (Roman numerals I–IV–V) is in rock, pop, country, you name it. Songs like I Love Rock 'n' Roll, Johnny B. Goode, La Bamba, Brown Eyed Girl. Master three chords and you unlock hundreds of songs.

Why They're Called 1, 4, and 5

In the key of G major, 1–4–5 is G, C, and D.

Notes of the G major scale: G, A, B, C, D, E, F-sharp, G.

• G = first note → one chord
• C = fourth note → four chord
• D = fifth note → five chord

Open chords work. I want you to be able to move this around and play in any key, so we're switching to power chords.

The Moveable Shape

G power chord (one): first finger on the sixth string, third fret. Third and fourth fingers on the fifth fret of the f...

Why Chords Work: Beginner's Crash Course to Guitar Chord Theory

Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com. This blog post transcribes my YouTube lesson on what chords actually are, where they come from, and the first three simple chords I start beginners on.

Chords are the building blocks of pretty much every popular song — Hey Jude, Wonderwall, Everlong, Sweet Home Alabama, doesn't matter.

Most guitar players only think of chords as finger shapes. A G is "this shape." Yes, that's a G. Why is it a G? Because of the notes.

What Is a Chord?

Anytime you play any three notes together, that's technically a chord. We go for groupings that have structure and sound good. Combine them with rhythm and you get music.

Notes on the Low E String

Your strings are tuned to specific notes. On the low E:

• Open = E
• 1 = F
• 2 = F-sharp
• 3 = G (we'll need that)
• 4 = G-sharp
• 5 = A
• 6 = A-sharp / B-flat
• 7 = B
• 8 = C
• 9 = C-sharp / D-flat
• 10 = D
• then D-sharp / E-flat, then E again

Between...

What does "in key" mean when playing guitar? Good question for today's guitar lesson for beginners. Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com here with another beginner guitar lesson for you on how to understand what it means when someone say that something is in a certain key. This can be kind of confusing when you're first starting out, but I hope that this breaks it down and makes it simple for you.

✅✅ ►► You deserve to feel like a rock star even if you're just starting out. Download my FREE guide on The Top 10 Things to Learn on Guitar First to start making real music on guitar faster (this is not for you if you would rather learn more boring exercises) → http://simpleguitar.com/top10

✅ Want to support my channel? Pick up my beginner lead guitar course, The Instant Rockstar Scale Mini-Course, to get the easiest, most practical start to playing lead guitar & soloing on the guitar. Check it out here: http://simpleguitar.com/instantrockstarscale

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When it comes to playing guitar, it's not just about what you play, it's also about what you DON'T play. Using silence, or rests, is really important to making anything you play sound better. If all you have is a constant barrage of notes, adding in some silences will make things pop a lot more & will make things sound way more interesting. Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com here with another beginner guitar lesson for you. In today's guitar lesson for beginners I'm going to share with you why you need to make sure to use rests when you're playing music & how that will make you a better guitar player so you can feel like a rockstar when you play for people.

✅✅ ►► You deserve to feel like a rock star even if you're just starting out. Download my FREE guide on The Top 10 Things to Learn on Guitar First to start making real music on guitar faster (this is not for you if you would rather learn more boring exercises) → http://simpleguitar.com/top10

✅ Want to support my channe...

What is the blues scale on guitar? That's what we're covering in today's guitar lesson for beginners. Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com here with another beginner guitar lesson for you going over what the blues scale is guitar. We're going to go over how to find the blues scale, how it's put together, & some practice strategies to help you get the blues scale under your fingers & start being creative with it.  

✅✅ ►► You deserve to feel like a rock star even if you're just starting out. Download my FREE guide on The Top 10 Things to Learn on Guitar First to start making real music on guitar faster (this is not for you if you would rather learn more boring exercises) → http://simpleguitar.com/top10  

✅ Want to support my channel? Pick up my beginner lead guitar course, The Instant Rockstar Scale Mini-Course, to get the easiest, most practical start to playing lead guitar & soloing on the guitar. Check it out here: http://simpleguitar.com/instantrockstarscale  

Let's Conn...

What are guitar scale modes for beginners is the topic of today's guitar lesson for beginners. Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com here with another beginner guitar lesson on guitar modes explained simply. Modes is a confusing term for a lot of beginner guitar players. I know I was confused by it a lot when I started out. Really, though, anybody can understand what modes are & they aren't as complicated as it sounds. If you take the notes of the C Major scale, for example, you can create 7 different modes. One mode for each note of the scale (C D E F G A B). All you have to do is start on a different note of the scale. If I start that scale on C & play up to the next C, it's going to sound like the major scale. But if I start on D & play up to the next D note, it's the exact same notes, but it sounds totally different. I'm going to walk through how to do that with each of the 7 modes of the C major scale today to help with guitar modes explained.

✅ Want to support my chann...

Today's guitar lesson for beginners is about what the heck is a seven chord? This is a questions I had when I was starting out & was clueless about for too long. Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com here with another beginner guitar lesson for you. In this guitar tutorial I'm going to go over what 7 chords are (or 7th chord), where they come from, & how to know some that are going to sound good together. This is a bit of music theory that will be very handy for you to give you different sounds you can use than just standard open chords, too. Once you can play some barre chords you'll be able to play these all over the fretboard. So dive in, have fun with these 7 chords and leave a comment if you have any questions!

Thanks a ton for watching this video. It really means a lot to me & I hope it helps you out!

Chapters:

0:00​ - Intro

1:07​ - What the heck are 7 chords?

3:03​ - Where do 7 chords come from using the C Major Scale

4:23​ - The Major 7 Chord

5:56​ - Start...

What the heck is the circle of fifths? Or is it Circle of 5ths? Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com with another beginner guitar lesson for you about one of the music theory things that confused the heck out of me when I was starting out learning guitar.

The Circle of Fifths sounds all complicated & hard to understand guitar theory stuff. But really it's not. So I break down the whole thing about the circle of fifths for this guitar lesson. And I know that I'm playing electric guitar in the video, but naturally this applies to the acoustic guitar as well.

Today's beginner guitar lesson is about what are arpeggios on guitar for beginners. Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com here with another guitar lesson for beginners for you on some essential guitar theory. When I was teaching myself guitar, I had no clue what guitar arpeggios were. I was overwhelmed enough with learning chords and scales that it just sounded like something really complicated that I didn't understand. And that's after having piano lessons for a few years, too. So when I finally learned that arpeggios on guitar were as simple as picking out the individual notes of chords (that's what it means when you see something that says to arpeggiate chords) I was shocked. Then as I've gotten better and learned how arpeggios work all over the fret board, it makes learning how to play guitar so much better.