Teaching Resources
Here are some free downloadable resources that you can use, either as a student or a teacher. Over the years I have built up a pool of resources that fit with my teaching style and that have been focussed on areas that individual students commonly tackle. I am posting some of them here, so my students can easily find and download them and for anyone else who might be interested. If you use them in your teaching, I ask that you credit me as the source, and maybe let me know about it.
You might find that you need a bit of prior knowledge to understand these. Bear in mind that I explain things as I go and write these handouts to remind my students what we've worked on. Like everything I teach, the starting point is always playing and listening. Theory enhances and grows out of that. So, however much theory is here, these are all practical guides for how to play things.
If you have any questions or feedback – either something you found helpful, or something you think I could improve – I’d love to hear it. You can get in touch via the contact page.
You might find that you need a bit of prior knowledge to understand these. Bear in mind that I explain things as I go and write these handouts to remind my students what we've worked on. Like everything I teach, the starting point is always playing and listening. Theory enhances and grows out of that. So, however much theory is here, these are all practical guides for how to play things.
If you have any questions or feedback – either something you found helpful, or something you think I could improve – I’d love to hear it. You can get in touch via the contact page.
Basic Information
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Basic Guitar Chords
This is a sheet of chord boxes for beginners and intermediate players. |
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Note Finder
It's very important to build an understanding of how notes relate to each other, not just as numbers. This will help you build basic note knowledge in the first position and teach you how to use consistent fingering for each note. It can also be used as a reference if you are learning to read music. |
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Scales
All the scales are written in three ways: conventional notation, guitar TAB and scale diagrams. You'll find a brief explanation about the type of scale and then various ways to play them. The first sheet – Understanding the Major Scale – is a little more information focussed.
The major scale is completely regular, so once you've learned the pattern in one key, the same applies to all the others. Much of the following work uses G major, as it is the most straightforward major key on the guitar.
The major scale is completely regular, so once you've learned the pattern in one key, the same applies to all the others. Much of the following work uses G major, as it is the most straightforward major key on the guitar.
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Understanding the Major Scale
What is a scale? What is a key? How does this relate to what I play? The guitar is built very well to understand this stuff, if you start in the right place |
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G Major Across the Whole Neck
There are 12 major keys, but you only need to know five patterns to play them on the guitar. Confused? You won't be after reading this. If you start by learning one key, the others begin to make much more sense. |
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Pentatonic Scales
If you're a guitarist and you only know one scale, I'd bet cash money that it's the pentatonic scale. You probably learned it in A minor, starting in fret five. This page builds from there, showing you another key in the same area and then the five principal patterns to play in any key across the whole neck of the guitar. |
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Chords
Guitarists use chords all the time. For many of us, they are all we play. These resources help to understand where chords come from, how they are constructed, and which ones go together, so that you can use them with more confidence. As with the scales, the following sheets start from G major, to give you principals that apply across all major keys.
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Creating Triads from G Major
How are chords made? Triads are the basic building blocks and this explains how they work. |
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G Major Triads
Following from the information in the previous sheet, this shows the pattern of triads in G major and some different ways to play them. |
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Chords in All Major Keys
This takes the information from the previous two sheets and applies it across all twelve major keys. You can use this to know which major and minor chords appear in each major key (and the diminished one if you want it). |
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