Most of us can look at a major scale laid out and determine the chords in that key. The root chord is 1-3-5, the ii is 2-4-6, the iii is 3-5-7, all the way up to the vii°'s 7-2-4, wrapping around to the beginning of the scale. Once you're familiar with the notes in the C major scale, working out which notes are in the chords of that key—even in your head—isn't that challenging. Now try working from the other direction. Given a chord, work out the notes. In your head, if you can. C major? Pretty well known. A minor? Probably that one too. Even B° isn't too difficult once you're familiar enough with the C major scale. Over time, most of us become familiar enough with G, D, and A major scales to do this as well, maybe with a little more thinking involved. The 12-to-4-o'clock portion of the Circle of Fifths becomes pretty familiar territory for those of us who care about these things. I certainly do, and I prided myself on how easily I could work out chords in my head based on the major scale. Then someone said, “Okay, what are the notes in A♯ major?” Uh... “How about D♭ minor?” Wait, I... “And obviously you know the notes in E♭ diminished, right?” Well... No. No, I did not. Not easily. After going through a worksheet of chords from the rest of the Circle of Fifths, with the self-imposed limitation of working them out in my head, I realized something: I was very good at working out the familiar chords—and pretty terrible at working out the unfamiliar ones. Knowing the formula, it turns out, isn't quite the same thing as being fluent with it.

I had another one of those “light bulb” theory moments while working on one of my original songs. I realized the melody starts on the 3rd of the home chord, not the root. When the chord changes, the melody often lands on the 3rd of the new chord too. Once I noticed that, it suddenly made sense why a bass line centered around the roots sounds so solid: it isn’t copying the melody; it’s giving it a harmonic foundation! The bigger realization for me was about songwriting. I’ve always tended to hear melodies first, then tried to figure out what chords belonged underneath them. I think I’d been unconsciously assuming the melody note was the root of the chord—and sometimes getting frustrated because the harmony didn’t sound right. Now, instead of asking, “What chord has this melody note as the root?” I’ll be asking, “Could this note be the root, the 3rd, or the 5th of the chord I’m hearing?” Brian Kelly of Zombie Guitar added another useful insight when I shared this: a melody can move between chord tones with very little movement, sometimes staying on the same note or moving just a half step as the chord changes. It doesn’t have to follow roots from chord to chord, or even thirds from chord to chord. That added another piece for me: the melody note’s role can change even when the note itself doesn’t. I know there are other possibilities beyond roots, thirds, and fifths, and more than one harmony can fit a melody. But this gives me a much better starting point for finding the sound I’m hearing instead of forcing the wrong chord underneath it. Anyone else have a theory realization that suddenly explained something you’d already been doing by ear?

I get the impression that more of you here are electric guitar players than acoustic; is that true? I've had (and have) both acoustic and electric guitars, and though I enjoy playing both, acoustic is my go-to almost every time. I only play electric guitar when I'm trying to get a very specific sound.

Everybody has their own reasons, but I chose playing guitar because I thought it looked so cool. I remember seeing Slash in the November Rain video and thinking he looked so damn cool, and I wanted to learn to do what he was doing. So my question to you is this; what are the top 3 guitar players that made you want to pick up a guitar and learn how to play? Mine are Slash, EVH, and probably Synyster Gates. I suspect it will be a variety of guitar heroes, so sound off who made you want to play!

I received the 7-Day Guitar Mastery Plan free through Omni Guitars’ Product Tester Program. I’m reviewing it as a guitar player and instructor. In its current form, I would not recommend it to a beginner or consider it worth paying for. The first problem is its unclear audience. The marketing promises help with mastering scales, improvising, and unlocking the fretboard, while the guide begins with basic guitar anatomy and tuning. It then moves rapidly into numerous chord types, scale construction, and CAGED without adequately preparing the beginner for them. There are useful pieces here. Some chord explanations are reasonably clear, and the repeated advice to prioritize accuracy over speed is good. But too often, the guide mentions a topic without actually teaching someone how to use it. String changing, tuning, hand positioning, and strumming all need clearer explanations and better illustrations. The CAGED section shows movable chord shapes but doesn’t adequately explain how the five shapes connect across the fretboard. The sequencing is particularly frustrating. A song assignment tells readers to determine the strumming pattern from notation before the notation lesson appears. Later, the “Strumming Patterns” section offers general tips and describes symbols, but never develops a clear, counted exercise showing a beginner how to strum. There are also factual errors. The tuning section claims fast beats between two pitches mean sharp and slow beats mean flat; beat speed alone cannot tell you which pitch is higher. The dominant-seventh example correctly includes a flattened seventh, but its formula omits the flat. I haven’t needed standard notation in my own playing, so I don’t claim expertise in reading sheet music. Nevertheless, checking that section revealed basic errors: cut time is identified as 2/4 rather than 2/2, and a picture of a flat beside a single note is labeled a flat key signature. Presentation compounds these problems. Several images are small and low-resolution, the writing needs substantial editing, and terminology is sometimes inconsistent or contradictory. A footnote acknowledges that a chord is mislabeled instead of simply correcting the label. These are reasonable things to expect a paid instructional product to resolve before publication.