Today that’s what we’re talking about.

Random Fact: Did you know ‘capo’ also means a mafia boss? Ok.. back to guitar.

So the rule of thumb that I get into in the video is basically this:

If you move the capo UP X number of frets, you need to transpose your chords DOWN by the same number of semitones. Follow that? Each fret is a semitone, right? so in order to maintain the balance, if you go up with the capo, you need to go down with your open chords.

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This might be a bit confusing, but keep in mind you’re not actually changing keys. The only sense in which you’re changing keys is in that you’re changing to the open chord formations of a particular key. The whole idea is to remain in the same key right?

Hopefully that becomes more clear in the video. Any questions… you know what to do.

I got some good feedback from the lesson, with most of you asking for the riffs as well.

So, today I bring you the riffs for Last Dance with Mary Jane. Or is it Mary Jane’s Last Dance? I never could remember.

Anyways, you’re basically using A minor diatonic and pentatonic, with a little bit of the C major (diatonic) scale in there as well on the top few strings.

Have you ever had a guitar strap slip off the hook, or have you seen this happen to someone else? Often times the guitar crashes painfully to the floor, and sometimes, never to get back up.

A close friend of mine destroyed a beautiful $1500 GNL when his strap slipped off by accident.

Not very cool.

So what’s the answer?

Strap Locks.

Considering they only cost about $15 on Amazon, strap locks can literally save you hundreds or thousands of dollars and the grief of a destroyed guitar.

About the only downside that I can think of to using strap locks is that you need to dedicate a particular strap to a particular guitar, if that can even be classified as a concern.

In this video I demonstrate how to install the Schaler strap locks on your guitar. It’s very easy, and boils down to these steps:

1. Remove existing strap knobs.
2. Screw Schaler strap locks back into the same holes.
3. Attach the other end to your strap.

That’s it!

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I tried to give you a couple of different ideas on how you can change up the progression, but I really encourage you to get creative with this one and go nuts on it.

Start with the E Minor Diatonic scale (or G Major -- same difference) as that gives you the root notes you can use from the key of G. Basically any of the notes in those scales on the lowest three strings will qualify.

Keep your drone notes the same all the time -- the open G (3rd string) and the D on the 2nd string. These two notes are the I and V of the key of G, a perfect fifth, and therefore go well with every other note in that scale, which is the reason why its easy to be creative with this one.

In addition to mixing up the root notes, try mixing up your picking pattern once you get the hang of the one I showed you in here. Try alternating different strings, or use the two strings at a time method I showed in the video.

Above all, have fun with it!

I love this riff, and although in the lesson I teach it in the Open E position, the fact is, I use these thirds time and time again, regardless of what key I’m in. That’s why its so important to see this riff as coming out of the scale -- that way you learn how to apply it in any key.
Don’t look at this as something you can only do in open E… yeah, it sounds terrific in E, but these thirds work anywhere. The thirds interval is a great one to familiarize yourself with, there’s just so much you can do with it. I’ll probably do a whole lesson on that soon.

The riff I’m showing you here is suspiciously similar to the one in Mary Had a Little Lamb (Buddy Guy or SRV style) and one of the variations was used in Pride and Joy… so you can see that this riff is definitely a good one for your blues arsenal!

So I thought I would make a quick lesson here on how to use a digital guitar tuner to tune your guitar.

Tuning your guitar is incredibly important. If the guitar isn’t in tune, you’re not going to want to play it, because it will sound terrible. It’s pretty much that simple. So if you’re just getting started, there’s nothing that’s more demoralizing than sounding terrible all the time, so that’s something you need to fix!

Thankfully, tuning your guitar only takes a few moments with an electronic guitar tuner, so sit back and learn what you can in the next 8 minutes!

As you’ll see, I initially started this strumming lesson using G C and D chords. Which of course works fine, and is highly relevant for teaching the strum pattern, however then I realized just how much this strumming pattern is used in the blues, so the last part of the lesson is really just a demonstration of how you can use 7th chords and make that exact same strumming pattern sound great in the blues.

7th chords are probably among the most common chords you’ll find in the blues, so if you ever want to make a song a little more bluesy, try swapping the major chords for their 7th counterparts. For instance, E goes to E7.

So without further ado, let’s get into the lesson!

Using a capo is the easiest way to transpose something, and can work great if you want to play a song that is in the wrong key for your voice -- simply move the capo to a place on the neck that works with your voice, and away you go!

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Just be careful though, if you’re playing with other instruments, you’re going to need to be careful to transpose the chords that you’re playing, because you are actually playing different chords once you capo the guitar. For instance, a normal open G chord, with the capo at the second fret, becomes an A chord.

Well, there are a couple of ways for me to answer that question I suppose. I could show you specifically, and I could teach you the reasons why chords sound good together so you can figure that out on your own.

In a way, I’ve done both. Today’s beginner lesson shows you all the chords that work well together in the key of C. Simply, they are: C, F, G, Am, Dm and Em. In the video you’ll see that you can put these in literally any order and they’ll sound ok.

In the lesson I actually randomly play these chords in any order, to demonstrate that although it doesn’t end up sounding like any song you know, there aren’t any clashes -- these chords all work well together.

Over at OneFourFive.com I’ve take the time and gone into much more detail which chords work together which each other, but rather than giving you all the specifics, instead I teach the concept of I IV V and how to apply that to finding all the chords in any given key, in a matter of seconds. I’d recommend checking that out if you haven’t already.

Leave a comment below the video and let me know if this was useful for you or not. If so, I can make some more videos showing some of the other common keys as well.

I like finger picking with this style because it gives a very rhythmic, mellow sound that fits my mood perfectly when I just wanna relax or cool off. Works great with minor chords, as you’ll see here, but feel free to try this guitar finger picking technique with anything that strikes your fancy.

Start using this 2 finger picking technique with the Am7, Dm7 and Em7 chords that I show you here, because you can get used to picking the root note plus the 2nd and 3rd strings. Once you’re familiar with that, try it with some other chords and start moving the string that your root note is on.