Randy Holt has over 15 years of music experience and teaches beginning to advanced guitar technique and theory! Randy also knows and teaches proper guitar care and maintenance.

If you're looking to learn a specific style, Randy is the instructor for you.  He can tailor your lesson plan to the style that suits you; from SRV to Steve Vai and DragonForce, you'll learn the techniques you need.

Randy's mission statement: It is my goal to teach each individual music theory and music history as well as provide many exercises in the proper uses of technique on the guitar.

The Major Scale is the most important scale to understand in Western Music. It is through this scale that much of music theory becomes clear. For this reason I would like to take some time to discuss THE MAJOR SCALE!

First, a few vocabulary terms must be understood:
Interval - any distance from one note to another note.
Half-Step - a half-step is the distance from one note to the very next note on a musical instrument. On the guitar this is simply one fret to the next fret.
Whole Step - a whole step is the distance from one note to two notes away. This is the distance of two frets on the guitar.
Octave - an octave is the distance from one note to the very next note of the same pitch (i.e. A to A, B to B, etc.).

All scales and chords are made up of varying combinations of intervals. Each scale or chord is unique based on these varying combinations of notes. Take a look at Fig. 1. Here, you see the C Major Scale, the notes range from C to C spanning one octave. Fig. 1 is written in a playing position. Use this form to practice the C Major Scale.

Now that you've had a moment to become acquainted with the C Major Scale let's take a look at it's unique set of intervals that make it what it is in music. Fig. 2 shows the C Major Scale written on one string only; this will help you see the distance between notes in terms of half and whole steps.
From C to D is a whole step (2 frets), D to E is a whole step (2 frets), E to F is a half-step (1 fret), F to G is a whole step (2 frets), G to A is a whole step (2 frets), A to B is a whole step (2 frets), and B to C is a half-step (1 fret).

Thus you end up with a pattern of whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. This IS the Major Scale. Using this pattern with any starting note will give you that major scale.

Let's build a major scale on G:
See Fig. 3. G to A is a whole step, A to B is a whole step, B to C is a half step, C to D is a whole step, D to E is a whole step, E to F# is a whole step (note that E to F is only a half-step so F must be raised to make a whole step), and F# to G is a half-step.
The Major Scale pattern forces some notes to be sharp and some notes to be flat based on the order of half and whole steps. Now look at Fig. 4, you will see the F Major Scale constructed on a single string. Notice that a Bb is required in order to maintain the major scale interval pattern. You may wonder why a Bb and not an A#, here are the rules:
When building a Major Scale, you must use whole and half-steps.
You must use no more than one note of each of the seven alphabet note names (i.e. A, B, C, D, E, F, and G). Therefore you can not have both an A and an A#.
You must have one of each of the alphabet note names present. Natural, sharp, and flat notes are used for these notes.
I hope you have enjoyed this lesson. For the best understanding of this material use a piano to construct major scales.

For today's lesson, I would like to introduce the Pentatonic Minor scale. The Pentatonic Minor scale consists of five repeating notes (Penta is a Greek based prefix meaning five).

Fig. 1 shows a simple Pentatonic Minor scale in the key of E. This example is in the open position; for other Pentatonic Minor scales, simply move the pattern up the neck (see Fig. 3).

Pentatonic scales are commonly occurring scales in today's music. Fig. 2a demonstrates the beginning chords to AC/DC's "Back in Black". I have provided full versions of these open position chords, however, the recording does not require you to do so.

The Pentatonic Minor scale emerges in Fig. 2b. Here, the scale descends in a straight forward way until a full bend on the G string which is followed by a pull-off to the open string. The opening chords are then played again. This time the ending phrase changes. If you look closely at the E string, you will see a chromatic phrase (4,5,6,7).

Hi and welcome to Teacher Teacher.  Each month I will provide a new tip, technique, or theory lesson on this page for your viewing pleasure.  If you have any questions about any of the material on this page feel free to ask me and I will do my best to respond in a timely fashion.

For the first installment I am going to talk about the Chromatic Scale.  First, some vocabulary is needed:

Half-step – the distance of 1 fret on the guitar.
Whole-step – the distance of 2 frets on the guitar.
Tone – a musical pitch/note.
Octave – from one note to the same note at a different pitch.
Atonal – lacking a key center.  (generally ambiguous)

The Chromatic scale is a 12 tone scale composed of 12 half-steps.  The word Chromatic is derived from the ancient Greek word chroma.  Chroma simply means color or colorful for our purposes today.  When viewed like this, think of the Chromatic scale as a scale full of color because it is composed of all 12 notes that are available in the western musical system.  This scale is also special because it is considered Atonal.  The Chromatic scale can be used with any chords you would like, however, keep in mind that some notes will clash at times.  This dissonance (unpleasant sound) can be used effectively to create a feeling of tension and resolution.  Now that we know what a Chromatic scale is let’s look at some exercises and examples.

Fig. 1 is the basic Chromatic scale spanning one octave (C to C).  This is a good version of the Chromatic scale to practice, but let’s expand on this and create a more user friendly version that can double as a dexterity exercise.

Fig. 2 is a box position Chromatic scale.  If you look closely you will notice some notes have been omitted for the sake of simplicity (see if you can figure out which notes I have omitted).  This is the most common version of the scale taught.

I know what you’re thinking “this is boring, where would I use that?”  Well let me shed some light on this question.  Figures 3 – 5 are examples of songs that use the Chromatic scale.  Fig. 3 is a sample of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica, Fig. 4 is a section of the solo for Hit Me with Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar, Fig. 5 is a piece of Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Good luck and practice, practice, practice!

-Randy Holt