April 2021

Major Open chords for guitar in standard tuning. Major Chords are identified by their root note as shown below.

The strings that are played open are shown with a “O” at the top of the guitar chord diagram. An “X” in the chord diagram shows which strings are not played or muted.

Minor Open Chords

Minor Open chords for guitar in standard tuning. Minor Chords are often identified with their root note next to a lower case “m”.

1 + 3 + 5 + 6

1 + 3♭ + 5 + 6

To play a harmonic minor scale, raise the 7th note of the natural minor guitar scale by a half step as seen below.

The Formula for the Harmonic Minor Scale: whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole + half step, whole step OR by lowering the 3rd and 6th notes of the major scale a half step.

Harmonic Minor Scale Tabs

Jack Gardiner demonstrates the BOSS DD-8 Digital Delay pedal’s 11 eleven musical delay modes including an onboard stereo looper. The BOSS DD-8 is claimed to be the most advanced compact delay pedal ever from BOSS. (Source: BOSSchannel)

Notice how the patterns connect to or overlap eachother across the guitar neck.

F Minor Pentatonic

The 5 Minor Pentatonic Scale Patterns

Minor Pentatonic Scale Guitar Tabs

The natural minor scale is also known as the Aeolian Mode or Relative Minor scale.

The Formula for a Natural Minor Scale: whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step OR by lowering the 3rd, 6th, and 7th notes of the major scale a half step.

The E Natural Minor Scale (Relative Minor Scale of the G Major Scale)

Natural Minor Scale Tabs

Josh Scott from JHS Pedals gives a rundown of several overdrive pedals that might not be getting the credit they deserve. JHS makes some great pedals of their own, and Josh has a ton of useful information on effects pedals so check them out! (Source: JHS Pedals)

The major pentatonic guitar scale is usually played over major chords, and is used in rock music as well as country music.

The diagram below shows the 5 Major Pentatonic Scale Patterns spread over the length of the guitar neck. Notice how the patterns connect to or overlap eachother.The diagram shows the A flat (A♭) Major Pentatonic Scale.

The formula for the Major Pentatonic Scale is 1 whole step, 1 whole step, 1 and a half whole steps, 1 whole step, 1 and a half whole steps.

Major Pentatonic Scale Guitar Tabs

History of the Electric Guitar

Electric Guitar Anatomy Reference

Body

The body of the guitar is hollow for acoustic guitars, and semi-hollow or solid for electric guitars. Most electric guitars are made with wood such as maple, ash, alder, mahogany as well as other types of woods. Some guitars are now made with acrylic material that allow you to see through the guitar’s body.

Bridge

The bridge holds the strings and/or saddle to the body of the guitar, and above the frets and fretboard. Guitar bridges sometimes have a tailpiece that holds the ball end of the guitar strings. From the tailpiece, the strings are placed on the saddles of the bridge (see left). It sometimes has a whammy or tremolo bar attached to the bridge. Tremolo bridges are usually found on guitars that you string the guitar through the back of the body of the guitar.

Cable Jack

This is where you plug in an instrument cable to run through guitar effects and/or to the guitar amp.

Fretboard

The fretboard is the top side of the guitar neck containing the fret wires and usually inlays. The scale of fretboards vary on the types of guitars and their manufacturers. Fender style guitars and Gibson style guitars vary in size and typically in number of frets. Fretboards are made from a wide variety of woods including the more common maple, rosewood, or mahogany.

Frets

The frets are the metal strips or wires spaced out across the neck. Frets allow the string to resonate a note at the point where the string is pressed down on the fret. The number of frets on a guitar depends on its make and model.

Headstock

This is the head of the guitar where the tuning pegs are installed. Each guitar’s headstock is differently shaped depending on its manufacturer. Some headstocks spread the tuning pegs out 3 to each side, while others have all 6 (or 7) on one side of the headstock as well as other combinations depending on manufacturer.

Nut

The nut holds the strings above the fretboard at the top of the neck. The nut is glued to or near the headstock and top of the fretboard. Each string is placed in a notch on the nut, one for each string. This holds the strings in place and is a point of string tension. Nuts are typically made from plastic, wood, bone, ivory or other material.

Pickguard

The pickguard protects the body of the guitar and its finish from scratches from picks and fingernails. Fender Strat style guitars have pickguards that the pickups, volume and tone knobs and pickup switch are attached to. Pickguards are made out of plastic, vinyl as well as other materials.

Pickups

Electric guitar pickups are electromagnetic, and turn the string vibrations to an electric signal. This signal is sent through the instrument cable and into the amp. Pickups are made with a magnet such as AlNiCo that is coiled with very fine copper wiring. Single coil pickups often pick up 60 cycle hum, or mains hum. Humbuckers use two pickups wound together that cancel out 60 cycle hum.

Pickup Switch

This switches between the guitar’s pickups. On Gibson style guitars that use two humbucker pickups, when switched all the way down, the bridge pickup is used. When switched to the middle position, both the bridge and neck pickups are used. The neck pickup is used when the switch is all the way up. Fender Strat style guitars usually have three single-coil pickups and a 5 position switch to toggle between the bridge, middle and neck pickups.

Saddle

The saddle is what holds the strings up above the neck off the bridge of the guitar. On electric guitars different variations of saddles are available. Some Telecaster style guitars use 3 saddles with two strings on each. Others use individual saddles for each string. Adjusting the position of the saddles is done when intonating the guitar.

Strap Pegs

These are the pegs that hold the guitar strap to the guitar’s body. These are located at the bottom of the guitar’s body and somewhere around where the neck and body are connected depending on the model of guitar.

Strings

Guitar strings are made from steel, nylon, or other material such as copper, zinc and titanium. The lower strings are wound around another reinforcement string in the middle. Classical style guitars are usually strung with nylon strings.

Tone Knob

The tone knob adjusts the amount of bass or treble frequencies sent to the amp from the guitar’s pickups. With this knob all the way up, you get a bright sound and a darker sound when all the way down. This also helps adjust your overall sound.

Tremolo or Whammy Bar

An arm or lever connected to the bridge. This allows the guitarist to alter the tension of the strings to create vibrato and pitch bending effects. Floyd Rose bridges lock the strings at the nut to help keep the strings in tune after the tension has been changed temporarily by the whammy bar.

Truss Rod

This adjusts the bend in the neck of the guitar. The neck is usually bowed slightly to keep strings from buzzing on frets and for the overall setup of the guitar. A single rod goes through the neck of the guitar and can be loosened or tightened to achieve this. Unless you know how to adjust this properly, it’s usually a good idea to leave this as a job for luthiers or guitar techs. Improperly adjusted truss rods could potentially damage the neck of the guitar or mess up the intonation.

Tuning Pegs

One tuning peg for each string. This is where the end of the string is wrapped typically 2 to 3 times. You tune the guitar with these pegs by twisting these to adjust string tension.

Volume Knob

The volume knob adjusts the volume of the signal sent to the guitar amp. Slight adjustments with this knob can alter the overall tone of your guitar and amp.

Delay and echo effects repeat the guitar’s signal based on different time settings to create “slap-back” and other delay and echo effects. Delay effects use analog (tape), solid-state, and digital circuitry.

Tape echo started being experimented with by using a copy of the same recording and splicing the two together at different times, or by having the recording repeated multiple times. Tape echo was done using reel-to-reel analog tape machines in recording studios. Different guitar effects, such as delay and flanger, emerged from recording on reel-to-reel tape and altering its playback.

In the 1970s, solid-state delay pedals became available using bucket-brigade devices. These pedals were an analog alternative to the bulky tape echo units. The mainstream use of solid-state delay units was short-lived as they were only capable of shorter delay times than digital would have to offer. Some of the solid-state pedals released are still known for their warm tone and thought of as classic delay pedals.

Digital Delay

Soon after the introduction of solid-state delay pedals, digital delay systems became available and started taking over. Using a combination of an analog-to-digital converter, a digital signal processor and a digital-to-analog converter. The signal would go through these converters and processors and would be recorded into a buffer that would be played back at a set duration of time to get different delay times and effects.

Digital delay effects have a wider spectrum to work with than analog and solid-state delays, but some guitarists prefer the analog delay’s warmer tone similar to the tone tape echo produces.

There are many different delay and echo effect processors and stomp boxes available today. Each offers different functions to make use of delay such as looping.