If you have ever memorized shapes on the fretboard but still felt unsure about what you are playing, this course is designed to change that. You will connect technique with real understanding, so chords, scales, rhythm and ear training stop feeling like separate topics and start working together every time you pick up the guitar. Instead of relying on guesswork, you will build a clear mental map of music that makes learning songs easier and creating your own ideas feel natural.
Through a practical approach to pitch patterns, you will learn how the musical alphabet repeats, why standard tuning is laid out the way it is, and how to navigate the instrument without getting lost. The lessons focus on turning information into ability: seeing chord shapes as movable systems, understanding why barre chords work, and recognizing how chord names are constructed so you can decode unfamiliar symbols quickly. As your foundation solidifies, you will use a number-based view of harmony to understand what stays consistent across keys, which makes transposing and communicating with other musicians far less intimidating.
Rhythm and notation are treated as useful tools rather than academic hurdles, helping you line up what you hear with what you play. You will train your ear to recognize intervals and the character they add to a melody or chord, then apply that to must-know scales, inversions and position shifts on the neck. From modes and diatonic harmony to pentatonic relationships, minor-key thinking, blues color, chord voicings, progressions, and the basics of modulation, the goal is the same: give you a working understanding you can use immediately in riffs, solos and songwriting.
By the end, you will have a stronger fretboard awareness, faster decision-making when improvising, and a reliable process for identifying and learning any pitch pattern. Whether you are returning to guitar or trying to break through a plateau, you will walk away with skills that make practice more productive and playing more musical.
Course content
Video class: Lesson 1 - The 6 Main Areas of Music1h10m
Exercise: Which concept is described as the largest main area of music, covering chords, scales, melody, harmony, intervals, modes, and arpeggios?
Video class: Lesson 2 - 4 Ways To Know Your Pitch Patterns1h01m
Exercise: In the pitch system used for most Western music, how many basic notes (units) are in the musical alphabet before it repeats at the octave?
Video class: Lesson 3 - The Dumb Machine1h03m
Exercise: Why are most adjacent guitar strings (in standard tuning) spaced "four notes apart"?
Video class: Lesson 4 - Basic Chords1h03m
Exercise: Why does turning an open E major shape into an F major chord require a barre?
Video class: Lesson 5 - More About Chords59m
Exercise: Which set correctly lists the three parts of a chord name (including the part that is sometimes omitted)?
Video class: Lesson 6 - Still More About Chords59m
Exercise: When practicing chord changes for speed and timing, what method is recommended to build real switching ability?
Video class: Lesson 7 - Music By The Numbers59m
Exercise: In the musical number system, what is the numeric spelling of a major chord (major triad) in any key?
Video class: Lesson 8 - Caveman Music Theory1h00m
Exercise: In the musical number system based on the major scale, which scale degrees are identified as the three loudest harmonics on a string (12th, 7th, and 5th fret harmonics)?
Video class: Lesson 9 - Notation And Rhythm59m
Exercise: In standard musical notation, what do the vertical and horizontal axes of the musical "graph" mainly represent?
Video class: Lesson 10 - More About Notation59m
Exercise: In standard guitar notation, how does the written pitch relate to the sounding pitch?
Video class: Lesson 11 - Silence and The Note59m
Exercise: In the course’s “six levels of pitch theory,” what is identified as the simplest pitch pattern (Level 1)?
Video class: Lesson 12 - Intervals1h00m
Exercise: Which definition best describes an interval in music theory?
Video class: Lesson 13 - More About Intervals1h00m
Exercise: What is an augmented interval?
Video class: Lesson 14 - The Must Know Scales1h00m
Exercise: When you invert a major seventh interval, what interval do you get?
Video class: Lesson 15 - More About Scales1h00m
Exercise: When playing a scale on guitar, what is the general rule for which finger handles the “out of the box” shifts going up vs. coming down?
Video class: Lesson 16 - Still More About Scales59m
Exercise: Which scale is described as the second most common in popular music and is a major scale with a flat 7?
Video class: Lesson 17 - Diatonic Harmony a la Mode59m
Exercise: In diatonic harmony, what determines which mode you are using when playing the same set of seven notes over a chord progression?
Video class: Lesson 18 - More About Modes59m
Exercise: In diatonic harmony, which mode (and chord quality) is most likely for the V chord in a major key?
Video class: Lesson 19 - The Mode Jam Tracks59m
Exercise: In a 1–4 chord progression in the key of A (A major to D major), which modes should you think of playing over each chord to match chord-to-mode function?
Video class: Lesson 20 - Other Scales and Modes59m
Exercise: In a 1–5 chord progression in the key of A, which pair of modes should be used over the I and V chords?
Video class: Lesson 21 - Pentatonic Modes59m
Exercise: What is the modal relationship between the major pentatonic scale and the minor pentatonic scale?
Video class: Lesson 22 - Music In Minor Keys59m
Exercise: In minor key theory, what does the phrase six becomes one mean?
Video class: Lesson 24 - Playin' The Blues1h01m
Exercise: In blues-oriented playing over a I–IV–V progression made of major chords, what key note choice creates the classic “blues third” sound?
Video class: Lesson 25 - Blues Jam With Dan Lawson1h01m
Exercise: In a 1–4 progression in the key of A (A major to D major), which pair of modes is used for practicing with the mode jam approach?
Video class: Lesson 26 - Triads1h01m
Exercise: Which triad is classified as an equal-interval triad because its notes are all the same distance apart?
Video class: Lesson 27 - Chords59m
Exercise: In chord spelling, what does a plain “C7” chord contain (without “Maj” written)?
Video class: Lesson 28 - Chord Voicing1h00m
Exercise: In a triad, what is the correct order of positions and inversions described?
Video class: Lesson 29 - More About Chord Voicing57m
Exercise: In a slash chord written as C/G, what does the note after the slash indicate?
Video class: Lesson 30 - Chord Progressions58m
Exercise: In major diatonic harmonization, what chord quality is built on the 7th scale degree?
Video class: Lesson 31 - Modulation and Substitution59m
Exercise: What is modulation in a chord progression?
Video class: Lesson 32 - And In The End1h00m
Exercise: Which sequence best represents the course’s “four ways to know” any pitch pattern (a chord, scale, interval, etc.)?
