Make the most of the time you have by focusing on both the technical and emotional sides of practicing.
It’s hard to know what to practice and how long to practice for. I used to hate practicing, but I have found developing a ritual around it helps tremendously.
In this article, I’m first going to share an important tip on how to approach practicing. Then, I’m going to break down what a practice session looks like for me.
Let me lay out this one very important tip that radically changed the way I approach practicing:
Play, don’t practice.
My state of mind is an essential aspect of my practice sessions. One of my mentors, Bruce Forman, gave me invaluable advice when I was studying with him. He said, “We are never practicing, we are always playing.”
Bruce helped me realize it doesn’t matter if you’re running scales in your room or on a stage performing for a huge crowd—we are always playing. It’s a privilege to play music. Any time that we get with our instrument is a gift and we need to treat it like that. It’s an opportunity to create music, not a task to be completed. If we can reclassify practice into playing, we are already in a better place.
Alright, now that we’re in the right headspace, let’s dive into what my hour-long practice session consists of.
The First Five
When I first pick up my instrument, I give myself a little time to connect with it. It’s like when you wake up in the morning and need a few minutes to remember who you are and what you are doing. The same concept applies to the guitar: Take those few minutes to reacquaint yourself with it. I find that giving myself that moment to breathe with my instrument helps me be more musical during the practice session, which then continues on to live performances.
Also, I’ve found that this time has helped me tremendously with my tone. It sets a precedent of more conscious playing. I am listening to what sounds I am producing, and playing dynamically.
I typically choose a mode, a key, or a sound, and just go—chords, single notes, phrases. Your first five minutes is a great time to work on a new scale you’re learning. Instead of just running a new scale up and down, make music with it. Explore!
In Ex. 1 I’m exploring E Dorian (E–F#–G–A–B–C#–D). I am listening to my guitar, trying to connect with it, and create music. Notice that I am playing chords and single notes. some things are in time, and some things are rubato. There are no rules. I just play.
Something Brainy (10 Minutes)
Reading music notation at the start of my practice gets my brain and hands working together. This doesn’t have to be for an extended period of time. Even reading through an excerpt a couple of times can be a good way to start your practice with a solid foundation. Sight reading was not a part of my routine for a long time, so coming back to it has been eye-opening. Not only does it make me a stronger reader, but it also helps me play more fluidly. The first five minutes is my emotional warm up, this is my mental warm up.
If you are not a sight reader, I suggest putting something else “brainy” here. Maybe it’s a technical exercise, or running a new scale, maybe even new chord voicings. But keep in mind, it’s never too late to start reading.
Deep Dive (35 minutes)
The majority of my practice is spent on one specific thing that I go deep on. This is often a song I am working on. During this time, I develop ways to approach the chords and improvise over the song. This portion has a couple of main elements to it.
Record Yourself!
A very important aspect of practicing is recording and listening back. One of the hardest things to do is to hear yourself play, but on the flip side, it’s also a guaranteed way to improve. It hurts, but I promise you, recording yourself and listening back will help you improve as a guitarist and as a musician.
Variation, Exploration, and Regimentation
I give myself rules to follow, and then I record and listen back to see if I accomplished what I set out to do. I’ve found that giving myself structure to work around is a great way to force myself to actually be creative. I open new doors by having to come up with a way to work around the “rules” instead of slipping back into doing the same things I always do. Below, I walk you through what this all means. Over the following examples I’ll improvise over a C–E7–F–G progression.
Below are examples of “rules” I make for myself. I do each task a handful of times before moving on, but always stopping to listen back to the recording of myself.
Developing a Motif
In Ex. 2 I am still thinking of a melody, because melody is king, but I am using sixths as a way to develop a motif.
I am developing a rhythmic and melodic motif in Ex. 3. While the rhythmic motif repeats, I’m keeping an E melody note central to the theme.
Play Melodies, Don’t Play Licks
In Ex. 4 I’m simply thinking of melodies. I don’t think about playing cool scales or sounds, but rather just let my instrument sing. Sometimes I think of a beautiful melody and try to emulate that in my playing. This helps put me in the right zone, so I don’t play like a guitarist, but rather as a composer.
Focus on One Range
We all do it. We have our comfort zones and avoid certain areas of the guitar. This is a good time to work on those less cozy areas of our instruments. In Ex. 5 I am playing only below the 5th fret on the bottom three strings.
There are countless rules. Make up your own and see what new doors open for you!
Putting It All Together (10 minutes)
After playing through the progression with rules, I then play without rules to see what comes out. I find that I am most free during this part of my practice. After going through so many tasks, I have more control over what I do. This allows me to play what I hear, not just licks.
Notice in Ex. 6 that the things I worked on come out in my playing: various ranges, 6ths, and melodies.
Have fun. And wash your hands.
Zeppelin might be the most famous case, but plenty of songwriters have borrowed these infamous chords.
Beginner
Beginner
• Understand how a descending bass line can change the flavor of a progression.
• Learn how to add chromatic elements to your songs.
• Develop a keener sense of song structure.
From the 12-bar blues to a shuffle pattern to a IIm7–V7–I progression, many musical motifs get recycled and repurposed. It's accepted that these ideas are simply out there in the air for songwriters and composers to use, gratis, as musical building blocks from which to create new work. Right?
Maybe not. A few years ago, Led Zeppelin was sued for using one of these common motifs as the basis for "Stairway to Heaven." I was as surprised as anyone. I've been teaching this chromatically descending minor chord progression as an example of a compositional tool for years, citing a series of examples of its use in different situations. But sure enough, the band Spirit had decided to lay claim to the progression.
During the trial in 2016, Jimmy Page admitted that his song and Spirit's "Taurus," "are very similar because that chord sequence has been around forever." Back when Page wrote "Stairway" in 1971, he was surely well aware of what he was doing. This chord progression had really been making the rounds in pop culture.
I've collected quite a few examples of this progression's usage to show what can be done with this motif, compositionally. These examples prove that this progression is nothing more than a kernel of musical information that songwriters and composers have been using for much longer than "Stairway to Heaven" or "Taurus" have been around.
The list below could be much longer, but I've edited it down to what I think are the strongest examples, where this motif is used in the most recognizable way, either as the beginning of a song or a section. So, you won't be seeing "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" by Stevie Wonder or the "Dead Man" theme by Neil Young, but just know that both of those songs are among the many that use this pattern.
Because both "Stairway to Heaven" and "Taurus" are in A minor, I've decided to transpose all the examples into A minor to make it easy to compare them. But first, let's hear both "Stairway" and "Taurus."
Stairway to Heaven (Remaster)
Taurus
In Ex. 1, we see the opening phrases to both "Stairway to Heaven" and "Taurus." The first three measures are the only overlap in these phrases. Both songs have a descending bass note that starts on the root of Am, then descends chromatically to F. This bass line creates some interest in what could be a rather stagnant stretch of Am. The F# can be used as either an Am6/F# or a D/F#. Essentially, the difference between names here is based on what else happens harmonically around that chord and for our purposes, we can consider them to be the same chord.
Following the F# bass note, both songs have a measure of Fmaj7 and that's where the commonalities end. "Stairway" follows that with a resolution from G back to A minor, which would be a bVII resolving to a Im, while "Taurus" goes to Dm, which is the IVm chord.
If we go way back in time to the 17th century, we find Italian Baroque composer and guitarist Giovanni Battista Granata featuring this motif in his "To Catch a Shad." In the trial, Led Zeppelin used this song as proof that the chord progression is in the public domain. Shown in Ex. 2, the song uses essentially the same progression as "Stairway to Heaven." "To Catch a Shad" was covered by the Modern Folk Quartet in 1963.
To Catch a Shad
Fast forwarding to the 20th century, we discover that Irving Berlin used this same motif for the first four measures of his song "Blue Skies" in 1926, shown here in Ex. 3. The progression descends chromatically to a D major chord, then modulates to C major for the next phrase.
Thelonious Monk used "Blue Skies" as the basis for his song "In Walked Bud," first recorded in 1947. The first four measures are essentially the same, followed by a similar turnaround through a sequence of chords in the key of C major.
Irving Kaufman - Blue Skies (1927)
In Walked Bud
Both Duke Ellington and Richard Rodgers used this progression in the 1930s for their respective compositions "In a Sentimental Mood" and "My Funny Valentine." In Ex. 4, notice how Ellington used the progression, then repeats it up a fourth. The next phrase begins back on the Am chord and resolves to a C major.
Rodgers' "My Funny Valentine" follows the descending line down to F (much like Spirit would later do), and goes to Dm, before a IIm7b5–V7b9 turnaround back to the tonic.
The Beatles never shied away from using a clever songwriting maneuver and our progression in this lesson is no exception—just check out Ex. 5. In 1963, they covered the song "A Taste of Honey" on their debut, Please Please Me. Composed in 1960 by Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow for the Broadway play of the same name, the song features a chromatically descending minor progression in the beginning of the verse.
This progression must have made its mark on the budding songwriters, because Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote "Michelle" for 1965's Rubber Soul and used a two-measure descending minor progression as the intro, followed by a measure of IVm and V.
A few years later, George Harrison used the progression in "Something" from 1969's Abbey Road. This progression occurs in the verse when Harrison sings, "I don't want to leave her now," before coming back to the song's signature turnaround lick. An interesting thing about "Something" is that the verse opens with the same type of harmonic move on a C major chord. So, the first chords are C–Cmaj7–C7.
A Taste Of Honey (Remastered 2009)
Michelle (Remastered 2009)
Something (Remastered 2015)
Ex. 6 shows the first phrase of the song "Chim Chim Cher-ee," written for the 1964 Disney film, Mary Poppins, by brothers Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman. Heavily covered by jazz artists in the mid '60s, this song was most certainly floating around in the popular consciousness. The first two measures are followed by a resolution (IVm–Im) and a turnaround (II7–V7).
Also from that same year was "War of the Satellites," written for the Ventures' In Space record by Danny Hamilton. In this surf rock classic, the descending minor progression is used in A minor, modulates down a whole-step and repeats in G minor, then modulates again to F minor, where it stays momentarily then jumps around chromatically, ascending and descending, before repeating.
Mary Poppins - Chim Chim Cher-ee
The Ventures War Of The Satellites (Stereo) (Super Sound)
Through these examples, we've looked at quite a wide variety of styles, from baroque music to Tin Pan Alley, jazz to surf, show tunes to classic rock. What's fascinating about all of these examples is the way the songwriters were able to take this common piece of harmonic information, put a unique spin on it, and go in different musical directions.
This article was updated on September 20, 2021
Understand key facts and definitions of the popular CAGED guitar chord system with our simple guide.
What is the CAGED system?
The CAGED system is based on five chords—C, A, G, E, and D—and provides a way to organize a guitar’s neck into five different sections, which can be linked together to play melodies, major scales, and arpeggios across the entire fretboard. The shapes of those chords can also be used anywhere on the fretboard to play any major chord in any key.
Why is it called the CAGED system?
For starters, that name contains each of the five chords used in the system, but it also helpfully alludes to the order in which the chords connect up and down the neck.
Is the CAGED system hard?
If you can play basic C, A, G, E, and D chords, you’re essentially all set. It involves some manipulation and extra fingerwork to make the chords as you move up the neck, but you’ve already got the essentials.
Why is the CAGED system useful?
The CAGED system lets you create and explore different, unique chord voicings up and down the neck. It introduces new sounds to your repertoire, and gives you new ways to be expressive in your playing.
How is the CAGED system different from barre or power chords?
In the CAGED system, your index finger often forms a barre, mimicking your guitar’s nut in relation to your open C, A, G, E, and D chords. But while barre and power chords are discreet, individual units, CAGED chords link directly and logically to one another. They can also sound more dynamic and open than traditional barre or power chords.
Can you do the CAGED system in open tunings?
No, the CAGED system only works in standard tunings.