A collection of tapping riffs designed to push the beginner / intermediate player outside of their comfort zone. These riffs will show you some new contexts for known skills, and will introduce a few new concepts.
2024-02-23 00:08:35 +0000 UTC View PostA very fun and maybe a little challenging, riff to play in FACGCE. I originally started writing this as an exercise for a student, but I really enjoyed the sound of it and kept working on it until it became a little two bar idea. Once you get it down, it's very addictive to play!
In terms of the exercise for the student - the riff is meant to demonstrate an example of how you can use chord shapes and fingerings as the basis for melodic ideas in math rock and midwest emo. The melody and ...
2024-01-16 00:21:58 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, just wanted to wish you all a happy new year. 2024 is hopefully going to be a productive year for the channel, I'm hoping to create more long form lessons and dive into new and fun stuff!
This little chord progression is a trevor style harmonization of auld lang syne. It's got all my favourites in there haha.
2024-01-01 22:27:31 +0000 UTC View PostA new chord progression featuring some pretty complex shapes for standard tuning (still playable though!). This one focuses a lot on my favourite sounds - chords with sus2 and sus4 type sounds built into the centre of the voicing.
2023-11-21 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe next instalment in the essential shoegaze chords series. This video covers a few new chord sets and voicings that are perfect for the style.
This post includes two documents. The first is a core set of voicings and the 2nd is a bonus document demonstrating some simple examples of ways to "elevate" these chords and some supplementary material that I included in my original video.
2023-11-18 08:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostA fun riff to demo my new acoustic guitar! This is a riff written in E major that essentially goes back and forth between an E chord and an Amaj7 chord. Hope you enjoy!
2023-11-11 06:45:51 +0000 UTC View PostAn overview of the best moveable Maj7 chord shapes for standard tuning. This is a fairly comprehensive vocabulary of practical chord shapes that you will use in a lot of situations and styles.
These can be played based off of any root note and any key.
2023-11-10 19:54:27 +0000 UTC View PostSome very pretty and emotional sounding shoegaze, math rock, and post rock chords arranged into a fun little progression. The progression centre's around movement between IV-vi-I with some short variations here and there. Moreover, in order to keep a lower and thicker sound, I tried to keep the arrangement to the bottom 4 strings. Hope you enjoy!
2023-10-18 01:49:24 +0000 UTC View PostA new Shoegaze progression featuring big 7th chords with the 5th in the bass. This one is written in standard tuning in the key of E major. I really tried to stick to a balanced arrangement, focusing a lot, on the bottom 4 strings. Pretty happy with the results!
General take away's from this progression
1) when you use a voicing set, make sure to keep your preceding chords in a similar register for a smooth sound. For example, if you play a 4 note voicing on the EADG strings, you ...
2023-10-04 23:20:10 +0000 UTC View PostVery niche, but I've been watching a lot of very random, and sometimes terrible sci fi movies on various streaming services. This little idea is inspired by some of the sound track things that I've been hearing. Hope you enjoy! It's actually one of my favourite little riff ideas that I've written lately. It's very simple, but is fun to play and quite pretty!
Hey everyone, sorry for the delayed absence from posting! Hopefully I'll be back at it with more regularity from here on out! Anyways, this idea is a simple but difficult arpeggio idea in an odd meter. It features one of my favourite picking patterns and uses some very pretty shapes in E major. Hope you enjoy!
2023-08-14 21:38:33 +0000 UTC View PostA very simple but fun to play and pleasing chord progression in FACGCE. I stumbled upon this by accident while just noodling in the tuning. Sort of started turning the gears and added a cool minor IV bit to the end. This is really nice to play on acoustic guitar too. Give it at try!
2023-06-22 03:14:18 +0000 UTC View PostTried to come up with something different from what I'd normally play in this style. This is a new progression utilizing two non-diatonic sounds; A major II chord and a minor IV chord. I think this leads to a pretty interesting and uplifting / refreshing sound. Hope you enjoy!
Also, I've never tried out a shoegaze idea in Drop D before so that's also fun.
2023-06-16 06:33:02 +0000 UTC View PostAnother Shoegaze idea! This one is in the key of E major and focuses on a lot of great open A chord shapes. Also, the progression sounds great for a lot of styles other than Shoegaze. I originally thought about recording this on acoustic guitar as these chords sound beautiful when played on that instrument. Would recommend trying that too!
2023-06-09 23:29:30 +0000 UTC View PostA shoegaze chord progression that I've been sitting on for a while. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen this one in one of my stories. It's a fun progression to jam over top of - especially while doing melodies with the glide strumming / picking technique. The bittersweet part of this progression comes from the minor iv chord. Don't really hear that one too much in shoegaze but I think it sounds really good here. Enjoy!
2023-06-01 19:55:21 +0000 UTC View PostAn usual chord progression that I came up with last week while playing around with some chord changes that pull from C major and C minor. I think this lead to a pretty...interesting sound. What do you think?
2023-05-31 01:25:39 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, here's a little project I've been working on for a while - a list of some of my favourite chord progressions and sequences that work great for Midwest Emo, Math Rock, And Post Rock.
Something that you might notice in these progressions is that they are quite simple and there's the underlying theme of 1) the progressions start on either IV, I, or vi, and 2) the movement is very stepwise instead of the traditional pop leaps going in 3rds / 6ths and 4ths / 5ths. Makes for som...
2023-05-17 23:38:52 +0000 UTC View PostA chord progression inspired by the un-seasonably hot weather that's hit my city. At some points in time, it feels like there's not much to do other than sit inside and play some guitar. I came up with this progression while overheating lol.
2023-05-14 05:29:14 +0000 UTC View PostImportant basic chords for those who are working and playing in FACGCE. These will give you a nice road map for playing simple chord progressions with a more 'precise' sound.
2023-05-13 05:50:44 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, sorry for the inactivity over the past few weeks, been pretty busy! Here's a new exercise that I came up with this morning which serves as a nice little warm up for the left and right hand. I designed the exercise to focus on pull offs within a chord shape and pull offs with each finger. This should hopefully help you build up your strength and stamina for playing fast legato lines in midwest emo.
2023-05-12 04:47:15 +0000 UTC View PostMore chords in the open C sharp tuning. Hope you enjoy! Tried to expand my vocabulary a bit in this tuning by trying to mine out new sounds that I haven't quite used yet. Hope you enjoy.
2023-04-20 23:29:37 +0000 UTC View PostMore chords in this really nice tuning (probably my favourite right now!). Was going for a more simple and straight ahead 4/4 feel. The chord progression is also made pretty overt in this one as it is I-vi-IV-I. This is a great sorta sombre / nostalgic and hopefully progression. Would recommend!
2023-04-09 21:49:33 +0000 UTC View PostNot really sure how else to describe this progression. To me, the feel of this one is a very dramatic, self reflective or maybe contemplative sound. "The chord soundtrack to someone making a very difficult decision or coming to grips with something intense". Musically, some new chords in a new tuning for me (C#-G#-C#-F-G#-C#). Hope you enjoy!
2023-03-24 05:11:49 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, here's a fun chord based math rock tapping riff written for standard tuning (capo 3). This one was really influenced by a cool progression I heard in an Oragami Angel song that goes I-ii-IV. Hope you enjoy learning the riff and chords!
2023-03-19 05:13:34 +0000 UTC View PostA very fun and kinda tricky riff that I wrote the other day. I thought this one had a bit of a folky sounding energy. Great riff for practicing some open note based legato. Also, a bit of extra challenge in this riff as you have to hold down a bass note on the E string while playing the rest of the noodly stuff with your other fingers. Happy practicing
2023-03-04 00:24:37 +0000 UTC View PostToday I put away my guitar pick and decided to try and write a chord based idea with my fingerstyle technique. Experimented again with more subtle shifting between keys and spread out voicings. Hope you enjoy learning this one
2023-03-02 05:00:18 +0000 UTC View PostA very angsty progression of chords with some cool voicings in standard tuning. Lots of fairly accessible voicings in this one and lots of classic "intermediate" math rock and emo chord shapes too. This progression is great for anyone looking for ideas on how to use some of their shell voicing and extended chord vocabulary. Happy practicing!
2023-02-26 19:47:34 +0000 UTC View PostSome pretty chords played in a simple diatonic circle of 5ths context. Sounds pretty jazzy, but this progression is a nice one to learn as it helps give you a sense of strong harmonic motion. The whole sequence is 1-4-7-3-6-2-5-1. Enjoy!
2023-02-23 17:56:03 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, here's an updated version of the Math Rock And Emo Chords: Every Chord You Need, document.
This one is different in that the layout is cleaner. However, it doesn't quite correspond to the video anymore. Some of the voicings are presented in a different (more logical!) order and I've made some slight adjustments as to which voicings are presented with G as their root note and with A as their root note.
Although this doesn't quite match the video, it's not ...
2023-02-15 19:45:25 +0000 UTC View PostAnother day, another new chord progression. This one tries a lot of different stuff than what I've been posting lately. There's more emphasis on a V / mixolydian aesthetic here combined with colourful chromatic chords and some classic modal interchange sounds. I felt like doing something less straight up diatonic and ended up making this. It's really fun to play and is easier than it looks! Hope you have fun learning it.
2023-02-13 23:40:49 +0000 UTC View Post