Hey Friend,

Friday!!! It's finally here!

I can't tell you what a relief that is, since all day yesterday AND Wednesday, I felt like it was Friday after a very long and hard week. There's nothing like tough one to help you appreciate the weekend even more.

The lesson today has five sets of chord changes between A major and G# diminished, the I and VIIdim chords. Like I said yesterday, the diminished chord is a bit ugly sounding on its own, but when you reference it to move up or down in a progression, it can have strong influence on the feel of the song.

After I get the MP3s ready for you tomorrow, you'll get to hear what I mean. In the meantime, you can play through the tabs.

I'm also planning on getting you another exercise that uses all the chords from the key of A major. This'll be fun, as we're going to keep all the chord shapes on just three strings, moving up and down the neck.

When you get comfortable playing with triads and the various shapes, you can let your creative ears take over and find chord sequences that sound cool and speak to you. Before you know it, a melody forms and you've got the makings of a song. 

The challenge is then getting it documented so it doesn't evaporate like puff of smoke in the wind. Sometimes I write stuff out by hand or record it. Other times I just try to remember it, but that doesn't usually work out well. Or I use Guitar Pro, the software I use for the tabs I create you. 

The key is to get it down somewhere so you don't forget the progression and melody if you have one.

My master calls - time to make myself pretty for work (as if that's even possible). Catch you tomorrow!

Peace~

Dave