Hey Friend,

I guess a little of that depends on where we've been. We started down a path of looking at the Circle of Fifths and working through chords by key. Let's review the keys covered so far:

C  D  E  F  G   

G  A  B  C  D

D  E  F  G  A

A  B  C  D  E

As you can see, we move in fifth scale degrees to determine the tonic notes (pitches) for keys. Start with the root note of the key you're in and count up five notes to determine which key is next in the circle.

Next up is the key of E major. With that, we will have covered the five major keys that you will see in nearly 100 percent of Rock, Blues and Country music (and yes, I'm talking about all the various sub-genres of each style).

But we're not going to stop there. There are a total of 28 keys to explore when you include sharp and flat keys and all the corresponding minor keys. 

Why am I going to put you through that torture? Is it because I'm a sadist and I know you like it? No, that's not it (although, I wonder about some of you!).

It's because when learning anything, repetition is the best way to cement concepts and skills. By covering each key in detail, we're going repeat chords many times along the way.

The more often you review and practice, your brain and muscles will strengthen the linkages necessary to remember shapes and locations for each chord. You will become more and more familiar with the chord construction. You'll start knowing where notes are on the neck without having to count frets.

Something else I'm going to work on doing better this year is providing you more examples of where to use these chords. Now granted, not every chord we learn will have an example I can go to right off, but that's okay - again repetition benefits you regardless of whether a chord gets used very often.

It's the patterns that are providing the biggest benefit to you in your education. These patterns repeated over and again make you strong and proficient.

We'll jump into the key of E major tomorrow. Have a great day!

Peace~

Dave